I lay sprawled on my back on shin-deep grass in a wide-open space...if this was really grass. At least it was softer than desert dirt. My fingers found a blade and tugged. It stretched. The rubbery stuff was an odd mix of brown and aqua with bumpy yellow specks. I inhaled a big lungful of warm, moist air, waiting for my racing heart to quiet.
That might not happen any time soon with me staring up into a purple sky with green streaks through it. Where was I now?
Green streaks and a big red ball that didn’t glow like a sun. It pulsed instead.
A chillingly eerie sight I had no reference for.
“I think we’ve just gone where no man has gone before,” Gabby crooned. “That looks like a moon. It’s got shadows...craters. . .or maybe it’s a face?”
“Okay, Sigourney Weaver and Princess Leia,” Tony groused, his voice coming from somewhere off to my left. “Where the freak have you two got us to now?”
Good question. Better question was why hadn’t we left Tony trapped in that metal room? A tempting idea. “Who’s Sigourney Weaver and Princess Leia?”
I got a look from both Tony and Gabby at that. Tony laughed. “You’re serious. Ever watch Alien or Star Wars?”
I shook my head.
Gabby sat up and smiled, unbothered by my answer.
Tony’s mouth dropped open, speechless.
Gabby swiveled her shoulders, a dazed look of wonder on her face as she took in her surroundings. “Check out the sick colors in this place.”
“Sick, as in unhealthy?” I asked.
“Ah, no, that means they’re gorgeous and amazing.” She smiled, framing a picture with her index fingers and thumbs, clearly someone who lived in the moment. Wildflowers of neon-pink and intense black, with sharp spikes and even square shapes sprouted here and there.
Tony speared Gabby with a hard look. “You happy ‘bout this?”
She muttered something to herself then said, “I’m not entirely sure I’m even conscious and will admit to feeling a bit out of my element right now–”
“A bit?” Tony chuckled sarcastically.
“–but you shouldn’t take life so seriously. It’s not permanent after all. And to be honest, I was looking for a change of scenery.”
I might not always understand the things she said, but Gabby had held up pretty well through this and wasn’t bawling her eyes out. As she was the one person not giving me a hard time for being here, I could better handle her strange ways than Tony’s abrasive attitude.
He was already reaching for his phone–did he sleep with that thing?–so that should keep him content for a moment.
Or so I thought.
He squinted at my leg. “What’re you wearin’? A cuff?”
Out of reflex, I looked down. I’d forgotten about my ankle bracelet. Had it stopped working? The thing was still locked on, but I hadn’t felt any electric shock, not even a tingle. Or maybe it just hadn’t activated yet.
When I didn’t answer, Tony muttered, “Suarez stuck me with a freakin’ criminal. This day just gets better.”
I rolled to my knees. Every muscle groaned in protest. Was being beaten and bruised my normal state?
And landing in strange places?
Scanning the terrain, all I found beyond the dry grassy area surrounding us and the metal contraption at my back was an encroaching jungle that loomed on all sides.
A deadly quiet jungle.
No sounds. No breath of a breeze. Nothing.
Tony stood and trudged over to the metal thing that had spit us out and sealed itself back to a solid cylinder again. He started smacking one palm against the structure over and over, his other hand still clutching his phone that he waved around.
“What the freak are you doing?” Gabby asked, mimicking Tony’s voice as she slid to her knees before standing. “Think your cell provider has coverage here?”
“Look. I’m just tryin’ to get back inside. I put more faith in technology than this–” he waved his hand to indicate the unreal world around us.
“But we just got out–”
“You two wanted out of this thing. Me?” Tony jerked his thumb toward himself. “Got dragged along. We came here in this pod thing. Logic dictates it’s the only way back. So you can hang aroun’ and sightsee, but I’m findin’ my way home.”
Just then the metal pod started spinning counterclockwise, causing Tony to stagger backwards. “What the-–”
His last words were swallowed in a bang and puff of red clay dust. When the air cleared, the pod had disappeared.
“Nooo!” Tony screamed, his hands thrown wide, his eyes wider. “It can’t . . .”
But it could, and had.
I felt as sick to my stomach as Tony looked. Staying inside that thing had worried me, but that was the way we got here.
Gabby stared at the open spot for a moment, stunned silent.
I didn’t say a word. I’d heard something new beneath Tony’s cocky arrogance. Panic. The kind of panic when your whole world has spiraled out of control and you can’t stop it.
For the second time today, I knew how that felt, otherwise I might not be taking this so calmly myself.
Calm on the outside anyhow. If they could look deep inside me they’d see chaos swirling into a tornado, threatening to destroy me.
Tony gave his phone a longing look then dropped his arm and started circling where the pod had been, his movements getting more and more frantic. He ground out an oath and yelled, “Okay, fine. No 9-1-1 here. No 4-1-1. No cell tower. So what now? And what is this place?” He spat the last words at me.
As if I’ve got all the answers? I bit back my temper, determined to leave my senses tuned to our surroundings. “How should I know? I don’t know what happened back in that equipment room or where we are or how we’ll get out of here, but I do know our best chance at surviving is if we work together.”
