CHAPTER 8

I understand why Vince and Mitchell don’t like the idea of landing on this planet. We truly are stranded in the middle of nowhere. This place is so remote it doesn’t have a name on the map, only a number. It’s uncharted and completely unsettled, so it’s not like we can pick up spare parts. If Ballga can’t patch together the light drive with what she’s got on hand, we’re screwed.

Big picture, it’s a terrible place to be. But right now, all I can think about is fruit. Delicious, mouth-watering, fresh-picked fruit. I can almost feel the resistance of swollen flesh against my teeth, taste the tangy-sweet juices bursting over my tongue.

I turn from where Tori and Sam wade in picturesque turquoise water to look again at the treeline. “I just need my burn-blade. Just for a few minutes. I’m not going to stab anyone.”

I actually have a sneaky suspicion that Vince, who has disappeared, is searching the grounded ship for where our weapons are hidden. Mitchell must be confident in his ship’s security, though, because he’s remained out here, hovering like an annoying prison guard.

He follows my gaze to the large clusters of egg-shaped purple fruit practically dripping from the taller trees that rise above the first layer of scrubbier low-lying shrubs. He crosses his arms, looking unconvinced.

“Number one, you’re not getting your hands on a weapon while you’re in our charge. Not so much as a burn-blade. Not even for a few minutes.” He turns from the treeline to glance at me. “Number two, you’re not sampling the local flora. It may look pretty, but you have no idea whether that fruit is toxic.”

I narrow my eyes. “ You have no idea what I do and don’t know.”

“And number three,” Mitchell says without acknowledging my comment, “you’re not traipsing into those woods alone. It could be dangerous. You could get lost. Dragged off by some wild animal. Bitten by something poisonous.”

“Then I’d be out of your hair and you’d have one less fugitive to weigh you down.”

Mitchell stares at me without saying anything, strong jaw set with finality.

“Fine.” I throw up my hands in exasperation. “I’m going without my knife, then.” I stomp toward the treeline that edges the wide, white sand beach. But before I’ve made it more than a couple of steps, Mitchell’s hand wraps around my upper arm. His fingers fully circle my narrow biceps.

“Gemma—”

“Let go.” I try unsuccessfully to yank free. “You’re not in charge of what I do, and you have no right to touch me. ”

Mitchell sighs and opens his hand. When I make for the treeline again, he falls into step beside me.

“What’re you doing?” I struggle to get traction in the soft sand. My boots sink in the sifting grains with every step, slowing me down. Captain Perfect doesn’t seem to have the same problem as he strides beside me. He barely leaves a footprint. Which is weird, considering he must be twice my weight.

“Going with you,” he says blandly as we push our way between scraggly bushes, then duck under a low-hanging branch. “To make sure you don’t get yourself killed.”

The twiggy bushes that edge the beach give way to lusher foliage, the undergrowth becoming dense and jungle-like. Tree trunks jam downward into loamy soil only to send masses of heavy roots arching back to the surface, coiling and running along the ground like vines.

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not some damsel in distress, and I’m not one of your charity projects, either. I can take care of myse—”

I prove my point by tripping on a root.

“Obviously.” Mitchell catches my elbow, steadying me before I catch a face full of sand.

Tripping is not normal for me, but I’m too distracted by the strange, slightly dizzy feeling that swims in my head and blurs my view of the jungle floor to set the record straight. I blink the feeling away, then yank my elbow free of Mitchell’s hand and continue making my way through the undergrowth with my usual athleticism.

I still don’t have the heroic captain beat, though. Despite his large build, Mitchell moves over the forest floor with fluid, animal grace, not snapping so much as a twig. I think again of his militaristic posture and the way he handled our confiscated blaster.

“What are you, a commando or something?” I glance over at his angular profile.

His jawline hardens. “Or something.”

Guess he’s about as open to sharing his story as I am mine. Fine by me. I stop and look up, scanning the canopy for the dark, lobed leaves of the fruit trees I spied from the beach.

“There’s one right over there.” I point to a thick trunk that branches into wide, spreading arms. It looks climbable.

