100 Hours
Page 50
Indiana swallows my argument with a kiss. “This isn’t your call, G.” Another kiss. “I make my own decisions.”
“You’re supposed to make out when you’re done arguing,” I whisper against his earlobe.
“We are done arguing.” He drops a series of kisses along my jaw until he finds my mouth again. “You lost.”
I never lose. But I know when to change tactics.
“Okay,” I say when we’re both breathing heavily. “We’ll have to do it tonight, before my dad calls back. But we have to get into that tent first. We need to know what kind of explosives we’re dealing with.”
And while he works on that obstacle to our plan, I’ll figure out how to keep him out of the line of fire. . . .
9 HOURS EARLIER
MADDIE
I lift my foot, and the wet earth beneath me makes a sucking sound. “It’s too wet to sleep on the ground.” Since we stopped for water—and banana boats—the beach has gradually narrowed until patches of sand alternate with a scraggly, marshy coastline that reminds me of the swamps of Southern Florida.
“I know,” Luke says. “We’re going to have to sleep in one of these trees.”
“In a tree?” I look up, but none of the branches are tangled or close together enough to hold one sleeping human, much less two.
“Well, hanging from the tree, at least.” He puts his rifle on the ground and begins unbuckling a bundle I’d assumed was a second sleeping bag, which we couldn’t fit in our one-man tent.
The material is actually a bright blue hammock.
“Should I be worried about snakes, or some other arboreal predator up there?”
“I don’t think so. This’ll be like a tent, just in a tree, and we’ve slept together with no—” He chokes on his own words, and I try to hide my laugh. “I mean . . . Not that we’ve slept together. We’ve just slept in close proximity. Together. Damn it.”
I laugh harder, and he tosses his hands into the air, giving up.
“Excuse me while I stick my head in the ocean and take a deep breath.”
“You better not. We’re in this together.”
Luke’s smile is the brightest thing I’ve seen since the sun went down.
I hold the flashlight while he ties each end of the hammock to a different thick branch. Then I watch, fascinated, while he saws small branches from the same tree with Moisés’s multi-tool, leaving two-inch “hooks” from which to hang our backpacks.
I climb into the hammock and Luke climbs in after me, then pulls a sheet of mosquito netting over us. We can see through it, of course—what little there is to see in the dark—but the netting feels like a boundary between us and the rest of the jungle.
We are alone, suspended in our cocoon.
The curve of the hammock rolls us toward the center, gravity closing the distance between us, so I settle into the arc of Luke’s arm with my head on his shoulder and my arm over his chest. I can feel his heartbeat through his shirt. Every breath he takes makes me more aware of how much of him I’m touching.
How much of him is touching me.
“Luke?” I whisper, because I’m right next to his ear, and the dark seems made for soft voices.
“Yeah?”
I prop myself up on my elbow so I can kind of see his face in the dark. “I’m going to kiss you, but I don’t want to imply gratitude of any kind. This will be an ungrateful kiss. The most thankless of kisses. Purely recreational. Okay?”
“That’s quite a disclaimer,” he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice. “Do I need to sign something?”
“Shut up.” I lean down and kiss him. Just a touch of my mouth to his, until I know—
Luke kisses me back, and his moan sends a warm ache through me.
He rises onto one elbow and slides his other hand down my back. We’re both breathing hard, and suddenly the one-man hammock seems built for two after all.
“Hey, Maddie?” Luke says against my cheek.
“If you ask me how many experience points I think that kiss was worth, I’m going to knock out all your hit points with one blow,” I warn him.
Luke laughs, and his hand trails down my hair and over my back. “I was just going to ask if you want to do that again.”
I really, really do.
7 HOURS EARLIER
GENESIS
Around nine p.m.—three hours before the deadline—I look up from the chessboard to see Silvana, Sebastián, and one of the American guys who spends most of his time in the green tent head down the footpath toward the beach, from which we’d been hearing odd metallic pounding sounds for the past hour. They each carried a flashlight and a closed cardboard box. The five captors who haven’t gone down to the beach will be leaderless for at least the next half hour, by my guess, based on previous trips. This is my best chance to sneak into the green tent.
“Hey,” I lean over the board and whisper to Indiana. “I need you to get the guards’ attention while I slip into the tent. And I’ll need a heads-up, if anyone else tries to go in.”
He glances around the clearing, then gives me a heated smile. “I’d rather sneak in there with you. But I’ve got you covered.”
I move to the fire pit closest to the military tent and pretend to be gathering empty containers. Indiana heads toward one of the open-sided tents across the campsite, and casually lifts Óscar’s guitar from the tent pole where he hangs it to keep it out of the rain. Indiana sits on a stump with the guitar, and when he plays the first chord, I’m so surprised by his obvious skill that I almost forget why he’s playing in the first place.
“¡Alto!” Óscar shouts.
Indiana plays a few chords. Everyone turns to look, including the guards. Then he starts singing.
His voice is clear, mellow, captivating.
Almost reluctantly, I take four slow, quiet steps to my left and slide through the entrance into the military tent. I have no idea how long they’ll let him play, so I assume I’ll have no more than a minute before I’m missed.
It takes the first five seconds for my eyes to adjust to the lower light level.
I scan the two closest folding tables, where scraps of wire, rolls of electrical tape, and the guts of some electronic device I can’t identify are spread out. Definitely bomb-making materials.
