100 Hours
Page 25
Indiana and Domenica drag a fallen log through the mud toward me, and my friends all gather around, pulling food and half-empty bottles of water from their bags.
I’m starving, yet already sick of tuna and protein bars, so I trade Indiana one packet of lemon-pepper flavored tuna and twelve soggy crackers for (approximately) two tablespoons of peanut butter and an oatmeal cream pie.
What I wouldn’t give for a ramekin full of crème brûlée. Or even just a turkey sandwich.
“So?” Rain drips on Penelope’s unopened gourmet PowerBar. Her focus follows mine to where our captors have split in two cliques—one surrounding Sebastián, the other seated around Silvana. “What’s the plan?” Her lip quivers. “Are we just going to wait to be ransomed?”
“No.” Holden takes the spot next to her on the log. “I saw Sebastián with a satellite phone, but they haven’t called in any demands yet.” He rests his hand awkwardly on his own leg. As if he wants to pull Pen into a hug, but knows that if he touches her, he’ll have more to fear than our kidnappers. “We’re not going to be ransomed any time soon.”
“That can’t be good,” Domenica whispers.
No, it can’t. It means this is about more than ransom money. It means they’re prepared to hold us for a long time. It means they don’t have to keep all of us alive to get whatever it is that they want.
I give her a steady, confident look as I shield my face from the last patters of rain with one hand. “It just means they’re waiting until they get to their base of operations to figure out who to call and what to ask for.”
Holden rips open a bag of peanuts with more force than necessary. “What it means is that this isn’t going to end any time soon unless we end it.”
38.75 HOURS EARLIER
MADDIE
I collapse on the wet ground, panting. A leaf sticks to my cheek. Grass clings to my soaked clothes. My elbow throbs. My shin is scraped raw. My limbs weigh a hundred pounds each. But I am alive, and only slightly woozy from insulin deficiency.
Insulin . . .
Groaning, I push myself up and lift my shirt to check my pump. My shoulders sag with relief. Still working. Nothing else matters.
Nothing but getting back to my brother.
I scrub my hands over my face. Think!
We couldn’t have hiked more than an hour west of the bunkhouse, and the river carried me southeast. Ryan can’t be more than an hour’s hike north.
North-ish, at least.
I stumble in what I hope is the right direction, grabbing branches and roots to haul myself up muddy inclines. Pushing farther and farther to the northeast.
Closer and closer to my brother.
“Please be alive.”
Tears blur the jungle. My boot catches on something and I slam into the ground. I push myself up again, and now I am running.
Branches slap my face. Thorns catch my clothes.
I keep running.
GENESIS
“With Moisés gone, there are six of us, and six of them.” Holden tears open a package of salted almonds as he walks, and several of them fall onto the trail. “The odds are even.” “Guns tip the scale in their favor,” Indiana points out as he steps over a mud puddle.
Holden shrugs. “So we take a couple of them.”
“Brilliant.” I have to fight not to roll my eyes. “I mean, surely they’ll just hand over their weapons if we ask nicely.”
Holden’s gaze hardens. “I’ve seen you talk your way past club security with nothing more than a low-cut blouse. Hell, you got us a private tour of the park by making out with Nico.” He shoots a glance at Indiana, clearly hoping for a reaction, but Indiana is immune to drama, and that only makes Holden angrier. “Surely you could use your superpowers for good this time. Distract a couple of the guards long enough for us to get their guns.”
My face flushes, then my embarrassment flares into white-hot anger over his hypocrisy. I glance pointedly from Holden to Penelope, then back, and Pen flinches. But I don’t call them out on their betrayal, because unlike my hot-tempered boyfriend, I don’t need to throw a fit to make a point.
Instead, I call his bullshit.
“Let me get this straight. You want me to take not one, but two of those gunmen into the brush and get naked with them so you can try to take their guns?”
Holden’s gaze takes on a cruel glint. “You’d do it eventually, so why not now?” He’s trying to make me lash out at him, to prove that my temper’s as volatile as his. That I have no more self-control than he has. “You kind of owe it to me.”
“Hey, man.” Indiana tries to step between us on the trail. “That’s not—”
“I owe it to you?” I cut Indiana off, because I don’t want him drawn into the muck that is me and Holden.
“To all of us.” Words fall out of Holden’s mouth so fast I can hardly follow them. “You’re the reason we’re here. Genesis says jump, and we all launch ourselves at the sky. Genesis says hike into the jungle, and we all stock up on bug spray.” He jumps down a small incline, where water has washed earth from beneath a large tree root, then turns to glare at me. “If it were up to me, we’d be partying on the beach in Cartagena right now.” His whispered tirade takes on a fiercer, colder tone, and spittle flies from his mouth with each syllable. “This is your fault, so you’re going to take off whatever you have to take off to keep those jungle savages occupied!”
Domenica flinches.
Penelope lays one hand on his arm. As if just touching him could calm him down.
“Okay, that’s more than enough out of you.” Indiana swings himself over the exposed root and lands in the mud in front of Holden, fists clenched.
Silvana notices the conflict, and pulls a huge knife from a sheath at her waist. “Shut up and get moving,” she says, pointing the knife at each of them in turn. “Or one of you will lose a finger.”
Indiana turns and offers me a hand over the root, but the tension still feels thicker than the oppressive jungle air.
“Okay, offensive slut-shaming and pimping aside, this isn’t a cartoon, Holden,” I snap softly, determined to bring his reckless plan to a screeching halt. “I’m not wearing my Kevlar lingerie.”
