“Now that the flame-leaf is growing more abundantly, what do you think will happen when the world learns about it?”
She considered the answer for a moment before answering and eventually shrugged. “Honestly? I have no idea. Perhaps we will find that the medical properties that have been so heavily emphasized in tradition are overblown. There have been no clinical trials. Almost all the evidence we have, if we even want to call it evidence, is anecdotal stories told by village elders that are now in their eighties.”
“Have you seen any evidence of the reportedly remarkable health properties of the flame-leaf fern?”
Her reply this time around was swift and decisive. “Yes. I absolutely have. The flame-leaf has been used medicinally with humans several times in recent memory to treat serious injury. This is because the supply has only really become adequate since volcanic activity began again. Two months ago, a woman gave birth while chewing the leaf. It was the smoothest human labor I’ve ever seen. It seemed to provide pain relief better than an epidural.”
David asked the next question, picking up on something I hadn’t caught. “I noticed that you said it’s only been used medicinally with humans once in recent memory. Does that mean it’s been used by animals?”
“Have you seen the monkeys yet?” Dr. Cruz asked him. David’s face went blank.
“What monkeys? You have monkeys here?!” His voice was strained rather than frightened, but his outburst surprised Dr. Cruz as well as the rest of the crew.
David’s blue-green eyes sought mine desperately. We were both experiencing a very strange moment of deja-vu. Dr. Cruz laughed at David’s apparent discomfort, which was probably the exactly wrong thing to do. He frowned deeply, and she reached out a comforting but confused hand to pat his shoulder.
“Yes, we have monkeys. All the Philippine islands have monkeys.”
“Did you know there would be monkeys here?” David asked me, and I shook my head innocently.
“How would I know?” I protested. “Two days ago, I didn’t know where this island was!”
Dr. Cruz looked at David, then at me, and then back to David in bemusement.
“…Yes, um, we have some monkeys,” she continued hesitantly. “There are a handful of long tailed macaques in the small mangrove forest on the seaward side of the island. They eat mostly crabs and stay away from humans and our settlements. We have little to offer them since there aren’t many trees on this side of the island. We actually aren’t even sure how they got here since this isn’t their natural habitat—usually they prefer much more wooded environments and they’ve only been here about fifteen years. Anyway, they’ve chosen to make our little forest their home and they stay there almost all the time. Except when they scale the volcano to harvest the flame-leaf.”
“The monkeys like to eat the fern? They go looking for it on purpose?” David did not look happy to learn that he might have competition from primates.
“They very much do.” She shook her head ruefully. “I can tell by your face that you don’t like monkeys much. I think they’re charming, but I understand you didn’t grow up with them. You probably won’t see any. But I have heard from the villagers that they’ve seen injured or sick-looking monkeys obviously hunting for the flame-leaf, far from their normal areas.”
“Is this why you made us get the rabies vaccine?” David asked me, interrupting the interview to look at me seriously. “Because we might be fighting sick monkeys to get the flame-leaf?”
I couldn’t stop my giggle. “No. I made us get the vaccine because that’s what the state department recommended. I had no ideas there would be monkeys here, although a quick Google search did tell me they live in the Philippines. Trust me, the last thing I want to do is get near some rabid monkeys and fight them for the fern.”
“If it makes you feel better, there’ve never been any reports of rabies on the island. We would immediately destroy any animal that displayed symptoms. It’s much too dangerous on an island this small to risk an outbreak.” Dr. Cruz clearly didn’t quite understand why David and I were so anti-monkey.
Although I could tell that Dr. Cruz wanted to ask more questions about David’s obvious monkey phobia, our interview was suddenly interrupted by a knock on the patio door. A young boy, presumably Dr. Cruz’ grandson, popped his head out. He looked perhaps eight years old.
“Simon, I’m busy right now,” she admonished, pointing at our group. “See? I’m on TV.”
“I’m sorry Lola,” the boy said, looking around at our little group with interest. “Dad sent me over. He says you’re needed at the docks.”
