The Vines by Shelley Nolden (ebook and pdf reader .TXT) 📕

A gust, carrying a trace scent of kelp, buffeted her sundress and the sensitive ferns at her feet. She allowed the breeze to batter her cheeks and liberate sections of long, black hair from her ponytail.

This must be how Finn feels when he’s halfway across an abyss.

When he’d first floated the idea of turning his fascination with bridge construction into an extreme hobby, she’d called him crazy. So had Rollie. As far as Lily knew, it was the first time Finn had ever brushed away his father’s heavy guiding hand.

After their first expedition, the Gettler family had gathered in their Upper East Side apartment for a digital slide show. As Finn narrated the images of lush forest, a bemused smile occupied Rollie’s face. But when the first view of the precarious Ghasa suspension bridge appeared, he scowled. “How reckless. Hasn’t our history taught you to value life above all else but God?”

Finn flinched and dropped his chin.

A charged silence filled the room.

Lily fumbled for the right words to defend him, but none came. She couldn’t disagree with Rollie’s concern for his son; her worry matched his.

“You have to stop this,” Kristian said from a leather armchair in the corner, “It’s just too dangerous. And stupid.”

“Fuck off.”

Immediately, Finn apologized to the group.

“It’s not like I haven’t heard that word before,” eight-year-old Milo quipped, glancing at his father through the gap in his shaggy, dark blond hair. He turned to Finn: “Have you got a shot looking down from the bridge?”

“Milo,” Kristian said, “don’t encourage him.”

Finn coolly shut his laptop and strode from the room.

Two bleak, cold blocks from the apartment building, Lily caught up with him. Without a word, she slipped her hand into his coat pocket and wrapped her already icy fingers around his warm skin. One of the things she loved most about Finn was how alive she felt in his presence, perhaps because he seemed so unconcerned with death.

Lily knew that if Rollie found Finn rifling through his old journals now, he’d be furious, despite the project’s dormant status. In his soft yet commanding demeanor, Rollie routinely preached respect and family loyalty. Even she had been on the receiving end of that message.

While somewhat awkward and disturbing coming from her boyfriend’s father, she would have welcomed that same expectation from Leonard, her father. A familiar aching sensation stretched across her chest.

Maybe she should have stayed with the others on the patio, where she’d been painting a watercolor of the craggy shoreline far below while Sylvia watched from her wheelchair, a rare smile on the side of her face not paralyzed. Lily loved making her happy; she should have prioritized that over her curiosity.

Soon everyone—including Finn’s aunt and her twenty-three-year-old twin sons—would be wondering where the couple had gone.

But as long as she was already here, she might as well take a quick peek, she decided and peered around the corner. The pawpaw shrubs and blue joint grass rising from the bluff rippled in the wind. What she could see of the two-acre lawn that stretched between her and the house remained empty. Any moment, though, someone might decide to stake out the croquet set.

Not to mention, Finn could emerge.

Her temples pulsating, she pulled herself upward on the ledge to see through the high, narrow window, her toes leaving the ground.

Finn stood only a few feet away with his back to her, a sheet hanging limply from one hand.

Near him, atop an old wooden spool table, sat a wire animal cage.

Her stomach clenched as she dropped, and she suppressed a scream. She glanced toward the field; no one had seen her.

Leaning against the shed, she tried to re-create a visual of that crate. Something—or things—had been in there. Moving.

A tingling sensation overcame her eyes, and white flecks streaked her vision.

Why would the Gettlers have lab animals here? she asked herself, already fearing the answer.

Her panic attacks always began this way, but she couldn’t give in to this one. Her right shoulder began to twitch.

“No,” she said, too loudly.

Slowly, she counted to twenty.

The tingling faded. Lily smiled at this small victory.

She had to know what was in that cage.

At the edge of the thicket, she spotted a short log and set it beneath the window.

Although wobbly beneath her sandaled feet, it gave her the height she needed. She peered into the room and sucked in her breath.

Hanging from the top wire latticework were several bats, their wings wrapped tightly around their furry bodies as they slept. One of them had woken early and was crab-walking, using its sharp claws, along the front of the crate. Its mouth opened, revealing small, daggerlike teeth.

Finn must be watching it, Lily thought and smiled despite the circumstances. He loved anything nature-related, just like her. Each month, when the National Geographic arrived, they curled up on the couch with bagels and lox and read the issue straight through.

Given this critter’s big ears, beady eyes, and horseshoe-shaped mouth, she might have considered it cute, if it weren’t so creepy that these animals were here in the first place.

In search of an explanation, she shifted her gaze to the workbench just below the window. Spread across it were the journals, the knapsack from which they’d presumably come, and an open carton of individually wrapped syringes.

They had to be for the bats, she surmised. But what are they injecting them with?

Grunting, she pulled herself another inch higher.

Her hands lost their hold. The heel of her sandal snagged the log, causing it to roll, and she fell. Her knees hit the rocky dirt.

Based on his hunched shoulders, he appeared to be as disturbed as she was by the presence of laboratory animals on his parents’ property. For all she knew, he might have seen more of them on North Brother. Acutely aware of how little she knew about his trip and thoughts since then, Lily breathed in the scent of the sandy loam.

Her nausea receded, she raised her head.

Halfway across the lawn, Kristian was charging toward her, unhindered