Tony’s face said he supported no one’s plan but his own. Especially someone who didn’t know the Princess or Sigourney people. I saw his reaction as simple denial about what was going on and I even understood it to some degree.
I didn’t expect a complete change in Tony’s personality, but we couldn’t survive by fighting each other.
Strength in numbers.
Even if we were only three.
My instincts told me that, and I knew, somehow, that I should trust them, especially in this place.
Gabby stood to one side staring at the jungle then swung around looking from me to Tony. “She’s right, you know. We have no idea what kind of place we’ve just been dumped into. Unless you can teleport us with that smart phone we have no way out until we figure out how we got here. Can you counter that logic or is bitching and moaning your only plan?”
I took a long look at her. Was this the same girl we’d traveled here with? The one who hadn’t seemed to take much of anything seriously back at the school? She’d laid out Tony’s options in simple terms and managed to point out his abrasive attitude without sounding as if she’d attacked him.
After a moment of digesting that, Tony held up a hand. “Enough. I got your point. I’m just sayin’ logic dictates that the way back is the way we came. Until that pod returns, I agree. We find out as much as we can about this place and if there’s anyone else here. ‘Specially if they can help us.”
I’d been wondering the same thing. Were we alone, or not? If we found others here, would they be friend or enemy? And I had no idea why, but I was sure I’d encountered enemies before — enemies other than the beast-bird. Bad ones.
Tony added, “While I’m stuck here, I want no more touchin’ any electronics without clearin’ it through me first since neither one of you babes has a clue what you’re playin’ with. Agreed?”
Hard not to agree with that since computers seemed to be his passion. I didn’t care for his “babes” comment, but nodded anyhow.
Gabby grinned. “As long as you agree to be open to using our other senses here.”
“Sure, sweet cakes. Whatever you say.” Tony shook his head and made a snorting sound that indicated how little he thought of her suggestion.
She added, “If you want to return the way we came here, keep in mind that the computer screen reacted to Rayen’s touch and sucked in her hand.”
Let’s not keep pointing that out, okay?
Tony said nothing, but distrust stirred in his gaze.
I played the whole event back through my mind and had no more answers about what had happened than they did. I’d felt a surge of energy wick up my arm and into my body the minute my palm disappeared into the screen.
Pulling my hair away from my face and wiping perspiration off my neck, I rolled my shoulders, ready to talk about something else when I noticed Gabby cocking her head. Her yellow-and-lavender ponytails bobbed when she looked up, intent on something in the distant sky.
“What is it?” I asked, following the direction of her gaze across two hundred feet of open space that ended in a slashing dark line of massive trees. The beginning of the dense jungle vegetation.
“Can you hear that?” she asked, her voice soft, but no humor this time. Something had her entire focus.
I shook my head.
“Don’t know, but . . . ”
I didn’t have to ask her more as I started hearing what she did, a heavy whap, whap, whap sound. I glanced around but didn’t see anything.
Until Gabby inhaled a quick breath and pointed up.
“What the heck’s that?” Tony demanded, his gaze following her finger. “Sounds like—”
I shushed him with a raised hand then moved to stand next to Gabby, both of us facing the direction of the racket. My shoulder bumped hers and I got a jolt of an image. Not a clear image but a clear sense of danger.
She tensed the way she had back in the equipment room when she’d repeated my thought about Tony, but when I said nothing to expose her she continued quietly staring in the direction of the noise.
“Any idea what it looks like?” I’d realized that Gabby had gifts she kept hidden. Based on my reception since waking up in the desert, and Tony’s taunting just because I was different, I didn’t blame her for protecting her secrets.
She murmured, “I’m trying to see it in my mind...but it’s not like anything I can explain.”
Tony made a disgusted growl. “If you savants are done doin’ a mind meld thing, would someone please tell me what the heck is goin’ on?”
Gabby’s fingers twisted the skirt of her dress. “If you’d shut up long enough to hear and look up, you’d know.”
The warning in her tone must have worked. Tony froze then glanced in the direction where we stared. “I don’t–oh, crap.”
That summed up my feelings as the moving object started taking shape.
Not object but objects. A good dozen or so of the largest maroon-and-black bat-like creatures I’d ever seen.
I didn’t know where I’d seen bats before but bits and pieces of my thoughts were functioning at times, at least whenever my brain seemed pressed to figure a way out of trouble.
Like now. We had to get away from these big dark flying creatures.
First, I had to determine which direction they were headed.
They easily had wingspans of four to five feet across, blackening the sky as they swarmed nearer.
“Are those...bats?” Tony said to no one in particular as the swooping wings grew louder the nearer they came. “Aren’t bats nocturnal and only eat insects?”
Tony’s last words had been more hopeful than reassuring.
Gabby’s voice sounded squeezed from her lungs, getting higher by the second. “This could be nighttime in this place with that red moon, and we may look like insects to them.”
“Let’s not hang around to find out,” I shouted. “Run!”