I eye my intended path, memorizing the location of obstacles, then approach the lowest branch at a run. A metre from the branch, I leap, hook my arms around the smooth, red-barked limb, and swing myself up.

Straddling the branch, I grin down at Mitchell. There’s something satisfying about looking down at him. Maybe it’s because I’m shorter than pretty much everyone and don’t often get the opportunity. Or maybe it’s because he’s spent so much of the little time we’ve known each other looking down his self-righteous nose at me, and it’s nice to have the tables turned .

“Wait there. I’ll be right back.” I give him another imperious grin before I start climbing. The next branch grows in easy reach. I raise my knee onto the limb and pull myself up with little effort, then climb a series of closely placed branches that jut out in a staggered spiral around the trunk as conveniently as the rungs of a ladder.

After that, things get trickier. A large section of bare trunk proceeds upward, naked for several metres before it sprouts another limb. I try a tentative jump, arms outstretched, but I’m not even close to touching the next branch. I’ll have to shimmy.

I hug the tree with my arms and legs, using my thighs to push against the trunk as I lift my body upward. Then I clamp my arms around a higher hold and draw my legs up. I wish I were wearing something other than the midriff-baring crop top and slippery leggings I donned at random when I stripped out of my maternity disguise. The combination of these slick pants and the papery-smooth trunk is not going to help me get where I want to go. Still, I make slow upward progress.

I’m almost within reaching distance of the next branch when I hit a particularly slick section of trunk. As I strain upward, my legs slip. I backslide, cursing like a miner as my nails tear shreds of papery bark. My bare abdomen burns with friction.

When I finally regain traction, I look up and groan. I’ve lost at least a metre of progress .

“You want this fruit bad.” Mitchell’s deep voice is way closer than expected.

I glance down to find him standing on the branch below me, perfectly balanced, head about level with my ass. His eyes dance with barely contained humour, and I can see he’s trying not to laugh.

“I haven’t eaten anything in the last six months that wasn’t powdered or canned.” I pause to grunt as I squeeze and pull, making up lost ground. “I’d do almost as much for a piece of fresh fruit as I would for a goddamn dose of…” Shit. My face flushes as I realize what I’m about to say. I rest my forehead against the smooth tree trunk and let out a gust of air through pursed lips. “Never mind.”

I’m not obligated to justify my actions to Mitchell. I adjust my grip and keep climbing. When I make it to the spot where I slipped before, I stretch an arm toward the hard-to-reach branch. My fingertips brush its papery underside. A few centimetres more and I’ll have it. I squeeze with my legs, push upward, and, ugh , slide back down again.

I let out a muffled shriek of frustration.

Mitchell chuckles.

Prick.

Despite my audience, I don’t give up. I’m backsliding for a third time, spewing a string of profanities, when firm pressure on my rear end stops me short. Another wide point of pressure presses against my other cheek, and realization hits me.

Captain Goody-Goody’s hands are on my ass.

“Oh my God! What are you doing?”

“Giving you a boost.” I look down and see he’s averting his gaze. Probably to hide that he’s laughing at me. He presses upward on my rear, and I shoot up the trunk like a cylinder sliding up the rod of a well-greased hydraulic shaft.

Before I have time to protest, my hands are locked around the next branch. I hoist myself onto it. Panting, I glare down at Mitchell between my dangling feet. “That wasn’t necessary.”

“But it was helpful,” he says. Furrowed brows chase away his smug look. “You were going to rip all the skin off your stomach if you kept at it.” He springs from the lower branch and grabs hold of mine easily. It dips as he pulls himself up so he’s sitting next to me, our arms touching. “You weren’t going to give up, were you?”

I glance over at the captain, ready to give a snarky retort, but I’m caught off guard by the look in his eyes. There’s the sparkle of laughter in them, but not in the mocking way I expected. The inner circle of green in his iris spreads outward into the brown like the rays of a hazel sun. The green is so bright and the brown so warm, I’m lost for a minute before I remember that he’s staring into my eyes, too, and he’s not seeing something pretty. He’s seeing a lasting brand from my ugly past .

