But the thing that hurts the most is the fact that Boom Boom hates my guts. And I can’t blame her. I should have had her back. I mean, what the hell am I thinking? What the hell am I doing? There’s so much crazy shit going on… everything’s so confusing… and my mind and body is under a constant onslaught of physical and emotional pain…. I’ve never been suicidal before, but I’m starting to see the allure of shooting myself in the head. Now I know why some people do it. Life just gets too crazy and fucked up sometimes.
My right hand slowly drifts down toward my utility belt. My fingertips touch the trigger of my handgun. It would be easy. It would be quick.
I immediately jerk my hand away. I can’t believe I’m seriously considering this. This isn’t me. It must be the drugs… or the lack thereof. What I wouldn’t do for a needle and some heroin. Just one little hit is all I need. Anything to make this pain go away.
“AHHHHHHHH!!!”
I thrash around on my bed of grass and straw. My head feels like it’s being squeezed on all sides. My throat feels constricted. Am I dying? Maybe I won’t have to kill myself. Maybe my body will do that for me. Maybe…
“Lance?”
I crack open my eyes and look up. River enters the hut and shuts the door. The hut is comprised entirely of thatched straw, and there are a few cracks and holes that reveal the outside world. But this is as private a place as you’ll find in the Chiquito village. At least we’re not being forced to share a hut with a bunch of other people like most of the natives.
“Hey River,” I say, rubbing my eyes.
River walks over to me and crosses her arms. My wandering eyes can’t help but glance at her beautiful breasts. Like most of the women in the village, River is still walking around topless. I heartily approve of the Chiquito’s carefree attitude toward nudity.
“I think I should be the one asking if you’re alright,” River says. “I heard you scream while I was talking to my father.”
I wave her off. “I… I’m fine. I’m just a little beat up is all.”
River sighs and sits down next to me. “We’re all a little beat up.”
I grab River’s hand and say, “So how did it go with your dad?”
Right as we were leaving our meeting with Klaxton and Grenade, Thiago called River over, looking none-too-pleased. River sent me to her hut so she could talk to him in private. She’s been talking to him for about an hour. Meanwhile I’ve been sprawled out on this bed, clutching my pounding head and feeling sorry for myself.
River rolls her eyes and says, “My father felt the need to give me a ‘talking to’ for disobeying his orders and going out on my own to secure a peace treaty with the Ashaninka. And he was absolutely right to be furious. It was stupid of me to think I could make peace all by myself.”
I cup River’s small chin in my hand, forcing her to look up. Her big, brown eyes are shimmering with tears.
“I don’t think it was stupid. You can’t make peace by sitting on the sidelines. You took action, and that takes a lot of courage.”
River smiles as she blinks away her tears. “Thanks, Lance. You really know how to make a girl feel special.”
I lean toward River and quietly say, “You are so beautiful. I really want to kiss you right now.”
River grins and replies, “Well quit talking about it and fucking do it.”
I do just that, pressing my lips against hers. I rub my hands up and down her naked backside while she clutches the back of my head, running her fingers through my hair. We kiss for several minutes, even slipping the tongue a couple times.
River finally comes up for air, gasping heavily.
“That was hot,” she says, running her hands over my face and chest.
“Fuck yeah it was,” I say with a laugh. “Speaking of hot, I’m hot as hell. Like literally hot. It’s so warm and humid in here.”
“Well we are in the rainforest, genius,” River says. “Take off your clothes.”
“If you insist,” I say, tearing off my shirt and tossing it off to the side, where my body armor is already piled up.
I remove my utility belt and toss that off to the side as well. River impatiently pulls down my pants. Her eyes widen in delight when she catches sight of my fully nude body.
“Wow, nice package,” she says, rubbing her hand against my exposed crotch.
“Don’t stop rubbing,” I say as we lean back in for another kiss.
I sprawl back down on the grass bed while River lays on top of me, caressing my naked chest with one hand while stroking my dick with her other. I arch my neck and roll my eyes into the back of my head. I didn’t think anything could blunt all the emotional and physical trauma I’ve endured over the past few days, but River is doing an awesome job of making me forget all my troubles.
A crack of thunder vibrates the hut. Raindrops start splattering on the thatched roof. Some of the rain trickles into the hut and puddles up in the back. A few freaky looking bugs scuttle into the hut to escape the rain. But they stay away from us, so I don’t feel the need to squash them. I close my eyes again and enjoy the explosion of pleasure rippling throughout my bruised and battered body.
“You are so freaking sexy,” River whispers as she nibbles my ear. “You’ve got the hardest abs I’ve ever seen.”
“That’s what happens when you’re constantly running around trying not to get killed,” I say as I gaze at River’s breasts, which are dangling right in front of my face. I glance down and see that she’s removed her grass skirt. She has just the right amount of hair ‘down there’, while the rest of her body is completely smooth. Boy have I hit the jackpot.
