Mundahlia (The Mundahlian Era, #1) (26 page)

I scoured the forest. Disobeying Martin’s wish by entering and walking a good distance in. “Jett?” I called. No answer. I’d been calling his name for what seemed like ages—really ten minutes. “Jett?” I tried again, once I had journeyed deeper in. A faint rustle sounded from behind. “Aha!” I said, turning, expecting to see him. But the bushes behind me remained intact. I had gone too far into the forest, far from their cabin but closer to mine. I still had my phone, so I decided to head to my cabin instead and text him to come and get me. The forest was beginning to scare me again and I had a feeling the “rustling and then appearing normal” wasn’t good. I started a stride, but soon it felt like someone was directly behind me, following my every step, sending an electrifying shiver down my spine as I made my way over. It grew intenser as I hastened my footsteps, trying hard not to turn around. As soon as I saw my cabin, I bolted for it. Opening the door with my key, and shutting it just as fast as I could.

I entered my bedroom and shut the door, sending a text of panic.

You (5:34pm):
Jett?!!!!

Time had passed, and I waited—and waited, but he never replied. I even started reading into another book I had abandoned once I’d started dating.
Ah, sorry little book. I should have never ditched you
. The plot was now faint in my mind. I had to reread the previous chapter to remember where I’d left off, and who was dating who now. Seriously this book isn’t that great now that I think of it. Simple plot. Pretty much everybody has slept with everybody and there is of course outrageous teen drama. I really wanted to push through it and finish it already and move on to the next one—something about an alien and a Air Force base. I think it was called,
Unearthly
by an author with a familiar name. I had the strongest feeling that I’ve read something of his before somewhere, but I couldn’t quite place it. I loved it though—whatever book it was.

Scratch, scratch, scratch!
A sound of scratches appeared from the backdoor. They were hefty. Heavier than the last time—almost like a clawing rather than a scratching. I brought my book with me into the hallway and set it on top of the mini-fridge.
Finally, Jett’s here to pick me up.

“Oh, thank God—” I said, opening the door. But in the place I was expecting to see Jett—in human or animal form—a matte black box in the shape of a coffin sat. A large elegant crimson-red bow was tied gently around it, and a branding of the letter B was in the bottom corner. I scooped it up from the floor and looked around.
A gift?

Maybe.
I set it over my book on the fridge and carefully undid the silky bow, casting it aside as I lifted the lid. The interior was blood red, but my eyes set fast on the bushel of six arranged roses—two of each magnificent colors of midnight black, a creamy pink, and a cloudy cream. A beautiful arrangement. It had to be a gift. I picked my phone from my pocket and sent him a text. He was sweet to do this.

Rini (6:45pm)
A little Edgar Allen Poe for me with the box they came in, but I love them anyway! They’re absolutely gorgeous! Thank you so much, Jett! :D

I touched their delicate petals that felt like a soft wax, and raised them to my nose to smell their rosy essence. From the counter where I’d left it, my phone buzzed.

Jett (6:46pm)
For what? What are you talking about? What box?

Rini (6:47pm)
The roses you sent me. They came in a black coffin shaped box with a B on it.

I then spotted a small black note tucked in the long spiny stems.

These roses aren’t red.

No violets that are blue.

Don’t think of them a gift from me,

I sent them there to kill you.

-
B

What?
I thought, looking from the card to the box. Where beautiful flowers once laid, only lonesome green stems that looked like candy-less popsicle sticks remained.

An eerie tiny giggle sounded by the front door. The note fell from my frozen hands, landing near my feet. “W-who’s there?” I made out.

“
Kill
. We must
kill
,” I heard the hissed whisper. Then, a shroud of tiny pitter-pattering feet scurried across the floor.
“Slice her throat and drink the blood.”
I backed away—knocking the box to the ground, and tried to find the knob to open the backdoor. It was then that a small face appeared from the bottom corner of the wall that wrapped around and continued into the opening of the living room. It was solid black—like one of the roses, but lit with neon blue diamonds for eyes and a matching colored slit of a mouth that went from one side to the other. Some of its petals folded into razor sharp spikes that cocked up from its neck like the hood of a cobra. It looked like something taken straight out of a horror movie. Its body—in the shape of a tiny human—was made entirely out of what I thought were regular flower petals, forming it into one solid figure. It looked like a faery, with more petals folding in the shape of wings behind it, fluttering and waiting to take flight.

