Page 12 of Eco-Activist’s Mountain Men (Mountain Men Reverse Harem #4)
And because Daddy’s wealthy, I didn’t really have to worry about money. So after the lecture, I walked right up to Tim, introduced myself, and asked how I could get involved. That was two years ago, and since then I haven’t looked back.
I dropped out of college. Dyed my hair pink.
Changed my name from Laura Wilder to Luna Wildchild.
I started taking part in direct actions with Kill Climate Change.
Daddy blew his top when I quit college—Mommy too, though she was quieter about it.
But honestly? Who cares? Daddy’s just like all the other CEOs and senior executives out there, obsessed with lining their pockets while the world burns.
Business Administration? Please. Who the hell wants to study that?
This latest mission was different, though.
This was a test. Tim had trusted me with a very important role.
The plan was simple: I’d meet another activist, Randy Jessup, at a hotel in Portland that Tim had arranged.
From there, Randy and I would travel covertly to the McKenzie Forestry Services logging camp.
Once there, we’d each scale one of the walkways in the trees and hang a banner—mine and his—so that at dawn the next day the forest would bear our message loud and clear.
We were the advance party, just the two of us.
The next morning, Tim would swoop in by helicopter with a media crew.
They’d film everything—us unfurling the banners, the loggers looking on helplessly—and broadcast it everywhere.
It would be powerful. Memorable. A rallying cry to the world that illegal and destructive logging was happening right here in America.
But Tim hadn’t counted on the storm.
That night, the mother of all storms blew in. Even now, almost a week later, the devastation has left me isolated, stranded, and cut off from Kill Climate Change. And Randy? God knows what happened to him. He never showed up at the SleepEZ Hotel in Portland.
And the more I think about it, the less I believe the storm was to blame for my fall.
Because here’s the thing: the walkway didn’t collapse during the height of the storm. There was no lightning strike. No giant tree smashing down onto it. It happened earlier—before the wind had even reached its full strength.
I keep replaying it in my head: that eerie, sinking sensation as the planks gave way beneath my feet. One moment, I was stepping forward, adjusting the banner. The next—wham—the whole structure splintered and dropped out from under me, sending me and the banner plummeting to the ground.
After that, everything goes hazy.
The outside door slams, and Toby appears.
I'm sitting in the kitchen, nursing my second and final cup of coffee and doing my best to stay cheerful.
"Hi, gorgeous. Need a freshen up?" He indicates the coffee pot he’s pouring from, but I shake my head.
"Thanks, Toby, but this is my second. Any more and I’ll be running to the bathroom all morning."
He shrugs. "Fair enough."
"Hey, is there any news on the cellphone situation yet?"
It's embarrassing to admit it even to myself, but I've asked this same, stupid question probably three or four times a day. The thing is, I’m going crazy here with no outside contact. No Internet. No phone calls. No texts. No WhatsApp. Nothing. I can’t even tell my friends or my parents that I’m safe.
God alone knows what they’re going through, wondering if I’m alive or dead.
The same goes for Tim Collier. For what feels like the millionth time, I ask myself whether Collier had canceled, or indeed whether the helicopter company itself had vetoed the trip, given the high winds and relative dangers of these abnormal flying conditions.
Surely no sane person would have flown in that type of weather?
Toby finishes pouring his coffee and drops into the chair beside me.
"Nothing firm yet," he says. "But the newsreader on GKYL Radio said he’d heard they were aiming to get the cell system back up and running for the whole area within the next three days."
"Three days? Another three whole days without civilization? I’m not sure I can make it."
Toby laughs. "Guess you’ll just have to find a way, Princess."
"Fuck off."
He laughs again. That’s Toby for you. Oh well… there are worse traits than always being able to find the funny side of every situation, I guess.
"You mope about too much," he says. "Why don’t you come with me and Luke this afternoon? We’re going to clear the area around where Luke found you. There are still some trees half down, and we want to make sure it’s all safe."
