I close my eyes and listen to Alex’s heartbeat until I finally dissolve into my usual world of chaotic dreams. They are as terrifying as usual… and yet, for the first time in a long time, I feel safe… and at peace. That feeling of security will not last long, but I’m going to enjoy it while I can.
Chapter Six: Lance
“Lance, watch out!”
Alex grabs my right wrist and yanks me back, nearly causing me to topple over. I tear my arm out of his grasp and shove him in his chest.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Alex returns the shove, once again nearly knocking me flat on my ass. (The dude is stronger than he looks.)
“I just saved your life, jackass,” Alex says, his laser goggles glowing ominously.
I snort and say, “Yeah, I’d love for you to try and blast me with your lasers. It’d be the last thing you ever do, punk. And what the hell are you talking about, you saved my life?”
Alex points at a massive mound of dirt a few feet away from me. Giant ants are crawling all over it, carrying the dead carcasses of other insects.
“Those are bullet ants,” Alex says. “You don’t want to mess around with those guys. Their stings are the most painful of any insect on the planet. The reason they’re called bullet ants is because…”
“Yeah yeah, getting stung by one is like getting shot by a bullet. I’ve heard that. And I’ve been shot before, so it ain’t like it’d be anything new.”
“Oh please Lance, getting shot while wearing body armor doesn’t count,” Boom Boom says. “And quit acting like such a jerk. You should be grateful Alex pulled you out of harm’s way.”
I do a little curtsy and sarcastically say, “Oh thank you so much, your venerable highness. However will I be able to repay you?”
Jesse Hunter bursts out laughing. Cobra and Snake-Eyes chuckle as well. The others merely glare. I take it they’re not in a joking mood.
“You can start by not being such a twat,” Alex says through gritted teeth.
“Sorry, no can do,” I say pompously, spinning around and marching ahead with Jesse. “Being a twat is part of my DNA.”
I can hear Boom Boom trying to calm Alex down, but I ignore them. They’ve both been pissing me off all morning. It’s about time I returned the favor.
As we continue our odyssey into the last remnants of the world’s largest rainforest, I do my best to swat away all the bugs trying to suck my blood. I sprayed myself with so much super-strength insect repellent before we left that it pretty much drenched my skin, but it doesn’t seem to be doing a particularly good job of keeping the bugs off of me. To make matters worse, it’s so hot and muggy that I’m covered in a thick sheen of sweat. We all decided to wear our body armor in case the natives get a little trigger happy (or arrow happy, more likely), and as a result we’re trapping in a lot of body heat. Krystal actually looks like she’s about to pass out from heat stroke. Lesnar and Ax keep splashing water from their canteens in her face, but it doesn’t seem to have any effect. Krystal continues staggering around like a drunk, cursing the hot and humid air for messing up her wig.
According to the holographic clock flashing on the bottom of my visor, we’ve been hiking through the jungle for about an hour. Pitbull made us all get up bright and early to prepare for our mission. Once everyone suited up, we climbed aboard one of Pitbull’s helicopter-planes and flew deep into the jungle. We landed in a small clearing near a river bank, and we’ve been hiking ever since. According to Pitbull, the meeting place where River and Jaguar are supposedly going to hash out some sort of peace treaty is nearby. By landing a few miles from their location and hiking the rest of the way, we can sneak up on the natives and hopefully incapacitate them without too much bloodshed.
During our arduous trek through the Amazon, I’ve noticed Boom Boom and Alex acting awfully cozy with one another. They keep laughing and touching each other’s arms. Apparently they fell asleep together inside Grenade’s plane last night. Grenade was the one who found them when he went out at the crack of dawn to grab some of his cigars. I confronted Boom Boom about it before we left and she went completely ape-shit, telling me it was none of my business who she slept with. She also cussed me out for shooting up with Jesse and sleeping with her. I decided to let it go so we don’t spend the entire day arguing with each other.