“Is there an emergency?”
“Lola, there are some men here,” he said excitedly. “They didn’t come on the ferry. They have an airplane! They are asking for help because one of their men hurt himself.”
Dr. Cruz blinked. “An airplane?”
“That’s what they said! They landed on the other side of the island and then walked all the way here to get help.”
Dr. Cruz turned to our little group. “I’m sorry. I need to go see what this is about. Can we take a break?” We all nodded, and Curtis lowered the camera.
“Lola, they said they’re from America too,” the boy—Simon—said as he pulled his grandmother inside by the hand. “They’re looking for something on the volcano. Some rare plant? I didn’t understand. But they’ve got really big guns, like in the movies…”
Monkeys and men with guns were after the same thing we were? The thunder rumbled loudly enough to shake the foundations of Dr. Cruz’ odd little house and David and I exchanged a worried look. Our task may have just gotten even more difficult.
20
David
Monkeys. Not just regular monkeys either. Sick monkeys. I could go to the other side of the earth, to a near-deserted volcanic island, and there were still monkeys making my life miserable. It all seemed horribly unfair.
I wanted to call Nathan and complain, but there was absolutely no reception here. Without a satellite phone, of which there was only one on the entire island used strictly for emergencies, I’d just have to make do without talking to my brother about the cosmic injustice of fern-eating monkeys. He’d listen, but he wouldn’t be sympathetic anyway.
When Trevor, Daphne, and Curtis went to shoot b-roll of the village during an afternoon break in the rain, Casey and I managed to steal a few minutes alone in the infirmary. An idea to take the edge off my stress percolated through me as I watched her pretend she wasn’t watching me from the corner of her eye. Casey was typing on her laptop, but she looked up when I flicked the latch on the door with an audible click. She raised a single eyebrow at me.
“OK, be honest, Casey” I teased, “did you really not know about the monkeys?”
“I didn’t know about the monkeys, David,” she told me, rising and folding her arms across her chest defensively. Her voice was petulant, and she pouted with an over-the-top dramatic expression that quickly dissolved into a giggle. “I swear I didn’t know.”
I shook my head skeptically and let my voice drop to its lowest comfortable pitch. “I don’t know if I believe you.” I moved closer to her, closing the distance between us enough to physically fake-menace her. Her eyes lit up and she stifled another giggle. Her gaze darted left and right. She tensed. She was thinking about running. I smirked. She was welcome to try.
When she bolted a second later, I caught her easily, swinging her by the arm as she wriggled and pinning her against the edge of her cot. She pressed her curves against me suggestively. Perhaps she didn’t realize that struggling generally involved a lot less rubbing against one’s pursuer.
“You’re barely even trying to get away,” I whispered against her neck. She angled her mouth to mine and kissed me, twining her tongue around and around. Her kisses left me gasping and she smiled.
“I’m not really much of a distance runner. It was never my sport. If I can’t sprint it, I’m just caught.”
“Oh?” I asked. My hands w
ere busy untucking her prim, linen shirt from her shorts and beginning to unbutton them from my position behind her. “No track team in high school or college? What did you do? Softball? Volleyball? Cheerleading? Chess club?”
I could easily see her doing cheerleading. In fact, I was seeing it in my mind’s eye quite vividly. Casey, with her long limbs and curvy figure would look absolutely fantastic jiggling around enthusiastically in one of those little pleated miniskirts. Especially if the jiggling was done in just one of those little pleated miniskirts.
She giggled again, either from my suggestion or because I was now working her shirt off her shoulders and going for her bra clasp. “No. I played basketball.”
I paused. Basketball? She couldn’t be more than five-seven. I could easily see over the top of her head when she wore heels. Flat footed, I could use her as a chin rest.
“Nuh-uh,” I told her, holding her soft, perfect tits in my palms and nibbling on her unpierced earlobe. “You’re much too little to play basketball. Basketball players are tall.”
