A wild card.
Eyes locked on Layla's, he carefully enunciated one, impassioned word, through clenched teeth. "Red."
Layla looked back down at the haphazard stack of upturned cards, then back to the single card still tightly gripped in her own hand. She furrowed her brow again, and frowned a bit, before saying, "Hmm... Red? You sure?" Layla didn't wait for a response. Instead, she simply extended her hand, as a smirk slowly crept across her blank expression, and delicately, purposefully, laid down the remaining card.
Red 4.
With mocking intensity, she sat back in her seat, waiting for her victory to sink in for James and the other student. A moment later, both of them in unison collapsed, defeated, into their own camping chairs, arranged around the makeshift, ice chest card table, groaning and throwing their own remaining cards down in not so silent rage.
"Dammit!" Becca, the girl to Layla's left, wearing a t-shirt bearing a multicolored Legend of Zelda Triforce logo, with short, brunette hair, and pronounced British accent, exclaimed, in marked frustration, "James, you are such bullshit at this... 'UUUuugh, look at me, I'm James... I got Layla all figured out!'" she repeated, in mocking condescension, before punctuating the whole thing, by muttering under her breath, "sodding idiot."
James, continuing to do his best to conceal his obvious frustration and embarrassment at his repeated miscalculation, immediately took to downplaying the tragic loss. "Look, whatever... this game's stupid, and... just... It's your turn to shuffle, anyway!" Angrily, he shoved the cards in Becca's direction, who rolled her eyes and began to shuffle the multicolored deck of cards, sighing, with a renewed sense of disinterest. Going through the motions. Something to help in passing the time, while they all just... waited.
Meanwhile, Layla, who was no longer smiling with the same smug self-satisfaction, scooped up the pile of crumpled quetzales and, standing up, made an awkward motion to leave the pair to their game. "I'm out! After all, how much more money can I take from you clowns?"
"Look, whatever... we're done with your cheating ass anyway!" James fired back, his caddy tone accentuating underlying unrest. "Lainie! You wanna deal in? We need a third!"
Upon James's invitation, a mousey, olive complected girl, peered meekly from behind thick-rimmed glasses, and a large book of Mayan folklore. "Huh?... I... uh... I've never played... before."
"It's not hard," Becca worked hard to sound supportive, though, in reality, she probably just wanted the opportunity to earn back some of the money she just lost to Layla, "don't worry, love. We'll talk you through it."
Hearing the vibrant conversation of her peers begin to fade behind her, Layla sidestepped tents and scattered packs and belongings, making her way among the glow of the small, illuminated tent city in the middle of the verdant jungle, coming to stop at her own temporary, portable dwelling. Smirking, she stuffed her modest winnings into her pack, and, with a deep and exhausted sigh, took a swig off her teal Hydro Flask, and thought about turning in for the night. The game, after all, had long since lost its appeal, anyway.
It had been like this over the past five days, for the small, rag-tag confederation of grad students, invited by Dr. Ruiz on this mysterious and ambitious archaeological excavation. His investigation into the location of a lost Mayan city. A place called Chi Ubah Kan, somewhere deep in the jungles of Northern Guatemala.
The end of another long day and tensions remained as high as ever. All would agree that perhaps they should have called it a night by now. Get some well-deserved rest and prepare for the next day. And hope against all evidence to the contrary that that new day might be any different. Though that was obviously the smarter choice to be made, nearly the entire team could instead be found gathered around the cooler, sitting in fold-out chairs, in the sharp, piercing glow of the campfire and LED lantern light. Chatting and laughing, over bottled water, Mexican Coca-Cola, and instant ramen noodles, painstakingly heated with water from the tiny shared propane camping stove. And gambling away whatever paltry foreign currency they still had on their person. The makeshift ice chest UNO tournament was championed by James, of course, who was running the table with the same voracity and showmanship as a seasoned casino dealer.
This was their daily routine. Sleeping and decompressing after sundown. Building energy to get up, and hike farther through the Guatemalan jungle, searching for an archaeological find that they all wanted their names on. A lost city, fueled by Dr. Ruiz's research, though truly, none of them even knew if it really even existed in the first place.
At first, Layla had considered herself lucky to be a part of all this. An amazing opportunity for academically. After her incredible discovery of the Hopi Pueblo site three weeks ago, Ruiz clearly saw some sort of untapped potential within her as a grad student. It genuinely caught her off guard, and she wanted to be more excited than she was, but for some reason, the whole thing made her feel... uneasy. Especially since his invitation came seemingly out of thin air. And the resentment over this fact from the rest of the team was certainly hard to miss. Nearest Layla could figure, Ruiz must have been impressed by her unique instincts on that project. Why else would he have brought her in at the last minute as he did? Of course, Layla couldn't tell him, or the rest of the team the truth of her knowledge. She couldn't tell them that what she possesses was far more than just "instinct."
They'd arrived by tiny airbus at Mundo Maya International Airport nearly a week ago, and quickly bid goodbye to civilization, trekking and camping deep into the jungle, dodging huge spiders, jaguars, and, of course, tons of snakes. Guided
