Me Tarzan, You Jahne (BWWM)

XI

Jahne paced back and forth within the enclosure. After Joseph had left with other men following behind, the gorilla in hand, she angrily marched into the enclosure. Her brain tried to quickly process what she'd just seen. To make sense of what was happening.

When presented with this opportunity, they'd told her that they'd found sick gorillas while researching. After the first was found while on a separate expedition, it was like a domino effect as they found that more and more were becoming ill. It spread like wildfire and fearing extinction, the new research group was created. They weren't sure who patient zero was or what exactly was being spread.

This was all in the envelope they'd given her the night before she was supposed to come to the island. They'd made up what seemed to be a fabricated story to get her here to do God knows what. Her brain wasn't processing quickly enough and as moments passed with her burning a hole into the floor as Tarzan watched from afar, she became angrier.

Stopping in the middle of the room, tearing at the roots of her hair, she didn't know who to trust. She didn't know what the truth was and what was actually happening. All she knew was that something was very, very wrong.

She wondered who all knew and who was just a pawn like her. Finally looking at Tarzan she rushed up to him. He had to know something to have called them bad people and felt the need to stop her from saying anything when it seemed like a miracle occurred as Joseph walked through the trees. She just knew she'd been rescued, and they'd somehow found her.

But then she saw...they weren't there for her.... didn't seem they were too concerned with finding her at all. Their sole purpose was drugging a gorilla and taking it away. She'd watched as they tactfully encircled a female gorilla. She turned in circles as they trapped her in the center. She barred her teeth, pounded the ground, and tried to assert some dominance...but it didn't work. It didn't faze them.

Some even laughed at her act of bravado, making Jahnes blood run cold. She watched as while the female was distracted, the man at the back of her pulled out a syringe and launched it into her shoulder. The female gorilla cried out...Jahnes heart broke at the sound. And then there was silence.

She couldn't tell from her position what exactly they injected into the female gorilla, but it was strong because it knocked her out instantly. They had to have done this multiple times because it seemed not one gorilla tried to attack them.

They coward back as if they were afraid of them, heads bowed, clutching their babies close. Not even the scary silverback that tried to attack her made a single move other than turning his back, head cast down like the others.

Remembering the scene that had taken place in front of her minutes ago caused her rage to almost boil over. She needed answers. She stared into Tarzan's eyes when she'd gotten in front of the man.

"I know you may not understand me but if you do, please.... what is happening? Why did they take a seemingly healthy gorilla?" Jahne begged the man for details she knew he probably was unable to articulate to her. His face scrunched up in confusion as he tried to understand.

Stepping back, Jahne touched her hands to her cheeks, closing her eyes. "Too many words Jahne" she whispered to herself while trying to figure out the best way to get answers. Taking a deep breath, she opened her eyes again and looked at Tarzan.

"Gorillas," Jahne said slowly pointing towards the opening of the enclosure. She saw his eyes quickly bounce from her to the entrance and then to the ground before responding.

"Yes," his deep baritone breathed out. It was a new word Jahne had heard from him and she bounced on her feet excitedly clapping her hands as Tarzan stared at her in confusion.

Now wasn't the time for the joy she exhibited but he'd communicated with her again. It was a very short word, but she knew from that word that he at least understood and could possibly communicate enough clues to help her figure this out.

"Bad people" She repeated the words she knew he knew because he'd said them earlier.

"Yes," he repeated as he stared at her. Nodding, Jahne thought of what she could say next to put the pieces together.

"Bad people hurting gorillas," she said slowly, hoping he understood her. He stared at her for a few seconds, jaw ticking.

"Yes," he once again said to her. Jahnes chest tightened at that yes.

"You saw" She asked using and fingers to point at her eyes and then back out. "Bad people hurting gorillas" She continued.

Once again, he took a moment to answer, and he stared at her before his eyes fell to the ground. "Yes" he breathed out. Taking another deep breath, Jahne asked her next question.

Pointing to herself, she said, "My home". She'd been told he'd been there to see Kala so her only hope was he understood what she meant by saying it. He nodded his head which also told her another thing she hadn't considered. He'd seen her. Maybe before or after the waterfall incident. He'd seen her before to understand what she'd meant by the statement.