I didn’t have to say it twice as all three of us took off toward the closest trees, which were across the field.
Tony yelled, “We’ll never make the trees in time!”
I checked to the left of us. The bats were still gaining altitude so they might not actually dive toward us, but we were going to intersect their path and end up running beneath them before we reached the tree line. I kept moving rather than risk a bad guess that they weren’t going to fold their wings and plummet toward us.
We’d almost made cover when tiny acidic pellets hit my face and arms, stinging my skin.
“Ouch!” Gabby swatted the air around her face.
Tony slapped his head. “They’re spittin’ at us.”
I thought it was obvious, but still shouted, “Keep your face turned away.”
After a hundred feet of running flat out, the grass gave way to thick, vine-strangled vegetation. Plate-sized leaves whacked my face. Gnarled roots, some knee-high, snagged my shins, and thorns raked the skin on my arms. Another hundred feet and we’d reached the tree canopy.
Panting and slowing once we’d plowed fifteen feet into the thick growth of trees, I stopped and squatted until I could peer through a break in the twisted limbs back toward the grassy field.
“Gone,” I whispered, catching my breath as I scanned the sky, or what I could see of it by moving back and forth until I found a sizeable opening in the towering trees. Deep purple ribbons appeared through gaps, but no green streaks that had been there when we’d first arrived. That throbbing red moon still mocked us though. Inside this forest, we’d entered a world of shiny copper and brown colors, red vines, dripping hollow sounds and shadows that shimmied.
Creepy, but safer than where we’d been. Away from oversized bats.
At least, I hoped we were safer.
That sprint had been no real effort for me, but Tony had his hands on his knees, dragging in deep breaths of the thick, damp air. He whistled. “What’s this place? Jurassic Park goes techno? That was close.”
Jurassic Park? I gave up trying to figure out the things Tony said.
“At least the bats didn’t come after us,” Gabby pointed out, just as winded as Tony, with hair falling loose from her ponytails.
Tony ignored Gabby, turning to me. “Now what, Touchy Feely?”
“How should I know?” I was getting tired of him expecting me to have answers, because he blamed me for this problem, then complaining about the answers he got. “What’s your great idea?”
Tony’s face screwed up in pure disgust. “Drop me in a city and I’ll find my way, but out here? Not my thing. My idea would’ve been not comin’ here in the first place. What did you do to that computer to make this happen?”
“I didn’t do anything,” I muttered, but not with any conviction.
“You musta hit a combination of keys.”
“You think we’re here because of a typo, genius?” Gabby chided. “Oh, yeah, that’s scientific.”
Tony started pacing a wide oval path between me and Gabby. Couldn’t he be still for a minute? He slapped orange-and-blue-striped palm fronds out of his way. “Everything in science has an explanation. We just have to figure out how we ended up here.”
Lifting her hands to her colorful ponytails, Gabby started fixing the loose ones. She passed me one of her stretchy loops. “You need this.”
“Thanks.” It took a few twists to pull my thick length of hair back. At least now it wasn’t swinging around, swatting me in the face any more.
Gabby started in on Tony again. “That’s the thing about you science types. So locked into a narrow way of thinking. You just can’t wrap your mind around the possibility that all things do not have a tidy scientific answer.”
I couldn’t accept everything that had happened today too easily myself, but we had bigger problems to worry about. My mind had been stingy with memories, but now wanted to make it up to me by raising one survival concern after another. “Since we have no idea how long we’ll be stuck here, we need a plan to find water and food. And to figure out what’s poisonous or not.”
Gabby’s eyes lit up. “Since Tony clearly doesn’t trust our judgment, he can taste everything first.”
“Very funny,” Tony grumbled, still beating a circular path.
One look at where we’d just come tearing through the weeds and bushes introduced a new problem. The vegetation had already started growing back as I watched, which meant moving around would only get us lost when the path covered over, even if I left markers.
When Tony passed a bush with yellow and orange flowers, he flipped his hand at one, scattering petals everywhere.
Gabby shoved a disgusted look at him. “I don’t know what your problem is but I bet I can’t pronounce it.”
The squinty glare he shot back at her said he hadn’t found that funny, but he did avoid touching the next vine he passed that supported a bright pink flower the size of his face.
I leaned my head back, searching above us for fruit in the trees, but saw nothing obvious. If we didn’t recognize something edible soon, what were we going to eat?
When I brought my chin back down, Tony had paused, standing with his arms crossed next to another huge pink blossom. This one had brilliant green spots.
And petals that moved in and out as if...breathing?
I rubbed my eyes. That couldn’t be. Right?
Had to be the wind causing the movement, but I didn’t feel a breeze stirring the thick air.
I would have dismissed the flower, but I noticed Gabby studying one just like it next to Tony’s left knee.
“We need a plan,” Tony said, unfolding his arms and slapping the phone against his thigh in a rhythmic tap.
Hadn’t I just said that?
That brought Gabby’s attention back up with a sharp chin lift. “How are we supposed to come up with a plan when we have no information to go on?”