I have to admit, though, last night was pretty awesome. I haven’t really had any action in a while. I more than made up for my ‘drought’ last night, though. Jesse was freaking crazy in bed. She did stuff I’d never be able to convince Boom Boom to do. Quite honestly, she might be a little too crazy for me. And I’m not just talking sexually. I quickly learned last night that Jesse’s mentally crazy. While we were shooting up and smoking, she kept talking about all the people she’s killed over the years as a gun-for-hire. I’ve killed scores of people myself, most of them scumbags who deserved their fate, but I’ve never tried to glamorize what I do. It was definitely unsettling hanging out with someone who glorifies violence and bedlam.
The thing I don’t understand is, how can such a beautiful young woman be capable of continuously expressing such vitriol? Jesse was great in bed, that’s for sure, but I could never see myself having a relationship with such an unstable, psychotic woman.
On a slightly different topic, it did feel awesome to shoot up again. For several glorious hours I was completely pain free. But now my cravings have come rushing back tenfold. I’m dying to shoot up again, but I didn’t think to bring anything with me. Besides, Boom Boom would kick my ass if she saw me with a needle. I’ll have to continue shooting up in secret so she doesn’t go off on me again.
“Goddamn, it’s hotter than the devil’s piss out here!” Krystal blurts out, snapping me out of my thoughts.
“We know, you’ve said that about ten times already,” Pitbull growls, clearly annoyed with Krytal’s incessant complaining.
Ax and Lesnar go back to splashing water on Krystal’s sweaty face.
I glance around to find Cobra and Snake-Eyes engaged in some sort of morbid conversation about who’s killed more people. (Seriously, what is up with these people and their fascination with murder?) Pitbull is directly behind me, still muttering under his breath about how annoying Krystal is. Grenade is about 20 yards ahead of us, grumbling under his breath about how much he hates Pitbull. Yang is behind Pitbull, engaged in casual conversation with her cousin, Marco. And way off in the back, clutching a machine gun, is Veil. Something about her gives me the willies. I have yet to hear her say a single word, and I have the unsettling sensation that she’s constantly staring at me. I hope we find Klaxton within the next few days. The sooner I can get away from all these creepy, blood-thirsty lunatics, the better.
Pitbull must hear Grenade grunting unflattering remarks about him, because he suddenly hollers, “Why so glum, old friend? You’ve been bitching ever since we started our hike!”
Without turning his head, Grenade growls, “I’m glum because you’re still alive… old friend.”
Grenade storms off, muttering a string of profanity the likes of which have probably never been uttered in the Amazon.
I turn to Pitbull and say, “Lay off him, will ya? He’s obviously in a foul mood.”
“It’s not my fault he’s a little bitch who can’t take a little ribbing,” Pitbull says in between gulps of a bottle of moonshine he brought along. The guy’s so hard up for liquor that he drinks while out in the field. That couldn’t possibly be a recipe for disaster.
We continue our exhausting march, slicing and dicing our way through the jungle with machetes. We come across giant snakes and spiders (a few of which Alex vaporizes with his laser goggles), more bullet ants, and a veritable sea of mosquitos. At one point I actually inhale one of the nasty things. I spend the next five minutes coughing and hacking just to make sure I don’t swallow it.
On top of all the bugs and snakes, there are also a bunch of screeching macaws and toucans, along with howler monkeys way up in the
treetops, battering our eardrums with their deafening screams. And it also starts raining… a torrential downpour that soaks us all from head to toe. It only lasts about five minutes before letting up, but the damage is done. The humidity skyrockets, resulting in Krystal complaining even more vociferously than before. It’s so hot and humid, in fact, that steam spirals up from the ground. Whoever said the Amazon is a tropical paradise was out of their fucking minds. It’s a tropical hell is what it is.
Another 20 miserable minutes later, Pitbull stops in his tracks and puts up his right hand. “We’re getting close,” he growls.
