Chapter 6: Seeds of Desperation
The chant was a metronome of violation. “I must be fucked. I must be fucked.”
Felicity’s hands moved on her body with a terrifying, clinical detachment. Her fingers pinched and rolled her own nipples into hard, pink points, then slid down her flat stomach to the blonde curls between her legs. Two fingers pushed into her own cunt, pumping mechanically. Her blue eyes were wide and empty, reflecting the sickly neon twilight. She was trying to obey the root-command, but her own touch was just another part of the programming. It wouldn’t break the cycle. It would feed it.
“Oh, fuck no,” Mandy breathed, the adrenaline from Kay’s rescue crashing into a new, colder dread. This was her best friend. Her curious, brilliant, sweet Felicity, reduced to a broken record of need.
Agent Kay was already moving, her agent’s mind switching to tactical assessment. “Direct vegetative override. Different from mine. Mine was sleeper agency. This is… a broadcast. A compulsion loop. She’ll fuck herself raw until her heart gives out or we break the signal.”
“How?” Mandy’s voice was razor sharp.
“The same way,” Kay said, her gaze locking with Mandy’s. “Overload the receiver. Burn it out with a stronger signal. But it has to be external. It has to be us.”
Mandy nodded, a grim understanding settling in her gut. This wasn’t pleasure. This was battlefield triage. She strode forward, the genetically modified moss squelching under her boots. Felicity’s chanting didn’t stop. Her fingers glistened with her own wetness, moving in and out with that same horrible rhythm.
“Felicity. Look at me.” Mandy’s command cut through the chant.
Felicity’s head turned. The eye contact was vacant, a doll’s gaze. “I must be fucked.”
“I know, sweetie.” Mandy’s voice softened for a fraction of a second. Then she grabbed Felicity’s wrist, pulling her slippery fingers out of her cunt. “But you’re doing it wrong.”
She shoved Felicity downwards. Felicity’s knees buckled, hitting the soft, damp earth. Mandy kept pushing, bending her forward over the thick, moss-covered trunk of a fallen pine. The rough bark pressed against Felicity’s stomach and breasts. Mandy kicked her legs apart, exposing her from behind—the pink, swollen lips of her pussy, glistening and ready.
“Kay, hold her,” Mandy ordered.
Kay moved to the front of the log, grabbing Felicity’s wrists and pinning them down against the rotten wood. Felicity’s chanting continued, muffled against the bark. “I m—fft—be fucked.”
Mandy spat on her own fingers, then didn’t hesitate. She pressed two fingers into Felicity’s soaked cunt from behind, burying them to the knuckles. Felicity’s body jolted, a spark of something real in the void. Mandy crooked her fingers, seeking, and found the spot. She pressed hard, rubbing in a tight, ruthless circle.
“Now,” Mandy said, her eyes on Kay.
Kay understood. She released one of Felicity’s wrists, dropped her head between Felicity’s splayed legs, and attacked.
There was no artistry to it. Kay’s tongue was a flat, broad weapon. She licked from Felicity’s dripping entrance all the way up to her clit in one hard, demanding stroke, then sealed her mouth over the sensitive nub and sucked. Hard.
Felicity screamed. It was the first fully human sound she’d made. Her back arched, trying to escape the dual assault, but Mandy held her down, fingers pistoning inside her, rubbing that rough patch with focused, brutal pressure. Kay’s mouth worked her clit, sucking and flicking with a desperate, aggressive rhythm.
“I—ah!—must—fuck!—be—” The chant stuttered, breaking apart into sharp, gasping cries. Felicity’s hips began to buck, not with programmed motion but with raw, overwhelmed sensation. Her body was a live wire, sparks flying as the external stimuli stormed the occupied gates of her mind.
“It’s not enough,” Kay gasped, pulling back for air, her chin wet. “The feedback loop is too deep. She needs more. She needs to be filled.”
Mandy withdrew her fingers. “Do you have something?”
Kay scrambled back to her discarded pack, yanking it open. She pulled out a sleek, charcoal-gray device that looked like a compact tech tool. With a sharp twist of her wrists, it extended and reconfigured with a series of soft clicks. In moments, she held a harness of dark, adaptive polymer, and from its front curved a realistic, substantial dildo, its surface shimmering with a faint golden, embedded lubrication charm.
“Standard Wand issue for deep-cover seduction scenarios,” Kay said bluntly, stepping into the harness and tightening the straps around her hips and thighs in practiced, efficient moves.