Tony swung his arms out. “I don’t know. Maybe we start with finding something we can use for weapons.”
Strange as this seemed, I was about to say he had a valid point. Tony swung his hand that held his phone out and back toward his thigh at the moment I realized that flower really was drawing a breath.
I yelled, “look out,” but the pink petals lunged up, sucking tight around Tony’s hand and arm before he had a chance to react.
Everything happened in a burst of seconds.
Fast as a coiled snake, a tendril of the vine lashed out from beneath the flower and raced around the wrist that Tony frantically tried to jerk free.
Tony shouted, “What the–”
I dove for him, but landed in an empty space as the vine snatched him off his feet and slithered away, dragging Tony deeper into the jungle. He made garbled noises.
“Grab him,” I shouted at Gabby, who had the best shot at getting to Tony before he passed her and disappeared.
She hadn’t looked overly athletic until she lunged for him and managed to barely snag his ankles.
I jumped up and raced after both of them.
“Raaayen!” Gabby yelled, flopping behind Tony as his body cut through vegetation slapping right and left like a shark ripping through water.
Picking up speed, I caught glimpses of Gabby’s hair flying behind her and her face plowing up silvery dirt. Her body acted as dead weight to slow the momentum of the slithering vine, but not by much.
I pushed harder to get ahead of both of them, leaping over fallen trees and dodging wide bushes as I passed Gabby. Humidity soaked my clothes and sweat ran down my back.
Whipping around a tree, the vine seemed to slow for a second.
I saw my opening and threw myself toward Tony and grabbed at his free arm. Got it. Now Gabby and I could both be anchors. Maybe the vine would hit a spot it couldn’t pull all three of us through.
Sounded good. Wasn’t. We were getting beat to pieces and, even with my ankle restraint gouging a deep furrow through feather-fine soil and decomposing leaves, nothing slowed us down.
If anything, the vine started moving faster.
“Don’t let go!” I yelled.
My last words hadn’t been necessary.
Fuzzy brown tendrils snaked up from the main vine and circled down Tony’s body to snag Gabby around her wrist. They were lashed together as if one elongated body.
A second tendril whipped around Tony’s arm until it reached my wrist.
Let go and risk being able to catch up again? Or–?
There wasn’t enough time to think it through as the sticky brown length wrapped and triple lashed my wrist to Tony’s arm.
Terror rode through Gabby and Tony’s faces.
I couldn’t be distracted when I had to find a way to free us.
Like fragile tails tied to a windborne kite, we swept across the jungle floor, bouncing up and down, banging back and forth, being thwacked against plants, small trees and leaves with prickly thorns.
At last, the vine started to slow.
I raised my head, gritting my teeth against the burning pain of being dragged over uneven ground. I spied a wide-girthed tree ahead, larger than any others nearby. One so big that little grew anywhere in the immediate area except for a huge bush with jagged leaves at the tree’s base.
Dark, oozing, orange spots and bumpy shapes dotted the weathered tree bark, some looking uncannily like faces. Small faces.
But the tree wasn’t the biggest threat. The bush surrounding its base sported another pink blossom, like the one that had attacked Tony. Only this flower was massive. The petals were wider than my shoulders. They sucked in and fanned out in a breathing motion. The center area had what looked like a pile of black sticks...that started spreading.
The sticks moved until they lined the opening like teeth, sharp and clicking when the mouth of the plant snapped closed then opened again.
“Tony, watch–” The words choked in my throat when a vine branch curled around my neck, tightening.
“Hellllpppp!” Tony’s frantic plea came out muffled as another vine wrapped his head, covering his mouth and nose.
I’d hit my limit of being knocked around and attacked.
Anger shot through me and sent strength to my tight muscles.
Energy started building in my chest, wicking its way up through my arms and down through my legs. Everything slowed. Sounds dulled. I could feel each beat of my heart thrum in my ears.
Then that energy exploded inside me, boiling my blood, hotter and hotter, until my mind and body moved with the speed of a lightning strike.
Purely on instinct, I swung my only free hand in a slashing chop toward the vine branch that was shutting off my air supply. My one thought, cut, cut, cut.
And I did. I lanced the tendrils as though my fingers were small knives, and air once again flowed into my lungs.
I had no idea why that worked, but the vine dragging the three of us stopped moving forward. Instead, it began wrapping layer after layer around Gabby, Tony and me. Like a spider cocooning its prey.
I wrenched aching muscles, forcing myself to wiggle forward, past Tony and Gabby, struggling until I could yank each of my legs free to stand between them and the host bush. With everything I had in me, I stomped the vine with my foot, focusing on the word crush as I did.
Nothing.
Brown tendrils wrapped Tony’s forehead, mummy like, leaving only his eyes void of any arrogance, just pleading silently for me to save him.
Gabby gasped and wheezed.
The vine was strangling her to death.
I focused harder. I thought break as I shoved my heel down with a vicious blast on the vine.
Again, nothing.
