rescue mission. I looked across at Camden, dust motes dancing in the barn light that shone between us. He looked right back. We were the only people here who would risk life and limb for each other.
I was forever on his team.
“Javier has never been one for speeches,” Este said, shaking his head in amusement. “But all I’ll say is, we can get in and get out. We can make this happen. Travis Raines is ours. What he has is ours.”
“You mean Gus,” I spoke up quickly.
Javier grinned. “Gus, sure. And the cartel.”
I frowned, feeling a rush of nerves down my back. “You said you were doing this for me.”
He let out a laugh to which only Este joined in.
“Dom is doing this for you,” Javier said, gesturing to him with his gun. “And, if you’re lucky, Camden is doing this for you. Derek just wants his paycheck, the gringo doesn’t care who does what, fucks what, gets what. But me, Ellie, angel, dearest, I’m going in and I’m taking over.”
“This wasn’t supposed to be a coup,” I said.
Suddenly Javier was in my face, the veins pulsing in his head, spittle flying out of his mouth as he screamed at me, “And they weren’t supposed to kill my sister!”
Camden was at my side in a second, ready to push Javier back but the barn filled with the sound of three guns being drawn and I didn’t have to look around to know that Dom, Este and Derek all had guns trained on Camden.
The madness in Javier’s eyes was quickly reined in and he stepped back. He wiped his mouth and smiled. “As you can see, Travis has hit yet another nerve. You’ll get your Gus back, your mother back, whatever you want and whatever is left is mine. And if you step in my way, I won’t hesitate to kill you. Both of you.” He turned around and clapped his hands together, the sound giving me a jolt. “Now, let’s head off into the jungle, shall we?”
Camden and I stayed behind for a moment while they all walked out of the barn and into the last remaining sunlight. He grabbed my hand and squeezed it and I was warmed where my insides had turned cold.
“Just focus on Gus,” Camden said.
I nodded. Squeezed his hand back. And followed the drug lords out into the light.
CHAPTER NINE
The journey started off easy enough. The six of us, backpacks in tow, walked down lonely, dusty streets that wound their way through fallow fields and past shanty houses. Eventually the last signs of humanity gave way to the jungles of the Sierra de Agalta National Park, an imposing wall of vegetation and darkness.
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 cafe 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.”
