Page 162 of Blue Arrow Island
“You did it, B.” His voice is thick with emotion. “You did it.”
“It was us,” I say softly. “All of us.”
46
This week we’ll dive deeper into research I was part of in the Galapagos Islands. We made extraordinary findings about island plants separated from mainland ecosystems. Many of those plants developed new chemical defenses. Some of those defenses were so potent they could alter the neurochemistry of any organism that encountered them.
- Excerpt from a lecture given by Dr. Lucinda Hollis in her Plant Evolution course
“Where have you fuckers been?” Niran demands when we reach him and Amira at the waterfall almost an hour later. “If you’ve been getting in on while we were here thinking you were dead, I’m?—”
I pull a flower from the canvas bag at my hip, silencing him.
“You found it!” Amira launches herself at me with a hug.
“They glow.” Niran admires the flower Marcus took from his bag. “Wow.”
Marcus shakes his head. “They’re everywhere in the clearing we took Des to when he got that snakebite. In the daytime, they’re just green bush-looking things, but at night, they bloom.”
“This could change everything,” Niran says. “We’ve got McClainandthe flower. Damn it, I’m getting kind of emotional.”
“We won’t tell anyone about your soft underbelly,” I assure him.
He grins. “We could really use those beers right about now to toast, couldn’t we?”
Amira pulls out her canteen. “Canteen cheers! It’s better than nothing, right?”
We clink our metal canteens together, all of us taking a swig. I know we still have an uphill battle ahead, but our days of trekking through the rainforest and over the beaches in a search that feels hopeless are over.
I smile, thinking of my dad’s reminders to me that pressure builds diamonds. He’d be proud of our tenacity.
“I’m taking the longest shower and sleeping for twelve hours,” Amira says. “And the air circulators are back online, so I won’t have sweat pouring off me.” Her happy expression turns sheepish. “I don’t mean to make it sound like I didn’t want to be here doing this. I loved it, but I’ll also love getting back to camp, if that makes sense.”
“We get it,” Marcus says. “We should make it back pretty close to sunrise.”
We’re closer to the west side of the island, where Rising Tide is, than we are to our side. But I don’t notice my aching feet or the voracious mosquitoes as we make the hike.
I’d bet money the flowers we found are pollinated by bats. I should’ve thought of it sooner, but at least it came to me eventually. The nerdy scientist in me is giddy over finally figuring it out.
The quiet of night has settled over the jungle. We have to watch our footing carefully so we don’t accidentally step on a venomous snake, but other than that, traveling through at night is peaceful.
I’m hoping McClain will let me assist him in studying each of the flower’s components and trying to make a stabilizer. It’s possible we could find other ways to fight aromium’s effects.
I don’t know what kind of doctor McClain is, but from what I know of him, he’s very capable. If we work this problem hard, we can hopefully come up with something soon. It’s just another one of science’s riddles waiting to be solved.
The dark of night turns to gray as we get closer to camp. We leave the dense jungle, following a well-worn dirt path that winds through a clearing, only a few palm trees dotted around it.
Excitement swirls in my stomach as I imagine showing McClain what we found. He played a big part in a lot of death and destruction, but now he has a chance to do something good.
“Niran!” Amira cries.
I turn, finding Niran crouched on the ground, an arrow lodged in his bicep. Marcus, Amira and I run to him, shielding him and arming ourselves, our backs to him.
Another arrow lands on the ground by my foot, the shaft vibrating with force.
Marcus’s voice is laced with fury as he roars, “Come out and fight us, you fucking cowards! I’m right here if you want me!”
Amira’s heavy, rhythmic breathing is the only sound until she fires an arrow and it whooshes through the air, hitting someone I didn’t even see at the edge of the tree line.