One last effort. Squeezing my eyes until flashes of light burst in my head, I called up all the energy into one last thought.
Kill.
Then I heard it. The shuddering of live wood ripped asunder and an unearthly howl of pain. The bush screamed.
That might not happen any time soon with me staring up into a purple sky with green streaks through it. Where was I now?
Green streaks and a big red ball that didn’t glow like a sun. It pulsed instead.
A chillingly eerie sight I had no reference for.
“I think we’ve just gone where no man has gone before,” Gabby crooned. “That looks like a moon. It’s got shadows...craters. . .or maybe it’s a face?”
“Okay, Sigourney Weaver and Princess Leia,” Tony groused, his voice coming from somewhere off to my left. “Where the freak have you two got us to now?”
Good question. Better question was why hadn’t we left Tony trapped in that metal room? A tempting idea. “Who’s Sigourney Weaver and Princess Leia?”
I got a look from both Tony and Gabby at that. Tony laughed. “You’re serious. Ever watch Alien or Star Wars?”
I shook my head.
Gabby sat up and smiled, unbothered by my answer.
Tony’s mouth dropped open, speechless.
Gabby swiveled her shoulders, a dazed look of wonder on her face as she took in her surroundings. “Check out the sick colors in this place.”
“Sick, as in unhealthy?” I asked.
“Ah, no, that means they’re gorgeous and amazing.” She smiled, framing a picture with her index fingers and thumbs, clearly someone who lived in the moment. Wildflowers of neon-pink and intense black, with sharp spikes and even square shapes sprouted here and there.
Tony speared Gabby with a hard look. “You happy ‘bout this?”
She muttered something to herself then said, “I’m not entirely sure I’m even conscious and will admit to feeling a bit out of my element right now–”
“A bit?” Tony chuckled sarcastically.
“–but you shouldn’t take life so seriously. It’s not permanent after all. And to be honest, I was looking for a change of scenery.”
I might not always understand the things she said, but Gabby had held up pretty well through this and wasn’t bawling her eyes out. As she was the one person not giving me a hard time for being here, I could better handle her strange ways than Tony’s abrasive attitude.
He was already reaching for his phone–did he sleep with that thing?–so that should keep him content for a moment.
Or so I thought.
He squinted at my leg. “What’re you wearin’? A cuff?”
Out of reflex, I looked down. I’d forgotten about my ankle bracelet. Had it stopped working? The thing was still locked on, but I hadn’t felt any electric shock, not even a tingle. Or maybe it just hadn’t activated yet.
When I didn’t answer, Tony muttered, “Suarez stuck me with a freakin’ criminal. This day just gets better.”
I rolled to my knees. Every muscle groaned in protest. Was being beaten and bruised my normal state?
And landing in strange places?
Scanning the terrain, all I found beyond the dry grassy area surrounding us and the metal contraption at my back was an encroaching jungle that loomed on all sides.
A deadly quiet jungle.
No sounds. No breath of a breeze. Nothing.
Tony stood and trudged over to the metal thing that had spit us out and sealed itself back to a solid cylinder again. He started smacking one palm against the structure over and over, his other hand still clutching his phone that he waved around.
“What the freak are you doing?” Gabby asked, mimicking Tony’s voice as she slid to her knees before standing. “Think your cell provider has coverage here?”
“Look. I’m just tryin’ to get back inside. I put more faith in technology than this–” he waved his hand to indicate the unreal world around us.
“But we just got out–”
“You two wanted out of this thing. Me?” Tony jerked his thumb toward himself. “Got dragged along. We came here in this pod thing. Logic dictates it’s the only way back. So you can hang aroun’ and sightsee, but I’m findin’ my way home.”
Just then the metal pod started spinning counterclockwise, causing Tony to stagger backwards. “What the-–”
His last words were swallowed in a bang and puff of red clay dust. When the air cleared, the pod had disappeared.
“Nooo!” Tony screamed, his hands thrown wide, his eyes wider. “It can’t . . .”
But it could, and had.
I felt as sick to my stomach as Tony looked. Staying inside that thing had worried me, but that was the way we got here.
Gabby stared at the open spot for a moment, stunned silent.
I didn’t say a word. I’d heard something new beneath Tony’s cocky arrogance. Panic. The kind of panic when your whole world has spiraled out of control and you can’t stop it.
For the second time today, I knew how that felt, otherwise I might not be taking this so calmly myself.
Calm on the outside anyhow. If they could look deep inside me they’d see chaos swirling into a tornado, threatening to destroy me.
Tony gave his phone a longing look then dropped his arm and started circling where the pod had been, his movements getting more and more frantic. He ground out an oath and yelled, “Okay, fine. No 9-1-1 here. No 4-1-1. No cell tower. So what now? And what is this place?” He spat the last words at me.
As if I’ve got all the answers? I bit back my temper, determined to leave my senses tuned to our surroundings. “How should I know? I don’t know what happened back in that equipment room or where we are or how we’ll get out of here, but I do know our best chance at surviving is if we work together.”