She wrapped her own hands around mine to squeeze her chest tighter. “My high school was in rural Arkansas. The Lady Bobcats were not a very competitive team, but we had spirit.”
With one hand I tweaked the button of her shorts free and slipped my fingers down the front of her lacey panties. “Are you sure you weren’t a cheerleader?”
Basketball could be sexy, I guess, but the outfits weren’t nearly as good. I was becoming rather attached to my lurid cheerleader fantasy. Trampolines were also beginning to feature prominently…
Oblivious to my cheerleader fantasy, Casey sent her seeking fingers behind her back to deftly unbuckle my belt and work down my zipper. My breath escaped in a low hiss when she gripped me. “David, has anyone ever told you that you talk too much sometimes?” She said. Her voice was a sexy, breathy whisper.
Yes. Constantly. Pretty much everyone I know has said that multiple times.
“No,” I murmured.
I couldn’t see Casey smiling, but I didn’t need to. I knew she was smiling, just like I knew that I talked too much. Thankfully for both of us, perhaps, even I was running out of the brain cells to make more words. My baser instincts were beginning to take over. Her backwards-reaching fingers had pulled me free of my pants and she was now rubbing her lace-clad behind against me. Distracting didn’t begin to describe what that felt like.
If she didn’t quit that, she was going to get what she was asking for. Her ass was perfection: round, smooth, and big enough to grab. I pulled her panties down, bending her forward over the little cot.
Now bent double in front of me with her back flat, Casey worked her knees apart and looked over her shoulder at me. Her eyes were bright and eager, and her cherry lips were parted. Her pants were now around her ankles, and she was still wearing her socks, tennis shoes, and ponytail. I was barely undressed as well. She looked good that way. I probably looked stupid, but was well passed caring.
Not wanting to rush her, I worked an index finger inside her with a series of shallow, gentle pulses. She pushed back against me with a needy little noise. I added a second finger just to tease her and noticed that she’d fisted the sheets in front of her. Her wetness dripped down my fingers and her clit was swollen with need.
She happily thrusted against my hand, submissively stilling when I gripped her ponytail to keep her still. I was aching to be inside her. Casey turned just enough to look me in the eye when I pressed the tip of my cock against her opening, and her mouth fell open as her warmth started to envelop me. I pulled at the base of her ponytail, easing her back onto me inch by inch. Her mouth formed a soft, round ‘O’ as I filled her to the hilt.
We found a slow, easy rhythm. I dropped her ponytail and gripped the soft curve of her hips instead, greedily kneading my fingers into her soft skin. She whimpered and moved obligingly against me, making noises that grew increasingly loud and breathy. I probably should have shushed her—reminded her that although the door was locked, the building wasn’t ours—but I liked the sound too much. Her noises pushed me toward the edge.
Her tight body felt like it was built for me, and her mischievous, eager eyes begged for more. I gave it to her, thrusting harder and faster until those same chocolaty brown eyes went wide and dreamy, and her breathy moans turned to whimpers. When she came I could feel her muscles pulsing desperately around me, and I fell into my own climax from the force of it.
All the stress and exhaustion, every ounce of thought and feeling, it all poured out of me in ecstatic release. I didn’t scream her name. I didn’t say that I loved her. I couldn’t, but it also didn’t seem necessary, because in that moment I felt connected to her in a way I’d never known before, or even realized I was capable of. When we collapsed against one another a moment later, cuddling in the too-narrow confines of the twin-sized cot, I did manage to articulate something.
“Casey, what would you do if I told you I was in love with you?”
She pulled back from my chest to look at me.
“I’d say you’re not thinking with your head right now,” she said gently. Her hands pushed my damp hair back from my forehead, and she kissed my cheek to soften the blow. “I’d say you should think about whether you still feel that way when we aren’t naked and basking in the afterglow.”
“I think better when I’m naked,” I protested. She shook her head.
