Page 17 of Last Destination

“What the fuck are you doing?” Ambrose yelled, his panicked voice several levels higher than usual.

“I grew up on a farm,” she retorted, gripping the hatchet with a precise hold before slicing into the body again. “I know how to cut through animal tissue. It won’t keep constricting if I stop it at the direct point the muscle is engaged, right?”

“You could cut her.” My chameleon’s voice held the same level of alarm.

“She’s dead if I don’t.” Tessa’s third hack cut through the scales and deep into the muscle of the bottom layer of flesh. Jamie’s tug pulled the body right in half, tearing the bottom portion of the snake away from Marley’s body. The head continued thrashing in my arms, and a viscous layer of crimson bled into the water. Tessa chopped into the last portion of sinew holding Marley’s life captive. Blood splattered my face with each thwack, but I held my position, a soldier in battle.

When she was two-thirds through, Ambrose and Nikki each slid a hand behind the body and pulled, ripping the muscle with a familiar squelch until Marley’s limp body tumbled forward, free of its hold. I abandoned the head and its trailing abdomen, and threw it as far as my tired limbs could across the river before leaping to collect her and racing to the shore with her dead weight cradled in my arms.

Nikki was right behind me and leaped into action once I laid her on the dry rocks. He immediately pressed on her chest with controlled, timed compressions. His face contorted in terror, but his body movements remained calm. Staring at Marley with huge eyes, Ambrose paced over him, the staggered movements of a junkie. His terror was so potent I could taste it on my tongue.

Nikki shifted from compressions to pinching Marley’s nose and forcing air into her lungs, two breaths at a time. My lungs held tight to the air stalled in my chest as I waited for her to respond. Her face remained blank, void of the emotion I loved reading. The crease of her brows was too smooth for my liking. Nikki pushed back from her blue lips and resumed compressions.

Sand filled my eyes, and I blinked it away. Her hand was a heavy weight in mine, her soaking clothes marred with the crisscross pattern of her attacker’s blood. I heard nothing, felt nothing, as my world shrank to the distance of a sewing pin’s head. I had chosen my freedom, leaving this woman to the survival she’d been so prepared for, only to come back to witness her death. When I returned, I made a vow to become her fiercest shield, her protector.

If she failed to draw another breath, I failed her.

Too little oxygen and the brain went dead, even if the body woke up. A few of our contracts requested this method, choosing to make their victim suffer until natural death instead of delivering the end entirely. An effective and enduring punishment for a man who deserved the verdict. If Marley woke up without the shine of intelligence in her eye or hesitation in her smile, I would—

When her fingers twitched in my grip, I bolted upright and crowded Nikki to watch her chest expand with her first breath in minutes. Ambrose dropped to his knees, cursing the daggered rocks that dug into his flesh. The three of us were desperate for any signs of life in her closed eyes.

The delicate butterfly wings of her eyelids fluttered as she roused and the bloodshot rims of her unfocused eyes finally settled on us.

“I think my ribs are broken,” she wheezed, her breathy voice a balm to my soul filling the air with life.

Nikki’s fingers immediately prodded her chest cavity with gentle, practiced movements. “Just bruised, baby girl.” His whispered response was reverent, the relief in his tone an echo of mine. “Those G cups definitely gave you some padding. Thank fuck.”

He leaned in and placed a light kiss on her forehead, stroking a single hand down the line of her cheek before pushing back onto his heels to provide her some room.

Ambrose leaned in, brushing his lips against the fading purple of hers, his entire body shaking. “Welcome to Chest Club,” he murmured softly against her cheek, pressing his hand over his own chest wounds from the jaguar. “Turns out, we’re both really shitty players.”

She choked on air and her lips curled up slightly before turning down in an agonized grimace. Releasing her hand, I shoved Ambrose backward. His ass hit the rocks with a hard thud.

“Do not make her laugh when she can barely breathe.” I seethed as every caged emotion threatened to break free of my body. “Do not kiss her and steal her air.”

“Easy, Madman.” Nikki gripped my shoulder in a firm hold, fulfilling his duty to keep me in check. “Not the time or place. Ambrose’s quick thinking just saved her life.” He turned to Tessa, who still held the bloody hatchet in a tight fist, the blue of her eyes glassy with fresh tears. “And thank you for your quick thinking, Tess. She wouldn’t be alive without you, either. Without all of us.” His ringlet curls, weighed down with the river, flicked me with water as he swiveled his head to exchange a look with Jamie as well.

The anger burning bright within my blood remained, but I redirected its bite. Ambrose was not my enemy. The jungle was developing into a considerable rival instead of a friend. Keeping Clube de Morte safe was proving to be far more challenging than I’d anticipated.

Standing, I offered a hand to Ambrose to haul him up. “You are very resourceful, irmão.” He stared at me through narrowed eyes before reaching for my palm. “Thank you,” I added, turning to address everyone with the sentiment.

“Charlie thanks you, too.” Marley’s words were sluggish and slurred, uttered through barely opened lips. Nikki caught my eye with a concerned frown, but I could only shrug as my heart sank with the possibility that brain damage was setting in.

“Baby girl, we need to get out of here. Madman, can you carry her up the hill?” Nikki withdrew his glasses from his pocket and placed them back on the bridge of his nose.

“Yes.” My response was a terse grunt, but mollified him. I immediately bowed and scooped Marley up against my chest, though my tired muscles strained to keep her upright without hurting her torso. My ángel turned inward and nestled within the cradle of my arms, ignoring the blood across my shirt.

“Jamie, Ambrose, let’s carry the snake up as well. We might as well make use of the protein. Tessa, can you chop it into a few pieces?”

I did not see or hear her reply, too fixated on getting my woman back up to safety within our camp in the trees. I took a different route than before, with more trees and less mud, each step forward a careful examination to keep her comfortable.

“Estoy agradecido de que estés vivo, mi ángel,” I whispered into the top of her hair in Spanish. I am grateful you are alive.

“Me alegro de que hayas vuelto,” she murmured into my pec. Her response was barely audible through my snapping and crashing through bushes and trees. I am glad you came back.

The threat of damaged brain tissue dissipated with her response, and the weight lightened in my stomach. Until we’d all left the jungle boundaries together though, I would not let this woman out of my sight. I would become a leech on her supple, olive skin.

Her shoulders shook, my T-shirt blending the wetness from her eyes with the river water, before she finally broke free of her control and released anguished, wracking sobs. The force of them shook me, and my steps faltered, but I said nothing.