Page 56 of Blue Arrow Island (Blue Arrow Island #1)

This week we’ll dive deeper into research I was part of in the Galapagos Islands.

We made extraordinary findings about island plants separated from mainland ecosystems. Many of those plants developed new chemical defenses.

Some of those defenses were so potent they could alter the neurochemistry of any organism that encountered them.

- Excerpt from a lecture given by Dr. Lucinda Hollis in her Plant Evolution course

“Where have you fuckers been?” Niran demands when we reach him and Amira at the waterfall almost an hour later. “If you’ve been getting in on while we were here thinking you were dead, I’m?—”

I pull a flower from the canvas bag at my hip, silencing him.

“You found it!” Amira launches herself at me with a hug.

“They glow.” Niran admires the flower Marcus took from his bag. “Wow.”

Marcus shakes his head. “They’re everywhere in the clearing we took Des to when he got that snakebite. In the daytime, they’re just green bush-looking things, but at night, they bloom.”

“This could change everything,” Niran says. “We’ve got McClain and the flower. Damn it, I’m getting kind of emotional.”

“We won’t tell anyone about your soft underbelly,” I assure him.

He grins. “We could really use those beers right about now to toast, couldn’t we?”

Amira pulls out her canteen. “Canteen cheers! It’s better than nothing, right?”

We clink our metal canteens together, all of us taking a swig. I know we still have an uphill battle ahead, but our days of trekking through the rainforest and over the beaches in a search that feels hopeless are over.

I smile, thinking of my dad’s reminders to me that pressure builds diamonds. He’d be proud of our tenacity.

“I’m taking the longest shower and sleeping for twelve hours,” Amira says.

“And the air circulators are back online, so I won’t have sweat pouring off me.

” Her happy expression turns sheepish. “I don’t mean to make it sound like I didn’t want to be here doing this.

I loved it, but I’ll also love getting back to camp, if that makes sense. ”

“We get it,” Marcus says. “We should make it back pretty close to sunrise.”

We’re closer to the west side of the island, where Rising Tide is, than we are to our side. But I don’t notice my aching feet or the voracious mosquitoes as we make the hike.

I’d bet money the flowers we found are pollinated by bats. I should’ve thought of it sooner, but at least it came to me eventually. The nerdy scientist in me is giddy over finally figuring it out.

The quiet of night has settled over the jungle. We have to watch our footing carefully so we don’t accidentally step on a venomous snake, but other than that, traveling through at night is peaceful.

I’m hoping McClain will let me assist him in studying each of the flower’s components and trying to make a stabilizer. It’s possible we could find other ways to fight aromium’s effects.

I don’t know what kind of doctor McClain is, but from what I know of him, he’s very capable. If we work this problem hard, we can hopefully come up with something soon. It’s just another one of science’s riddles waiting to be solved.

The dark of night turns to gray as we get closer to camp. We leave the dense jungle, following a well-worn dirt path that winds through a clearing, only a few palm trees dotted around it.

Excitement swirls in my stomach as I imagine showing McClain what we found. He played a big part in a lot of death and destruction, but now he has a chance to do something good.

“Niran!” Amira cries.

I turn, finding Niran crouched on the ground, an arrow lodged in his bicep. Marcus, Amira and I run to him, shielding him and arming ourselves, our backs to him.

Another arrow lands on the ground by my foot, the shaft vibrating with force.

Marcus’s voice is laced with fury as he roars, “Come out and fight us, you fucking cowards! I’m right here if you want me!”

Amira’s heavy, rhythmic breathing is the only sound until she fires an arrow and it whooshes through the air, hitting someone I didn’t even see at the edge of the tree line.

A guttural caw sounds from above, and I don’t even have to look to know it came from one of Virginia’s ravens.

“These flowers have to get back to camp,” I say in a low tone. “No matter what, that’s the mission.”

“I’m not leaving here without all of you,” Marcus says.

Niran stands up, blood running from the hole in his arm where he pulled the arrow out. His usual playful expression is gone, replaced with a furious sneer.

“What are you guys up to?” Pax’s arrogant drawl grates on me as he walks toward us. “You’re not having fun without me, are you?”

Amira fires an arrow at him, and he veers to the side to dodge it so quickly I don’t even see the movement.

“What the fuck?” Amira mutters, nocking another arrow.

Marcus’s heat disappears from my other side. He crashes into Pax, knocking him to the ground.

Marcus gets on top of him, punching him in the face. An arrow whizzes past Marcus’s head, so close my heart nearly stops.

“Amira!” I cry.

“Got it.”

She fires, knowing where the other archer is from the trajectory of the arrow that narrowly missed Marcus. Her arrow is no sooner airborne and she lets another one loose.

A body drops to the ground from the tree line.

Pax roars, his arm muscles straining as he holds Marcus’s wrist, trying to prevent Marcus from sinking a knife into his chest.

