The Gender Secret

by Bella Forrest

  “Oh, doesn’t it?” I breathed out sharply. “What are you really mad about, Viggo—that I wasn’t who I said I was, or that I kissed you?”

  A muscle in his jaw started ticking, and I watched his green eyes becoming hard and dangerous.

  “I’m so glad you brought up that kiss,” he said, his voice low and bordering on menacing. “Because I was wondering about that.” I froze, my heart palpitating in anticipation. “I was wondering how a woman got so cold that she could kiss a man the night before she planned to lure him to his death. Did you kiss Lee like that?”

  An icy anger throbbed through my veins, and before I could stop myself, my foot contacted with Viggo’s knee. He wasn’t expecting that, and he was forced backward, dipping toward the slope.

  I turned to run, when his strong arm wrapped around my waist, dragging me with him in a fall. The next thing I knew, we were rolling over the edge, a tangle of limbs. His arm was like a vice around my stomach as we bounced down the hill, until we rolled to a stop.

  I scrambled to my feet, feeling jostled and confused. Viggo seemed worse, struggling to his hands and feet, his back to me. Without hesitating, I leapt on his back, slipping my bound wrists over his head and wrapping my arms around his neck, squeezing. He made a surprised sound, his hands going over my forearms to try and pull me off. I had leverage though, and the superior position.

  Viggo tried to jerk me over his shoulder, but I wrapped my legs around him, holding firm. I was careful not to choke off all his air—I was angry, yes, but I didn’t want to hurt him.

  It turned out that was a mistake on my part. He managed to work a few fingers under my arm, and, in a feat of incredible strength, he pulled my arm straight out. I released one leg I had wrapped around his waist, and planted it in the back of his knee. He buckled, dropping down.

  Viggo managed to pull me around to the front of him, using my freed limbs as an opportunity to unbalance me. He used his moment to try to push me into the ground, but I rolled with it, curling my back and using my knees to push his weight over mine. I landed on top of him, my hands trapped behind his head, his body under my body.

  We paused there for a moment, staring at each other, when Viggo reached up, grabbing me gently by the back of the neck, and pulling me flat against his chest. His other arm wrapped around the back of my shoulders, and I felt his chest rise in a deep, heaving sigh.

  “I missed you, Violet,” he breathed, holding me closer.

  “I missed you too,” I admitted, savoring the feel of his arms around me. I pulled away, looking him desperately in the eye. “Viggo, please. You have to believe me. I didn’t kiss you because it was part of the plan. I kissed you because I… I couldn’t stop myself. I kissed you because I wanted to. I didn’t want to carry out Lee’s plan. He gave me this pill, and it made it so I couldn’t feel anything.”

  “It’s times like this that I really hate these masks,” he muttered.

  I looked at him inquisitively.

  “I could kiss you to shut you up,” he added with a small grin.

  I smiled, but it was bittersweet. “Do you believe me?”

  Viggo gave a heaving sigh, his chest contracting under me so I could feel his heartbeat, strong and steady, where our torsos touched. He reached up, moving a lock of my hair off the visor. “We should go,” he said, avoiding my question. But I could see it in his eyes, the suspicion that I was playing him.

  I sighed and placed my head against his chest, wishing that I could do something to make him believe me.

  “What are you going to do with me?” I asked.

  There was a long pause. “You have to go back, Violet. There’s no other way.”

  I sat up, shaking my head. “They’ll kill me,” I whispered as I pulled my cuffed hands from behind his head.

  He reached up and held my face, or rather the helmet. “I’ll protect you,” he whispered, his eyes sincere.

  I shook my head at him, tears pricking at my eyes. “You can’t. You couldn’t even protect your wife.” I flinched as I said it, but now was not the time to mince words.

  Viggo flinched too, and I hated myself for even saying those words, no matter how honest they were. But I could see it in his eyes—as much as he wanted to believe he could keep me safe, the truth was that neither of us could control what would happen if we returned to our homelands.

  Viggo opened his mouth to reply, when something grabbed me, yanking me off him and into the air.

