by Karina Halle
We paused right before the foliage swallowed us, hesitating before the belly of the beast.
I looked up at the sky, now bruised purple from the twilight. “Are you sure we shouldn’t camp out here for now?” I said, my arm sweeping out the valley below us. “You know, while there’s still light and shit.”
“I never thought you’d be afraid of a little jungle,” Javier said, though his tone was flat. “We’re moving through the night.” He brought out a flashlight from his pocket and flicked it on. He looked at Este who had his iPad raised up to his eyes. “How’s your battery on that thing?”
Este smiled. “It’ll last throughout the night until I can get the sun to charge it tomorrow. I have my compass just in case anything goes wrong. We’re good.”
Javier slid a formidable machete out of his backpack and toyed with his grip on the handle. “Very well. I’ll clear our path when needed. You just tell me where to go.”
Este nodded. “Shouldn’t be a problem at this level. Just head straight for a few kilometers. I’ll correct us along the way.”
Oh, just for a few kilometers. I looked up at Camden. He was looking uneasy, his jaw tense, his lips rubbing against each other, calculating something. Possibly our demise.
Javier disappeared into the trees until I could only see his flashlight and the glow from Este’s iPad. Dom followed behind them. I expected Derek to go next but he only nudged Camden with the butt of his rifle that he always had out, nodding ahead.
“I’m covering you,” he said, his voice raspy like he’d blown out his vocal chords at some point in his life. His eyes were dead, emotionless, and even though I thought I’d feel some sort of camaraderie for the man since he was American and young, there was nothing. This man felt nothing for anyone, especially not Camden and I. We weren’t the ones paying him. If anything, he was here to watch us, to keep us in line.
Camden hesitated, wrestling with the silence, before he grunted and walked ahead of me, following Dom. I guess he didn’t like the idea of having Derek behind us. It made us feel more like we were prisoners, not cohorts.
Even with flashlights in our hands, the jungle was a terrifying place. We were lucky that the trees weren’t too close together and the ground underneath was dry, but the occasional root would still try and fuck you up, a branch sometimes came down too low and got you in the forehead. Not to mention the countless spiderwebs I could feel trailing past my arms. I wasn’t a wuss over many things but it had me walking right up behind Camden, cowering behind his tall and wide frame to shield me from the insects that I could only imagine were in a jungle like this.
We walked and walked and walked until I started feeling delirious from the dizzying darkness, that claustrophobia of never knowing what was out there. You could hear the occasional slice of Javier’s machete as he cut through something and Dom and Este were talking in Spanish. We were all getting farther and farther apart, especially Camden and I as we grew tired, our legs slowing.
“Want me to carry you?” Camden asked me. Though the idea of me getting a piggyback ride made me smile, I told him I was okay. I was just getting sleepy, that was the problem. An energy drink would have gone a long way.
I decided to pester Derek with questions instead, to keep my mind engaged.
I looked behind him, seeing only his flashlight and asked, “So, Derek. Where did you grow up?”
You know, like we were chatting at a café or something.
He didn’t say anything at first. I could only hear the crunch of dirt and leaves below our feet. Then he cleared his throat and in that raw voice of his, said, “Minnesota. Small town.”
“You must have been a hockey fan.”
“Yeah,” he said with surprise. “Though who isn’t?”
“You’re built like you play hockey,” I commented, hoping my compliments would get him to relax a little.
“Built to fuck people up,” he answered.
“Well, that’s pretty much the same thing, isn’t it?” I made sure he could hear the smile in my voice. It didn’t work.
“Hockey is child’s play,” he said sternly.
I made a small noise of agreement, not sure what else to say.
We trudged along in the dark, in the silence punctuated by wild animal calls. Shivers stroked along the ridges of my spine.
Then, Derek said, “Tell me about Gus. The man you mentioned.”
I wasn’t sure why he needed the information. Maybe it would help him pick better tactics going in. Maybe he felt bad and was trying to make conversation. But I needed to talk about Gus. To talk about him was to keep him alive, keep him as my goal. The further we got into the depths of the night, the more the goal seemed to be pointless. I couldn’t let that happen.
“Gus is like … a father to me.” The realization that my own father had died slammed into my gut, making my words that much more meaningful. With my own father dead, Gus really was the only family I had left. “He was friends with my parents for a long time, he’d always been around. He was like … one of the few constants in my life.”
“What did he do?”
“He worked for the LAPD as an officer. Retired early. Maybe he was discharged, he doesn’t really talk about it. He started providing false identities to people who needed it.”
“People like you. Con artists.”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“I’ve read all your files.”
I nearly stopped in my tracks and Derek’s arm swung into my back. I stumbled but kept walking, flabbergasted and horrified.
“You’ve read our files?”
“Even mine?” Camden asked from in front of me.
“Everyone’s,” Derek repeated. “Cartels are thorough.”
“Then why do you want to know about Gus if you already know this stuff?”
“Because it’s good to hear it from you. I need to know how involved you are and what you are willing to do when things get bad.”
My throat tickled.
He went on, “Will you risk your life for Gus?”