Tony’s face said he supported no one’s plan but his own. Especially someone who didn’t know the Princess or Sigourney people. I saw his reaction as simple denial about what was going on and I even understood it to some degree.
I didn’t expect a complete change in Tony’s personality, but we couldn’t survive by fighting each other.
Strength in numbers.
Even if we were only three.
My instincts told me that, and I knew, somehow, that I should trust them, especially in this place.
Gabby stood to one side staring at the jungle then swung around looking from me to Tony. “She’s right, you know. We have no idea what kind of place we’ve just been dumped into. Unless you can teleport us with that smart phone we have no way out until we figure out how we got here. Can you counter that logic or is bitching and moaning your only plan?”
I took a long look at her. Was this the same girl we’d traveled here with? The one who hadn’t seemed to take much of anything seriously back at the school? She’d laid out Tony’s options in simple terms and managed to point out his abrasive attitude without sounding as if she’d attacked him.
After a moment of digesting that, Tony held up a hand. “Enough. I got your point. I’m just sayin’ logic dictates that the way back is the way we came. Until that pod returns, I agree. We find out as much as we can about this place and if there’s anyone else here. ‘Specially if they can help us.”
I’d been wondering the same thing. Were we alone, or not? If we found others here, would they be friend or enemy? And I had no idea why, but I was sure I’d encountered enemies before — enemies other than the beast-bird. Bad ones.
Tony added, “While I’m stuck here, I want no more touchin’ any electronics without clearin’ it through me first since neither one of you babes has a clue what you’re playin’ with. Agreed?”
Hard not to agree with that since computers seemed to be his passion. I didn’t care for his “babes” comment, but nodded anyhow.
Gabby grinned. “As long as you agree to be open to using our other senses here.”
“Sure, sweet cakes. Whatever you say.” Tony shook his head and made a snorting sound that indicated how little he thought of her suggestion.
She added, “If you want to return the way we came here, keep in mind that the computer screen reacted to Rayen’s touch and sucked in her hand.”
Let’s not keep pointing that out, okay?
Tony said nothing, but distrust stirred in his gaze.
I played the whole event back through my mind and had no more answers about what had happened than they did. I’d felt a surge of energy wick up my arm and into my body the minute my palm disappeared into the screen.
Pulling my hair away from my face and wiping perspiration off my neck, I rolled my shoulders, ready to talk about something else when I noticed Gabby cocking her head. Her yellow-and-lavender ponytails bobbed when she looked up, intent on something in the distant sky.
“What is it?” I asked, following the direction of her gaze across two hundred feet of open space that ended in a slashing dark line of massive trees. The beginning of the dense jungle vegetation.
“Can you hear that?” she asked, her voice soft, but no humor this time. Something had her entire focus.
I shook my head.
“Don’t know, but . . . ”
I didn’t have to ask her more as I started hearing what she did, a heavy whap, whap, whap sound. I glanced around but didn’t see anything.
Until Gabby inhaled a quick breath and pointed up.
“What the heck’s that?” Tony demanded, his gaze following her finger. “Sounds like—”
I shushed him with a raised hand then moved to stand next to Gabby, both of us facing the direction of the racket. My shoulder bumped hers and I got a jolt of an image. Not a clear image but a clear sense of danger.
She tensed the way she had back in the equipment room when she’d repeated my thought about Tony, but when I said nothing to expose her she continued quietly staring in the direction of the noise.
“Any idea what it looks like?” I’d realized that Gabby had gifts she kept hidden. Based on my reception since waking up in the desert, and Tony’s taunting just because I was different, I didn’t blame her for protecting her secrets.
She murmured, “I’m trying to see it in my mind...but it’s not like anything I can explain.”
Tony made a disgusted growl. “If you savants are done doin’ a mind meld thing, would someone please tell me what the heck is goin’ on?”
Gabby’s fingers twisted the skirt of her dress. “If you’d shut up long enough to hear and look up, you’d know.”
The warning in her tone must have worked. Tony froze then glanced in the direction where we stared. “I don’t–oh, crap.”
That summed up my feelings as the moving object started taking shape.
Not object but objects. A good dozen or so of the largest maroon-and-black bat-like creatures I’d ever seen.
I didn’t know where I’d seen bats before but bits and pieces of my thoughts were functioning at times, at least whenever my brain seemed pressed to figure a way out of trouble.
Like now. We had to get away from these big dark flying creatures.
First, I had to determine which direction they were headed.
They easily had wingspans of four to five feet across, blackening the sky as they swarmed nearer.
“Are those...bats?” Tony said to no one in particular as the swooping wings grew louder the nearer they came. “Aren’t bats nocturnal and only eat insects?”
Tony’s last words had been more hopeful than reassuring.
Gabby’s voice sounded squeezed from her lungs, getting higher by the second. “This could be nighttime in this place with that red moon, and we may look like insects to them.”
“Let’s not hang around to find out,” I shouted. “Run!”
I didn’t have to say it twice as all three of us took off toward the closest trees, which were across the field.
Tony yelled, “We’ll never make the trees in time!”
