Chapter Ten
February 22nd, 2:23 AM
"Margot!" Erin cried, her body heaving with joy.
"Shh..." Margot said, placing her finger on her lips. "It's the Black Bobcat."
"Yeah, of course," Erin laughed. She couldn't believe what was happening.
"How..." she muttered. "How did you find me? How did you get here? How did you take them out?"
Margot smiled. "Your tracker's on. I followed you in my car. And I've got smoke bombs just like you, Blue Lynx." She was beaming with excitement. "And, I've been working on some of my moves."
Erin looked out in the room. "You beat all of them, girl! You took out Sunny! Lora! And that ninja!"
"Yeah," Margot replied, looking at Steve's unconscious body. "He wasn't quite as tough as you made him out to be."
Erin chuckled. "I could learn a thing or two from you."
Margot flipped her hair out of her face, placed her hands on her hips, and smiled.
"Okay," she said, inspecting Erin's bonds. "Let's get you out of this thing."
Erin watched her as she took a step toward her. She stopped. She frowned as she looked down at her boots.
"What's with this floor?" Margot said. "It's so sticky."
Erin saw them first. The roots. Bubbling through the mud, peeking out of the ground like tentacles.
"Margot! Move!" Erin yelled.
But before Margot could take another step, the tendrils had burst through the floor and snatched her. Margot cried out and tried to pull away, but the roots were already in control, wrapping themselves first around her feet, and then up her boots. They climbed up past her boots, twisting around her calves, creating dense piles of dirt and wood that held her knees in place.
"Augh!" she cried. "What's happening?"
Margot bent forward, reaching down to her ankles, trying to rip that roots away. But as she dug her gloved fingers into the tendrils, smaller vines sprouted out and crept up her hands. Margot panicked and tried to pull her hands back, but the trap was already sprung: the root piles were now wrapped around her hands, binding her gloves and boots together, leaving her bent over in front of Erin, her purple-spandex-clad butt rising high.
"No!" she yelled, twisting her hips, but unable to budge her hands and feet.
"Margot!" Erin cried. "Stop moving! The vines react to movement!"
But Margot didn't hear her, or at least didn't listen. She kept shaking, and the roots kept climbing her body, moving up her thighs and arms. She was now half-covered in woody, dirty foliage.
"Stop, Margot!"
"Yes, child," a small voice said. "Listen to your friend. You can't fight them."
Erin looked around the half-human, half-plant mound that was her partner and saw, standing calmly with her hands behind her back, Lora.
"Lora!" Erin said. "Make the roots stop! Please!"
Lora smiled, walking up to Margot. "They'll stop when she stops," she said, patting Margot's butt with a muddy, bony hand. Her touch brought Margot to an immediate halt.
"But... I knocked you out," Margot muttered, her face looking in her thighs, small sprouts of branches pulling at her individual hairs.
"Nothing lasts forever in the garden," Lora said. "The plants brought me back."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Margot said.
"Shhh..." Lora said, still patting Margot's behind. "You've fought valiantly, child. But I think you've had enough."
She dropped her hand to her pocket, brought it back up, and released a powder into Margot's face. Margot coughed and blinked and, in seconds, fell into unconsciousness. She remained in an awkward, bent-over position as her muscles went slack.
"Lora!" Erin cried. "What have you done to her?"
"You needn't worry about your friend, Blue Lynx," Lora replied. "She's merely sleeping. I used the same extract on her as I did on you, earlier tonight."
Erin gritted her teeth. Margot had been so, so close, infiltrating Lora's lair, surprising the villains, even managing to knock them out. But now, she was as helpless as the Blue Lynx, wholly at the mercy of this strange, dangerous little woman.
"Now that that little distraction has been taken care of, we can get down to business," Lora said.
"Oh yeah?" Erin said, trying to get her confidence back. "What are you going to do? Plow me? Hit me with a rake?"
Lora smiled slightly as she ambled up to the Blue Lynx. As she walked, the ground beneath her seemed to rise, creating a ramp up to Erin. She was now just inches away from Erin's face, looking her in the eyes.
"I admire you, Blue Lynx," Lora said. "You're human. A mere, mortal human. And yet you possess incredible courage and strength. You're not like most of your kind."
Her kind? What was she talking about? Who was this lady?
"The boss, Sunny... They want to destroy you. But you have too much potential to simply be weeded out. What I want is to cultivate you. To make you truly blossom."
"So I was right," Erin said. "You want to hit me with a rake."
Lora didn't smile. "No. That would never do. The best thing to do is do give you over to the garden. Let the plants do their work. Let the plants show you the way."
"What kind of hippie shit is this?" Erin spat.
Lora reached up and placed her bony hand on the side of Erin's face. Erin instinctively tried to pull away, but Lora's fingers seemed to stick to her, as if they were covered in sap.
"You will find out soon enough, child," Lora said, calmly.
And then, Erin felt them: the branches on her wrists and ankles. They were growing, stretching across her forearms and climbing up her thighs, winding around her muscles and clenching them tightly. Erin looked side-to-side, and then down, watching the brown branches turn green and sprout leaves, watching them slowly but surely coil around her body.
"Lora! Stop this!" Erin cried.
Lora shook her head. "There's no stopping them now. They want you, Blue Lynx. They want you bad."
Erin squirmed, but her arena of movement was already constricting. She stared ahead at Lora, a look of pure terror in her eyes.
"Shall I give you something else to think about?" Lora asked. "Something to take your mind off the plants, while they do their stuff?"
And with that, Lora slid her fingers underneath the Blue Lynx's mask and, with a slow, steady, menacing hand, peeled the fabric off of Erin's face.
On to Chapter Eleven
OR
On to Chapter Eleven (Explicit Ending!)
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