“Don’t make promises to me you can’t keep. Don’t say something you’re going to regret saying later. Please, David. Don’t say you love me. Not right now. Not if you aren’t really, truly sure.” Her voice held a vulnerability that I was unfamiliar with. Casey was always so fierce and so sure of herself.
“Casey—” I started, but she put a finger to my lips, and then replaced it with her mouth. Her kiss was soft, gentle, and sad.
I knew she was giving me an out, and I was too frightened not to take it. I had no idea whether she felt anything close to what I did. Maybe she was just avoiding letting me down easy. So, I did the cowardly thing. For once in my life, I shut up. I didn’t say anything else. I just held her. I told myself it was enough just to be with her, but in my heart, I knew that it wasn’t. Until I could make Casey love me, I wasn’t sure anything would be enough.
21
Casey
“Those guys look really fucking scary.” It was Trevor who whispered it, but he hardly even needed to.
We saw them before they saw us. The men were across the street from the infirmary where our little group was finishing up lunch and preparing our equipment for tomorrow’s hike. Four white men dressed in camouflage and carrying automatic rifles were haggling for supplies with a local woman. Their obvious leader was a hulking, gigantic specimen of a man with a full, red beard and a shaved head. He was pointing decisively at the dried fish with harsh, abrupt gestures. He loomed over the local woman he was speaking with, causing her to back up a step in obvious unease. These were definitely the men that Simon, Dr. Cruz’s grandson must have been talking about.
Behind the bearded man, the other three men were apparently just there for moral support and to look scary. Two of them were slouching and smoking, and one—seemingly their lookout—stood at an awkward parade rest, heavily favoring his right leg. All four were covered in tattoos, muscles, and frowns. If we thought we stood out from the local villagers, this group looked positively alien, but more than just that, they looked threatening.
The leader finished his negotiation and threw over the money. The woman he was dealing with looked incredibly relieved that the interaction was over. She’d been literally backed up against the wall of her store. One of the frowning lieutenants snatched up the fish and they were preparing to leave when the leader noticed us. His interest was obvious, and instant.
The man stalked over through the rain, followed by his three hulking lackeys. As they approached, our little group exchanged worried looks. When four giant guys with giant guns bear down on you in the rain, it’s a uniquely terrifying experience.
They marched up onto the porch like a tiny, invading army.
“The locals told me there were other foreigners on the island,” the bearded man said by way of introduction. His voice was gravelly, like he smoked too much. “I have to say, I was expecting… more from our competitor. They sent you poor R&D nerds all the way out here?” He looked at Trevor, Curtis, and Daphne and shook his head. “You might as well give up and go on home. You’re hopelessly outclassed.” Then his attention swung to David and me. “Senior management, I presume? What did you two pretty VP’s do to get this assignment way out in the middle of nowhere?”
He looked at us with a knowing, disparaging expression. Our entire crew exchanged glances among ourselves, utterly confused. R&D? As in ‘Research and Development’? Senior management? VP’s? You would think our film equipment would tip him off that we were a film crew and not a bunch of scientists or executives.
“I’m sorry, and I truly mean no offense, but what the heck are you talking about?” David finally asked. “We’re here filming a reality show. We’re not R&D or VP’s or anything like that. We’re from LA.” He pointed at the cameras and lighting equipment.
The man blinked, looked at our equipment as if seeing it for the first time, and then laughed. His glowering subordinates looked at one another, obviously confused. “You’re not from Verité Labs?”
As one, our group shook our heads. In that moment, I was very glad I was not from Verité Labs.
Verité Labs was a name I’d heard on the news, but I didn’t know who they were. Probably a big, multinational company. David, however, seemed to know exactly who they were. He laughed.
“We’re definitely not from Verité Labs or any other pharmaceutical company. I am, however, a board member at Durant Industries. We looked at acquiring Verité a few years ago and decided they weren’t worth the effort. Not that I pay much attention to the board meetings. I’m strictly there for the food and gossip.”
Lost and Found (Scions of Sin Book 4) Page 12