Page 19

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Violet

We were slow-moving through the greenery that was, at times, claustrophobically thick. My thighs were aching, slowing our pace considerably. I figured that was a good thing, since I wasn’t convinced Wick’s concussion was as mild as he wanted me to believe.

“I can’t believe people do this for fun,” I grumbled, ripping vines out of my way so we could keep moving forward.

“In their defense, they know where they are and how quickly they can get home to a nice, comfortable bed, cooked food, and electricity.”

“True,” I agreed, mouth watering at the idea of anything to eat that wasn’t fruit. I’d be happy with a damn salad. With kale. And I had strong feelings about kale. None of those feelings were positive.

“I think we should probably find a place to camp soon. The sun is starting to go down.”

“I never thought I would be looking forward to sleeping in a hammock. But here we—“

My sentence fell away as there was a distinct bang, then a ping as a bullet lodged in the tree right next to my damn head.

There was no hesitation.

We linked hands and ran.

“Weave,” I said when Wick pulled against my hold as I tried to. “Hard to hit a moving target,” I explained before saving my breath so we could push harder and faster.

Even at my full force, I was two steps behind Wick, who was practically dragging me with him.

I thought we were making progress.

Until I heard several rapid-fire rounds.

My stomach twisted as my body automatically ducked.

Wick pulled harder, forcing me to keep moving.

The ground beneath our feet was thick, sucking our shoes in with each step.

Then my foot must have found a low-lying area of mud. And when it sucked my foot in, it pulled my damn shoe off.

But there was no time to slow, to stop, to fish it out and put it back on.

Walking around a street barefoot sounded awful. Running for your life without shoes on uneven footing full of rocks, brambles, and God-knew what bugs or snakes seemed downright miserable.

Miserable was better than dead, though, so we had to keep going.

As we went, though, the ground seemed to start to decline a bit.

Then a lot all of a sudden.

My stomach dropped, and my heart leapt up into my throat as, out of nowhere, I was losing my footing and falling down a steep decline, my body tumbling over and over.

I lost hold of Wick immediately, leaving me sliding and falling and rolling in the damn mud all alone.

Until, suddenly, I stopped.

Before I could even push myself up off my stomach, though, Wick’s body was ramming into me, knocking me onto my back.

“Did you fall on purpose?” I asked, pushing up onto my knees, slipping in the mud as I tried to stand.

“Wherever you’re going, I’m following,” Wick said, getting to his feet, slipping his muddy hand in mine, then starting to run once again, knowing our pursuers would make their way down eventually.

“Was that a mudslide? I thought we were in the lowlands…”

“That must be a lava dam. Even in the lowlands, there are some hills and old lava dams that appear like caverns, but level out all around them. Wait… Do you hear that?” he asked, holding up a hand.

I didn’t at first, through the whooshing of my blood in my ears. But as my breathing slowed when Wick set a quick walking pace instead of a dead run, I did.

“Is that a river?” I asked, looking at Wick’s mud-caked face and hair.

“I think it’s a waterfall,” he said, pulling me around the hill we’d just fallen down until, there it was.

It must have been directly under where we’d been walking earlier without us even realizing.

“Where are you going?” I asked as Wick pulled me toward it.

We needed to get moving, cover some ground, and get out of the general area.

“Trust me,” Wick said, giving my hand a squeeze before moving forward.

We edged along the rocky cliff, my foot catching on various sharp edges, and I hated to think what my bare feet were going to look like at the end of the day.

This wasn’t one of those massive waterfalls I’d seen in the guidebooks. It was maybe only the height of the average house and only a few yards wide.

Still, it was my first waterfall. So I was appropriately impressed by it as we neared, the mist from the water crashing off the rocks wetting the mud on my face.

“Give me one second,” Wick said, releasing my hand as we got close to the falls.

“Where are you going?” I asked, but got no answer as he started to climb the little wall leading up to the side of the waterfall.

As for me, well, I wasn’t going to waste an opportunity to wash the thick mud off my body.

I knelt down next to the water’s edge, watching for a moment to make sure I didn’t see any suspicious fish or snakes, then plunged my arms in and scrubbed.

Finished with that, I slid off my remaining shoe and my filthy sock, then slid my legs in and started scrubbing as well.

“Wick?” I called when, even after rinsing off my hair and face, I still didn’t see him. “Wick?” I tried again, not wanting to raise my voice too much, not knowing how close the assassins were.

Then, suddenly, his hand pushed out from the waterfall itself.

He’d gotten behind the waterfall?

Wait…

Had he found a hiding spot?

Could we just… pause for a bit? Rest?

A moment later, Wick came out from the side where I’d last seen him, beaming at me.

“Tell me you found somewhere for us to hide for a bit.”

“A nice, only slightly claustrophobic cave,” he said, dropping down to scrub the worst of the mud off his exposed skin. “Okay. Let’s go in case they’re snooping around. We can clean up more when we know we’re alone.”

With that, he took me with him across a small cliff of dubious strength, the rocks breaking and tumbling as we stepped off of them.

But before I could get too panicked about another fall, we were in front of the mouth of a cave.

“Yeah,” Wick said, watching my surprise. “We have to crawl in, but it opens up enough for comfort after. And the waterfall kind of makes a window to make it feel less tight.”

With that, he went in first. And when he didn’t get stuck, I figured I had more than enough room to move inside.

“I’ve never been in a cave before,” I said as I crawled in, then stopped on my knees to check out the space.

