My brain was starting to go fuzzy from fear, pain, and lack of oxygen when a voice roared above the din, louder than the rest.
"Get off of 'er!"
There was a sensation of air whooshing past my head, followed by a sudden thunking. The tree trying to throttle me, dropped me with a bloodcurdling shriek. My heartbeat thumped in my ears as the blood rushed back to my brain and time began speeding up.
The Scarecrow pulled me from the orchards and back to the safety of the yellow brick road. But even as he did so the thunking sound continued as did the screams of agony from the murderous tree. I twisted around to see what was happening.
A man wielding an ax stood before the lethal apple tree, looking lethal himself as he whacked away at the wailing monster. My eyes lingered on the gouged flesh of the tree, then the fine gleaming ax-head and understood what had left Phil maimed. Suddenly, the tree's scream turned into a gurgle and its branches curled under not unlike a dead fly in a windowsill. The man froze mid-chop as the branches retreated.
He turned, red faced from exertion, but calm as you please and walked away from the apple orchard. Behind him, the curled branches straightened and stiffened but he didn't turn to look. The tree became silent and inanimate as it should have been in the first place.
He sat down casually on the bank, laying the ax across his lap, and pulled what looked to be a hand rolled cigarette from inside of his leather vest. He put the butt between his lips and patted himself down, nodded in agreement to some silent thought, and then pulled a match book from his pants pocket. He cocked a leg for the simple reason of igniting the match on a combat boot and lit his cigarette.
He took a long drag and then asked around the cigarette, "You okay?"
My jaw just hung uselessly.
Now that the adrenaline was pulling back out of my system, I felt sluggish. I eyed him and realized that his attire was the least fascinating thing about his appearance, and that was saying something because at least sixty percent of it was leather. His arms were bare and covered in a gruesome mixture of scars and tattoos. His dark hair was flat, not straight, more like at some point it had had curls, until someone deflated them. It reminded me of the unwashed hair of a mental patient. Around his neck hung a plethora of charms, each on its own leather necklace.
The longer I stayed silent the more concerned he looked. He half rose up and then settled back down.
He took the cigarette from his lips and half rose and asked, "Are you okay?"
"Yes, I'm okay."
I jerked my head around to the Scarecrow remembering his existence.
"Are you…" I began but interrupted myself with a gasp.
The wound itself didn't seem too severe and the blood was trickling out slowly, but it was making a mess of his face as gravity pulled it down his jaw line. His cheek had swollen up and the skin looked red and irritated.
"It's fine," the Scarecrow tried to assure me, but it would have been more convincing if the damage to his face wasn't making it harder for his lips to move.
"You'll certainly live," the man with the ax said, taking another puff of his cigarette. "Sorry about that, but the Amazon family like their apples fresh."
He laughed and then frowned when we didn't laugh with him.
"Fresh?" he said.
I chuckled at the bad pun but the Scarecrow's body seemed to grow more rigid as I became relaxed.
"Funny," the Scarecrow answered, but he didn't seem amused.
I looked up at my companion again and saw him watching the stranger with a glare that seemed to be a mixture of disdain and suspicion.
"What does he look like to you, Bella?" the Scarecrow whispered in my ear.
I looked back at the man and set aside my appreciation for the fact that he just saved my life and tried to view him objectively. The filthy hair. The leather vest. The ax. Suddenly the scars and the tattoos looked more gruesome than before. The charms around his neck? What if they weren't charms? Could they be-
"Trophies," the Scarecrow hissed in my ear.
So with that confirmation of my thoughts from the mind-reader himself, what did this stranger look like to me?
Trouble.
"So you must be new around these parts," he drawled, observing us with the same speculation we were giving him, like he had sensed the atmosphere was no longer friendly. "Not many people are foolish enough to mess with the Amazon's orchards… What's your brain damage?"
He stood up so fast I almost missed the movement. One moment he was lounging casually in the grass and the next he was standing up, ax in hand. He walked toward us with measured steps never removing his eyes from us.
Cullen let out a warning growl and the man looked at the dog once, then a second time with greedy eyes.