We have to find a way to draw out anyone else who’s with Pax. I suspect Virginia is one of the Tiders hiding in the tree line.

“Amira, can you reach the ravens?” I ask.

She looks up. “I think so.”

“Take them out.”

I shield her body with mine as she takes aim, going for the lowest raven circling the clearing. It barks out a deep caw of pain when her arrow hits it in the chest. The bird is falling to the ground when an enraged Virginia flies out of the jungle, a raised spear in her hand.

Three more people follow her, and I steel myself. We’re outnumbered, but they only have spears. Amira quickly takes one of them out with her bow and arrow.

“Niran, she can’t fight hand-to-hand!” I yell.

“I’ve got her!” he says, racing to Amira’s side.

She lands another arrow in a man’s stomach, but he snarls and breaks it off, not slowing.

Virginia is coming for me. My heart races with worry. I can’t risk a glance at Marcus to see how he’s faring against Pax.

She stops about ten feet short of me, going still. I’m going for the gun holstered at my waist when another gunshot sounds. Niran just took one of the others down.

A vicious caw near my head makes me turn. It’s one of the ravens, its dark eyes wild.

I call my vines, begging them to hurry. But within a second, the raven opens its beak, and I’m looking into a cavernous, black abyss. Its black tongue is the last thing I see before it snaps my shirt into its massive beak, taking hold of me.

“No!” My gun drops from my hand as the raven takes flight, something sharp cutting into my left ankle.

Frantically, I turn my head and find a second raven has my lower leg clutched in its sharp, polished talons, the pointed hooks tearing my flesh.

“Briar!” Marcus’s roar of fury cuts through all the other sounds in the clearing.

I reach for him with the same mental pathway I have with vines, calling out to him for help. He’s getting smaller as the birds fly higher. I thrash, smacking at the birds.

My vines are on the ground, writhing and winding into towers in an effort to reach me. There’s a loud humming in my head that I somehow know is them, frantic to reach me.

The tallest vine tower reaches almost twenty feet into the air before it collapses, unable to get any higher. I feel the terror of the plants, their raw fear for me pouring through my body.

Marcus’s wolf pack races across the clearing, their bodies low to the ground and streamlined. They’re practically flying, their shoulders and back muscles rippling with each stride they take.

We’re so high in the air now that I’ve stopped fighting back, because if the birds drop me, the impact with the ground will kill me instantly. Pure terror races through my veins as the people and wolves on the ground get smaller and smaller.

When the wolves reach the spot beneath me, they snarl and jump, trying to reach the birds even though they can’t.

Blood drips from my ankle, the red drops descending from the sky like rain. Marcus calls for me again, my name a primal cry that tears from his chest.

The branches on the palm trees below start quaking. The wolves tear off toward the woods. The ground is shaking now, trees and bushes vibrating. The air is charged with something warm and still.

Something bright and orange in the air steals my attention.

A new fear races through me when I realize what it is.

Giant globs of molten rock and ash are shooting out of the top of the volcano.

It’s the start of an eruption. Lava could quickly destroy this entire island, eradicating everything aromium has touched here, along with everything else.

Niran is standing in front of Marcus, his hands on Marcus’s shoulders. He’s saying something to him. Marcus’s broad shoulders heave with exertion, his face turned to the ground.

As quickly as it started, the ash and magma stop erupting into the sky. Nothing but steam is there now, the palm trees on the ground still.

I stop breathing. It was Marcus. He made the volcano do that.

Niran calmed him into stopping it. Realization washes through me.

I remember what he said about not deserving me, about being a terrible person.

What has he done with the powers aromium has given him that I don’t know about?

Whatever it is, he wears the guilt of it like a lead vest.

Virginia and Pax are gone. They seem to have escaped when Marcus, Niran and Amira were distracted.

My canvas bag of flowers isn’t more than a dot on the ground now. It fell from my shoulder when the ravens grabbed me. At least Virginia won’t know we found the flowers and were bringing them back.

Hopefully. What if they’ve been following us this whole time and we led them right to the flowers? They could destroy all of the remaining ones.

The raven with my leg in its talons clamps down and I yelp, pain searing all the way to my bones.

It’s my only distraction from the terror of what’s happening to me.

My life depends on these two birds, who may be carrying me out to sea and dropping me.

Or dropping me a quarter of a mile to the ground to the Rising Tide camp, where my body could be dinner tonight.

I close my eyes, fighting a powerful wave of nausea. At least my aromium is on. It’s not much, but it’s an advantage.

Virginia might put me back in that deep hole, where I was helpless. She could let me die there slowly. Or she could kill me in front of everyone.

When the Rising Tide camp comes into view below, I swallow against the bile in my throat. I see the skulls and bones outlining the circle, and the roofs of the camp’s buildings. The birds start to descend, the camp getting closer.

Nothing good is waiting for me down there. I steel myself, knowing I may have to start fighting for my life as soon as I reach the ground.