Page 28 of Among the Screaming Trees

Aspen finishes her beer and starts on another. Nothing like some liquid courage to force you into uncomfortable spaces. She’s been open and honest so far with Tali and me, but I sense some detailed shit is about to be dropped by this bear in the woods. Fox squeezes her thigh, and she smiles a soft smile, just for him, before turning to me to share it. That’s my girl—our girl.

“Mom’s major and thesis were centered on disease control and elimination. She had some success with compounds to limit inflammation in studies, but once her own symptoms appeared, she used what she discovered to help motor neurone disease.”

Fox raises a finger to halt her answer and cants his head to the side; she understands his intent.

“Yes, MND is what took my mother’s life. With her final push, using up what little energy and ability she had, she was determined to isolate what she could to slow the atrophy of nerves.”

“What had she isolated?” I ask, my hand settling on her other thigh. She inhales, drains her second beer, and sighs.

“What I’m about to tell you two, no one outside of the Aldereyne family knows, so this is an enormous deal for me.” She clutches the locket draped above her breasts, finding comfort in the gold oval as her fingers trace the tree.

My other hand settles on the back of her neck, under her glorious hair. A frisson of awareness snakes down her spine from scalp to tail bone. So fucking sexy.

“Dad found an undiscovered genus of tree. He thought it might be in the soapberry family. It looked like a lychee, but the Litchi genus contains only one species: lychee (Litchi chinensis).”

“What else is in the soapberry family?” Fox scribbles.

“There are almost nineteen hundred,” she says. “But this one, like the Litchi genus, was all on its own. That’s what made it so special. Through a lot of back-and-forth research and testing, he called it a Malchoydian Pepperberry.”

What the fuck? My dad is a high-functioning alcoholic who spent his life harvesting lumber for the construction industry, and Aspen’s dad was out there discovering a new genus? Holy shit. Both loved the drink a little too much, but fuck, a whole species?

“Tell us about this Malchoydian Pepperberry,” he scribbles, and she frowns.

“Please destroy that page.”

Fox hesitates, his pen motionless in the air above the page. He licks his lips and dips his chin, deigning to comply. The page is torn from the book. He makes his way to the sink before fishing the lighter from a pocket and striking down with his thumb until a blue-orange flame dances to life and catches on the corner of the page. The tilt of his wrist allows more of the material to burn, the fire eating up the fuel greedily. Once the page has been reduced to blackened char, he drops it into the sink and turns on the faucet to drown the remains. No more Malchoydian Pepperberry.

“Talk to us, Aspen.”

“The Malchoydian Pepperberry. Some other soapberries, especially the mid-size tropical fruit-bearing trees like rambutan and lychee, grow to between fifty and eighty feet tall with a rounded canopy and thrive in Southeast Asia’s climate. The Pepperberry is smaller, maxing out at around thirty feet, and is more columnar with an open structure. That’s the first difference. Then there is the fruit. From a distance, it looks like a cross between a rambutan and a lychee, but the fruit has smoother skin and is a red orange, rather than the lychee’s textured pinky-brown. The Pepperberry fruit is toxic to humans, with a large, central stone surrounded by a fibrous membrane. It’s this membrane that most of the research centered on. The enzymes and proteins are different. The leaves and trunk are different. Close enough to look like another species, but with enough differing features to demonstrate that it isn’t. The bark, for instance, has these conical grooves that look like a conch shell under a microscope. At first, it was a pretty cool pattern to look at, until Mom and Dad discovered another purpose.”

Aspen picks at the label on her latest beer. She runs a thumbnail under one corner and eases the adhesive from the glass in one fluid motion, before rolling it up between her thumb and middle fingers. This is a calming reaction of her body under stress. It must be all kinds of cathartic to get that off her chest.

Fox pulls her onto his lap, her legs stretched out onto mine. He wraps her in his cocooned embrace while I massage her feet, drawing my finger along her ankle bone and the bow of her calf muscles.

“How far did your parents get with the research? Or what was your father working on when he vanished?”

“The enzymes had been isolated and extracted. Delivery to the neurons themselves was the issue, because we’re dealing with the thickness of a human hair. But Dad was on the cusp of delivering the enzyme through the myelin sheath and to the axons and neurons underneath. He partnered with a medical research fellow in Norway, and they were close. Really close.”

“That’s amazing,” I add, sliding my hands to her thick, creamy thighs.

“They were breaking through. It was a massive deal. Delivering through the myelin sheath was a painstaking process because any punctures or damage in the sheath can lead to Multiple Sclerosis and Guillain-Barré syndrome. You don’t realize just how many chronic, fatal diseases are out there, and this membrane had the potential to slow—or even halt—at least one of them.”

“Big Pharma?” Fox scribbles, frowning, and Aspen shrugs. “Are you in danger?”

“The issue with available medicines for these diseases is that many of them have no cure. Some medicine can slow symptoms and buy more time, but at least it’s a few years, and at worst, a couple of months. Mom was on a neuroprotective to reduce nervous system activity spurred on by glutamate. It was never a long-term solution. Dad and his Norwegian fellows figured that if the axons stayed intact and the nerves could still relay messages to the muscles required for breathing and swallowing, the quality of life and outcomes would be far more favorable. Pharmaceutical companies should offer their profits to help fund his research, not shut him down as a pesky disruptor.”

Fox shakes his head.

“Yeah, babe, pharma exists to inflate profits for their wealthy investors, not cure the sick and dying. I’m with Fox on this. I’d put everything I own on someone sketchy in that industry working overtime to shut your dad down, not open the checkbook. But we’ve got you. In whatever capacity you need us, we’re here. I’ve got distant family in Russia I can send to Norway to liaise with the research fellows, assuming they aren’t in hiding after what happened to Arthur?”

Aspen sighs, and Fox adjusts her on his lap, his erection clear as she tries and fails to sit still. He kisses her temple, running a tentative finger along her jaw, over her pillowy lips and under her chin. She leans into his touch as he turns her head for a better angle. Then he presses his lips to hers in a featherlight kiss. Fuck, now I’m so fucking hard too. I mean, with Aspen in denim shorts and a crop top that sits just above her navel, that sexy hourglass fires me up no matter what position she’s in. With her creamy legs draped over mine, my erection wants in as well.

Chapter Fifteen

Aspen

EVENING WOOD