Page 46 of Last Destination

Should we have left her with Madman and Jamie? They would keep her safe. That wasn’t in question. Was she well enough to even get on a boat? If I never saw her again …

Fuck. The acid in my stomach solidified into heavy stones. I couldn’t think like that. Madman would kill himself to get her out of the jungle, and he’d do it as quickly as he could. I had to have faith he was already on his way somehow. No other outcome was possible.

Marley West was coming back to me. I needed to have answers for her before she arrived. Or some good news to share, at least.

What even was good news? Aileron’s exploits uncovered without our help, so we could just go live our lives in peace? A miracle cure for her mental health?

When the Mac sound erupted from the computer speakers, I nearly jumped out of my skin. The electronic hum was completely out of place in the rainforest heat. I quickly brought up my email and waited another few agonizing minutes for the encrypted connection to load. A warning flashed across the screen: my account had been disabled.

Of course it had. The board of directors’ meeting was last week. I’d been reported missing, probably dead, at this point. Our security measures were the very policy I’d proposed to the board.

Fuck, why hadn’t I thought of that before wasting precious time?

I opened the lock screen on my phone to see if the number still worked. It was still mid-month, so if they canceled the service, I should have a few weeks left on the bill. Cool relief trickled down my spine when I could connect. I would call my father first, but first I needed to see what they already knew.

I opened the internet tab on my laptop and searched for Aileron Flight 2306. The spinning circle sputtered for about a minute before spitting out several articles. The headline at the top of the most searched had over 50 million hits, making me cringe. Had we become overnight posthumous celebrities?

I clicked on the article and waited for the micro Wheel of Fortune to load the page.

Even the thought of people knowing our names made my skin crawl. I’d chosen the tech sphere because I loved computer engineering, but I loved anonymity more. I wasn’t interested in the spotlight, and definitely not because I’d chosen the wrong fucking plane and “died” a horrific death.

The web page popped up, and twenty pixelated headshots glared back at me. The passengers’ passport photos at first glance, and Marley, Jamie, and Nikki’s professional licensing photos at the top.

Fuck, Marley was beautiful. I’d never really noticed how pretty she was before the plane crashed. I was too focused on getting the hell home. But her pilot photo captured everything that made her radiant: bright green eyes screamed kindness and competence, and her smile was so genuine it made me ache to see it again. I would see it again. The moment we got her off the next boat, we would see the doctor, get her whatever she needed, and get her home.

I’d tried to keep my anxiety over her condition under wraps for Nikki’s sake, but I’d never seen someone so competent unravel so quickly. I felt as helpless as he did — I was probably the least qualified person in the world when it came to prioritizing mental health, and I had zero experience in guiding someone through delusions — unless we included my own faith in that bastard, Erik Lancaster.

If she was experiencing hallucinations about her sister, she had probably been on some form of medication. Would we be able to get her some here? Basic bitch off-brand generic meds at the very least. Something had to soften the blow for the rest of our journey before I could get her to someone who could give her better help.

“¿Hay algún médico aquí?” Is there a doctor here? I asked the jumpy man, who monitored the pole like an army sergeant.

“Si.” He pointed towards another shack-like structure with a thatched roof closer to the riverbed.

“Gracias, senor.”

He nodded, then took off after a man who’d left the other side of the pole without payment.

My gaze lingered on my passport photo, a sterile but pretty accurate depiction of who I was before coming here. Cold, two-dimensional, a bit — okay, a lot — of a dick. Maybe a little taste of the jungle had been good for me.

I scanned through the rest of the article’s contents, and my heart sank further when Marley’s suspicions were proven correct; Aileron claimed the ELT had been lost, and reported the plane had disappeared a few kilometers from Death Mountain — an impossible territory to get to by vehicle. So they’d written us off, their insurance paid out some premiums, and they walked away scot-free.

“A tragedy we will never truly know the origins of,” the journalist had quoted from some Aileron big-wig at a tear-filled teleconference.

Bullshit. They’d covered their asses by using us as scapegoats. Thankfully, they hadn’t pointed a finger at Marley or Jamie’s skills, but they’d hidden their criminal delivery service and drug-running business pretty well by burying our bodies in the jungle.

Which meant when we came back to life …

Revulsion wriggled under my skin like an insect. What would happen when it came out we were all alive? Fuck. We would become animals in a circus like those guys from the Andes all those years ago. I didn’t want to be yapped about on The View or be offered a book deal. I just wanted —

My mind went completely blank, stumbling over the options. What did I want?

I hadn’t spent a whole lot of time considering the logistics of it. Now, with a phone within reach, I hesitated.

This was stupid. I wasn’t just going to walk away from the chance to get my company back.

First things first. I needed to call my father.

I took my phone from the charging pole, charged to eight percent, and dialed the number from memory, holding my breath in the stinking humid air while the line connected and then rang.