I hadn’t seen Gus for years. But he’d been there for me when no one else was. And he’d come all the way with Camden to save me, to bring me home. He gave his life for mine by doing that. There’s no way I wouldn’t do the same for him.
“There are very few people in this world who will go out of their way to save someone else,” I told him. “Gus was one of those people. Camden is the other. I’d do anything for both of them.”
I felt Camden hesitate as he walked, his head turning to look at me. I was grateful for the darkness, that he couldn’t see my face or the heat on my cheeks. Still, after what I’d said yesterday, this was nothing.
“I see,” Derek said. “And your mother? Who may or may not be considered a hostage at this point.”
“What about her?”
“Would you do anything for her? Would you risk your life to save hers?”
I wish the first thought that entered my head was yes. I wish I didn’t have to think about it, to weigh it, to wrestle with it. Because I honestly didn’t know. Would I give up my mother to save Camden and Gus? Yes. I would. I was a horrible daughter, I know that, just to even think it, but it was the truth. Would I save my mother if it meant I’d die in the process? That … I didn’t know. I just didn’t.
I hated how that made me feel.
Like I had no humanity left. That I wasn’t as selfless as I tried to be.
When it came to me or her, I had no idea how that would play out.
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I guess I’ll have to find out.” I licked my lips and felt the need to explain. “My mother and I weren’t very close, she–”
“I read her files,” Derek said. “I know the story.”
“Right,” I said, wrapping hands around the straps on my backpack, trying to ease the pressure off my shoulders.
“Why do you need to know all of this again?” Camden asked, a thread of tension in his voice.
“Because
I never enter anything until I know everything about the people involved.”
“So you must know everything about Travis,” I said as I nearly stumbled over a rock.
Camden’s arm shot out and steadied me.
“I do,” said Derek.
“Enough to help Javier take over his cartel?” I asked.
“I guess we’ll have to find out,” was his answer. “Javier is all about expansion.”
“I heard my name back there,” Javier voice rang through the darkness, rattling me to the bone. “How about you three pick up the pace a little. Derek, I’m not paying your gringo ass to have conversations and plod along like a bunch of burros. This is Mexico, not Afghanistan, you should know that.”
Derek sucked in his breath sharply but said nothing. I could feel the tension rolling off of him like waves of heat at my back. Apparently Javier got under his skin as well.
Derek stuck the butt of his gun into my lower back, this time on purpose. “Better get a move on.”
We marched on.
Much as you’d imagine, the Honduran jungle is a brutal place to try and get a good night’s rest. We stopped on a plateau of sorts where the trees opened up a bit and the ground was more level. None of us had packed for a camping session and Javier and his men were treating the outing like sleep was a luxury for the benefit of Camden and I. All we had were a few tarps that the men had laid out on the uneven ground and that was it.
“Shouldn’t we be worried about things coming to kill us in the night?” I asked them as we stood around the makeshift sleeping area that was nestled between three trees. Their bark glistened eerily under the glow of my flashlight.
“Are you talking about Travis or something else?” Este asked as he settled onto the ground, his scarred face lit up by his ever-present iPad.
“Well, now I’m talking about both,” I said.
He laughed. “I’ve been watching him through satellite from time to time. His men don’t come out this far. In fact they rarely patrol the area outside of the compound but now, well, if he thinks you’re coming, that might be a different case. Still, we’re good. As long as we stay low, don’t light any fires and refrain from shooting anything,” he gave a pointed glance at Derek, “we should be bueno, hey.”
“And aside from Travis?”
Este exchanged a look with Dom, who tugged at his shirt collar. “There are a few poisonous snakes, spiders … frogs,” he said slowly. “The worst of all are the bullet ants – most powerful sting in the world. Rumor has it that Travis has been using them now as ways of torture. Seems acid no longer cuts it for him.”
“Figures,” Javier muttered under his breath as he sat up against a tree. He gave Camden and I a funny look. “Well are you two going to try and get some sleep or stand there like a bunch of monkeys?”
Fuck you, I thought. But if I said it, I knew what he would say in response and I did not want to go there, not after what had happened between Camden and I.
God, what I would do to get him alone again. The things I wanted to say. Maybe without crying like a fool this time.
“Come on,” Camden said, gently grabbing my wrist for a moment before walking over to the other tree, the one furthest from Javier. He sat down, his back to it, and motioned for me to come sit between his legs.
I could feel Javier’s eyes on me as I walked across the tarp and sat down, Camden’s knees on either side of me. He wrapped his arm around my chest and pulled me close to him, the small of my back pressed against his crotch, the back of my head against his chest, hot, sweaty, breathing steadily. All man, all this very protective man. The warmth and strength of his arms encasing made me feel like I was being wrapped in a cocoon, a security blanket for the night.
“Good night,” he whispered softly into my ear, his lips brushing against my lobe.
I squeezed his forearm in response, so grateful for him, so damn grateful.
“Sleep well, lovebirds,” Javier said, his cynical voice echoing into the night.
I woke up to my arm being tickled.
