Page 103 of Four Cards Exposed

James decided not to confirm or deny Susan’s statement.

The mutterings around them increased as Guerrero took a step forward into the circle. James squared his shoulders and swallowed back a moan. He knew this was a fight he couldn’t win.

Guerrero walked past him, and straight towards Susan, opening her handcuffs, which fell to the ground with a clang.

Susan was by him in an instant.

“You fought well,” Guerrero said, “and we keep our promises. Take her south. It’s your best bet.” He said something in Spanish, more loudly. At first, there was no response from the men. And then, suddenly, they began to chant Guerrero’s name.

Guerrero handed James a flashlight and a small pocket knife.

James tucked Susan in close to his left side and nodded at Guerrero.

“¡Abrid la puerta!”

Susan’s hand clenched against his own. Together, they walked unsteadily towards the first gate.

30

* * *

Susan

James was fading fast. They’d stopped to wrap a piece of her dress tightly around his forearm, but the bandage was drenched in red in a matter of minutes.

“James, stop! James!”

It took a couple of tries before he heard her.

“Are you okay, Susan?”

His eyes were glazed over.

“I am … thanks to you, James.”

She hadn’t said thank you yet.

How do you say thank you to someone who risked everything for you?

There are no Hallmark thank you cards for this.

Susan looked at the blood starting to seep beyond the makeshift bandage and down onto his palm. In the jungle, in this heat … this was really bad news.

“We need to stop, James. You’re losing too much blood.”

“No. We keep going,” he whispered determinedly. “Lorraine will find us.”

Talking seemed to be difficult for him now. She could see how much trouble he was having breathing, knew there was a high chance he had internal injuries on top of the ones she could see.

“How?”

“The tracker. I still have mine. She’ll be able to see where I am. We have to keep going, sweetheart.”

Knowing she wasn’t going to be able to change his mind, Susan placed herself at his left side and put her arm around him, taking as much of his weight as she could. The traditional Mexican alpargatas on her feet were slightly too big. With every step she took, her toes rubbed against the fabric. Susan sucked in a deep breath and tried to think of something else.

She walked on, not because she thought Lorraine would really find them here, but because he believed, and she wanted to keep his hope alive for as long as possible—the hope that his colleagues would find them, that everything would be okay, after all.

They walked for miles, until James’s legs gave out, and he fell to his knees, dragging Susan down with him, because she wasn’t going to let him go.