“You’re supposed to make out when you’re done arguing,” I whisper against his earlobe.
“We are done arguing.” He drops a series of kisses along my jaw until he finds my mouth again. “You lost.”
I never lose. But I know when to change tactics.
“Okay,” I say when we’re both breathing heavily. “We’ll have to do it tonight, before my dad calls back. But we have to get into that tent first. We need to know what kind of explosives we’re dealing with.”
And while he works on that obstacle to our plan, I’ll figure out how to keep him out of the line of fire. . . .
9 HOURS EARLIER
MADDIE
I lift my foot, and the wet earth beneath me makes a sucking sound. “It’s too wet to sleep on the ground.” Since we stopped for water—and banana boats—the beach has gradually narrowed until patches of sand alternate with a scraggly, marshy coastline that reminds me of the swamps of Southern Florida.
“I know,” Luke says. “We’re going to have to sleep in one of these trees.”
“In a tree?” I look up, but none of the branches are tangled or close together enough to hold one sleeping human, much less two.
“Well, hanging from the tree, at least.” He puts his rifle on the ground and begins unbuckling a bundle I’d assumed was a second sleeping bag, which we couldn’t fit in our one-man tent.
The material is actually a bright blue hammock.
“Should I be worried about snakes, or some other arboreal predator up there?”
“I don’t think so. This’ll be like a tent, just in a tree, and we’ve slept together with no—” He chokes on his own words, and I try to hide my laugh. “I mean . . . Not that we’ve slept together. We’ve just slept in close proximity. Together. Damn it.”
I laugh harder, and he tosses his hands into the air, giving up.
“Excuse me while I stick my head in the ocean and take a deep breath.”
“You better not. We’re in this together.”
Luke’s smile is the brightest thing I’ve seen since the sun went down.
I hold the flashlight while he ties each end of the hammock to a different thick branch. Then I watch, fascinated, while he saws small branches from the same tree with Moisés’s multi-tool, leaving two-inch “hooks” from which to hang our backpacks.
I climb into the hammock and Luke climbs in after me, then pulls a sheet of mosquito netting over us. We can see through it, of course—what little there is to see in the dark—but the netting feels like a boundary between us and the rest of the jungle.
We are alone, suspended in our cocoon.
The curve of the hammock rolls us toward the center, gravity closing the distance between us, so I settle into the arc of Luke’s arm with my head on his shoulder and my arm over his chest. I can feel his heartbeat through his shirt. Every breath he takes makes me more aware of how much of him I’m touching.
How much of him is touching me.
“Luke?” I whisper, because I’m right next to his ear, and the dark seems made for soft voices.
“Yeah?”
I prop myself up on my elbow so I can kind of see his face in the dark. “I’m going to kiss you, but I don’t want to imply gratitude of any kind. This will be an ungrateful kiss. The most thankless of kisses. Purely recreational. Okay?”
“That’s quite a disclaimer,” he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice. “Do I need to sign something?”
“Shut up.” I lean down and kiss him. Just a touch of my mouth to his, until I know—
Luke kisses me back, and his moan sends a warm ache through me.
He rises onto one elbow and slides his other hand down my back. We’re both breathing hard, and suddenly the one-man hammock seems built for two after all.
“Hey, Maddie?” Luke says against my cheek.
“If you ask me how many experience points I think that kiss was worth, I’m going to knock out all your hit points with one blow,” I warn him.
Luke laughs, and his hand trails down my hair and over my back. “I was just going to ask if you want to do that again.”
I really, really do.
7 HOURS EARLIER
GENESIS
Around nine p.m.—three hours before the deadline—I look up from the chessboard to see Silvana, Sebastián, and one of the American guys who spends most of his time in the green tent head down the footpath toward the beach, from which we’d been hearing odd metallic pounding sounds for the past hour. They each carried a flashlight and a closed cardboard box. The five captors who haven’t gone down to the beach will be leaderless for at least the next half hour, by my guess, based on previous trips. This is my best chance to sneak into the green tent.
“Hey,” I lean over the board and whisper to Indiana. “I need you to get the guards’ attention while I slip into the tent. And I’ll need a heads-up, if anyone else tries to go in.”
He glances around the clearing, then gives me a heated smile. “I’d rather sneak in there with you. But I’ve got you covered.”
I move to the fire pit closest to the military tent and pretend to be gathering empty containers. Indiana heads toward one of the open-sided tents across the campsite, and casually lifts Óscar’s guitar from the tent pole where he hangs it to keep it out of the rain. Indiana sits on a stump with the guitar, and when he plays the first chord, I’m so surprised by his obvious skill that I almost forget why he’s playing in the first place.
“¡Alto!” Óscar shouts.
Indiana plays a few chords. Everyone turns to look, including the guards. Then he starts singing.
His voice is clear, mellow, captivating.
Almost reluctantly, I take four slow, quiet steps to my left and slide through the entrance into the military tent. I have no idea how long they’ll let him play, so I assume I’ll have no more than a minute before I’m missed.
It takes the first five seconds for my eyes to adjust to the lower light level.
I scan the two closest folding tables, where scraps of wire, rolls of electrical tape, and the guts of some electronic device I can’t identify are spread out. Definitely bomb-making materials.