I lift my head and kiss River’s breasts. She seems to enjoy this, as she throws her head back and moans.
River glides down my body and starts sucking me off. If I was feeling awesome before, that’s nothing compared to what I’m feeling now. My head starts to spin and I actually see stars.
“Wow,” I gasp, arching my back. “Just, wow.”
A few minutes later River grabs my dick and slides it inside of her. Wave after crashing wave of ecstasy washes over me as River gyrates back and forth, clutching my chest with her hands while her breasts bounce rhythmically. With the soothing patter-patter sound of the raindrops hitting the rooftop, interspersed with the occasional crack of thunder, I feel like I’ve entered a magical paradise that I never, ever want to leave.
After River rides me for a few minutes, I writhe around in eager anticipation. I’ve held out as long as I can, but I’m on the verge of ‘letting go’. I grab River’s sweaty hips and give one final thrust. I moan in orgasmic ecstasy as the greatest feeling in the world washes over my broken body. My eyelids flutter as River slides off of me and collapses into my arms.
Brushing her hair out of her eyes, I say, “That was awesome. I really, really needed that.”
River laughs and says, “So did I.”
River reaches down and grabs my crotch again.
I squirm on the bed and say, “I could probably go for another round. Just give me a minute to recoup.”
“Well hurry up,” River says, still groping me.
I press my lips against River’s and we start making out again. A few minutes later, however, we’re interrupted by a thunderous BOOM!
“Was that… was that thunder?” River says, squinting toward the cracks in our door.
“I don’t think so,” I say, reaching for my utility belt.
My suspicions are confirmed when the unmistakable sound of machine gunfire erupts off in the distance.
“Shit, we’re under attack,” I curse, leaping to my feet and gathering up my clothes and body armor. I put everything on, including my electric glove, and wrap my utility belt around my waist. River grabs her skirt and throws it on before withdrawing a dagger.
I hold out my hand and say, “No, stay here. I’ll check it out.”
River brushes my hand aside and says, “This is my village, Lance. These are my people. Besides, I think I showed yo
u how tough I can be when we escaped Ramirez’s compound. With all due respect, can the chivalry.”
I heave a heavy sigh and hand River one of my handguns. “Well at least defend yourself properly.”
River grabs the gun and cocks it. “Thanks. Now let’s go.”
River and I rush out of the hut and enter a horrifying world of chaos, death, and destruction. Gunfire and grenade explosions erupt all around us. Dozens of heavily-armed American soldiers have started spilling into the village, mercilessly gunning down half-naked Chiquito men, women, and children, most of whom have just staggered out of their huts, rubbing the sleep out of their eyes. Several of the huts on the outer perimeter of the village are in flames. I hear agonizing screams from within. Some of the Chiquito are being burned alive. Thankfully some of the older male Chiquito tribesmen have started fighting back. A few of them are wielding the advanced weaponry they used to liberate us from Ramirez’s compound, but the overwhelming majority are simply throwing sharpened spears and firing unrelenting volleys of arrows into the soldiers’ midst. Unfortunately, their primitive weapons are no match for the American Military. Chiquito corpses begin littering the landscape.
“No,” River says in a whisper, nearly slipping in the mud. By now the rain is coming down in buckets, transforming the ground into a shallow swamp and making it hard to see. So much rain is falling from the heavens, in fact, that when I open my mouth I feel like I’m about to drown.
Grenade bursts out of a nearby hut, clutching a machine gun and cursing under his breath. Krystal and Klaxton join us a few seconds later, also armed with machine guns.
“These assholes are fucking with the wrong people,” Grenade growls, firing a burst of automatic gunfire at the advancing soldiers. Three of the soldiers fall to the ground, blood gushing out of their necks and faces, while a bunch of others fall back. Several enraged natives chase after them, firing arrows into the back of their skulls.
Thiago rushes out of his hut, clutching nothing more than a spear. He looks around at his inflamed village and unleashes a feral roar, akin to a mother bear grieving the loss of her cubs.
“Father…,” River says, staggering toward him.
Thiago ignores her and dashes toward a soldier who has just emerged from some nearby bushes. The soldier guns down an innocent boy who had been attempting to run away. By the time the soldier turns to face Thiago, a spear is already being plunged into his stomach.
The soldier cries out as Thiago punches the soldier in the face. He then unsheathes a dagger and starts hacking away at the soldier’s face. The soldier’s piercing screams are drowned out by the dying screams of dozens of Chiquito and cracks of thunder.
Thiago is still slicing away at the soldier when another American troop rushes up behind him and blasts him point-black in the back of the head. Thiago falls to the ground, his brains spilling out of his skull.