Pitbull waves his arm, releasing a robotic mosquito into the air. The mosquito flies ahead, telecasting what it sees back to our computerized visors. The mosquito buzzes through the air for about a quarter of a mile before it comes to a stop beneath several towering trees. Beneath the trees are our elusive targets. There are twelve natives, six of whom I assume belong to the Chiquito tribe and six who belong to the Ashaninka. Eleven of the scantily-clad natives are males (they’re only wearing small tattered loin cloths that do little to conceal their privates), while one is a female. I’m assuming that’s the Chiquito Chief’s daughter, River. And she is something else, let me tell you.
River is, in a word, mind-blowingly gorgeous. Her long, shimmering black hair billows in the breeze. Her skin is an almost flawless bronze, and her slender body is incredibly sculpted from a life-time of living in the jungle. The only article of clothing adorning her slim body is a skimpy skirt made of twigs and grasses. Her large, naked breasts bounce around every time she moves. Black and red war paint is streaked across her gorgeous face. It takes everything I have to tear my eyes away from her and focus on the rest of the group.
As expected, all of the natives are armed with spears and arrows. The tallest of the natives is standing directly in front of River, waving his arms and shouting. River jabs him in the chest and shouts something back.
“That’s Jaguar, the son of the Ashaninka Chief,” Pitbull says to me. “The girl is River, in case you didn’t figure that out on your own. She’s quite the looker, ain’t she?”
“That’s putting it lightly.”
“What, you think she’s pretty?” Jesse asks.
“Not as pretty as you,” I say in an attempt to keep her quiet. It apparently does the trick, as Jesse smiles and pipes down.
“Dang, some of those natives have huge dongs,” Krystal hollers.
“Krystal, please shut your damn mouth,” Pitbull growls.
Krystal responds with a one-finger salute.
“So what do we do?” I ask after we spend another few minutes staking out our targets.
“We do what we do best,” Pitbull says with a sinister smile. “We kill em.”
“Wait, what?” Boom Boom blurts out.
Pitbull sighs and says, “Trust me, girlie, they’re going to try and kill us as well. So we gotta kill them first. Except for the girl. No one hurts the girl. We’re bringing her back to the compound… for interrogation.”
“No Pitbull, we are not going to barge over there and kill a bunch of…”
Pitbull cuts Boom Boom off and shouts, “Begin the attack!”
I’m nearly knocked to the ground as Pitbull, Jesse, Yang, Marco, Cobra, Snake-Eyes, Ax, Lesnar, and Veil dash toward the unsuspecting natives. I turn to find Boom Boom watching them in stunned horror.
Alex grabs her arm and says, “You coming, Boom Boom?”
Boom Boom opens her mouth to say something, then shakes her head and follows Alex into the heat of battle. Krystal and I run after them, with Grenade bringing up the rear.
Pitbull reaches the small gathering of Amazonian natives first. Pitbull manages to smash two of the natives in the face with his bionic fists before any of them realize they’re under attack. A few arrows are fired, but none of them come close to hitting their targets. Literally within a matter of seconds all eleven of the male natives are brutally slaughtered, with machine guns, machetes, and bare fists. Pitbull slams Jaguar up against the trunk of a tree before grabbing his neck and giving it a sickening twist, effectively snapping his spine.
“Well that was easy,” Pitbull cackles, theatrically smacking his metallic hands together while standing in a growing puddle of blood.
The broken bodies of Chiquito and Ashaninka Indians are littered around our feet. Several of the natives gasp for air, choking on their own blood. Boom Boom walks up to the survivors and blast them in their foreheads, ending their misery. Her visor is shielding her eyes, but the tears trickling down her ashen cheeks betray her true feelings. She is beyond sickened by the massacre we just helped perpetrate. I feel a little sick myself. Is this really what we’ve become? Callous, merciless butchers? I could make the argument that we’re doing what needs to be done to stop a world war… to save millions of innocent civilians from a nuclear holocaust… but it would be a hollow one to make. We need to find Klaxton, and fast, before we earn ourselves a one-way trip straight to Hell.