Other pieces began to fall into place as she realized that he'd probably been watching her which explains how he was able to save her the second time and maybe even the first time if he'd been watching her before the waterfall. Casting the thoughts to the side to figure out the matter at hand, she shook her head and continued her questions.

"Bad people, hurting gorillas, at my home" She pieced together all the phrases she'd said before that he responded to. He stared at her longer than he had after the last few questions before doing something that made her heart drop. He shook his head no.

"No?" Jahne spoke out loud in disbelief, taken aback. The progress to figuring this out that she thought she made, all went down the drain with that single no.

If they weren't doing it where she worked where else would they be hurting the gorillas? She'd never been told about or heard of another camp on the island but then again if all this is true, why would she have?

They'd want to keep something like this a secret but if they were experimenting on gorillas then they'd need a scientist which meant someone within her camp was aware of and an active participant in these experiments. At that point, they must be bringing them to her camp but after that, Jahne was left clueless as to why.

What was the purpose? What did they have her trying to figure out? Why experiment on them only to bring them to other scientists to figure out what you did? She could not for the life of her understand the reason behind any of this.

It was very overwhelming, so overwhelming that Jahne didn't know if she should cry, scream, or hit something. All the emotions hit her at once and it was mentally exhausting.

Not having the mental energy to continue to question Tarzan, Jahne massaged her temples as she went to the wall and slid down. She felt Tarzan come near her and sit down beside her.

Pulling her knees to her chest, Jahne rested her elbows on them as she continued to rub her temples to ease the oncoming migraine. As she massaged her temples, she caught an unpleasant smell. She turned her head to smell herself, unsure if the slight odor was coming from her or Tarzan.

Jahne scrunched up her face when she realized the odor, she smelled was coming from her. With a sigh, she turned her head to look at Tarzan whose eyes were already on her. His intense gaze startled her initially. Clearing her throat, Jahne had to figure out how to tell the man she needed to bathe.

Maybe a dip in the water and cleaning her body would distract her racing mind for only a minute. She knew that would not fix her current turn of events but even a temporary distraction was enough until she could wrap her brain around the slow unveiling of the man behind the curtain.

Meeting Tarzan's consistently intense gaze, Jahne fished for simple words.

"Wa...ter" Jahne said slowly, hoping he understood the term. As she repeated it, she began to make hand motions of washing her body. 

Tarzan watched her hand movements as they went across her body before meeting her eyes again with a raised brow. With a sigh, Jahne decided to just ramble off words hoping he picked up on one of them.

"Water, river, waterfall, bathe, wash, groom" Jahne rattled each word off slowly, watching Tarzan's face for an indication that he understood.

The blank expression gave her nothing to work with but before she could utter another word, Tarzan quickly stood at his feet. She didn't understand how a man so large could always look so graceful.

As the thought passed, she grabbed the hand he extended to her to help her to her feet. As soon as she stood, she was in the air, legs wrapped around Tarzan's waist. Luckily, they both had some articles of clothing or shielding that stopped their lower regions from becoming one.

It was instinct to tightly wound her legs around his waist when he hoisted her up his body, gripping her waist. After realizing that, she began to try to unwrap her legs from his waist only to feel his callous hand hold her firmly in place on one side as he grabbed her thigh, stilling her movement.

"Stay" he mumbled roughly to her. Jahne reared her head back at the word.

"Oh, you're just full of new vocabulary" Jahne scoffs. She wondered what other words he knew and how he knew them.

Staying put as he asked, Jahne curiously watched as he walked them towards the entryway. Going through the vines, Jahne began to get nervous as Tarzan walked to the outer edge.

She didn't realize until it was too late, what exactly the man was doing. By the time she did, he'd already gripped onto a strong vine and swung their bodies through the trees.

Jahne tightened her arms around the man's neck as they whipped through the jungle to what Jahne hoped was a water source to bathe.

__________________________________

Hello Again! I'm super proud of myself for not taking as long to update as I did in the past, haha. Thank you to everyone who has stuck with me this far! I appreciate all of you so so much!

I'm excited for what's going to happen in the next chapter! 😉