  15

  Viggo

  I bolted frantically after Violet, my legs pumping like pistons as I tore after her. Samuel raced alongside me, his body surging in and out of the undergrowth. Violet’s shouts were disappearing in the distance, and I could no longer see her or her captor in the canopy.

  What the hell?

  Running, I pulled the handheld from my pocket, and pulled up Violet’s signal. I felt relief wash over me as it focused in on her dot, moving away from me rapidly. I kept the handheld on, and pushed after her, leaping over downed logs and weaving among trees.

  Sweat was pouring down my face as I ran, and my breath was coming in ragged gasps. I was in good shape, but I wasn’t going to be able to run like this forever. I needed to pace myself if I was going to have any energy to deal with whatever had grabbed her and ripped her away from me.

  And if whatever it was hurt her… a surge of panic hit me, giving me a burst of energy that I poured into speed.

  I tried to wrap my head around what I had seen grab Violet, but everything had happened so fast. It had swung through the trees, using vines to carry her away.

  My heart lurched at the thought of some unknown creature. If it bit her, and was venomous, I doubted any of the medicines I had brought would save her. Not to mention she was still weak from her last bite. She might not last long.

  Though if whatever took her was going to eat her, it wouldn’t waste time. It was likely dragging her back to its lair.

  Fear fueled another burst of speed in me, and I raced through the trees, barely having time to register them before having to react. My pace was relentless, even Samuel was having trouble keeping up.

  I continued to run, leaping and dodging obstacles. The problem with running so fast, however, is that unless the environment was perfectly level and flat, it would eventually force me to slow down.

  Which is essentially what happened—only it didn’t slow me down—it flat out stopped me. I miscalculated a step, and when the spongy ground gave more than I expected, and I went flying through the air into a chasm. I fell, maybe ten feet, before hitting the ground.

  I lay there for a second, sucking in air and staring up at the sky. The chasm wasn’t big, probably five or six feet wide, but it was long. I took inventory of my body, making sure nothing was broken, when the ground at my back heaved.

  Surprised, I shifted on my side, and froze as I realized that there were coils after coils of writhing serpentine bodies under my hand. Huge silver pythons, to be exact, writhing in a massive ball that had just happened to break my fall.

  The ball shifted, jerking me off balance, and I realized that it was a mating ball. This was incredibly dangerous. I needed to get out before they managed to trap me inside. Just then, I noticed the handheld perched precariously on one of the coils a few feet away. I scrambled over to it, the undulating mass quivering under my feet. The handheld tipped on an angle, then fell in between two coils.

  Without thinking, I leapt on one and jammed my arm between the two up to my shoulder. My fingers stretched blindly into the void of space, and I felt the brush of scales against my fingers. Behind me, I heard a hostile hiss, and I froze. I kept reaching, my other hand fumbling in the front of my pants for my pistol. The hissing intensified, and I could feel the python’s cool breath on my back.

  I leapt to the side at the last possible moment, and fired at the snake’s head. The first bullet went wild, but I adjusted my aim, and unloaded the clip into the wide ebony eye. The snake collapsed. I felt the familiar touch of my
handheld with my other hand, grabbing it and snatching it out before I lost it.

  Above me, Samuel was barking. I risked a glance up, and saw that there was a tree that had collapsed, forming a bridge. One of the branches was only a few feet over my head. Running as best I could as the mass of hissing snakes shuddered beneath my feet, I planted one foot on the side of the chasm, using it to push off and leap toward the branch.

  I caught it, and began pulling myself up. The hissing below me was loud in my ears, but I ignored it, focusing instead on my tenuous grasp as I pulled myself up the tree. Once I was on top of the log, I crossed quickly over to Samuel, and knelt down next to the dog.

  I wiped the sweat off my brow, and pulled the handheld out of my pocket. Violet’s dot had stopped. I paused, waiting to see what would happen. Then, the dot began to head back toward me.

  Violet had escaped whatever had grabbed her, but I needed to hurry to her in case it was chasing her.

