Page 95 of Grave Matter

He takes off his pants, his cock half-hard, and I drop to my knees to finish him off. It’s only fair, and I make quick work of him, swallowing his release down my throat.

Then we go into the water. It’s cold as hell and I can only wander in to my thighs, crouching down in the water to clean myself. At least it’s waking me up, snapping some sense into me. I feel like I’m being pulled out of a dream.

Both of us stagger out of the stream, the sky opening up just in time for the sun to heat up our skin. Though the altitude is higher here, that means the rays are stronger and we are quick to dry off.

I grab my clothes and excuse myself to go pee.

“Don’t go far,” he warns, slipping on his boxer briefs.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I tell him, stepping behind a couple of trees.

Not when the forest seems to do things when you’re not looking.

I finish peeing and then pull on my underwear and leggings. I’m just dragging my shirt over my bra when I hear a rustle in the bushes.

I quickly yank the shirt down in time to see a blue ballcap and dark head appear above the yellow flowers of Oregon grape on the slope beneath me.

Suddenly a man looks up and freezes when he spots me standing there.

He’s native, dressed in a short-sleeved black shirt and jeans, a backpack on one shoulder.

“It’syou,” he says, his voice stern, dripping with disdain. “Haven’t seen you in a while. You planning on fucking me over again? Didn’t get enough out of us, huh?”

I can only blink at him. I’ve never met this man before.

“Excuse me?” I say, my voice uneasy.

He lifts up the brim of his ballcap and frowns at me. Then fear comes into his eyes.

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “No. Sorry, so sorry. It’s not you. You’re not her.”

Then he turns around.

“Hey!” I yell at him, but he doesn’t stop, quickly disappearing into the bushes as if he’s running away from me.

What the fuck?

“Sydney?” Kincaid says, appearing beside me. “Who were you talking to?”

I point into the bushes but there’s no trace of the man.

“There was a man,” I tell him, which makes him frown. “No!” I quickly say, frustration running through me. “No, this was not a hallucination. You can go catch up with him, he’s just down there. There was a man. A native. He thought I was someone else.”

“Who did he think you were?” he asks, scanning the brush and forest below us.

“I don’t know. He said that he hadn’t seen me in a while and wondered if I was fucking him over again.”

Realization dawns over his face and he nods. “I see. He thought you were Everly.” He glances at me. “Everly has had issues with the natives here. They’re afraid of her, of everyone at Madrona.”

“Issues as in she’s fucking them over?”

“Yeah.”

“Good lord, what now? Is there anything ethical about Madrona?”

“We’re doing good work,” Kincaid says with a sigh. “But it comes at a cost. Madrona leases the land, but because the fungi is found on their land, Madrona has taken all the profit. Me and a few others had set it up so that the natives were supposed to get a percentage of sales from the pharmaceutical company,but unbeknownst to me, a new contract was drafted up that essentially cut them out. The Johnstones had their sneaky fucking lawyers word it so, burying it in language and made it iron-clad. When the attorneys tried to fight it, the natives were left out.”

I curl my lip in disgust. “That’s fucking ridiculous. It’s their land, all of this is. They’re owed everything.”

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