Rain knifed across Fletcher’s cheeks. Metal coated her tongue, ringing through the enamel of her teeth. Out of the underbrush, Rick’s shape emerged, gun in hand.
Behind the barrel, the blacks of Rick’s eyes had blown so wide, there was hardly any color left. Black hair dripped over his face, his forehead peeling and cheeks pink from days in the Lydell sun.
A cruel smile stretched to the corners of his mouth. “I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m really not. When you see your dad, tell him I say, ‘Thanks for nothing, you old fuck.’ ”
Adrenaline pounded through Fletcher’s head, thick and potent. Her heart slammed against her ribs, trying to break free, but there was nowhere to go. Waylon’s arm clutched her tighter. Beneath their feet, the reptiles circled.
Rick raised the shotgun to his shoulder, that absurd spear gleaming off the end.
Electricity prickled the back of Fletcher’s neck, and she made the mistake of looking up. The trees parted for the river, leaving a gunmetal stripe of exposed sky.
A blue bolt of lightning zapped down and latched on to Rick’s bayonet.
Fletcher shielded her eyes against the flash, but there was no hiding from the incinerating heat. The instant ricochet of thunder, so loud it left her ears squealing. The pungent stench of charred flesh. The unthinkablethudas Rick rag-dolled to the earth.
“Where did you say we’re going?” Fletcher asked when her lungs remembered how to breathe.
After a coordinated effort, they managed to swing themselves to the far edge of the river, narrowly avoiding the crocodiles’ serrated grins. All of their limbs were blessedly still attached. Somehow.
Their map, however, hadn’t survived unscathed. The rain was unrelenting, soaking through the canvas of their bags, and reducing the map to a papier-mâché pulp. It crumbled in her hands, but that didn’t stop Fletcher from trying.
“I didn’t,” Waylon said without looking back. Still self-satisfied from his grand escape. Fletcher refrained from reminding him that his plan primarily worked because Rick got barbecued in an act of divine intervention. His ego was big enough as it was.
Fletcher’s waterlogged backpack dangled from his fingers. It weighed about a trillion pounds, and although Fletcher hadn’t complained, Waylon slipped it off her shoulders with just as little verbal recognition.
On the edge of the map’s last remaining legible strip, there was a smudge. If she squinted, maybe it looked like the marina. “Is this west? I thought we were supposed to be going west.”
“Can’t say.” His voice lilted unexpectedly. After an afternoon of getting strangled, becoming Rick’s target practice, and having her ankles nipped at by crocodiles, Fletcher’s nerves were already plenty frayed. This fully unraveled them.
“You’re enjoying this,” Fletcher said pointedly.
“A bit.” A smile. “When’s the last time Fletcher Spence went with the flow?”
Fletcher huffed. Never. She’d much prefer it if the flow went with her.
There was no end to the jungle. Green webbed in every direction. They could be heading straight back to the ruins of the estate, and Fletcher wouldn’t have been able to tell.
Despite the relentless onslaught of rain, Waylon forged confidently ahead, bending branches out of Fletcher’s way and offering her a steadying hand anytime they crossed a patch of dense roots. They didn’t say anything else, the silence falling between them cut by the constant drum of rain against soaked soil and the babbling of a brook too small for piranhas or anacondas or any other evil aquatic animals Dyer may have imported for his own sick amusement. The hike had rubbed Fletcher’s feet raw, and the water soothed her chafed skin as they crossed into a clearing.
“Almost there,” said Waylon.
One tree dominated the landscape. The shadows were denser here, and buttress roots braided together, wide and well-fed, leaving only enough light and nutrients for stubborn ferns and a patchwork of pink begonias. Even the rain softened.
Too late, she realized she’d let her guard down.
Waylon tugged her hand and spun her into his chest. Which could have almost been romantic if he hadn’t also shucked off his backpack and unsheathed a knife he’d smuggled from the kitchen.
“There’s just one catch,” he said with a voice like amber whiskey.
With her back pressed against him, she knew he felt the shake of her inhale, the purposeful way she blew her breath out through her mouth. Trying to quell a rising tide of panic. “What’s that?”
“I want to trust you.” His voice held firm.
“Then trust me.”
“But how do I know you won’t betray me?”
Tension lanced down her spine as he brought the blade to her neck. He couldn’t know. Could he? She’d covered her tracks. The deal she’d struck. The risk she’d taken forming an agreement with Jackie. The way she’d hedged her bets by circling back to create an alliance of her own with Waylon. It was wrong, she knew. All of it. Wrong, but necessary.