  We took off running, heading toward the dot as it headed toward us. She was still several kilometers away, but that was nothing, provided I paced myself.

  I had already formed a stitch in my side from the mad dash earlier. While it was important to get to Violet, I knew I wouldn’t get there if I kept tearing through the forest like a mad man. I checked the handheld again as I jogged, correcting my position slightly. Violet’s dot was moving much quicker now, and I was worried she was being chased.

  As our two dots neared each other, I slowed down, pulling my gun. I topped a crest, which dipped down into a deep valley. The mist was thicker here, more difficult to see in. I pulled my gun and ordered Samuel to heel. The dog pressed in tightly to my leg as I slowly entered the mist.

  It coiled on the ground and in the air, touching everything it could. As I walked, it parted under my feet, forming little eddies in the mist that swirled violently before slowly settling back down, clinging to the earth like a white blanket.

  The mist that hung in the air was thinner, almost like gauze had been pulled over my eyes. I saw something moving in front of me. At first, I thought it was Violet, and I opened my mouth to call her over, when the mist parted partially.

  A woman stood, her feet shoulder-width apart, a gun in her hand pointed at the ground. She seemed to be watching something ahead of her. She had brown hair, was slightly taller than Violet, and wearing some sort of black outfit that was skin tight. Her back was to me, and she hadn’t noticed me. I held my hand in front of Samuel, an order for him to stay, and held my gun loosely in my hand.

  Who was she, and what was she doing in The Green? Could she be a Matrian scientist, gathering up samples for study? If so, she was in really deep—Alejandro never let anyone stray farther away than a day’s walk from the boat or camp. Anything more than that risked certain death, in his eyes.

  I turned my gaze to where she was staring. The mist hung in the air, casting shadows. Eventually, it roiled as something moved through it. I heard her before I saw her, the sound of her crashing through the undergrowth at her full running speed. Something was definitely chasing her.

  The woman moved, pulling her gun up, training it on Violet. I swung my gun around, my heart in my throat. Whoever she was, she was going to hurt Violet.

  She squeezed off a shot before I managed to shoot mine. I heard the sound of Violet crumpling on the ground, her body collapsing.

  16

  Violet

  The weightlessness of being lifted away and hauled into the trees ended with a sickening jerk as we landed on a tree branch. I struggled to breathe as the arm wrapped around my waist held me tight, constricting my rib cage.

  I was facing down, the ground at least forty feet below me. I started to say something, when suddenly we were airborne again, plummeting toward the ground at nauseating speed. I flinched in anticipation of the impact with the ground when we were hit with another jerk, and started to swing through the air.

  I realized that whoever or whatever it was that had grabbed me was using the vines to travel, swinging through gaps in the canopy. I opened my eyes, beholding the ground whizzing past my nose, and decided to shut my eyes again.

  Still, the weightlessness persisted, sending the familiar sensation of vertigo racing through me. I felt my stomach clench, and had to concentrate on my breathing to keep from vomiting.

  I was well aware of the creature next to me, but too dizzy to open my eyes to inspect it. Its breathing was heavy, like it was becoming more and more winded with each swing.

  I heard the creak of a branch under our weight, and I held my breath, anticipating the next leap into nothingness, but after a few seconds, I realized that it had stopped to catch its breath. I was still being held by my waist, face down. To carry this much dead weight with just one arm meant that whatever this thing was, it was incredibly strong. It made me even more apprehensive about opening my eyes.

  Yet curiosity was coursing through me. I remembered the strange shadow I had seen with Ms. Dale during our training, and how it had appeared to be the shape of a human. This thing, this creature, was clearly bipedal. Could it be some sort of … mutation?

  I needed to know. Slowly, I cracked open an eye. The ground sat nearly fifty feet below, and the branch we were on was swaying in the wind and under our weight. Immediately, the nausea returned full force, and I gagged a few times in my mask.