I opened my eyes and in the grey dimness of the morning light, saw a giant black spider crawling slowly up my arm. I immediately cried out and jumped back, brushing the spider off of me, feeling waves of revulsion and a million little spider legs cover me from head to toe, my body turning it into something more than it was. Like a panic attack, the feeling was impossible to stop and I shook my body vigorously, swatting at nothing.
It was only then that I realized I was completely alone.
The tarps were all gone. Everyone was gone.
Even Camden.
Holy fuck.
The jungle started spinning around me and I saw nothing but madness in the never-ending trees, faces made out of foliage, darkness in the limbs.
What the hell happened?
“Camden?” I cried out. “Camden!”
No, no, no. He couldn’t have left me alone.
I started running around where we had slept until I found my backpack, the contents strewn across the leaf-covered forest floor. Sweat poured down my face, stinging my eyes, as I knelt down and frantically sorted through everything. My other gun was still there, my fake IDs, my passports, everything I didn’t want to leave behind in the Escalade. Whoever raided my stuff had left me everything. Why?
I needed to think. I screamed for Camden again and again, then tried everyone else’s names. I screamed until my throat was sore and I realized that I needed to shut up. If something had happened to everyone, if I was let go or missed for some reason, I was only making things worse, only calling attention to myself.
I branched out in a small radius from our sleeping area, going around the trees and then around the next ring of trees, always keeping my backpack, which I had placed in the middle of the trees, in my sight. Eventually, a yard or two out, I found the tarp. Shredded into bits. Blood on it.
Shit, oh fucking shit.
I dropped to my knees, feeling absolutely powerless. I was alone in the middle of the Honduran jungle, halfway between nowhere and Travis’s compound. I had nobody. Something had happened to them and more than that, Camden, my beautiful Camden, was gone. The last thing I remembered was his arms around me as I fell asleep. How could I have gone from that to this?
I wanted to cry. I wanted to crawl up against the hollow of a tree and close my eyes and let the animals take me away into the night. After so much, after so long, I wanted to give up.
But Gus was still out there. My mother too. There were people facing a much worse fate than this. I was able. I was willing. I would get them.
I took in a deep breath and dropped the bloody tarp from my hands and walked over to my backpack. I took a swig of water from the Camelback that was inside, shoved a tasteless portion of an energy bar in my mouth, then put the pack on my shoulders. I brought out the compass that Este had given everyone and started walking in the direction that we were originally headed. I wasn’t the best at reading trails but I would do the best I could, to find out where they went and if they were going to the place I both hoped and feared they were.
I made it about three minutes before I heard a bunch of macaw parrots squawk above me and fly across the canopy. Then the jungle went eerily silent.
Soon, I was running before I even knew what was happening.
I kept going, leaping over tree roots, maneuvering around rocks, keeping my legs and arms pumping as fast as I could. Breathe in, breathe out, keep going.
I ran until I collided into what I thought was a tree.
It wasn’t.
Hands dug into my upper arms.
I screamed.
“Ellie!” Camden exclaimed.
I stopped trying to fight him, to get away and looked up at the man who held me there, in the middle of the forest floor. It was Camden. His head was bleeding from a gash in the middle of his forehead, running red into his eyes, but it was him.
“Oh thank god!” I cried out and immediately wrapped my arms around his middle, holding him to m
e. “Camden, Camden, what happened?”
“I don’t know,” he said. I could feel him shake his head against me. He held me for a minute, our breath slowing down together until we were breathing as one. Then he pulled away, holding me at arm’s length and peered at me. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine!” I cried out. “Except for waking up alone and thinking you were dead! I found the tarp, it’s all ripped and there’s blood, Camden, oh what the fuck happened? Why was I left behind?”
“I don’t know,” he said, his forehead scrunching, which then brought out a wince of pain from him. “I don’t know what … they came in the morning. Maybe an hour ago? It wasn’t light out yet but birds, birds were singing. I heard someone yell something. You were sleeping … I got up and I could see these men walking around but without my glasses and in the dark I couldn’t make them out. Next thing I know I was hit over the head with something and dragged into the jungle. I wasn’t unconscious but I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t move. I don’t know if I was drugged or what. Then, they started yelling at each other.”
“Did you recognize the voices?”
“I think so. I thought I heard Derek. He was pleading something, arguing. In Spanish. Like he was begging for his life. Or my life. I don’t know. Then they dropped me and I guess I passed out until I heard your voice.” He put his hand to my cheek and rubbed his thumb along my cheekbone.
“What do we do now?”
“What else can we do?”
“We don’t even know where Gus is.”
He stepped back and lightly touched his fingers to the gash on his forehead, wincing at the touch. He pulled his hand away and admired the shiny smear of blood. “We have the compasses that Este gave us. Last night, as we were falling asleep, as I pretended to be asleep, I heard Esteban tell Javier that it was less than a day’s walk from where we camped. That it was roughly northeast where we needed to go and that we would know it once we started seeing signs warning about poachers. Apparently Travis’s compound is in the middle of a reserve. Course you wouldn’t know it because I assume he bribes the hell out of the government. Fucking fingers in every fucking pie.”
