Page 40 of Among the Screaming Trees

“What does derevo mean?”

Luk drops maddening kisses on my shoulder, moving the neckline of my shirt over so he has better access to my neck. His tongue slides under the locket chain, lifting it off my skin before letting it settle again, wet and warm from him.

Fox holds up his phone, the screen angled in my direction. Luk can see over my shoulder, but it appears he’s keeping the answer from Tali. A notes app is open, one where he can type replies to questions asked of him.

Derevo is tree in Russian.

Lukaz, Fox and I were summoned to Dr. Bonner’s office this morning. While classes are still canceled and evidence is being bagged and students and faculty questioned privately, the five of us cram into Bonner’s office, all sitting except for a pacing Professor Wyldan. His resting face goes well beyond bitch setting; the man is a mélange of confused, overwhelmed, and exhausted. Every time I glance at the door dividing Bonner’s office from Wyldan’s, my core clenches at the reminder of his palm cracking onto sensitive flesh, all while I was gagged around a fucking pinecone. Now, I perch precariously on Luk’s knee, while Wyldan’s fury burns into my skin from ten feet away.

“What’s going on?” Luk with the million-dollar question I’m not sure even these brilliant minds have an answer to.

“Merda’s passing could be more than natural causes. The police are investigating just in case there is something more sinister at play. We must take that into consideration, meaning we take no precautions with the students here.”

“Here as in Wyldan U? Or here as in this room?” My voice is surer than my nerves. Something has been niggling at my gut that this is hitting way too close to home. I should have toiled it out at Fort Collins. But then again, this could result from some sick fuck with a penchant for college girls. It could be the officer I spoke to yesterday, the one with a stain on his tie where it ballooned around his gut. His mouth had an unnerving way of quivering at the corners while I spoke. In the end, I couldn’t look at him.

“Both,” Wyldan snaps, and I flinch.

“Is Aspen at risk?” Luk squeezes me harder. His arms locked around my middle might just keep away whatever, and whoever, is unaliving these college girls.

“This has something to do with me, doesn’t it?”

Jackson cants his head, studying the students before him, before swinging his gaze toward Wyldan. When neither of them speaks, I move to stand and leave, only for Luk’s hold to tighten.

“Let me go! If these pricks will not be honest, there is no point in us being here at all. I’m leaving.”

“No, you’re not,” Bonner deadpans. It’s Wyldan’s thunderous boom that makes me freeze.

“Sit down, Aspen.”

Look at me sitting like a good girl. No need to raise your voice, Professor. His arctic smolder is torpid. The man has authority oozing from a cellular level. “Are you going to be honest with us?”

“When haven’t we been?” Bonner jumps in.

Fair enough. It’s bad manners to assume someone is lying just because you don’t trust their quirks. Jay didn’t tell me he was a teacher at Wyldan, but I didn’t volunteer my status as a student, either. Wyldan is a detached icecap with a penchant for pinecone punishment. None of that was in the welcome brochure…

“I feel like somebody is hiding something, and I need to work out what it is. One reason I didn’t continue in Colorado was because things became”—I searched for the right word, one to slot the puzzle piece into place, only there wasn’t one—“dangerous.”

“You never said dangerous when you told us about your dad’s work and the Malchoydian Pepperberry!”

I could slap Lukaz Vaskari. What the fuck? Fox saves me the trouble.

“Aspen, we’re familiar with Arthur and his work. You don’t need to keep anything from us. Isn’t that right, Eli?”

Wyldan grunts a half sound, the noise caught in a throat that refuses to offer any more than necessary. This guy was married? How could anyone stand him long enough to exchange vows? Ah, Dean Grundy must have filled them in on our discussion after Donnelyn ripped me a new one. Dean Grundy had worked with Arthur many years ago, and the two shared a friendship and a love of botany. So far, he’s been more than helpful with questions about my dad and his work.

“Arthur’s work, the stuff that made sense around his drunken ramblings, is still discussed in some circles,” Bonner explains. “We know enough for you not to worry about spilling any family secrets.”

Wyldan leans against the paneling, the hewn timber an organic juxtaposition to the stone against it. “Malchoydian Pepperberry was touted as a treatment, or blocker, for nerve atrophy. The only people who dismissed it were the ones who refuted the existence of the fruit and tree in the first place. Because your father refused to divulge the location of the plants, his work was picked apart. There is no evidence of the Pepperberry existing at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, but submissions are from governments, not private companies or citizens.

“How would you know what’s in that vault, Professor?”

The answering glower bellows irked and incredulous. Would he have that knowledge based on his title, or how much money is in the family vaults? Probably the latter.

“You have so much to learn.”

“Then teach me! I came here for answers. If you have them, either of you, by all means, offer up your knowledge, gentlemen. Mom was brilliant and on the verge of something incredible before she died, and Dad, as much as he wanted to continue her work, drowned himself in distilled juniper to cope with her loss. I was in an abyss.”

Smreka, a Balkan specialty, was Mom’s favorite. Dad continued to make it long after she passed as homage to the woman we both lost. Smreka is fermented juniper with negligible alcohol content. Dad more than made up for Mom’s teetotaling ways by pickling himself.