  Suddenly, the arm around me loosened slightly, and I found it much easier to breathe. I tilted my head to the left and was met with two massive legs, knees slightly bent to maintain balance. The skin was an incandescent black that seemed to both sparkle, and blend in with the environment as it moved. It was bizarre to look at, but as I examined it closer, I began to notice partitions in the black skin that reminded me of the scales on a reptile or snake.

  Immediately, a man with a snake’s head formed in my imagination, turning my blood cold.

  I needed to escape, but despite it loosening its arm around me, it was still holding me in a vice-like grip. I needed for it to loosen up a little bit more. But if I tried anything now, I would end up dead or worse. I had to be patient.

  The legs tensed next to me, and the next thing I knew, we were soaring again. Once more, it felt like I had left my stomach behind me, as we dove off the branch in an arc. Then, I heard the snap of the vine catching our weight, felt our fall hit the bottom of the arc before swinging us back up.

  That was it, I realized instinctually. There was a point where the vine arrested our fall, and if I could time it right, I might be able to get him to drop me right after. As long as the ground wasn’t too far below, I’d survive. Then I’d have to find a place to hide.

  My heart sank as I realized the only thing I had on me was my compass. Without a gun or an aerosol canister, I wouldn’t be able to hide, let alone survive. I needed to figure out how to get back.

  My mind raced, and I carefully reached my trapped arm into my pocket, pulling out the compass. I kept my grip firm on it, well aware that if I dropped it, then I was well and truly dead.

  It was hard focusing on the small face of the compass. It took several passes on vines before I could orient it correctly, and then a few more to confirm that whatever the creature was that was holding me was heading in a fixed direction. I sensed that wherever it was taking me was a place that I would never escape from.

  I slid the compass back into my pocket, and waited for an opportunity.

  I was getting used to predicting the movements of the swing, and gauging the distance to the ground and between arcs. I could tell that the creature was preparing its next swing, as it angled toward a group of vines hanging from the trees. Now was the time.

  I went completely limp, allowing my limbs to flop around. As I predicted, the creature gave a grunt of strain, as my weight threw it completely off balance. We were nearing the bottom of the swing when I planted my elbow into its torso. I felt the hard plane of muscles give under the force, heard it grunt, and felt its arms release me. I was aware of it slipping from the vine, but I didn�
��t risk a full glance at it.

  Instead, I jerked my hands out in front of me, my hands grasping for another vine as I fell. I snagged a vine with one hand, squeezing it tight. I managed to get my other hand around it, and I gripped the vine hard, hissing in pain as it began to cut into my skin. I slid down several feet before I finally slowed to a stop.

  I had closed my eyes after grabbing the vines, and it took me a few seconds before I could open them. When I did, I started laughing hysterically—I was dangling a foot from the ground.

  I lowered a shaky leg to the ground, and then the other, eventually releasing my grip on the vines. I grimaced as I opened my hand, blood pouring from ugly cuts bisecting my hand. All of the joints and muscles in my hand ached from the force I had squeezed the vine, but overall, I gauged the damage to be superficial.

  Breathing deeply, I took a second to rip off some fabric from my shirt and tie it around my hands. At the rate I was going, I was going to run out of clothes to wear in a matter of days. It struck me again how hopeless it was to even think about surviving out here—everything tried to kill you.

  I grabbed the compass and set my direction so that I would hopefully intersect with Viggo. For a second, I considered heading in another direction, away from him. His reluctance to believe me had really hurt, much deeper than I could have imagined. I knew I had hurt him deeply, but his insistence on taking me back to Patrus was only condemning me to death. At least out here, I had a better chance.

  Suddenly, something behind me snapped, and I turned. Something shifted in the shadows under the canopy.

  I didn’t hesitate—I just started running. Hurt or not, Viggo had all the weapons and supplies, as well as the egg. I would need those before I could even think about escaping him.

  My heart sank into my belly at the thought of leaving him again. I pushed it aside, and focused on running.

  I loved running. I used to run all the time when I was younger, before everything had happened. Before Tim had failed the test and Mom had died. I had never felt comfortable confined to the track either. The streets of Matrus were my running grounds.