Mandy almost laughed, a hysterical sound stuck in her throat. Of course the Wands had official fuck-toys. She turned back to Felicity, who was moaning, her body trembling, the chant reduced to a wet, desperate whisper. “You hear that, Felicity? You’re getting your wish.”
Mandy leaned over her friend’s back, her mouth close to Felicity’s ear. Her voice was low, fierce, and full of a love that could only express itself through this violent mercy. “You’re gonna get fucked, you brilliant, beautiful nerd. You’re gonna get fucked so hard you forget your own name. You’re gonna come so hard you blow those root-fucking weeds right out of your brain. You understand me?”
A tear tracked through the dirt on Felicity’s cheek. She managed a tiny, jerky nod.
“Hold her,” Mandy told Kay again.
Kay resumed her position, pinning Felicity’s wrists. Mandy moved to Felicity’s side, her hands on Felicity’s hips, gripping the bone. She guided Kay into position.
Kay didn’t need more instruction. She lined up the glistening, golden-tipped head of the strap-on with Felicity’s dripping entrance. She paused for one second, looking at Mandy.
“Do it,” Mandy said.
Kay shoved forward.
The inch was a claiming. Felicity cried out, a sharp, choked sound. Kay didn’t stop. She drove the entire length inside in one relentless, deep thrust, burying herself to the hilt. Felicity’s cunt stretched, accepting the sudden, thick invasion, clamping down around the foreign object.
“Now fuck her,” Mandy whispered, her own breath coming fast. “Fuck the magic out of her.”
Kay obeyed. She set a punishing, deep rhythm, pulling almost all the way out before slamming back in. The wet, rhythmic slap of skin against skin, of polymer against flesh, filled the clearing, drowning out the hum of the biotech forest. Each thrust rocked Felicity’s entire body forward against the rough bark.
Mandy’s hands moved to Felicity’s breasts, which swung with the force of Kay’s pounding. She captured the hard, pebbled nipples between her thumbs and forefingers and pinched. She twisted. Not playfully. Not for pleasure. For breakage.
Felicity screamed again, the sound raw and shattered. Her body was no longer her own—it was a conduit for sensation, a lightning rod for the storm they were creating inside her. The chant was gone, replaced by a cascading babble of “yes” and “please” and “don’t stop” and wordless, guttural sobs.
Kay’s face was a mask of focused strain. Her thighs pumped, driving the strap-on deep, angling to hammer against Felicity’s most sensitive inner walls with each stroke. Sweat gleamed on her brow. “Is it working?” she grunted.
Mandy looked at Felicity’s face, turned sideways on the log. The vacancy was gone. In its place was a staggering, overwhelming avalanche of feeling—pain, pleasure, terror, ecstasy, all fused into one seismic event. Her eyes were squeezed shut, tears streaming.
“Almost,” Mandy said. She leaned down, her mouth against Felicity’s ear again, her voice the only anchor in the tempest. “Let go, Felicity. Come for us. Come and be clean.”
It was the permission Felicity’s hijacked nervous system was waiting for.
The orgasm that tore through her was catastrophic. It wasn’t a wave; it was a detonation. Her body bowed, rigid, every muscle locked. A ragged, screaming wail ripped from her throat, echoing off the trees. Her cunt convulsed around the toy inside her, milking it in violent, pulsing spasms. A flood of release gushed out around the shaft, soaking Kay’s thighs and dripping onto the moss below.
Kay kept thrusting, riding her through it, until Felicity’s screams dissolved into weak, hiccupping cries and her body went completely limp, held up only by their hands.
Kay slowly, carefully, pulled out.
Felicity collapsed. Mandy caught her, sinking down to the moss with her friend cradled in her lap. Felicity trembled violently, her skin fever-hot, her breath coming in shallow, shattering gasps. But her eyes, when they fluttered open, were clear. They were Felicity’s. Frightened, exhausted, but hers.
“M-Mandy?” she whispered, the sound barely audible.
“Yeah, sweetie. I’m here.” Mandy smoothed her sweat-drenched hair.
“It was… like ivy… in my head. Growing. Now it’s… burned.”
“Good.”
Agent Kay detached the harness, stowing it quickly. She didn’t look at them, giving a moment of privacy as she scanned the tree line, her Wand-issue sidearm now drawn and held low. “We have to move. They took Mai as a distraction. To split us up, to keep us busy. They have her. They have the artifact.”
The reminder was a bucket of ice water. Mandy gently helped Felicity to her feet. “Can you walk?”