I’m starving, yet already sick of tuna and protein bars, so I trade Indiana one packet of lemon-pepper flavored tuna and twelve soggy crackers for (approximately) two tablespoons of peanut butter and an oatmeal cream pie.
What I wouldn’t give for a ramekin full of crème brûlée. Or even just a turkey sandwich.
“So?” Rain drips on Penelope’s unopened gourmet PowerBar. Her focus follows mine to where our captors have split in two cliques—one surrounding Sebastián, the other seated around Silvana. “What’s the plan?” Her lip quivers. “Are we just going to wait to be ransomed?”
“No.” Holden takes the spot next to her on the log. “I saw Sebastián with a satellite phone, but they haven’t called in any demands yet.” He rests his hand awkwardly on his own leg. As if he wants to pull Pen into a hug, but knows that if he touches her, he’ll have more to fear than our kidnappers. “We’re not going to be ransomed any time soon.”
“That can’t be good,” Domenica whispers.
No, it can’t. It means this is about more than ransom money. It means they’re prepared to hold us for a long time. It means they don’t have to keep all of us alive to get whatever it is that they want.
I give her a steady, confident look as I shield my face from the last patters of rain with one hand. “It just means they’re waiting until they get to their base of operations to figure out who to call and what to ask for.”
Holden rips open a bag of peanuts with more force than necessary. “What it means is that this isn’t going to end any time soon unless we end it.”
38.75 HOURS EARLIER
MADDIE
I collapse on the wet ground, panting. A leaf sticks to my cheek. Grass clings to my soaked clothes. My elbow throbs. My shin is scraped raw. My limbs weigh a hundred pounds each. But I am alive, and only slightly woozy from insulin deficiency.
Insulin . . .
Groaning, I push myself up and lift my shirt to check my pump. My shoulders sag with relief. Still working. Nothing else matters.
Nothing but getting back to my brother.
I scrub my hands over my face. Think!
We couldn’t have hiked more than an hour west of the bunkhouse, and the river carried me southeast. Ryan can’t be more than an hour’s hike north.
North-ish, at least.
I stumble in what I hope is the right direction, grabbing branches and roots to haul myself up muddy inclines. Pushing farther and farther to the northeast.
Closer and closer to my brother.
“Please be alive.”
Tears blur the jungle. My boot catches on something and I slam into the ground. I push myself up again, and now I am running.
Branches slap my face. Thorns catch my clothes.
I keep running.
GENESIS
“With Moisés gone, there are six of us, and six of them.” Holden tears open a package of salted almonds as he walks, and several of them fall onto the trail. “The odds are even.” “Guns tip the scale in their favor,” Indiana points out as he steps over a mud puddle.
Holden shrugs. “So we take a couple of them.”
“Brilliant.” I have to fight not to roll my eyes. “I mean, surely they’ll just hand over their weapons if we ask nicely.”
Holden’s gaze hardens. “I’ve seen you talk your way past club security with nothing more than a low-cut blouse. Hell, you got us a private tour of the park by making out with Nico.” He shoots a glance at Indiana, clearly hoping for a reaction, but Indiana is immune to drama, and that only makes Holden angrier. “Surely you could use your superpowers for good this time. Distract a couple of the guards long enough for us to get their guns.”
My face flushes, then my embarrassment flares into white-hot anger over his hypocrisy. I glance pointedly from Holden to Penelope, then back, and Pen flinches. But I don’t call them out on their betrayal, because unlike my hot-tempered boyfriend, I don’t need to throw a fit to make a point.
Instead, I call his bullshit.
“Let me get this straight. You want me to take not one, but two of those gunmen into the brush and get naked with them so you can try to take their guns?”
Holden’s gaze takes on a cruel glint. “You’d do it eventually, so why not now?” He’s trying to make me lash out at him, to prove that my temper’s as volatile as his. That I have no more self-control than he has. “You kind of owe it to me.”
“Hey, man.” Indiana tries to step between us on the trail. “That’s not—”
“I owe it to you?” I cut Indiana off, because I don’t want him drawn into the muck that is me and Holden.
“To all of us.” Words fall out of Holden’s mouth so fast I can hardly follow them. “You’re the reason we’re here. Genesis says jump, and we all launch ourselves at the sky. Genesis says hike into the jungle, and we all stock up on bug spray.” He jumps down a small incline, where water has washed earth from beneath a large tree root, then turns to glare at me. “If it were up to me, we’d be partying on the beach in Cartagena right now.” His whispered tirade takes on a fiercer, colder tone, and spittle flies from his mouth with each syllable. “This is your fault, so you’re going to take off whatever you have to take off to keep those jungle savages occupied!”
Domenica flinches.
Penelope lays one hand on his arm. As if just touching him could calm him down.
“Okay, that’s more than enough out of you.” Indiana swings himself over the exposed root and lands in the mud in front of Holden, fists clenched.
Silvana notices the conflict, and pulls a huge knife from a sheath at her waist. “Shut up and get moving,” she says, pointing the knife at each of them in turn. “Or one of you will lose a finger.”
Indiana turns and offers me a hand over the root, but the tension still feels thicker than the oppressive jungle air.
“Okay, offensive slut-shaming and pimping aside, this isn’t a cartoon, Holden,” I snap softly, determined to bring his reckless plan to a screeching halt. “I’m not wearing my Kevlar lingerie.”
