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Mya lifted her hands and backed up, tossing out, “Oliver can patch you up temporarily until you can get stitches.”
“As much as I’d love to hold you . . .” Forever, in fact. “We should get going.” We were still in cartel-controlled territory, nowhere near safe.
“Right, I’m sorry. I, um.” She pulled back, sniffling. “Not sure what came over me. I’m not normally like this.”
I brushed the pad of my thumb along the contour of her cheek, taking time we didn’t have to ensure she was okay. “Like what?”
“Weak,” she said, the word popping harshly from her mouth. Her anger toward herself for feeling vulnerable was obvious, but she had no idea how strong she was.
From over my shoulder, I spied Carter signaling me to “wrap this up.” Hell, had I hit my head, too? What was wrong with me? We had to move. We were easy targets out here, but I needed her to know how I saw her. “You’re not weak. Not even close. You’re one of the strongest women I’ve ever met.” I laced her fingers with mine, not waiting for her to argue with that fact, and we joined the others crowded by our two remaining vehicles.
The headlights of the Jeep and Tahoe were the only light we had to work with in the thick of the jungle.
“What’s the plan?” Mya set her back to the Jeep. “Civilization is just around the corner. We’ll be out in the open and sitting ducks the second we drive into Peru now that they know we have their vehicles.”
I looked over to see Oliver applying a bandage to the gash on Gray’s head. Gray’s wife, Tessa, was going to grill me about that when we were Stateside, but hell, it could’ve been a lot worse. The fact we’d survived being hit by a tank and weren’t riddled with bullet holes was a step in the right direction. Not that I’d be mentioning that to her.
“So, we don’t drive over,” Jesse said, sliding his rifle across his body, ready to go round two with the fuckers. Or, well, I’d lost count what round we were at. It’d been a long day. “We walk.”
“Then find cars to boost?” Charley piped up, her words garnering everyone’s attention. She backed up, bumping into the Tahoe, taking those same panic-like steps she’d taken in the treehouse the other night. “Sorry, but I mean, what choice do we have?” She looked around at us all. “I assume given your training, you all know how to jack a car, but I can help.”
“Yeah, we know how to boost a car,” I said, trying to rid my voice of any inflection that would make her think I was second-guessing her innocence. And I wasn’t. I was just second-guessing her mother’s. What mother teaches her daughter to steal cars and drive like she was a Formula 1 Grand Prix racer in the first place?
“Mason and I can walk ahead. Scout out the area. See if there’s anyone waiting for us before we leave the jungle,” Jesse suggested, already on the move as if Gray or Carter had given him the go-ahead. Forward moving. Forward thinking. I had to remind myself he’d not only been an Army Ranger, he’d been a hitman for the CIA once upon a time ago, and he could handle almost anything thrown his way. Today was proof of that.
“We can’t wait here,” Gray said. “We’ll have your six, but we’ll hang back far enough.”
“Roger that,” Mason confirmed, then secured a rifle and hurried after Jesse who was nearly out of view.
“Did the men in the tank have anything on them that could be useful?” I asked Carter.
“Yeah.” Carter dug through the duffel bag of weapons I’d put together back at the house, arming himself as he answered, “A text with orders from their boss not to let any of us make it out of the jungle alive.”
“Even Charley and Lucy?” I winced at the news, unsure why I was so surprised considering they’d tried to demolish us in that Bronco not even ten minutes ago.
“Looks like the cartel cares more about retribution than the bounty. Plus, I’d guess they don’t have any direct ties with Brant Luther. They probably don’t even know the bounty came from him,” Gray suggested, holding the side of his head, which worried me.
“I highly doubt the head of the cartel had any clue his men even made the deal to catch Charlotte and Lucy.” Carter stood tall, a 9mm in one hand, and a blade half the size of a machete in the other. “He wouldn’t give a damn about a million dollars. But his people who make a lot less money than him operating his smuggling routes would.”
“So, you’re thinking Brant Luther had Shannon reach out to them and offer money on the DL?” Gwen asked. “When the men kept failing and dying, word got back to their boss about what was going on.”
“And I’m assuming they had to make up a story as to why some Rambo-like men in the jungle were cutting down his guys,” Mya tossed in her two cents. “My guess is they lied to cover the fact they made a backroom deal without his knowledge.”
“Well, shit, how many enemies can we possibly rack up in one day?” At Oliver’s words, Mya turned and whacked him in the chest.
“One more now that you just jinxed us and said that.” Mya shook her head.
“Let’s just get the hell out of this jungle. I’m working on arranging a safe house, but we need to put some distance between ourselves and the cartel,” Carter said. “Ready to go?”
“I was born ready,” Oliver teased, and I knew that was to annoy Mya. Some things, even in the throes of Hell, would never change with them.
“Remind me again why I fought Gray so hard to get you on my team?” Carter with a joke? Or was he serious?
“Hey, that pissing contest over me is why you two joined forces and created Falcon Falls,” Oliver pointed out. “I’d say it worked out.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Carter grumbled. “Let’s just move out.”
I knelt alongside the bag of weapons and took two magazines for my 9mm, then Gray killed the lights on the Jeep and Tahoe. “You doing okay?” I asked him once we began walking, following the others.