Felicity nodded, leaning heavily on her. She found her clothes, her movements slow and pained, but deliberate. Every flinch, every shaky breath was a reminder of what they’d done, and why.
As Felicity dressed, Mandy’s gaze swept the clearing. Her pack was open, supplies scattered. But Mai’s pack was gone. Taken with her.
“They didn’t just take her,” Kay said, voicing Mandy’s dread. “They took the artifact’s carrier. They have the battery and the key.”
A low, resonant thrum began to pulse through the ground beneath their feet. It was a deeper vibration than the forest’s tech-grid, organic and ancient. From the direction the Root fanatics had taken Mai, a faint, phosphorescent green glow began to stain the underside of the low clouds.
The artifact was awake. And it was no longer asking to go home.
It was being forced to scream.
The green pulse in the clouds thrummed in time with a sudden, splitting headache behind Mandy’s eyes. Felicity cried out, clapping her hands to her temples. “It’s in pain,” she gasped, her scholarly analysis returning through the haze of her own trauma. “They’re not just carrying it. They’re grafting it to something. The feedback is… agonizing.”
“Then we run toward the agony,” Kay said, holstering her weapon and shouldering her pack. “It’s our only compass.”
They ran. The forest, with its humming grids and neon fungi, became a blur of hostile shadows. Mandy led, her muscles burning, driven by the image of Mai’s limp form being dragged away. Felicity stumbled behind her, every step a fresh shock of pain between her legs, a physical reminder of the violation they’d burned out. Kay brought up the rear, her head constantly swiveling, watching for faceless constructs in the gloom.
The ground began to slope downward into a rocky gulley. The throbbing green light grew stronger, staining the birch trunks the color of shallow graves. A new sound mixed with the artifact’s psychic scream: the frantic, rising roar of an engine trying to start.
“There!” Mandy skidded behind a boulder, peering over.
Below, in a small clearing of dead, grey grass, sat a battered, mud-spattered pickup truck. Beau was behind the wheel, pounding the dashboard as the engine coughed and died. Caleb and Sage were wrestling Mai’s unconscious body into the truck’s bed. Her backpack was strapped tightly to her chest, and from its top pocket, the vial blazed like a captured star, spearing the night with jagged green light. The golden leaf inside twisted as if in a gale.
“The engine won’t catch!” Beau yelled, his voice tinged with a panic that wasn’t wholly his own. “The artifact’s resonance is fucking with the electronics!”
“It doesn’t want to leave!” Sage screamed back, her fierce blue eyes wide with a dawning horror. She clutched Mai’s shoulder. “She’s burning up! Grampa Joe never said it would hurt the carrier!”
Caleb, his face pale, looked from his siblings to the screaming light. “The Elder said… the harvest requires sacrifice. For the new growth.”
“That’s our cousin’s friend, you idiot!” Sage shoved him. “This is wrong. Can’t you feel it? It’s not growth. It’s a fucking cancer.”
Their argument was a fracture. A point of entry.
Mandy looked at Kay, then at Felicity. “Distract them. I’m going for Mai.”
Kay nodded, raising her sidearm. “On your mark.”
Back at the Horny House in the Chicago suburbs, chaos had been distilled into a well-practiced routine. Mike climbed behind the wheel of the sleek, black RV, its engine purring with Hank’s mechanical enhancements. Hank claimed shotgun, immediately plugging his phone into the entertainment system. “I’m controlling the tunes. No arguments.”
“Just no polka,” Casey said, shoving a duffel bag of “annoyance supplies” into a rear compartment before joining Calista, Rick, Fatima, Kim, Maryam, and Rebecca in the spacious cabin. The air was thick with tension and the smell of Rebecca’s jasmine perfume.
Rick was already at the comm station, a headset on, his fingers flying over a touchscreen. “Ben, do you copy? I have a patch to Bethany and Stacy. Forming a mobile network. Yukio, your dragon is giving our satellites a headache.”
Ben’s voice crackled through. “We copy. Still three hours out if this traffic doesn’t clear. Bruce is trying to route us. Flamewing just melted a billboard.”
At the last second, two streaks of fur shot up the steps. Rembrandt the Maine Coon and VanGogh the black tomcat took up positions on the dashboard and the rear sofa back, their eyes gleaming with predatory intent. Outside, Jan cranked the engine of her ancient pickup. Godfrey III, perched on the passenger seat, yipped once, then darted out the open door and sprinted into the RV, leaping into Rebecca’s lap.