"No, thank you. I have no intention of being around while you’re murdering more trees."
That sets him off into another round of laughter. "Murdering? I don’t think so. We’re just doing our job."
"You do know plants scream when they’re murdered?"
"You what?" He looks genuinely puzzled.
"Yes, it’s been scientifically proven," I say, just as Jack, Luke, and Eric come in together for lunch.
"What’s been scientifically proven?" Jack asks, catching only the tail end of the conversation.
"I was telling your dumbass brother here that plants scream when they die," I explain.
"No, they don’t," Luke interjects, giving me a look like I’m an idiot.
"Yes, they do. Like I said, it’s been scientifically proven."
"Yeah, right."
"No, seriously. A guy at Tel Aviv University did a study and showed that plants emit a high-pitched noise when their leaves are cut, or when they become dehydrated. Now you know." I finish triumphantly.
"Oh Jesus," Jack mutters. Luke just rolls his eyes.
"It’s true," I insist, feeling slightly miffed at the reaction.
Eric steps in. "It’s… kind of true, Luna."
"What do you mean, ‘kind of true’? Either something is or isn’t true. I read about this on CNN, so it must be true."
The guys exchange looks that basically say, Here she goes again.
"Look," Eric explains patiently. "It might be true that if you cut a plant, it emits a high-pitched signal. But that’s not the same as a scream."
"What do you mean?"
"Well… okay, for example, what can you hear right now?"
"You, talking to me."
"Other than that."
I pause, listening. "Nothing. Unless you count Luke breaking wind a minute ago."
That earns a round of laughter from everyone except Luke, who scowls at me like he’s promising retribution later.
"No, really listen," Eric says. "What else?"
"Well… okay, I guess I can hear the refrigerator. Is that what you mean?"
"And what sound would you say it’s making?"
"It’s kind of… humming, I guess."
"Right. In a sense, fridges hum as they cool our iced tea and crisp our lettuce leaves. In a similar sense, yes, plants ‘scream’ when their leaves are cut. But that doesn’t mean the plant is feeling pain—any more than it means the fridge is humming with pleasure. Do you see?"
"Alright, I see what you’re saying. But fridges aren’t alive, are they?"
"True. But plants don’t have nerve endings like animals do. They don’t have a central nervous system. They don’t have vocal cords or mouths. They don’t have the biological equipment to feel pain or produce what we’d call a scream."
"It might do," I say sulkily.
"Right, it might," Eric concedes. "But in fact, we know it doesn’t. Yes, something’s happening—something interesting, even—but to call it a scream is… well, it’s anthropomorphizing the plant. That means?—"
"I know what it means," I cut in, sharper than I intended. Then I catch his face—open, kind, not mocking—and I relent. "Yeah, okay. You guys are right. A high-frequency emission is not the same as an actual scream."
"Well done, Princess!" Toby throws an arm around me like I’ve just aced a test. "We’ll make a forester of you yet."
I smile, despite a twisted knot of annoyance in my stomach.
Being wrong is never fun. Being wrong in front of your mortal enemies is far worse.
But are they really my mortal enemies? Or is that just lazy thinking?
Am I setting them up as the bad guys, simply because that's how we've always looked at logging companies like Mackenzie at Kill Climate Change?
Could there actually be another side to the story?
At least some nuance—some shades of gray?
None of them fit that lazy "energy-wasting climate change denier" category that I've always found so useful to assume people like them fall into. Far from it. They all actually seem just as concerned about the environment as me.
What's more, at the end of the day, they're all individuals. They all respond to me differently. Toby with humor, Jack with authority, Luke with scorn, and Eric—bless him—with love and patience.
Couldn't there be some way in which we all get on together? I mean… aren't families just like that? A collection of people, each a little different, yet all managing to pull together, just the same? What would that be like?
I shake my head to clear it. Ridiculous !