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My heart ached with sorrow and fury. His death was Neville’s fault.
“Oh my god. That’s Na-lynied,” Cody said. His enormous eyes blazed with distress.
Hunter’s team checked the men sprawled on the ground to see if they were alive. None were. They gathered all the weapons and stacked them in a pile. I didn’t care what they did with those guns as long as they didn’t leave them here. The natives had been successfully living here with primitive weapons since the dawn of time. They didn’t need guns like these.
At the front door, Hunter pointed to a trail of blood across the three weathered wooden stairs that led up to a small entrance with several missing planks.
“Come on.” Hunter placed his hand on my shoulder. “We need to keep moving.”
Blinking away tears, I followed him through the church’s open doorway, and it took a couple of beats for my eyes to adjust to the dim light.
The church had been stripped of chairs, and the scent of decay and dampness filled the air.
“Stay sharp,” Hunter whispered and gripped his weapon tighter.
Maybe he felt the same dread I did.
Moss covered nearly every surface and a date palm had somehow grown up through the floorboards and angled its trunk out the window to keep thriving. Sunlight speared through a crack in the roof and beamed onto the toppled altar.
Neville was slumped on the floor against it. Blood seeped from a bullet wound in his chest. His breaths were shallow, each one a painful struggle.
But it wasn't his near-death state that shocked me; it was the makeshift laboratory surrounding him.
“Wh-what the hell?” Cody stammered as he walked toward the tables.
Steering away from Neville, I strode to a row of test tubes and lab equipment. Bunches of my precious berries were scattered across the table, and their shriveled flesh confirmed they weren’t fresh. But it was the large glass tank that housed dozens of giant green frogs that had me gasping.Was he using the frogs to test his burns ointment? Was that what the fires in the drums were for?Oh god, nausea wobbled in my stomach.
Marching back to Neville, I stared into his bloodshot eyes. “What the hell are you up to?”
Neville breathed in a raspy breath and his eyes darted to Hunter’s rifle.
“Answer me!” My voice quivered with fury. “What are you doing with my berries and those frogs?”
His breath wheezed and his eyes rolled.
“Neville,” I spat his name. “Are you testing your burns ointment on frogs? Is that it?”
Neville released a wet breath. “I don’t care about some fucking burns ointment.”
I jerked back snapping my gaze to the berries and frogs. “What? You told me that’s why you’re here. . . in the Amazon. What are you doing then?”
I kicked his foot, and he gasped like I’d kneed him in the head. “People died because of you, natives, our friends.”
He shifted his gaze from me to Hunter and his lips twisted into a bitter snarl. “Do you have any idea what the toxins from those frogs can do?”
Dread crashed through me like a tidal wave. “Oh, my fucking god. You’re making hallucinogenic drugs? Is that it?”
“I’m making a lot of people rich, Layla. And happy.” Red bubbles spilled over his lip.
“What the fuck, Neville?” It took all my strength to resist punching him in the throat. “Why did you try to kill us?”
A bloody dribble spilled down his chin. “I need those berries?”
I shot a glance at Cody then peering back at Neville, I frowned. “What for?”
He shrugged, then gasped in agony and pressed a hand over his bloody bullet wound.
He’s in pain. Good.