The Spanish speakers glanced out the window, as well. One of them near the front of the plane said something about la casa, which I knew meant home or house.
If I’m going to be hanging out with drug-runners, I need to up my Spanish game.
Without the benefit of flight attendants or a pilot who announced anything, we had no way of knowing what it was time to sit down and fasten our seatbelts.
I didn’t know whether or not the pilot knew what had been going on back here. It could be that he was simply following his usual routine. And I’ve never been in half-snake form on a plane before, so I had no idea if it was always this difficult to stay upright when the pilot turned.
But the plane tilted hard to one side and everyone around me grabbed hold of something. The stalemate was almost instantly broken. If the pilot hadn’t done it on purpose, it was a pretty impressive feat of timing in the universe’s part.
Ron’s gaze flickered toward me, and then away again. He said a few words in Spanish, then gestured toward the coffin. One of the armed men moved over and closed the lids, locking them down—for all the good that did. I knew from being inside the casket that it wasn’t terribly airtight.
“Sorry about that,” Ron said, never exactly looking at me “I don’t think we’re going to get to the money before the Lobo takes it for himself.”
To my right, Phil was already buckling himself into his seat. “Not a chance in hell you’re going to get that money,” he said.
I still have the diamonds. Surely, I can work out some kind of negotiation deal with those.
I just didn’t know if that deal would include more than just me. No matter how much I wanted to get Baby Paige out of the country and back into the United States, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to.
“It looks like a little standoff is over,” Phil said in a deeply self-satisfied tone.
None of this was turning out the way I’d imagined it. For one thing, I had never imagined swallowing a whole bag of diamonds. I could feel it in my stomach, the serpentine part, and every time I thought about the velvet bag roiling around down there, I risked vomiting it back up.
I noticed one of the Spanish speakers sat strapped into a seat close to the casket. He wasn’t about to risk me taking the money out of Abuela when he wasn’t looking.
“Might as well take a seat, honey,” Phil said. “There’s nowhere for you to go, and we’re landing anyway.”
He was right. I had no real options at the moment. But I didn’t want to lose the strength my half-snake shape gave me, so I didn’t shift or sit. Instead, I simply stared out the window, down to the ground at the estate we circled.
La casa was more than just a house. It was an Italian-style villa, dropped into the middle of the jungle. As we circled around it, descending, I realized there were no roads in or out of the compound we were landing in. Just the house, outbuildings, and a comparatively short runway. It was like the Texas neighborhood we’d taken off from writ large—or at least picked up and transplanted directly into the jungle. Rich, isolated, and accessible by plane.
I hadn’t realized Phil was watching me until I heard his malicious laugh. “Just figured out you can’t get out of here, didn’t you?”
I didn’t answer, instead choosing to examine what I could see of the facility as we descended. The closer we got to touching down, the more interested I became in where we were landing.
Phil didn’t seem bothered by my lack of response. “Doesn’t matter how much you look. There’s nowhere to go down there but out to the jungle. You’re as trapped in La Casa as you are on the plane.”
I didn’t point out to him that I actually had a form that would be perfectly comfortable in the jungle. My problem with it, of course, was that I wanted to get home to my friends and family. My parents would be beside themselves if I disappeared and never returned.
There was more to it, too. If I spent too much time in my serpentine form, I began to lose my human self. I didn’t think it would take very long to forget language altogether. I wasn’t sure that wasn’t what had happened when I was young—I didn’t speak when I first shifted around my parents. And for all I know, I had shifted into my snake form and taken off into the desert from where I’d been with my birth family. I would not have turned back into my human form if it wasn’t safe to do so. There was no telling how long I had been out there when Daddy found me.
I looked down at the jungle again. We had been flying for hours. Not a long distance for flight, but on the ground? It would take me an eternity to make my way back home.
God. No wonder Phil hadn’t looked at all concerned at any point, even when I swallowed his damn diamonds. He knew where we were headed, and that there was no way for me to get out of here without help.
I was still trapped.
Chapter 12
Unlike all the people in their full human forms, I didn’t even take a seat as we landed. Instead, I again coiled my tail around the seats and held on.
All the way down, I fantasized about the possibility of simply using my tail to rip the money out of Abuela. But I couldn’t imagine it doing it—not really. The thought of tearing open the chest of the woman who wore a pendant of someone just like me made my own chest
