Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Justyn yanked on his backpack and ruthlessly tightened the straps. He’d already placed the beacon and what rations he could carry inside. He also had his ion blaster strapped to his hip, and his favorite knife tucked into his boot. Finally, he hefted a machete he’d found in the weapons locker.
Not far away, Nissa was putting her own backpack on. Every now and then she looked his way, but he ignored her.
He was still too fucking angry.
“Ready?” He made his way to the door.
“Ready.”
He activated the manual override to open the door.
No vines or other deadly vegetation or unknown jungle creatures waited for them.
A moment later, they stepped outside into the dappled morning sunlight.
The humidity hit him like a bad transition to interstellar speed, slapping him in the face.
Perspiration broke out on his brow. Great, nothing like a hike through a killer jungle on some alien planet with humidity you could barely breathe in.
Turning his arm over, he stared at the mini-Sync he’d attached to his forearm. It showed the terrain map and the glowing gold cross that indicated their destination.
“That way.” He pointed with the machete.
Nissa lifted her own large blade and they headed off.
As Justyn hacked a path through the undergrowth, he half expected the vines to rear up and attack them, but everything was still.
Really, really still.
“Don’t you think it’s weird that we don’t hear any wildlife?” she asked. “No birds squawking or bugs chirping.”
Yeah, it was definitely strange. He ducked under a huge neon-purple flower. “I’d prefer not to run into any wildlife. Let’s count ourselves lucky and keep moving.”
They found a steady rhythm hacking away at the vegetation. In some parts it was less thick and they could duck under or climb over the growth. Justyn found it an excellent distraction from his fury at the woman beside him.
She’d betrayed him.
He hacked into a vine as thick as his thigh.
Okay, maybe he’d known she didn’t fully trust him, but he hadn’t expected her to compromise their safety.
He sliced through a dangling plant covered in blue flowers the size of his palms. Maybe it was time to accept that Nissa Sander would never trust him the way he needed her to.
That she might give him her body, but she’d never surrender her soul to him.
He slashed at the jungle with single-minded thoroughness, eager to block all the dark thoughts in his mind. And the pain in his heart.
Eventually, he paused for a break, swiping his forearm across his face. Sweat was dripping off both of them. “Take five. Have a drink.”
She chugged back some water. “At least we crashed on a warm planet. If we’d crashed on an ice world—” she shook her head “—reptilians don’t do well with ice.
” She drank again and a small trickle escaped her mouth, running down her throat, along her collarbone, before soaking into her tank top.
He watched that trickle with envy as it followed that smooth, smooth skin, tracing the edge of her scale design. His fingers twitched.
Dammit. He looked away, staring at the giant neon-red flower towering over him like a huge solar shade. Its petals were as long as he was, and in the center…his nose wrinkled. Well, it almost looked like a mouth ringed by protuberances that wobbled in the breeze.
He took another drink. Something touched the back of his neck.
Justyn jumped and swiveled around. Then he laughed at himself. One of the petals had drooped enough to touch his skin.
“Scared of a flower, Phoenix?”
He raised a brow at Nissa. “I’d be stupid not to be scared of everything on this planet.” He rubbed at his forearm and the phantom ache there from the bloodsucker-vine-leech creature.
“Are you going to keep ignoring me?”
He scowled. “I’m not ignoring you.”
“You’ve barely said anything to me.” She rubbed her cheek against her shoulder, wiping away the sweat from her face. “And you won’t look at me.”
“I’m pissed at you.”
She huffed out a breath. “Yeah, I got that.”
“You could have killed my brothers, all their crew. Out here, you can’t be Patrol, Nissa. Your loyalty has to be to your team, to the hunt.”
Her eyes gleamed in the dappled shade. “I know. Now.”
He shook his head, angry at both of them. “Just let me work off some steam, okay?”
Suddenly her eyes widened. “Justyn, look out!”
He saw a flash of red then something engulfed him.
He was lifted off the ground, something red covering his face and upper body, trying to smother him.
His machete slipped from his fingers. He twisted and turned, kicking out with his boots.
A high-pitched shriek sounded in his ears. Arching his neck, he looked up…
Into the mouth of the neon flower.
The protuberances were waving wildly now, reaching for him. They were sticky with a clear substance that smelled sweet.
Fuck. He tried to pull his arms up but they were trapped by his sides. He thrashed more, trying to find any way to free himself. “Nissa!”
