Page 32 of Last Destination

Madman’s scowl would have turned another man to ash. Before his words could equally incinerate, I spoke up.

“It’s okay, Madman. I’m not afraid of Jamie. He wants to get back to his family. He won’t sacrifice me to do it.”

That, at least, I believed. He’d come to me three more times since he’d returned, each encounter more tearfully begging for forgiveness than the last. The man I knew had buried himself beneath layers of poor choices, but I believed his love and desperation for his family were real. What would I give to see Charlie again? To see Papa before his demons had taken him?

“You’ll be safe with me, mate.” The grim set of Nikki’s jaw was uncharacteristically rigid. “I won’t let anyone harm you, as long as it's unprovoked. We need someone who cares for Marley more than you do to be by her side. It’s the only way we’ll allow it. Ambrose, can you go with Marley? She’s still hurting, but Tessa may require more help. Madman, you’re best suited to help her.”

Ambrose shifted closer to me, his actions his answer. Madman cocked his head in consideration, the scrutiny in his stare laser-like in its precision. Finally, he nodded, clapping Nikki on the shoulder. “Fair suggestion, camaleón. We must move now.”

As if Mother Nature herself were a part of our group, thick black clouds moved in, and as we descended to the base of the hill, sheets of rain emptied onto our heads in violent, vertical streams. The deafening sound and blinding torrent acted as perfect camouflage, and despite feeling like the jungle was waterboarding me, the distraction was a visceral relief.

Maddox and Tessa darted from tree to tree until they were close enough to blend in with the human train, then Nikki and Jamie followed.

Ambrose reached beside me, interlinking our fingers, then leaned in, pressing a chaste, damp kiss to my lips. “I’ve got you, Jagiya.”

I barely heard the sentiment over the echoing pound of raindrops, but I dipped my head and squeezed his hand. Ambrose was by my side. I wasn’t alone. We just had to make it to camp tonight. One step at a time.

Hottie with a body is your partner, luuuuuucky. Charlie murmured wistfully at my back. Go get ‘em, girl. I need you to come back to me.

Sorrow pierced my heart like a poisoned arrow. I need you to come back to me, Charlie. One day soon, we’ll be together.

This was it — the final leg of our journey home. Five souls were counting on me. Five souls with lives to live, people to love. Just a few more days, and they would be free. Then, maybe I could be, too.

My heartbeat synced with the erratic drum of rain at our feet and I drew in a fortifying breath of dank, cloying air.

I released his hand, restrained my fear, and ran.

The skies opened up and poured as if Zeus himself had decided to have a party. I wouldn’t complain about the timing, but the thought of another day in soaked clothes made my skin crawl more than it already was with several pounds of rain weighing down my shirt.

Expensive cotton was the most useless fabric in the jungle. If I’d been wearing a polo made from plastic like the average Joe when we crashed, I wouldn’t have chafe wounds beneath my shirt from days of living in endless damp misery.

My khakis suctioned tighter to my calves with each step forward. Wiping water out of my eyes for the thirtieth time, I joined the line of people scrambling to get to a drier place. There was no drier place. For all the time we’d spent in the mosquito-infested jungle canopy, here there were few trees to hover under in the open, rocky clearing.

We’d been so concerned about getting caught, but no one was worried about us when they could drown standing upright in what was supposed to be air. Luckily, we weren’t anywhere near a riverbed or flood plain, but the memory of rushing water and coiling snakes were enough to make me beg for a life in a hot desert if we got out of here.

When we got out of here. I wasn’t dying, no matter how determined this godforsaken black hole of civilization was to take me. Madman’s shitty excuse for a pep talk did what it needed to. A fire lit under my ass to push me home. Whether my company had kicked me off the roster, whether I still had a cent to my name — none of it mattered. Surviving the jungle had one thing going for it: it made me want to live — actually live — more than ever.

Marley moved as skittish as a terrified cat beside me, tense and truly terrible at faking nonchalance. For all her competence in keeping us alive, her jumpiness would be a beacon to anyone who could sense weakness, and with the way Maddox had tried to scare the shit out of us, I wasn’t taking any chances.

I grabbed her hand and pulled her forward at a light jog, careful not to jostle her ribs more than necessary. After a week of healing, mine still ached with a vengeance, and hers had to be excruciating from the weight of a school bus on her chest — the equivalent of the snake’s hold.

Cool fact, Ambrose, you dumb fuck. Focus on keeping her calm.

Lightning streaked across the sky in an arc of white ribbons, and my sense of urgency multiplied by a thousand. We didn’t just survive hell to get incinerated by fucking lightning. I pulled her tighter to my side and picked up the pace. We needed to get out of the line of fire. Furiously, I calculated the likelihood of being hit under the thick tree line a few hundred feet ahead.

Maybe. Maybe it was ten feet away. The water was so thick, it was like peering through a sci-fi force field. How was Nikki seeing anything through his broken glasses?

His curls bobbed several heads in front. With a resolve that had to be a hell of a lot stronger than mine, he hadn’t looked back once. If the roles were reversed and he’d been guarding Marley at the end of our line, I wouldn’t have the same self-control.

Somehow, Aileron coordinating the worst avionic fuck-up since the Malaysian plane disappearance had brought me a beautiful woman I was falling for, and for whom I would apparently tackle apex predators two times over, and a man I’d willingly take down my pants for and beg him for the privilege. Never in my wildest dreams or nightmares had a hot Brit with a pierced cock and wicked mouth made me come so hard I’d gone black-out dizzy from pleasure.

Had the jungle made me this man, or had he been hiding beneath the weight of my father’s dream this whole time? It was an irrelevant question. This was who I was now, whatever the label. My identity crisis could wait until my survival crisis was over.

Another disorienting streak of lightning burned through the sky, and sharp ozone replaced the vegetal scent of rain hitting the soil. Marley whimpered, the sound barely audible through the steady drone of the storm, but it stopped me in my tracks.

I gripped her shoulders and pulled her close, remembering to use Spanish instead of English — not that anyone in the world would be paying attention to us right now. “We need to get to higher ground. Don’t let go of me.”

I couldn’t tell if she nodded in agreement or was shivering badly from fear, but I dragged her forward, determined to get to some cover before I became the first man on earth to drown in a rainstorm. Men and women raced by me with tiny children in garbage bag ponchos on their shoulders or clinging around their necks as they swung like backpacks. Everyone crying and screaming to get away from the raging weather.