I felt the metal knob and tried to turn it, but a sharp object impaled my thumb. “Ow!” I howled, bringing it to my view. A tiny axe made of what looked like a thorn, prodded my skin as blood began to seep. I turned to see what had stabbed me and saw another one like the creature I’d seen, a pink one—its eyes a lime green. It had a devious smile as it stayed crouching on the knob, ready to pounce.

“Attack!” I heard from behind me. Suddenly, the pink floral creature leapt onto my breasts and I jumped back, trying to flick it off as it began tearing my clothes with a small sharp thorn. “The heart! I’ll pierce the heart and make it stop!” it said in a raspy, old-woman voice. I turned in circles as another, this one cream colored, jumped onto me from above, landing on my head. It started ripping strands of my hair and I yelped with more pain. I finally got my hand around the one on my chest, and flung it at a wall hearing it
“Ugh!”
with pain as it landed lifeless on my book. I wrestled the one in my hair free with my hand, and threw it to the floor, squashing it with my foot and hearing it screech in pain just before my foot went through its head. A clear liquid seeped from the flattened pile of crushed, wilting petals and a small clump of my hair that it had yanked off.

I cocked my head to the pitch-dark floral creature and flipped it off, “You’re next you little bitch!” Suddenly, I felt a sharp pain in the back of my neck. A thorn. I looked around, and nearly missed the remaining three on top of the fridge, hovering around the dead one on my book and kneeling with thorn-crafted bows in their hands. Two of them had their own thorny arrows ready to shoot, the other was re-loading, fluttering in the air.

“Filthy human, you shall meet the end of your life today!” The one who’d just shot her arrow into me said from the air—a second black rose creature. I let out a tear of both panic and fear.

It was then that Jett burst through my door. “Rini! Are you okay?!” he said panicked. He followed my gaze to the fridge beside the door and spotted them. Before they could fire, he swiftly got ahold of my book—tossing the dead one aside, and swatted the one in the air to the floor, then did the same to the ones kneeling atop the fridge. He paced over to them and lifted the book above his head, slamming it to the floor on top of them. Only one remained after that, the one that I was fixing to do in before I got jabbed with a thorn in my neck. It made a run for the open door, passing between my legs. But before it could escape, Jett scooped it up and tried to squeeze it dead. The small floral creature fought back, trying to jab Jett’s hand with a thorn-crafted dagger to release it. “Ah! You little—” he fidgeted. In a quick moment, he brought it to his mouth and chomped down, biting off its head to get it over with. He puckered with a sour face and spat out the remains. “
Nasty
little things,” he said disgusted, wiping away the clear liquid from his tongue with his shirt. “
Hmm
.” He flipped my book in his hands, “I guess books
do
come in handy.” He smiled then let out a small chuckle.

“Why didn’t you answer earlier?” I cried, plucking the thorn free from my neck, and letting a flood of tears burst free from the stinging pain. It was the only sentence I could let out before I broke down. He looked up to me, coming out of a laugh to himself. The smile he had, was now forming into a fine line of confusion as he looked at me.
Really
looked at me. My eyes—wet. My hair—disheveled. My clothes—torn. My skin—stained with blood, and my body—shaking. Sometime in between wiping the streams of water away from my cheeks, I saw a look of remorse descend upon his face.

“I—was busy,” he said quietly and slowly. I almost didn’t hear it.

“Now do you see the dangers of traveling alone now that you know our secret?” Martin scolded me. “International criminals aren’t in as much danger of being found and convicted or executed as a commoner human knowing the secrets of the Mundahlians. If you think this is bad, wait until your own government knows you're aware of us too.”

Jett had carried me in his arms back to his cabin without saying a word, even though I insisted I could walk on my own. He didn’t even speak then either, just sighed and scooped me right up with ease. As though I weighed about the same as a pillow. He’d gone to change shirts after the fresh hole in my neck had stained the one he’d worn.

