Page 104 of Mud

I didn’t let myself think or fear or second-guess how far I was, or if I’d make it. With the rope in my hand still, I ran,screaming,and slammed my shoulder onto her side—the same side I’d stabbed just a minute ago.

The vulcera stumbled back. Not nearly as far as I’d have liked, but I made it work because what other choice did I have? I pulled the rope lower and ran to her other side so that it caught her right in the middle. She roared, even more pissed off than before, but I’d already jumped off, the rope secured in my hands, and I didn’t plan to let go. I spun around the branch again just like before, only this time, I took the vulcera with. The rope went under her front leg and up to the side of her neck, pinning her in place—but I didn’t stop there.

I grabbed the rope on the other side, too, and I jumped, this time much slower because I’d had no momentum, but the result was the same. Both ropes were wrapped around the vulcera like anXagainst her chest, pressing her against the tree. They held her in place as she struggled to freeherself, to bite off the rope underneath her jaws, but she couldn’t quite reach it.

“Stop fighting!” I told her, breathing heavily, the rope still in my hand, hoping she listened. Hoping she stopped struggling so I could run, get away from this place, go higher up or down below the never-ending tree—it didn’t matter. So long as she didn’t come after me.

But then…

“That was impressive, not gonna lie.”

My blood turned ice-cold in an instant. I stopped breathing, blinking, thinking of anything else other thanit can’t be. It cannot possibly fucking be.

That voice…

“Hello, sweetness. Missed me?”

Yes, I knew that voice.

“No, I suppose not. But I don’t remember you being able to move like that. Well done.”

An agonizingly slow applause followed.

I turned around, sure that it was all in my head, sure that this game, or this fight—or even the vulcera, who was still struggling to free herself—had done something to me.

My eyes searched the empty branches, the large leaves, the lightbulb flowers…

“Now I’m curious—what else can you do? How far can you bend?” I followed the voice with my eyes until I saw the shape of him. “And most importantly, would you be willing to demonstrate for me?Withoutyour clothes on, that is.”

Heat spilled inside my body with the same intensity, reaching all the way up to my cheeks, but it had nothing to do with shame.

Taland Tivoux was sitting on a branch upside down, two levels over me, with his leg up and his elbow resting on his knee, watching me with a mischievous grin on his face.

“What the fuck.”

The words slipped out of me and it wasn’t even a question. It was too absurd, too senseless that Taland would be sitting on this very tree, upside down, looking up at me while I looked up at him.

Impossible.

“I knew I’d find you here first,” he said, then straightened his legs and dragged himself over to the edge of the branch. “So, what are you planning to do about that thing?”

“Wha—”

The vulcera.

My heart jumped and a lump formed in my throat instantly when I remembered what I’d been doing just now, and why those ropes were in my hands still. The vulcera had bitten off one, and she was in the process of chewing the other—possibly seconds away from breaking free and coming for me.

“No, no, no…” I dropped the ropes and moved back, a gun in one hand and a knife in the other within seconds—my pathetic,patheticdefense against a creature like that.

“You’re not going to make her submit to you withthose, sweetness. Be smart, will you?”

Damn it, how is this possible?!

“What the hell are you doing here, Taland?”Are you even real?

“Why, playing the game, of course,” he said with a shrug.

Fuck me.

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