"That's an interesting find…" his drawl was lower now, as he eyed the dog he knew wasn't a dog, almost a growl itself.
I snatched the dog up as the Scarecrow leapt to his feet. I got up too, less gracefully than either of them. My knees couldn't stop shaking and I just couldn't take my eyes from the ax. Once again we were facing an armed threat.
Why were so many people trying to kill me?
He swung the ax up by its handle; I flinched.
The bastard smirked.
"I'm not gonna hit you with it, Honey," he replied. "Murder's messy."
"Then if you don't mind, I think it's time we take our leave," the Scarecrow said.
The man with the ax seemed to think this was hysterical. He laughed until the ax slipped through his grip, the handle clonking on the brick, and he leaned his weight against the head to support himself.
"You're gonna go traipsing off? Like that?" he asked through his laughter.
I didn't understand the joke.
The Scarecrow blushed at whatever was inside the brigand's head.
"What do you mean 'Like that'?" I asked confused and suspicious.
"Little Darlin', have you looked at yourself?"
I looked down.
The tree hadn't managed to kill me but it did a good job killing my borrowed dress. If Victoria was pissed before… Then the reality of how much skin was showing to my all male companions sunk in and I wanted to crawl into a hole. I clutched Cullen tightly to my exposed chest and tried not to think about things like how soft his fur was on my bare skin or the fact that he wasn't really a dog or that Scarecrow was listening to every single thought-
"Why don't youse two, come with me? Unless you want the Bluezers to get you on indecent exposure?"
"Bluezers?" I asked, latching onto any subject other than the embarrassingly obvious.
"Its slang? For police?" he looked at me like I was an idiot. "Blue uniforms? Excessive force allowed? Bluezers?"
I stared blankly. I didn't get it.
"Bruiser and blue, Bella," the Scarecrow mumbled.
Oh.
"She looks human…" the stranger joked.
"She's not from around here," the Scarecrow said.
"Clearly."
The condescending tone combined with the way his eyes raked over my body like I was something to eat, pissed me off.
"You know what?" I snapped, embracing my new vocabulary. "I'll see you on The Dark Side of the Moon."
I'd rather streak naked through the Amazons' possessed orchards than accept his help.
He laughed, but the traces of good humor were wiped almost immediately from his face. He pointed at me with the blade.
"That's the trick isn't it?" His voice grew cold and hard and I shivered as his eyes stared deep into my own. "There is no Dark Side. Matter of fact, it's all dark." The hazel in his eyes seemed to swirl like storm clouds and as unnerved as he made me, I couldn't look away.
"Don't pay him any mind, Bella," the Scarecrow told me, "He's just a Tinman."
"Oh! Ouch!" The man flinched dramatically and clasped a hand to his chest.
The he rolled his eyes and gestured to the Scarecrow with his ax. "Maybe I am a Tinman? Everyone's gotta survive somehow right? And you? What are you?"
Without waiting for an answer, his face hardened. "You've got calluses on you hands and sunburn on your neck. What you call an honest day's work is one step away from slave labor, but hey, you get paid right?'
"I know your type; you work so often you don't want to remember a time when you couldn't and so you cast judgment on those who don't like the Unnamed God gone on holiday.
"And you?" he snapped at me. "People just bend over for you, don't they? You wear a borrowed dress, clutch a Familiar when there is little magic to your name, and pick up the brave protector who's more brainless than a mashed potato? So God rue the day when he made the unemployable inconveniencing to you!"
The Scarecrow snorted. "You don't look crippled, but what do I know?"
"Nothing, I'd wager, as there is little more than straw stuffed between your ears isn't that right?"
The Scarecrow flinched as the petty jibe struck home.
But that begged the question-
"How did you know that?" I interrupted the madman's rant. "How did you know 'there's little more than straw'?"
"Darling, what I know could curl your pigtails."
"First, the name's Bella. Second, I'm not wearing pigtails. And third-"
"Pffft. You really are lost aren't you?"
I was liking this jerk less and less despite his heroic actions. "Will you just explain-"
"I will explain nothing. I saved your life. And I offered to lend you clothes out of the goodness of my heart-"
"Pfft." The Scarecrow interrupted by doing an imitation. "You mean the heart you don't have, Fair Tinman?"
