I’m not sure if I agree with him there. If we run across Matias or his men, we need a weapon.
I’d like to think Matias has given up on me, but I’ve lived with his threats for the better part of my life. Until he finds my body, Matias won’t stop hunting me.
His machismo won’t allow a woman to escape his clutches. My very freedom is a personal affront to him.
I’d say all of this out loud, but Hayes understands. Instead, I focus on what I know, and what I can do, which isn’t much.
Haye’s question about injuries has me taking inventory. I took a pounding in the rapids.
My knees are scraped and raw beneath my trousers. When I feel my left hip, it hurts. My back is the same.
I’ll be black and blue for days, but I’m alive and that’s all that matters. There’s a lump on my head. I feel at the bump carefully, but there doesn’t appear to be any blood.
I take that for the win it is.
While I perform my self-assessment, Hayes slogs over to the canyon wall. A few tenacious trees cling to the sides of the canyon, wrapping their roots around the rock for purchase. Several long vines stretch down from the trees twenty feet overhead, but none are within reach.
Hayes scratches the back of his head, coming to the same conclusion as me.
We’re trapped and forced to let the water take us where it will.
“Do you know anything about this waterway?” Hayes returns to the middle of the river, where I wait for him.
“Sadly, no.” I shrug and wish I had a better answer for him.
“That’s a shame.” He rubs at the back of his neck and peers down the river. “I can’t tell if we’re headed toward Lake Managua or toward the ocean.”
“I think we’re headed toward the ocean.”
“Hmm…”
“Is that bad?”
“Neither’s good, but we’ll make do with what we have.”
“What is our plan?” This is one question I’m dying to know.
“Get out of the jungle alive, call my team, then wait for a pickup.”
He makes it seem easy, but it’s not. There are still vast swaths of jungle between us and civilization.
“How do we contact them? I’m surprised you don’t carry a radio.”
“Normally I do, and if not a radio, there are the trackers.”
“Trackers?” I pull my hair over my shoulder and try to work through the tangles. It’s a hopeless task. I give up in frustration.
“Normally, we carry trackers for exactly this kind of situation.” Hayes makes it seem as if I should know what he’s talking about, but I don’t. I return a flat stare.
“What situation?”
“Being separated from our team. Mitzy, she’s our tech lead, can use them to locate us anywhere in the world and send a team out to find us.”
Wow, that’s cool, and wouldn’t it be nice if that were the case for us? Unfortunately, Hayes is clear that’s not happening for us.
“If you have a tracker, why don’t they activate it?” Seems to me, they should’ve done that the moment we separated from his team
“It was the EMP.”
“The what?”
“We set off a low-range electromagnetic pulse when we attacked the villa.”
“Why would you do that?”
“To knock out Angelo’s surveillance and communications network. To blind his men and destroy his ability to counter our attack. It leveled out the playing field.”
“So that’s why the power went out.”
I don’t know what an EMP is, how one’s set off, or how it affects these trackers, but I get the general idea.
“Exactly, but the EMP also inactivated the trackers in our bodies.”
“Wait a second. You have trackers in your body?” I’ve never heard of such a thing.
“Yes. Not something anyone would find unless they’re specifically looking for them.”
“Them? There’s more than one?” My eyes widen in shock.
The idea of putting anything like that in my body feels irreverent.
“Well, I used to have two.” Hayes returns a sheepish grin and holds up his left hand. It’s the one missing the last two fingers. “One was in my pinky finger, but I lost that in an explosion.”
I feel bad for not asking about the missing fingers of his left hand. It’s a hard thing to ignore but doesn’t seem to slow him down one bit. In my defense, we’ve been kind of busy with other things.
I make a mental note to ask him how he lost his fingers when we’re out of this mess.
“The EMP inactivated the other one. We knew that going in, but didn’t expect our current situation.”
“How could you?” I lay on my back, floating on the water. “You know, now that the river’s not trying to kill me, it feels nice to float. If I close my eyes, I can almost imagine…” Closing my eyes shifts my attention to my ears and a low droning noise.
I start and splash until I can get my feet under me.
“Hayes, do you hear that?” I cock my head downstream, where that noise grows louder by the second.
He follows suit and his lips press into a hard line. “Fucking shit.”
“What’s wrong?”
“That’s not another set of rapids. Shit, shit, shit!” He closes the distance, grabs my wrist, and starts for the side of the river where he hugs the rock.
“If it’s not rapids, what is it…” My voice trails off. The rushing water is louder and the current stronger than moments before.
TWELVE
Rosalie
The rushing sound intensifies as the water pulls us inextricably toward the waterfall. From the distant roar, it’s impossible to know how big the waterfall is, but it doesn’t sound good.
“What do we do?” I look to Hayes knowing he’ll figure something out.
“Here…” Extending his hand, he pulls me toward him. “Stick to the edge while I figure something out.”
“Okay.” I take his hand with relief, although nothing’s really changed. We’re still in waist-deep water for him, chest-deep for me, and that water is picking up speed.
Hayes continues his assessment of the twenty-foot walls boxing us in.
“Can you climb?” His gaze traces a path along the wall. Roots and vines provide moderate purchase, but I don’t trust the vines to hold my weight, let alone his.
“I can try.” Glancing down the river, I pull in my lower lip and contemplate the unthinkable. “What if we go over it?”
I don't want to put my fate in the river's hands after surviving the rapids. It’s an option, but how smart of an option is up for debate.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Okay.” My neck cranes back as I take in the route he wants me to climb.
At least, if I fall, I’ll drop back into water deep enough to protect me and cushion my fall. I rub my hands on my legs. It’s a nervous gesture, but it eases the nerves rattling around inside of me. I give a sharp shake of my head, although I’m nowhere near convinced this is a good idea.
“See that outcropping?” Hayes points far over his head. “I’ll hoist you up…”