Page 147 of Dare

Jeryn hollered my name. Chuckling over whatever he called out, I hurried down the path, knowing he would come after me. If need be, I would sense my way through the jungle and see through the wild’s bountiful dark, with its roaming predators and patches of color. That’s how I would lead him on a merry hunt.

We had this entire rainforest in which to mate and revel and live out loud.

His voice speared into the night from someplace behind. I dashed around prickly bends and passed under arches braided with stalks of green. Twisting over my shoulder once, I checked to see if he’d gained on me.

A creeper snatched my wrist, yanking and making me stumble. In seconds, the cord slithered around my arm, then scaled up to my elbow. I tried to leap back, but the vine tightened, insisting I stay put.

Suddenly, my pulse sped up. I had been playing, toying with the prince. But my grin collapsed, because this part wasn’t funny.

I twisted in distress, hoping to untangle myself with the opposite fingers, but the vine latched onto that hand too. Meanwhile, another one strung itself around my ankles like a manacle, trapping me against the hedge. I jerked my feet and wrenched my elbows, crying out as the bonds cinched harder, forcing me in place. The spindly cords weren’t sharp but deceptively soft, like the feathers of a peacock.

I remembered what had happened the last time Jeryn handled one of these vines. We hadn’t returned since, so I’d forgotten what these jungle plants did, how they defended themselves, how their grip intensified the more a person struggled.

The whirlpool had the same effect. As did a certain pit of sand I’d once encountered, long before Summer had imprisoned me.

I glanced around, realizing I’d gone the wrong way, diverting from the path Jeryn had originally taken me. I hated myself for this, for not looking where I’d been going.

“Flare!” Jeryn hollered.

I opened my mouth to yell, but one of the vines slung around my neck. The contact seized my lungs, terror stalling my voice. If I shuffled, used the plants to make a racket and signal where I was, the vegetation would burrow deeper, snaring around my body like chains. The vines would tighten, grab my windpipe, and suffocate me.

Please, not my throat. Not that. Not again.

Tingles ricocheted across my fingers, the cords preventing my blood from flowing. My knees buckled, my body toppling sideways into the webbed wall. A family of shoots trussed me up like a fish in a net, shackling me like a prisoner. They would give me welts, scars maybe, and a new collar.

Bugs screeched, the trees bristled, and it was so dark. My name bellowed from Jeryn’s mouth, tearing across the distance, but I couldn’t scream. I tried anyway, wheezing into the mist, thinking of a thousand sand dunes I had dug myself out of, the places I’d explored with Mama and Papa, the times they had warned me of dangers and the times I ignored them. I had survived each mishap, albeit scratched up and bloodied and beaming at the majesty of nature.

Only once, had I regretted it. And I’d destroyed my parents because of that. I had condemned them to a prison, and it was my fault, my fault, my fault. I had doomed their lives, lost them forever, and then lost myself inside a cage.

Even now, I hadn’t learned. I still leaped into this world with open arms, despite what it did to my family, despite languishing for years in that cage. Summer called me feral and mad. And they were right, weren’t they? That had to be the reason I forsook all I’d held dear, for the sake of a whim. Just like now.

My hands and feet went numb, as if they’d been cleaved off. I wondered if my head would be next as it dropped forward, my eyelids growing heavy. I could fall asleep here, woozy and stuck in this new cage with the vines, until they mummified me up to my lips.

Lips. Teeth.

Oh. My teeth.

My mouth dragged toward one of my trapped wrists. I would have to bite through the knots, and since I knew how to undo such snares, I understood what places to seek out. With my mind frothing like bubbles, I squinted at the enmeshed stems and searched for their centers, the kinks holding them together, the places to gnaw on.

My lips found the right strings and chomped, a cool syrup oozing down my tongue. The vine shuddered, and I wobbled, and an invisible wind blustered through me from the inside. I bit again, and again, and again. Then I swung my chin in the other direction, chewing some more, snapping the threads. My throat filled with air as it got free, and my arms flopped to my sides as the bonds fell, a queer sensation prickling my lips and fingers.

That left only my legs. I blinked down at them, marveling at how strange they looked wrapped up. The cords twined to my calves and scuttled higher, covering every inch of my skin, swaddling me the way spiders did to their prey.

One false move, and the vines would whip me back into place, then drag me into their web. I inched my hand down to the machete, drawing it from the rope belt, and bent my quaking knees, sinking as far as I could without disturbing the foliage. I found more knots and flicked my weapon, slicing through them.

But the prickles got worse, spreading to my toes. It felt like the opposite of warmth, the reverse of heat.

What was happening to me? Why were my teeth clacking?

I licked my lips, tasting more syrup. The cords fell away, the forest spun, and I crashed to the dirt floor. Footfalls pounded toward me, arriving as I hit the ground. Crystal and slate blue blurred together, such a regal combination. I had been poisoned by fruit, and he’d survived a siren shark attack. Although the latter had never penetrated the prince’s blood, we knew how it felt to have our bodies violated by this dark, wild, lovely place.

I figured it was my turn once again. Mama used to say everything in fairytales happened in groups of three. Maybe in legends too.

At least the vines hadn’t scarred my neck. That made me happy.

As the prince manifested above me, I grinned. “Jeryn-n-n, I esc-c-caped. I s-s-saved myself.”

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