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Cooper looks defeated. He shakes his head before looking up at Oz. “We thought we had. But when we got here and saw the fire, I knew someone had beaten us to it. And the only way that could have happened is if our system is still compromised.”
Neither Oz nor Zig say anything. I study the man, feeling a pang of sympathy for him. It’s not his fault all this is happening, but I bet it’s given him the mother of all headaches.
“So, what’s the plan?” Zig eventually asks as I lean my head against Oz’s arm and close my eyes.
“We’re heading to a safe house. It’s off the books. Nobody knows about this place.”
“Where does everyone else think you’re taking us?”
“I tried to sound cagey but left enough of a trail that if they look, they’ll head to the safe house in Istanbul. We haven’t used it in years, and it’s pretty fucking remote, so no civilian casualties if these bastards are listening in and do decide to just bomb the place.”
They won’t, of course. Not unless they know for sure I’m not in it. They didn’t go to all this trouble to get me back, just to blow me to pieces.
“She okay?”
I don’t open my eyes as I listen to what Zig will say. “She’s exhausted. She needs food and water. We all do. It’s been a really long fucking day.”
He doesn’t mention the village or the people we lost. He doesn’t mention Itzia, and for that, I’m grateful. Itzia isn’t theirs—she’s ours.
“I don’t mean to sound like a dick here, Zig, but how the fuck are you guys alive? It was shocking enough to see Oz, but to find all of you alive and in what looks like good health is mind-blowing.”
I tense, but Oz just keeps soothing his thumb over the back of my hand as Zig answers, “We were lucky. Really fucking lucky. I managed to find a place to land, not much different than where you put this bird down. Seems people had been in and started chopping down trees. Shit for the jungle, but good for us because I was able to land the plane mostly intact. We all walked away with nothing but bumps and bruises.”
It’s completely silent. I’m tempted to open my eyes to see if they bought it. But I don’t.
I keep my breathing steady, even as Cooper laughs. “You guys are the luckiest sons of bitches I have ever met. Luna’s right. If anybody could make it out of the jungle intact, it was going to be you.”
“Lucky to be alive, sure. But living in the jungle is not all it’s cracked up to be, Coop.” Oz huffs, squeezing my hand, and I know he’s thinking about the snakebite incident. “We had nothing. No way to make contact. All the electrics were completely fried. Our phones weren’t options. If we hadn’t found the radio and managed to fix it, we’d still be there now.”
“What the fuck happened? That’s what I still don’t understand. I know you, Zig. Nobody flies a plane like you do. There is no way you wouldn’t have noticed if she were out of fuel.”
“Someone sabotaged it. When we reached the plane, it was swarming with insurgents. We took them out and took off. It was about an hour later that we realized there was a problem.”
“I’m sorry this turned out to be such a clusterfuck, but I’m sure glad to have you both back.”
“Does my sister know we’re alive?” Zig asks.
Cooper hesitates for a second before sighing. “No. We weren’t a hundred percent sure it was you. It just seemed so impossible, and we didn’t want to get her hopes up without definitive proof.”
“Good. Keep her out of it. Someone out there tried to kill us. The farther Luna stays away from this, the better.”
CHAPTERTWENTY-FIVE
Oz
Salem is dead to the world, her head resting against my shoulder. I keep my focus on the clouds outside, forcing myself to keep my body loose and languid, refusing to give in to the fear that we might once again fall from the sky.
I listen as Zig talks to Cooper, giving him the runaround, throwing in just enough half-truths to stop him from spotting the lies. We might know him, but we don’t know the men with him. As Salem has pointed out many times, trust has to be earned. I watch them out of the corner of my eye. None of them look uncomfortable or watch Salem, which should put me at ease. But the truth is, right now, I don’t trust anyone with her except Zig.
“Where is this safe house?”
“We bought a couple and kept them off the list because of this fucking hacker. I tell you, Oz, I don’t know who this guy is, but I’ve never known anyone like him. They ripped through our security protocols like they were written by a child. Anyway…” He shakes his head, his eyes moving from me to Salem, then back to me.
“I wasn’t sure what we were walking into, so I opted for the closest one to here. We can move later if we need to, but this place has a working clinic on site. It’s in a tiny village here in Mexico called Izabal. The locals run the place, but we pay them off the books. It’s small. Only ten doctors and nurses combined, but they know how to do their jobs and keep their mouths shut. It’s isolated, too. Nobody is getting in or out without us knowing.”
I look at Zig, but he’s watching Salem, so I turn back to the window and close my eyes. I would have preferred getting as far away from this place as possible, but I can’t argue that being isolated sounds good right now.
I let my mind drift, thinking of what we need to do from here on. It won’t take the group in the jungle long to figure out we’re gone, especially once they realize the plane has been destroyed. We’ll need to leave the country, go far away, and lie low. Maybe take on new identities. Now that we’ve exposed our hand, nobody is going to believe we’re dead again.
