Page 19 of Colombian Chemistry

“They’re about to be blown up. Three... two...”

“Fine! I’d shoot! Okay? God!” She tossed up her hands in exasperation then whispered, “I’d shoot.”

A cocky smile slid across my face. “See? You’d take the shot to save all those innocent kids. Only a monster would let them all die. Well, just because I couldn’t always see the faces of the people I was saving, it didn’t mean I didn’t know they existed. I take the shot to save lives... just like I did for you today.”

This time she didn’t argue, and instead, her glassy eyes just stared into mine.

“Thank you for saving my life. Again,” she said on a sigh.

“You’re welcome.”

“I bet this isn’t what you had in mind when you agreed to give me a ride to Bogotá, huh?” A sheepish smile curled up those full lips, then she sucked the air through her teeth.

I chuckled. “No, it isn’t. In fact, I ought to charge you extra for the trouble you’ve got me in now. Instead of a ride to Bogotá and back, we’re now on a difficult jungle trek, and I have a lot of logistics to figure out to get us past the cartel and to the city. And I need to replace my damn Jeep! I loved that thing. What do you say to a hundred grand and we call it even?”

Her eyes widened at the number I spit out, and she stammered for words. I was kidding, of course, because we had an arrangement and I was a man of my word, but her response to the money was strange yet again. It seemed every time I brought it up, it made her nervous. I know she’d mentioned that her family was frugal, but in my experience, people with money threw out extravagant numbers when it came to saving their lives. If I’d taken up my targets on the exorbitant numbers they’d offered me to spare them, I’d have a few hundred million sitting in my bank account right now.

“Uh, yeah. Sure, I guess. If that’s what it takes.”

“I was joking,” I said as I watched her reaction. “We had a deal for fifty grand to get you safely to Bogotá, and I’m a man of my word. I’m not going to tack on a pain-in-the-ass surcharge.”

“Good. Gotcha. I see,” she said nervously.

I tipped my head and paid attention to all the tells I’d been trained to watch for. It’d been a couple years since I’d been active, but I still knew how to read a lie when I saw one. Irene was hiding something from me, and now I was determined to figure it out.

A loud rumble from her stomach shook the silence, and I lifted my eyebrows in response. “Jesus. Sounds like you need some food.”

“I am starving, actually,” she admitted. “Thirsty too.”

“There’s a bottle of water from my bag just behind you.”

“Oh, perfect.”

She picked it up and took a drink while I glanced down at the piece of meat speared with the stick I’d propped up over the fire. “Here. It looks ready.”

“What is that?” she asked as I poked the meat.

“Iguana. I didn’t want to leave you to go hunt a boar or something else more substantial, and this little guy wandered right into the camp. Lucky us.”

Her face dropped, and the color drained from her cheeks. “You... you killed an iguana?”

“Don’t worry. He didn’t feel a thing. I was incredibly fast and accurate in my kill. That’s kinda my thing.”

I grinned, but her frozen face didn’t change.

“Ah. You’re freaked out about eating iguana. But it’s good, really. People call them the chicken of the trees. Just pretend it’s a juicy chicken breast at your favorite restaurant, and you’ll be fine.”

“I’m a vegetarian,” she deadpanned.

With a long sigh, I slumped forward in defeat. “Of course you are. Let me guess, you’re against killing animals.”

She narrowed her eyes and nodded. “You murdered an innocent iguana.”

With a shrug and a chuckle, I popped a piece of meat in my mouth. “Survival of the fittest. And guess what? I’m fitter than this guy.”

“Ugh.” She crossed her arms and turned away. “You’re awful.”

Her stomach grumbled again.