Page 74 of Final Approach

If I could only make it back to her in time.

Uncapping the bottle, I sniffed its astringent, clean scent, comforted by its familiarity. My last bottle of liquid courage, my last hurrah.

“Cheers,” I said aloud and toasted the steamy air before swallowing the contents in a single gulp. The soothing burn down my gullet settled my roiling nerves within moments, bringing me the false sense of security it always did.

I would miss it. I really would. And the next few days would be a bitch. Hopefully, I could get by with no one noticing.

Breathing in another fitful lungful of fetid air, I pushed upward on the nose to stand. I’d patted myself on the back every day since we’d crashed that I'd been smart enough to pack trainers, and they gripped the smooth metal well as I squatted into position. Every muscle, bone, and blood vessel protested in pain, but I ignored their screams as I prepared to jump.

If it took me all night, I’d return to her. I’d return to him. None of us was leaving here alone.

With one more fateful breath of air, I jumped.

Day 5 - After Crash

We were fucked.

Leaning against the bark of a jobo tree several feet above the receding river, I decided if a snake wanted to take me as its nutrition source for the day, I would let it. I could only hope the venom would provide a quick death, unlike the embittered hell this week had brought.

I’d thought my father’s lessons were the hardest thing I’d ever had to go through, that his death had set me free of this torture. I’d been wrong.

“You’re still alive, Marley,” Charlie chided, having taken up residence beside me, her ghostly limbs folded across her chest. “Don’t get any ideas. I need you to come back to me.”

Hah. She couldn’t know what I was thinking, could she? She was a figment, not real. I had to keep repeating the mantra before the lines between psychosis and reality blurred.

Danny and Vanessa were dead. Nikki and Maddox were gone.

Psychosis was definitely better than this reality. Maybe I could blur every line until I couldn’t feel this pain anymore.

Tears collected in the back of my nose and throat and burned a trail inside me long before they leaked out onto my cheeks. I couldn’t bring myself to say the words, wouldn’t dare to even think them.

Nikki was gone. Not dead. Gone, like Jamie was gone. He was somewhere in this rainforest, surviving off scraps, waiting for rescue alongside us. I’d see him when the Aileron plane finally showed up to take us home.

My heart was disputing what my eyes had seen, and the tear in my chest grew wider with each stifling breath.

The jungle was unbearably muggy, each movement like wading through a pool of water. Shivering despite the heat, I folded my arms just like Charlie’s and drew in a slower breath to calm my heartbeat.

Getting lost in my misery wouldn’t help those of us who remained.

Tessa, Brooks, Ambrose, and Diaz.

Maddox had escaped. I was sure of it. I didn’t have enough emotion left in me to properly respond with how I felt about it. Could I blame a man for taking his only opportunity of escape when the biggest drug lord in the hemisphere had a hit on his head? When he hadn’t been beyond prison walls in two decades?

No.

But the fact he’d left us—left me—stung more than a chunga palm spike. He hadn’t even said goodbye.

Diaz was a feral bear, his face warped into a cutting scowl as he paced through a cluster of ferns. He’d struck a tree with his fist earlier, and the blood still wept out of several knuckles, but I hadn’t offered to wrap it. Nikki would know what to say, how to soothe the anger out of him. I couldn't care less. He wasn’t concerned for the law or for his prisoner’s well-being. He was mad he wouldn’t get his payout or promotion or whatever the fuck it was El Chaco had offered him.

My lips cracked into a disgusted sneer. Diaz should have been the one who’d been swept under the water.

Brooks had Tessa wrapped in a one-armed hug and they leaned against a tree a few yards away. Tessa’s sobs had faded into a symphony of sniffles, but only because her dehydration meant she was out of tears to cry. If I had more energy in me, I’d worry Tessa had lost her will to live by losing the person she loved in such a way.

Like I was losing mine.

Ambrose hovered at the next tree. He hadn’t left my side since I’d chosen this location for my catatonic breakdown. He hadn’t said a word to me since we’d grabbed the last of our supplies and ventured farther upward into the jungle, about a hundred feet from the river. He and Nikki had saved the first-aid kit and our water bottles while I tried to save the women, but the lighter had washed away. Madman had the other one. Without a source of fire, we were dead.

Not that we’d be able to light a thing tonight, anyway. Nothing would catch fire in these conditions. We’d fall asleep against these trees. Maybe we’d get lucky and something would kill us peacefully in our sleep.