“NOOOOO!!!” River shrieks in despair, tears spilling down his cheeks. “YOU FUCKING BASTARD!!!”
River charges toward the soldier. I holler for her to stop, but she ignores me, just like her father ignored her. The soldier turns around and starts to raise his gun, but he never gets the opportunity to pull the trigger. River fires three shots from her handgun, two of which slam into the soldier’s left eye socket and the bridge of his nose. The soldier falls back, blood gushing out of his fatal head wounds.
River collapses beside the corpse of her father and bawls her eyes out. I run over and kneel down beside her, wrapping my arm around her shoulder.
“I’m so sorry, River,” I say, blinking away my own tears.
River lowers her head between her knees and sobs, “I can’t believe he’s gone, Lance. He was all the family I had.”
I open my mouth to offer words of comfort, but none come out. I have no idea what to say. So I simply hold her. That’s the only comfort I can offer.
Gunfire continues to erupt all around us. Howler monkeys scream and macaws and toucans squawk as gunfire rips into their homes in the treetops. Helicopters and flying cars zoom overhead, announcing the arrival of even more American soldiers. I’m not sure how they found us. Someone must have tipped them off, meaning we have a traitor in our midst.
Grenade, Krystal and Klaxton join us a few seconds later.
Grenade grabs River by the arm and gruffly says, “Come on, we need to get out of here.”
River yanks her arm out of Grenade’s grasp and shouts, “What do you mean? We can’t leave my people! They’re being massacred!”
“Exactly. And if we stick around, we’re going to get massacred, too,” Grenade says impatiently. “I’m sorry about your dad, I truly am. But he wouldn’t want you standing around crying, waiting for some American soldier to finish you off. He would want you to retreat and live to fight another day.”
I shove Grenade in the chest. “Wait a minute… where the hell are you wanting to go? We don’t even know where Boom Boom is!”
“We need to get to my underground compound,” Klaxton says with a sense of urgency. “It’s only a few miles upstream. There’s a flying car behind my hut, we can use that to get there.”
“Why the hell would we go to your compound?” I shout. “You want us to hide out there while this village is razed to the ground?”
“No you idiot,” Klaxton snarls, like I’m some dimwitted child. “We’re going there so we can hop into a helicopter-plane and fly to D.C. That should be our number one priority. None of this other shit matters.”
River shoves Klaxton and screams into her face, “It matters to me!”
Klaxton shoves River back and snarls, “Don’t push me, girl. You don’t know who the fuck you’re messing with.”
Grenade steps in between River and Klaxton before they come to blows.
“Knock it off, both of you,” he growls. “We’ve got enough people trying to kill us. We don’t need to start trying to kill each other. Now River, I know you’ve suffered a horrific loss. We all have. Your father was a good, decent, honorable man. But he wouldn’t want any of us suffering his fate. And we’re all gonna fucking die if we stay here. There’s no way we can take on the United States Military all by our lonesome. Our best option for survival is to fall back to Klaxton’s compound and fly back to the States. If we can help Klaxton reclaim her presidency, she will be able to protect your people, like she did before. But we have to leave, now!”
“But if we leave my people to death and torment, there will be no one left to protect!” River says angrily.
“Let’s hope that some of your people manage to escape,” Greande says with a tinge of anxiety in his voice, glancing over his shoulder to make sure no other troops are about to ambush us. “As much as I hate to admit this, there’s not much we can do. If we stay, then we all die. It’s as simple as that. Now let’s go!”
Grenade grabs River’s arm and starts dragging her toward Klaxton’s flying car.
“Wait, we can’t leave without Boom Boom!” I shout.
Grenade skids to a halt, nearly slipping in the mud. He turns to me and thunders, “Goddamn it, Lance, we don’t have time for this bullshit! We need to fucking go!!”
Krystal marches over to Grenade and jabs him in his chest. “What the hell’s wrong with you?! You’re acting like Boom Boom is some random chick we just met a few hours ago. She’s our friend! We can’t just leave her here!”
Grenade grinds his teeth. “I know she’s our friend. But we don’t know where she’s at. If we did we could try and find her, but…”
“No, absolutely not,” Klaxton butts in. “That red-headed bitch made her choice. She took off with that Hispanic boy and left us high and dry. It’s about time we returned the favor.”
Now Krystal focuses her wrath on Klaxton. Jabbing her in the chest, she says, “You have no idea how close I came to busting a cap in your ass when I first saw you. You keep running your mouth about my friend like that, I might just go ahead and do it.”
Krystal and Klaxton both start shouting at each oth
er. Then River and I start shouting at Grenade. Our chaotic group argument comes to a screeching halt a few seconds later when a flying car lands about 100 feet away from us and several familiar faces hop out.
World War Forever (Highway To Armageddon Book 2) Page 42