I look away.

He sits next to me without saying anything until I can’t stand the silence.

“I’m not an addict.” I’m staring at my boots, swinging them because I can’t hold still. “I… I’ve been clean for a while. The Delirium stains are permanent.”

I risk a glance at Mitchell and find him staring at me, brows knitted in concerned disbelief. “You’d have to use daily for years for that to be—”

“Yeah.”

I tap the thick, rubber-soled toes of my combat boots together in a restless rhythm. Mitchell’s boots dangle below mine. His are similar, but even more worn and probably double the size.

“How old are you?” he asks finally. His voice is soft.

“Nineteen. Almost twenty.” I keep watching my boots. “I come of age in just over a week.”

“You’ve been using since you were a kid ?”

If I don’t get this out, I’m going to shy away from looking him in the eye for however long we’re stuck together. “Except for the last few months, I’ve been high pretty much twenty-four hours a day since I was thirteen.”

Mitchell shakes his head like he can’t wrap his mind around the obvious truth. I keep going. “I wasn’t smart like Tori. I took too much, too often, ’til the silver streaks in my eyes became permanent. So now I can’t hide it. Every judgemental asshole takes one look and thinks they know me. But they don’t.”

“God, Gemma…” Mitchell reaches a hand toward my cheek like he wants to touch me, but then lets it drop heavily to his lap. I can’t quite place the expression on his face. A kind of sadness, maybe.

No...

Not sadness.

He’s feeling sorry for me.

My brow drops. “I need your pity about as much as I need you to play bodyguard while I pick fruit,” I snap. I shoot to my feet and survey the canopy of reddish branches and deep green leaves above me. A cluster of glistening purple catches my eye.

Without waiting for Mitchell, I start climbing again. I reach the branch I’m aiming for without any more trouble. The limb is long, stretching horizontally away from the trunk and branching at the tips like an open palm with fingers splayed. Purple drips from each fingertip like clusters of gemstones.

Straddling the branch where it joins the trunk, I scoot outward. The wood sways a little when I near the end, but I’m confident it will hold my weight.

When I reach the place where the branch spreads like a giant hand, I see that the growth pattern forms a cuplike space where the fingers meet the main branch. It’s an ideal place to sit and pick fruit, almost as if the tree was designed for this kind of use.

I kneel in the cuplike indentation. The bark cushions my knees, spongy here rather than papery. Leaning toward the purple cluster, I wrap both hands around a massive, plum-coloured fruit. It’s almost as large as my head and attached to the branch by a sinewy stem thicker than my thumb. I tug, but the fruit stays firmly attached.

I yank harder. It refuses to budge.

“This would be a lot easier if I had my burn-blade,” I complain, working the fruit in a circle between my palms. Hopefully tension will break the stem if I twist it far enough.

“Hang on, I’ve got a knife with me,” Mitchell calls from below. The branch sways under the captain’s weight as he climbs up.

I attempt to pivot so I can throw him a glare, but my knee won’t lift. It’s caught in something sticky. I look down. My cuplike perch glistens with a thick layer of liquid that wasn’t there a moment ago.

Sap?

Wetness seeps through my leggings, making the skin of my knees and shins tingle. Shit. My heart speeds up as I realize what I’ve gotten myself into.

“Um, Mitchell?” The fluid has risen to cover my knees. “I’m gonna need you to pull me out of here. ”

“Oh God. It’s carnivorous.” His voice is right behind me. I glance over my shoulder and see him staring at my legs. The liquid covers my calves, now. They’ve gone completely numb. And it’s rising toward my thighs. Fast.

Mitchell wraps his arms around my waist and pulls. The branch sways, and there’s a sloshing sound. But I don’t budge.

Something under my knees shifts and tightens. The resistance of the fruit I’m still clutching slackens, as if it’s moved closer to me. I gape at the fruit-laden, finger-like branches. They’re curling in.

“Holy fuck! It’s trying to grab me!”

Mitchell heaves again, and my legs come free with a guttural squelch. He’s tugging me backward, but I hardly budge. I’m still attached to the tree by the fruit I’m clutching.