A drop of the sticky, clear fluid slowly dripped down and touched his shoulder.
It sizzled through his shirt and burned his skin.
With a curse, he renewed his struggles. His hand gripped the petals surrounding him, but they were tough and rubbery, and he couldn’t get a proper hold.
Reaching down, he found his boot, his fingers searching by touch for his knife.
He wasn’t ready to die, dammit, and he sure as fuck wasn’t going to die by getting eaten by a damn flower.
The mouth got nearer and he pulled his head as low as he could. He couldn’t reach the blade. “Nissa!”
“Hang on!” Her muffled voice reached him.
Suddenly, the flower screeched again. It started shaking and writhing, throwing Justyn around so hard his brain felt scrambled.
Then sunlight blinded him as the monster plant dumped him on the ground.
Heaving in air, he looked up.
Nissa stood over him, a stream of sunlight that had managed to break through the canopy highlighting her from behind. She still held the machete up, and it dripped with green fluid. She looked like an avenging angel.
One sexy, kick-ass avenging angel.
He got to his hands and knees, still feeling a bit shaky. “I was about to become lunch…for a damn flower.”
She snorted out a laugh. He shot her a narrow stare.
Her smile flatlined, even though humor still danced in her eyes. “Sorry. Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” He got to his feet and grabbed her, lightning fast. He pressed a quick kiss to her lips, then released her. “I’m still mad at you, but thanks for the rescue.”
She licked her lips. “You would have done the same for me.”
He’d take on the whole galaxy to protect her. He took a step and something crunched under his boot, derailing his thoughts. “What the hell?’
Justyn kicked at the carpet of dead leaves that lay covering the ground.
That crunching sound had been more than disintegrating foliage.
Bones. Old, picked clean, and bleached white.
He swiped again at the leaves. Many more bones.
He took in the skeleton of what looked like a bird and another of some sort of a monkey-like creature.
“I think we discovered what happened to all the animals around here,” he said.
Nissa grimaced. “Something ate them.”
“Let’s get to the hill, set the beacon, and get off this rock.”
“Best thing I’ve heard all day.”
Suddenly, a rustling in the vegetation behind them had them both spinning. He couldn’t see anything but the sound grew louder with every passing second.
“Go!”
They started running, swinging their machetes in a quick and deadly rhythm.
Justyn’s blood was pounding. He kept his gaze focused on the direction they were heading, while keeping Nissa in his peripheral vision.
Behind them, he heard the plants rustling wildly.
Something was coming. And it sounded big.
Nissa leaped over a large vine, then slashed through a wall of smaller, intercrossed ones. “How much farther?”
He took a quick glance at the mini-Sync. The screen was fogged but he could still see the glow. “Just over halfway there.”
They kept moving. The rustling grew louder.
And louder.
The entire jungle around them seemed to be vibrating.
He saw the pinched look on Nissa’s face.
They weren’t going to make it.
Suddenly, a vine the size of his arm exploded out from the undergrowth. It circled around Nissa’s thigh.
“Fuck.” She tried to hack at it, but the angle of her swing was awkward and ineffective.
He swung his own blade. The vine reared backward, the part he’d lopped off falling at Nissa’s feet.
But with lightning speed, another vine came from the other direction and circled her ankle.
Then another around her wrists.
She struggled, trying hard to pull away. More vines of varying thicknesses swarmed in from the trees, constricting around her like snakes.
“Fuck off!” He kept swinging the machete, but for every vine he cut, three more were already winding around her arms, legs, and body.
She let out a frustrated yell, her clothes drenched from her struggles. The vines lifted her a meter off the ground, pulling at her limbs until she was spread like a star. Then, the vines stopped moving. An eerie silence fell.
Finally, Nissa stilled too, her chin on her chest. The only sound was her harsh breathing.
She raised her head. “You have to keep going.”
“Like hell.” He slashed at another vine. Two more slithered out to take its place.
“Justyn. Go.”
“What the fuck happened to never give up?” A rock had settled in his chest. “I’m not leaving you here.”
“You have to set the beacon. Then come back for me.”
He ground his teeth together. They both knew she wouldn’t be here when he got back. “No. Fuck, no.”
“I’m sorry about reporting back to the admiral. I never thought anyone would use that to attack us or sabotage our hunt.”
“Nissa…just concentrate on getting out of there.”