Something transformed on the Tinman's face. A little bit of hurt followed by a whole lot of rage. The ax fell to the ground and the man launched himself at the Scarecrow. The Scarecrow couldn't move fast enough this time; the sickening crunch of the Scarecrow's nose was proof of that.
I dropped Cullen to the ground and leapt into the fray unable to make myself watch Scarecrow fight a losing battle. As my arms reached out, one hand tangling in the oily brunette hair the other attempting to wrap around the stranger's neck, a pair of slender arms wrapped around my own waist.
I screamed in horror thinking the trees were at it again and reacted. I released the so-called Tinman and twisted, saw the blonde with the corn silk hair yelling something at me-
I curled my hand into a fist and thrust it upward into her jaw, her teeth clicked together and she fell back dragging me with her.
A stronger pair of arms dragged me off of the slender woman; I could feel another brawny chest against my back and knew it was another man.
"That's enough!" He yelled. "That's enough!"
I thrashed against him but he had my arms pinned.
The woman grabbed the ax by its blade and rapped the man on top of Scarecrow on the top of the head. He released my friend to protect himself and Scarecrow managed to get the upper hand for half a second… She spun the ax handle so the blade was on his cheek.
I screamed and he froze.
The sound that came out of me was short. Once I realized she was not going to behead him and was merely threatening to behead him…
"I believe Peter said to cut the shit." Her voice had a masculine timber, making her unspoken threat more ominous.
Scarecrow slowly rose to his feet.
"Let her go," he commanded, but I don't think he felt as brave as he sounded.
"Be nice?" The one called Peter asked me.
I nodded.
He let go of me and I fled into the Scarecrow's arms.
"So what's going on here?" The woman asked.
"Damn you Charlotte, did you have to hit me so hard?" the man answered, sitting upright and rubbing the spot where she'd whacked him.
She laughed and replied, "I coulda hit you harder, and you could be unconscious."
He stood up and snapped his fingers.
She rolled her eyes, but handed him his ax.
"The usual. I rescued a distressed damsel and her cowardly cohort got personal."
Peter chuckled. "If that's the usual, I gotta get me to a church. Ain't we usually the ones distressing the damsels?"
"She tried to steal from the orchards."
"Ha! Rookie mistake!" Peter exclaimed. "Girl, if you're gonna steal apples you gotta pick a better mark."
"Why?" The question popped out. "Are they Trees?"
Peter's laugh was big and loud where Charlotte's laugh sounded hoarse.
When they got control of themselves Peter answered, "Now that would be somethin' wouldn't it? Sentient trees?"
"Next they'll be wanting equal rights," Charlotte added.
"It's just an enchantment, a self defense mechanism," Peter explained. "How do you think the Amazon's made their fortune off of fruit? When it's surrounded by wilderness? The trees defend themselves and hungry robbers and wildlife go on their way to the next farm and be somebody else's problem."
"It's effective…mostly." Charlotte smirked as she spoke.
"Mostly?"
"Well," said the jerk that remains nameless, "An ax will always win in the end. They'll submit their fruit before their lives."
"And they're not great thinkers. Too much emotion and impulse in the charm."
"What do you mean?"
I asked.
"Come along now!" Peter spoke so loudly, I considered covering my ears. "You don't want any of those apples!"
"What-"cough "-does that mean!" gasped from behind us.
The tree that tried to kill me, gouged flesh and failing voice, was now watching Peter intensely.
"Just that she can do better!" Peter called out.
"Are you-" cough "-saying that my-" cough "-apples aren't what they ought to be?"
"Oh no, they look delicious! Its just she doesn't like little green worms!"
The trees screeched in outrage, a sound like nails on chalkboard, and limbs began flailing again. I yelped as the first apple bounced off my shoulder and ducked to avoid the hail of apples pelting our way. Peter grunted as one bounced off his head and the Scarecrow caught one mid-flight before it hit Charlotte.
The apples continued raining on us and the guy with the ax just laughed.
Charlotte grabbed my arm and tugged, shouted, "Run!"
It sounded like a good idea.
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