I checked to the left of us. The bats were still gaining altitude so they might not actually dive toward us, but we were going to intersect their path and end up running beneath them before we reached the tree line. I kept moving rather than risk a bad guess that they weren’t going to fold their wings and plummet toward us.
We’d almost made cover when tiny acidic pellets hit my face and arms, stinging my skin.
“Ouch!” Gabby swatted the air around her face.
Tony slapped his head. “They’re spittin’ at us.”
I thought it was obvious, but still shouted, “Keep your face turned away.”
After a hundred feet of running flat out, the grass gave way to thick, vine-strangled vegetation. Plate-sized leaves whacked my face. Gnarled roots, some knee-high, snagged my shins, and thorns raked the skin on my arms. Another hundred feet and we’d reached the tree canopy.
Panting and slowing once we’d plowed fifteen feet into the thick growth of trees, I stopped and squatted until I could peer through a break in the twisted limbs back toward the grassy field.
“Gone,” I whispered, catching my breath as I scanned the sky, or what I could see of it by moving back and forth until I found a sizeable opening in the towering trees. Deep purple ribbons appeared through gaps, but no green streaks that had been there when we’d first arrived. That throbbing red moon still mocked us though. Inside this forest, we’d entered a world of shiny copper and brown colors, red vines, dripping hollow sounds and shadows that shimmied.
Creepy, but safer than where we’d been. Away from oversized bats.
At least, I hoped we were safer.
That sprint had been no real effort for me, but Tony had his hands on his knees, dragging in deep breaths of the thick, damp air. He whistled. “What’s this place? Jurassic Park goes techno? That was close.”
Jurassic Park? I gave up trying to figure out the things Tony said.
“At least the bats didn’t come after us,” Gabby pointed out, just as winded as Tony, with hair falling loose from her ponytails.
Tony ignored Gabby, turning to me. “Now what, Touchy Feely?”
“How should I know?” I was getting tired of him expecting me to have answers, because he blamed me for this problem, then complaining about the answers he got. “What’s your great idea?”
Tony’s face screwed up in pure disgust. “Drop me in a city and I’ll find my way, but out here? Not my thing. My idea would’ve been not comin’ here in the first place. What did you do to that computer to make this happen?”
“I didn’t do anything,” I muttered, but not with any conviction.
“You musta hit a combination of keys.”
“You think we’re here because of a typo, genius?” Gabby chided. “Oh, yeah, that’s scientific.”
Tony started pacing a wide oval path between me and Gabby. Couldn’t he be still for a minute? He slapped orange-and-blue-striped palm fronds out of his way. “Everything in science has an explanation. We just have to figure out how we ended up here.”
Lifting her hands to her colorful ponytails, Gabby started fixing the loose ones. She passed me one of her stretchy loops. “You need this.”
“Thanks.” It took a few twists to pull my thick length of hair back. At least now it wasn’t swinging around, swatting me in the face any more.
Gabby started in on Tony again. “That’s the thing about you science types. So locked into a narrow way of thinking. You just can’t wrap your mind around the possibility that all things do not have a tidy scientific answer.”
I couldn’t accept everything that had happened today too easily myself, but we had bigger problems to worry about. My mind had been stingy with memories, but now wanted to make it up to me by raising one survival concern after another. “Since we have no idea how long we’ll be stuck here, we need a plan to find water and food. And to figure out what’s poisonous or not.”
Gabby’s eyes lit up. “Since Tony clearly doesn’t trust our judgment, he can taste everything first.”
“Very funny,” Tony grumbled, still beating a circular path.
One look at where we’d just come tearing through the weeds and bushes introduced a new problem. The vegetation had already started growing back as I watched, which meant moving around would only get us lost when the path covered over, even if I left markers.
When Tony passed a bush with yellow and orange flowers, he flipped his hand at one, scattering petals everywhere.
Gabby shoved a disgusted look at him. “I don’t know what your problem is but I bet I can’t pronounce it.”
The squinty glare he shot back at her said he hadn’t found that funny, but he did avoid touching the next vine he passed that supported a bright pink flower the size of his face.
I leaned my head back, searching above us for fruit in the trees, but saw nothing obvious. If we didn’t recognize something edible soon, what were we going to eat?
When I brought my chin back down, Tony had paused, standing with his arms crossed next to another huge pink blossom. This one had brilliant green spots.
And petals that moved in and out as if...breathing?
I rubbed my eyes. That couldn’t be. Right?
Had to be the wind causing the movement, but I didn’t feel a breeze stirring the thick air.
I would have dismissed the flower, but I noticed Gabby studying one just like it next to Tony’s left knee.
“We need a plan,” Tony said, unfolding his arms and slapping the phone against his thigh in a rhythmic tap.
Hadn’t I just said that?
That brought Gabby’s attention back up with a sharp chin lift. “How are we supposed to come up with a plan when we have no information to go on?”
Tony swung his arms out. “I don’t know. Maybe we start with finding something we can use for weapons.”