“Wait, where’s the girl?” Pitbull shouts.
“Shit, she got away!” Jesse hollers, stating the blatantly obvious.
While everyone starts spinning around, searching for our elusive target, I hear rustling in the bushes off to my right. Without saying a word to anyone else (the last thing I want is Pitbull snapping River’s neck), I chase after the rustling noises.
I thrash my way through the brush, tripping and stumbling along the way. I can hear Pitbull and the gang off in the distance, following me. While I got a decent head-start, they’re hot on my trail. I need to find and incapacitate River before Pitbull and his blood-thirsty friends get their hands on her. The beginnings of a brilliant plan to ditch Pitbull and find Klaxton on our own starts to form in the back of my mind, but I’m going to need River’s help to pull it off. And she obviously can’t help me if Pitbull kills her.
A few minutes into the chase, I catch a glimpse of the Indian princess off in the distance. Her long black hair whips around as she weaves through a thicket of trees.
I’m running so fast that everything around me is nothing but a green blur. Because of that, I don’t see the hissing black snake slithering in front of me until it’s too late. I step on the snake’s tail, causing it to coil and lunge. The snake snaps at the heel of my boot, causing me to freak out and lose my balance. I slam into the ground and tumble down a steep hill, slamming into a couple trees along the way. I finally crash into a small bush at the bottom of the hill, causing a dozen birds to explode into the air, squawking like crazy.
I rub the back of my throbbing head and slowly stagger to my feet. I just barely turn around when someone tackles me from the slide and slams my face into a tree trunk. Stars flutter across the back of my closed eyelids. I crack open my eyes to find River’s scowling face inches from my own. I try to sit up, but a sharp blade presses against my jugular. I slam my head back against the ground so I don’t accidentally slit my own throat.
River presses the dagger ever-deeper into my skin. A trickle of blood seeps out from beneath the blade and oozes down my chest.
“Please… don’t… I can help you,” I gag as the blade continues to slowly sink into my neck.
River snarls, “I don’t need your help, infiltrator.”
River whips out another blade and holds it over my right eye socket.
“Wait, no! Don’t kill me! I can---”
I never get the chance to finish my desperate plea for mercy because Boom Boom hurtles out of seemingly nowhere and knocks River off of me. I roll off to the side and sit up, clutching my bleeding throat. From what I can tell it’s just a superficial wound. Thankfully River didn’t cut deeply enough to make the injury a fatal one. Another second or so, though, and I likely would have been a goner.
I scramble to my feet and rush over to help Boom Boom, who is furiously trading blows with River. Both of River’s daggers have been knocked out of her hands and are laying on the ground. I grab the blades and hang them from my utility belt so they c
an’t be used against us. I then lean down to help Boom Boom restrain our resilient target.
River is a lot stronger than she looks. I try to grab her wrists so Boom Boom can focus on restraining her legs, but that doesn’t exactly work out. River wrenches her right arm out of my grasp and punches Boom Boom in the nose. Boom Boom yelps and rolls onto her side, clutching her face. River follows that up by kicking me in the throat. I fall flat on my back and gasp for air as even more blood pours from my wound.
“Son of a bitch,” I curse, rolling onto my side and watching in disbelief as River leaps to her feet and takes off running into the jungle.
Thankfully she doesn’t get too far. Boom Boom pushes herself up and fires her taser directly into River’s bare backside. River falls flat on her face and convulses on the ground as a barrage of non-lethal electricity washes over her flailing body. She continues shuddering until Boom Boom makes her way over and removes the metal barbs from her back. Boom Boom quickly whips out a pair of handcuffs dangling from her utility belt and slaps them onto River’s wrists. She then pulls River up by her hair and forces her into a kneeling position.
World War Forever (Highway To Armageddon Book 2) Page 27
