Page 9 of Last Destination

My heart squeezed at her plight. I’d felt the anguish of nearly losing Marley beneath the pull of the flood water, and that had nearly broken me. To see my lover in the same level of distress as Vanessa and then losing her?

It was unthinkable.

“I will take first watch.” Madman stood and removed his leather jacket, handing the worn, supple coat to Marley. “Use it as a pillow,” he explained when her eyes widened in surprise. He retreated to the far side of the oval, taking up residence at the base of an enormous palm.

Shaking my head and covering my mouth to hide my burgeoning grin, I waited until Marley had settled into her nook between two tree roots as wide as my torso before grabbing a seat for myself.

Madman was an outright brute, but the softest kitten in the world for our girl.

I settled into the tiny pod barely wide enough to fit my shoulders and closed my eyes. A dull ache had formed behind my temples, and a few hours rest was the prescription.

“Wake me up for the second watch, Madman.”

“Sim, Braço direito. I will wake you.”

Right-hand man. Was I translating that correctly? His glower could have incinerated my flesh to dust earlier. Had he forgiven me so quickly?

The sandy fates of sleep swept me away before I could pose the question.

“How far away are we?”

Jamie shrunk under my stare, the first time I’d looked him in the eyes since Diaz had interrupted his original explanation. The hazel I’d once drawn comfort from was tainted with red lines of exhaustion and the shadows of betrayal.

“Not far.” He dropped his gaze to the jungle floor of the sheltered nook we’d taken safe haven in last night. Madman hadn’t woken me up at all, choosing instead to share the burden of watch with Nikki and Ambrose. I’d had the best sleep in over a week.

Which still wasn’t great. The tree root I’d slept against had made a permanent groove into the base of my spine that pained me every time I twisted, which was approximately every three seconds. And the amount of bug bites along my arms and legs looked like I’d contracted chicken pox. I was now slathered in peppermint oil at Tessa’s urging, and admittedly the stings felt a little better, even if I did smell like my abuela’s cleaning solution.

Charlie snorted at my internal joke, her floating form just beyond the tree line on the other side of Ambrose’s head, and I stifled my smile as I glared at Jamie.

“Elaborate.” I tried to keep my irritation out of my tone, but I was doing a shitty job of maintaining a level head.

“I’m a pilot, not a navigator,” he gritted out, his facade of humility crumbling under the weight of our annoyance. “A few hours’ walk that way.” He pointed north and shrugged his shoulders. “I accidentally ran into a few of the cartel guides and they chased me a kilometer maybe. I saw several hundred people trekking along a path in the distance beyond their outpost. We just need to split up and sneak into the line.”

“What is the catch?” Madman’s question echoed mine, yet unvoiced. “Why do you care at all about our survival, when you cared so little about your passengers?”

Jamie shifted uncomfortably in his seat on a jutting tree root, his pants and shirt so tattered he was doing a great impression of Tom Hanks in Castaway. “I messed up,” he mumbled. “I’m trying to make amends.”

A simple sentence, yet so loaded. More than anything, I wanted to believe the soft words, but they slid down my back like water instead of penetrating my heart. My memories from the time I left home to the moment I woke up from the crash were still eluding me, but every second of our time in the jungle was an imprint on my soul I’d never forget.

“I messed up” was the most elementary explanation of the pain, and panic, the grief, and the loss his actions had put us through. Fiery anger masked my hurt and disbelief, and for a moment, I pictured myself burying him in a shallow grave.

Blinking rapidly, I shook my head to clear it.

That’s extreme, Marley. You’re not a murderer.

Charlie rose above our cohort’s heads and came to rest next to my shoulders.

“You could be, Marl. Don’t sell yourself short.” She wiggled her eyebrows mischievously. “Madman would help. He’s pretty handsome, isn’t he? You going to tap that soon?”

Nope, absolutely not. I did not need a devil on my shoulder right now. We needed a plan.

Blowing out an aggressive breath in hopes of blowing her away for a few minutes, I turned my attention back to Jamie. Swallowing my anger, I asked the most important question.

“How did you get caught?”

He held up his wrist, showing me a patch of dirty skin. “Bracelets. They put them on you to show that you’ve paid. No bracelet, no passage.”

My throat dropped into my stomach. Why should I be surprised the cartel had a system of organization like a family amusement park? They brought in hundreds of millions through the Darién. Of course they would have a way of identifying stragglers.