Strange as this seemed, I was about to say he had a valid point. Tony swung his hand that held his phone out and back toward his thigh at the moment I realized that flower really was drawing a breath.
I yelled, “look out,” but the pink petals lunged up, sucking tight around Tony’s hand and arm before he had a chance to react.
Everything happened in a burst of seconds.
Fast as a coiled snake, a tendril of the vine lashed out from beneath the flower and raced around the wrist that Tony frantically tried to jerk free.
Tony shouted, “What the–”
I dove for him, but landed in an empty space as the vine snatched him off his feet and slithered away, dragging Tony deeper into the jungle. He made garbled noises.
“Grab him,” I shouted at Gabby, who had the best shot at getting to Tony before he passed her and disappeared.
She hadn’t looked overly athletic until she lunged for him and managed to barely snag his ankles.
I jumped up and raced after both of them.
“Raaayen!” Gabby yelled, flopping behind Tony as his body cut through vegetation slapping right and left like a shark ripping through water.
Picking up speed, I caught glimpses of Gabby’s hair flying behind her and her face plowing up silvery dirt. Her body acted as dead weight to slow the momentum of the slithering vine, but not by much.
I pushed harder to get ahead of both of them, leaping over fallen trees and dodging wide bushes as I passed Gabby. Humidity soaked my clothes and sweat ran down my back.
Whipping around a tree, the vine seemed to slow for a second.
I saw my opening and threw myself toward Tony and grabbed at his free arm. Got it. Now Gabby and I could both be anchors. Maybe the vine would hit a spot it couldn’t pull all three of us through.
Sounded good. Wasn’t. We were getting beat to pieces and, even with my ankle restraint gouging a deep furrow through feather-fine soil and decomposing leaves, nothing slowed us down.
If anything, the vine started moving faster.
“Don’t let go!” I yelled.
My last words hadn’t been necessary.
Fuzzy brown tendrils snaked up from the main vine and circled down Tony’s body to snag Gabby around her wrist. They were lashed together as if one elongated body.
A second tendril whipped around Tony’s arm until it reached my wrist.
Let go and risk being able to catch up again? Or–?
There wasn’t enough time to think it through as the sticky brown length wrapped and triple lashed my wrist to Tony’s arm.
Terror rode through Gabby and Tony’s faces.
I couldn’t be distracted when I had to find a way to free us.
Like fragile tails tied to a windborne kite, we swept across the jungle floor, bouncing up and down, banging back and forth, being thwacked against plants, small trees and leaves with prickly thorns.
At last, the vine started to slow.
I raised my head, gritting my teeth against the burning pain of being dragged over uneven ground. I spied a wide-girthed tree ahead, larger than any others nearby. One so big that little grew anywhere in the immediate area except for a huge bush with jagged leaves at the tree’s base.
Dark, oozing, orange spots and bumpy shapes dotted the weathered tree bark, some looking uncannily like faces. Small faces.
But the tree wasn’t the biggest threat. The bush surrounding its base sported another pink blossom, like the one that had attacked Tony. Only this flower was massive. The petals were wider than my shoulders. They sucked in and fanned out in a breathing motion. The center area had what looked like a pile of black sticks...that started spreading.
The sticks moved until they lined the opening like teeth, sharp and clicking when the mouth of the plant snapped closed then opened again.
“Tony, watch–” The words choked in my throat when a vine branch curled around my neck, tightening.
“Hellllpppp!” Tony’s frantic plea came out muffled as another vine wrapped his head, covering his mouth and nose.
I’d hit my limit of being knocked around and attacked.
Anger shot through me and sent strength to my tight muscles.
Energy started building in my chest, wicking its way up through my arms and down through my legs. Everything slowed. Sounds dulled. I could feel each beat of my heart thrum in my ears.
Then that energy exploded inside me, boiling my blood, hotter and hotter, until my mind and body moved with the speed of a lightning strike.
Purely on instinct, I swung my only free hand in a slashing chop toward the vine branch that was shutting off my air supply. My one thought, cut, cut, cut.
And I did. I lanced the tendrils as though my fingers were small knives, and air once again flowed into my lungs.
I had no idea why that worked, but the vine dragging the three of us stopped moving forward. Instead, it began wrapping layer after layer around Gabby, Tony and me. Like a spider cocooning its prey.
I wrenched aching muscles, forcing myself to wiggle forward, past Tony and Gabby, struggling until I could yank each of my legs free to stand between them and the host bush. With everything I had in me, I stomped the vine with my foot, focusing on the word crush as I did.
Brown tendrils wrapped Tony’s forehead, mummy like, leaving only his eyes void of any arrogance, just pleading silently for me to save him.
Gabby gasped and wheezed.
The vine was strangling her to death.
I focused harder. I thought break as I shoved my heel down with a vicious blast on the vine.
Again, nothing.
One last effort. Squeezing my eyes until flashes of light burst in my head, I called up all the energy into one last thought.
Kill.
Then I heard it. The shuddering of live wood ripped asunder and an unearthly howl of pain. The bush screamed.