Jan leaned out her window. “Traitor! You love air conditioning more than me!” She slammed her truck into gear. “Let’s move, Picasso!”
The RV and the pickup roared out of the driveway in tandem. Inside the RV, Hank hit play. Thunderous heavy metal guitar ripped through the speakers. Fatima winced. “Must you?”
“Adrenaline soundtrack,” Hank said, grinning. “You’ll thank me later.”
Rick spoke into his mic, coordinating the fragmented pieces of their world speeding across the Midwest. “Bethany, you’re on I-80? Stacy, you’re coming from the city? Converge on these coordinates Kay just pulsed. They’ve got Mai. The artifact is active.”
In the mountain gulley, Mandy gave the signal.
Kay stepped from cover and fired three sharp, cracking shots into the dirt at the feet of the Robinson triplets. Dirt and stone spat. “Golden Wands! Release the girl and the artifact!”
The distraction was perfect. Beau ducked, Caleb shouted, and Sage threw herself over Mai’s body.
Mandy was already moving, a silent sprint down the rocky incline. She reached the truck bed as Sage looked up, her eyes meeting Mandy’s. In them, Mandy didn’t see a fanatic. She saw a terrified, confused young woman realizing she was in over her head.
“It’s killing her,” Sage whispered.
Mandy didn’t answer. She slashed at the straps holding Mai’s backpack with her pocket knife. The artifact’s light was so intense it felt hot against her skin. She got one strap free.
A hand like iron grabbed her wrist. Caleb, his face now a mask of stubborn fervor, loomed over her. “The Harvest must not be interrupted!”
His other hand, glowing with a sickly verdant energy, swung toward her face.
A blur of motion intercepted it. Felicity, moving with a pain-fueled recklessness, crashed into Caleb’s side. They went down in a tangle of limbs. “You don’t get to use people as fertilizer!” she screamed, raking her nails down his face.
In the cab, Beau finally got the engine to turn over. It roared to life, a discordant sound against the artifact’s scream. “We have to go! Now!”
Sage looked from Mai to her brother Beau, to Caleb wrestling with Felicity. Her decision crystallized. She helped Mandy yank the final strap loose. “Take her! Go!”
Mandy hauled Mai out of the truck bed, staggering under her dead weight. Kay provided covering fire, forcing Beau to duck below the dashboard. Mandy stumbled back toward the treeline, Felicity breaking away from Caleb to help support Mai’s legs.
The pickup truck screeched in reverse, then spun around, kicking up a plume of dead grass and dirt. It sped down the forest track, leaving Caleb behind. He scrambled to his feet, staring after his siblings with a look of utter betrayal, then vanished into the shadows of the trees.
They collapsed behind the boulder, panting. Mai was unconscious but breathing, her skin feverish. The artifact, now merely in Mandy’s possession instead of being actively tormented, dimmed to a troubled, simmering glow.
But the scream didn’t stop. It had merely changed direction.
It was now a siren song of corrupted purpose, broadcasting from the artifact in Mandy’s hands, not from the moving truck. And it was pulling at the roots of the world, daring anything that heard it to come and take it.
In Iowa, Annie and Franklin stepped out of the shimmering portal onto the familiar gravel driveway of the Robinson farmhouse. The air smelled of loam and distant rain. Before they could reach the porch, the front door flew open.
Tammy stood there, her face ravaged by tears, her hands clutching her apron. “Annie. They’re gone. All three of them. They took something awful with them.”
All the years of distance evaporated. Annie crossed the space in three strides and pulled her younger sister into a fierce hug. “We’ll get them back, Wildflower. We’ll bring them home.”
Inside, Franklin found his cousin Jesse in the farmhouse’s cluttered study. She was his age, with dark, serious eyes, pouring over an ancient, leather-bound Verdant Pasture ledger.
“They joined the True Root,” Jesse said without preamble, her voice tight. “Caleb, Beau, Sage. I overheard them talking to… to someone called the Elder. About a battery. About a harvest.” She looked up at Franklin, her expression grim. “They’re scared. And they’re in way too deep. You and me, we’re the only ones who can talk to them. A Fair Bargain and a Pasture novice. We can nullify the bad magic and… and maybe remind them of the good.”
Franklin looked at his own inky-black fingers, then at his cousin’s determined face. He nodded. “Then we find them.”
Back in the mountain gulley, leaning against cold stone, Mandy held the glowing vial in one hand and felt Mai’s pulse with the other. The artifact’s call vibrated up her arm. It was no longer a request to go home.
It was a declaration of war, and they were standing at ground zero.