Martin was now tending to my wounds. “Floradelias are wicked little creatures. But what leaves me in question here, is that—of all the things Bane could have sent to you or done, why on earth did he choose to send Floradelias?”

“Floradelias?” I said through my teeth as he dabbed alcohol on my thumb and neck. My eyes were red and wet, but I had long subsided from crying. Those weren’t average thorns. They were tiny weapons made of thorns, and thick too—the damage they left behind was great. Far more than a regular thorn could do. I saw the alcohol foam up on my thumb—a pink color when the white mixed with the red of the blood.

“Yes dear, the little creatures that attacked you. They are a type of faery assassins that disguise themselves as flowers. It’s their camouflage. They hide in the forests of Mundahlia, guarding a secret buried deep within their area, as well as the queen of their own small kingdom within our own. Think of them as bees or wasps like you humans have here. They live in colonies, work together, and the ones who aren’t royalty are sent out day by day to keep their areas clean and return with food. And from what you’ve already found out, they have stingers as well, or tiny weapons crafted of thorns. You were lucky none of them had a scythe-like weapon. I had a friend that lost a finger that way.”

“Great. My life has suddenly become a young-adult novel.”

“Looks that way,” he smiled. “And if you
ever
put yourself in the line of danger again, you’ll see that with me,” he paused. “It can easily turn into a horror novel on a whim. Now, move along,” he shooed me away after bandaging the last wound. “Go wash off all that dried blood on your hands in the bathroom. Use a dark hand towel. You have
no
idea just how hard it is to get rid of a blood stain on something white.”

I entered the hallway examining my patched up thumb not noticing the large shadowed torso heading in the opposite direction in front of me.
Thunk!
I slammed into Jett’s large chest. He didn’t say anything. Didn’t even crack a teensy little smile. Instead, he looked into my eyes and sighed, making sure I wasn’t hurt, and then headed off to the kitchen.
Okay?
I didn’t like this silent Jett. It was very disturbing. I flicked on the bathroom light and turned the faucet on.

After a delicious dinner of meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and steamed veggies, Del offered to let me borrow a night gown from her, but the only ones she had left that weren’t dirty were from her maternity days. I nicely declined, and instead picked one of Jett’s shirts to wear. Celeste had been
persuaded
by a big bowl of lies that I was sleeping over at Sarah’s house again because, and I quote, ‘they have a theater room inside their home, and I’d die if I couldn’t spend the night again and watch a John Hughes marathon on a big screen.’

He entered the room slowly as I decided on which side of his bed to sleep on. The right was closer to the door, which was a good thing if I needed to get up and pee in the middle of the night. But the left was safer incase a deranged man came in and started shooting up the place. My fear of being murdered won, so I chose the left and climbed in.

“I borrowed one of your shirts,” I told him, pointing to his comfy Rolling Stones shirt I’d seen him wear before. “I hope you don’t mind.”

He half-smiled and shook his head, but didn’t do anything else. He just stood there, glancing over to me as if he had no clue what to do next.

“Well, you coming to bed?” I asked him. “Or do you plan on sleeping standing up tonight.”

Max and Ray entered behind him looking equally as tired as he did. Ray flicked off the light and headed for his bed, while Max had already made it to his. Then, I heard the soft creaks of the floor sound as Jett carefully walked over. He sat on the edge of his side for a few moments and the bed sunk a few inches. Then another sound.
Thunk,
pause,
thunk.
He removed his shoes and socks. Next, I heard him peel off his shirt and cast it to the floor just before sinking into a lay beside me.

He sighed and turned on his side to face me.

I felt for his warm cheek with my hand and soothed it once I had found it. “Are you gonna say something to me at all?” I asked him.

“
Mhm
,” he hummed. I felt the vibration underneath my palm.

“
What are you gonna say then?
” I said quietly, edging closer so he could hear me.

His hand curled around me and pulled me closer to him. His chin, just above my forehead moved as he uttered, “
I’m sorry
” from his sweet, sweet lips. But there was something different in his tone tonight. He sounded unsure. Since I’ve been with him today, he’s been distant. Still here physically, but far away mentally. Something felt—different. And it only added to that confused feeling when tonight, he slept on his own side of the bed—and I slept on mine.