Page 104 of Four Cards Exposed

“We need to stop for a bit,” she said. She listened intently for a moment. The only sound around them was that of James’s harsh breathing. Something was definitely wrong there. His torso was mottled in bruises.

His arm was still bleeding.

“We don’t know what was in that knife, James. We need to clean out the wound.” Her throat felt like sandpaper.

“Clean it out with what, sweetheart?”

“We’ll find a stream. We’ll boil some water.” She realized, of course, the impossibility of what she was saying. There was no stream, and even if she could find a stream, they didn’t have a pot, or anything to make fire with, or anything clean they could use to bandage his arm in.

She felt her breaths come in faster and faster. There was nothing she could do to help James.

His arm’s going to get infected, and then—

“Sweetheart, relax. I can feel your mind going a mile a minute. We’re in a much better place than we were an hour ago. Lorraine would find us. We just need to keep walking.” He stood up, offering her his hand. His voice went down an octave. “Can you do that for me?”

Susan took his hand and let him pull her up. She’d walk a marathon in these alpargatas if that’s what it took. She’d do anything for James.

Eventually, though, James’s steps started to slow down. Susan took on more and more of his weight, as much as she could, until his long frame was draped over her. Now it was her turn to grit her teeth. He raised his hand in the universal sign for stop, then crumpled to his knees. This time, he didn’t try to get up again.

“You need to keep going. You have to put more distance between yourself and those men.”

Susan ran her hands over his forehead. It was clammy, but she didn’t know enough to know whether from the exertion or from fever.

“What? I’m not leaving you here, James.”

“Guerrero let us go, but they could change their mind and come back for us. They’re probably fighting it out as we speak, and we haven’t been covering our trail.”

Susan shook her head. “I don’t hear anything, James. I think it’s just us here.”

Just us and the jungle.

She tried not to think of the kind of wild animals that could hide in the dark right beside them—animals that had featured prominently in her mother’s bedtime stories when she was little. Spiders that could spit out enough poison to paralyze an ox. Jaguars who hid their bright eyes from their prey until the last instant.

She spared a thought for her parents and her brothers. They were going to be devastated. Same with Natalie and Rob. She wondered if she’d made the right choices in the last months.

Then she looked at James beside her and realized she wouldn’t change a thing. Not if changing something meant going back to her life before James.

“Susan. Susan,” James urged breathlessly. “In my pocket. Grab the knife Guerrero gave me.”

Susan found it and gave it to him, but he pushed it back into her hand.

“You’re going to have to cut the tracker out.”

Susan’s mouth fell open. She felt sick inside as she realized what he meant.

“Are you insane?”

James shook his head slowly. “It’s right here,” he said, touching the meat of his left shoulder in the same exact spot where hers had been. He wheezed painfully. “It’s not deep. I’d do it myself, but I can’t reach.“

“I’m not going to cut you, James. We are sticking together, you and I.” She grabbed on to his left hand. It was clammy, and she wondered if a fever could already be setting in.

“I can’t go any further, and I need you to keep going, Susan,” he rasped. She’d never seen him cry before, but now tears rolled down his cheeks, and he didn’t even try to stop them. “If they come, I will do my best to stall them. But you need to be gone.”

“James,” she begged. “James. Listen to me. We’re staying together. I think Guerrero’s going to take charge of the group, but even if he doesn’t, even if they come for us, I’m not leaving you alone.”

“Susan …”

Susan stopped whatever he was going to say with a kiss. She kissed him like she meant it. With her lips, and her tongue, with her whole body. And she could tell it wasn't the right time for such a kiss, but she also couldn't not kiss him. Theirs was the kind of love fairy tales were made of. Except, if this were a fairy tale, they would have been rescued already. They wouldn’t be traipsing through the jungle—alone—wondering if this was the end.