“Let go of the fruit!” Mitchell yells.

“No! Hand me your knife.”

“You’re insane. Let go.”

“Just give it to me!”

Mitchell groans but presses something into my palm. The hilt of a burn-blade, heftier than mine.

I thumb the trigger and a bright-white blade the size and shape of a machete buzzes to life. “Wow. That’ll do.”

I hold the massive fruit like a football in the crook of one arm and start sawing through the thick green stem. It’s surprisingly resistant to the burn-blade, but I work my way through .

There’s a hissing sound as I break the last few fibres. Mitchell yanks me backward. Just as my feet fly free, the giant woody hand clamps shut with a loud snap.

And then we’re falling, me screaming, still held in Mitchell’s grasp.

But the falling sensation only lasts a half-second before my body jerks. My scream catches in my throat.

I look up. Mitchell’s holding me against his chest with one arm, while his other arm stretches above us, gripping the branch we fell from.

We dangle, me panting, Mitchell’s chest rising and falling slow and steady against my back.

“I need you to turn around and face me.” His tone is calm. A war hero rescues panicked citizen kind of calm that reminds me of my suspicions about his military past. “You’ll have to wrap your arms and legs around me so I can use both my hands.”

“But…” I look down. While Mitchell clutches me, I’m clutching the purple fruit to my chest with both arms. I guess I dropped his knife.

“You’re going to have to let go of that stupid fruit.”

I sigh. He’s right. I can’t bear to look as I let my treasure fall. I hear a light thud, like maybe it landed in a padding of leaves. Maybe it’ll be salvageable.

I squirm around in Mitchell’s grasp so I’m facing him, then wrap my arms around his neck and my legs around his hips. My lower legs are still wet and tingly and on the verge of numbness from the knee down. But I try my best to cling to him with my thighs like I did the tree trunk earlier.

It isn’t exactly unpleasant being pressed up against the captain’s warm, solid body. I relax a little as I cling to him.

He lets go of me and grasps the branch above us with both hands. I feel the muscles of his back tighten and shift as he moves hand over hand along the branch, bringing us closer to the tree’s trunk.

It’s hard to ignore the closeness of our embrace. The way our bodies are pressed together in all the right places, as if we were engaged in much more enjoyable activities than fleeing a carnivorous tree. I push away the urge to let go with one hand so I can run my fingers through his hair. Maybe scratch down his neck and then over one of his rippling shoulders. Trace up his muscular arm.

I start to feel warm and tingly in places other than my poisoned legs.

Fuck.

I cannot be turned on right now. Not by Captain Goody-Goody . Not when ten seconds ago I was being digested by an alien tree.

I need to get a grip.

The distance between the branches narrows as we near the trunk, until Mitchell’s walking along the branch below us and trailing a hand along the one above. His other arm is once again curled around my torso. He stops and clears his throat.

“I, uh, think it’s safe for you to let go now.”

“Oh, sorry.”

I unclamp my thighs and slide my legs down his, the movement not exactly making my ridiculous battle against lust any easier. My feet hit the hard curved surface of the branch. Despite his assurance of safety, Mitchell’s arm is still locked around me, holding me tight to his chest, and his grip hasn’t loosened. He smells woodsy, like pine soap. I glance up at him and he’s looking down at me and suddenly I feel…

Shy?

My cheeks flare with heat, and I look away. “You’re still holding me.”

He clears his throat again. “Oh, uh… sorry.” His grip on me loosens. He keeps a hand on my shoulder until I grasp the trunk.

I do not miss the warmth of his hand when he finally lets go.

My legs wobble, but I make it to the forest floor. I search the clutter of twisted roots and underbrush until I find Mitchell’s blade hilt and my head-sized, egg-shaped fruit.

It’s not even bruised.

Leaves crunch lightly as Mitchell drops to the ground behind me .

I grin and press the doused knife into his hand before patting the fruit I’m cradling in the crook of my arm. “If you say ‘I told you so,’ I’m not sharing.”