He was right. It wasn’t a large space. It was maybe all of eight feet long and wide with what looked like another small tunnel on the other side. Leading where? Who knew. I was a little more worried about what might live inside there.

“Thank God,” I groaned, dropping down onto my ass and leaning back against the cave wall, looking out through the waterfall.

“Where’s your shoe?” Wick asked as he lowered down next to me.

“The mud ate it.”

“Shit.”

“I know. Maybe we can fashion a shoe out of vines or something. Just so it doesn’t slow us down.”

Wick reached for his pack, pulling it between his legs, opening it, then pulling all the contents out, spreading them around us.

It was actually impressive how much he had in there.

“How much does that pack weigh?”

“It was about fifty pounds without the full water bag.”

And there I was, annoyed by the weight of my pack and the rub of its straps on my shoulders. When mine couldn’t have weighed more than ten or fifteen pounds. And that was only when we filled it with fruit and water bottles.

“What is all of this?”

“The basics: first aid kit, a multi-tool, paracord, flashlight, whistle, sunscreen, bug spray, a fire starter, dry bags, duct tape, trash bags, binoculars, the hammock, my clothes, a tiny sewing kit, my camera for evidence, the shower filter, and, of course, a small saucepan,” he said, picking it up and waving it at me.

“What are you looking for?”

“I think I can use the duct tape to make a passable shoe, but I’m seeing if I have anything that I could use to strengthen the sole.”

“Like plastic or something?”

“Yeah, that’d be ideal. But I don’t have any of that.”

“Hmm,” I said, feeling around. “I think there is cardboard in this,” I told him as I tried to bend the case, but it was stiffer than it should have been if it was just material.

Wick took it from me, using the tiny knife of his multi-tool to cut around the edges so he could pull the sheet of cardboard free.

“Lemme see your foot,” he said, and I put it on top of his leg so he could size me up. “These feet belong to a sprite, not a bounty hunter,” he said, seeming pleased that he could fold the cardboard in half to double its strength. “How many bras did you bring with you?”

“Why?”

“I figured maybe the straps would be a way to keep the shoes on your feet. Especially if we end up needing to run again.”

I rummaged in my backpack for the purple bra I’d been wearing on Isla Perdita.

“What’s up?” he asked when I stared at the bra.

“Doesn’t the island feel like a thousand years ago?” I asked. “Remember when I was bitching about plentiful fruit trees and endless water to clean off in?”

“We can go back after this, if you want. Or not,” he said when I shot him a look.

“I want one night in a luxury hotel room with endless soap and shampoo, a TV, tons of food and coffee, and a huge bed before I have to think about anything else.”

“I can make that happen,” he assured me. “Though I’ve gotten kind of fond of the hammock now.”

The heat in his gaze made a little fire spark inside me. But it was going to have to smolder out. Because I wasn’t touching anyone that caked in mud, or letting someone touch me when I was so filthy either.

“The hammock wasn’t as bad as I thought,” I admitted. We both knew I wasn’t talking about the hammock.

“I’m touched, duchess,” Wick said, pressing a hand to his chest. “Such high praise.”

“Hey, I was pretty much cursing your existence for the first few days, so this is a lot of progress,” I quipped.

But the fact of the matter was, there was a lot I wasn’t saying. There were a lot of feelings that I’d barely managed to acknowledge, let alone wrap my head around.

“That’s true. And I did make you believe we were stranded on an island…”

“I wonder how Hank is doing,” I said as I watched Wick get to work on my replacement shoe.

“Eating bugs, enjoying the sunshine, missing your chest…”

I smiled as I carefully reorganized his pack, then did the work of squeezing out the water filter into our bottles before moving out to fill the bag back up with the waterfall water.

By the time I was done with all of that, Wick had something resembling a shoe forged out of duct tape, cardboard, my bra strap, and, it seemed, the cut-up material of one of my socks.

“Did you sew that in?” I asked, inspecting his work.

“I had the kit,” Wick said, shrugging off his work. “Want to try it on?” he asked, holding it out for me to slip my foot into.

It was a snug fit, but in a not-unpleasant way, but more so a way that made me confident it would stay on my foot no matter how fast the pace was.

“This is great,” I said, flexing my foot. “Thank you.”

“While I wouldn’t mind piggybacking you, this will let us keep our usual pace.”

“Yeah, I think… oh my God ,” I gasped, whacking Wick across the chest.

“What?” he asked, looking at me while my gaze focused out of the waterfall.

“Look!” I said, literally crawling closer to the water to see better. “It’s those giant guinea pig things.”

“Capybaras?” Wick asked, crawling up beside me to look out as one of them walked over to the water’s edge to sip.

“Oh!” I gasped when another walked out to join her. Then, a second later, a whole group of baby ones came forward. I swear my heart melted. “Listen, I know we have to respect the environment and animals belong in the wild and blah blah blah… But I want to throw one in my backpack and smuggle it out of here.”

“They’re really cute,” Wick agreed.

“Oh, oh, they’re gonna swim,” I cooed, crossing my legs to watch as the mom slid into the water, followed by all her little babies, swimming around happily for a few moments before climbing back out. “Are you seeing this?” I asked.

“Yeah, duchess,” he said, but when I turned, I found his gaze watching me, not the capybaras. “I’m seeing it.”

I was going to say something. Maybe even talk about what was happening with us.

When my stomach let out the growl to top all growls, making Wick’s lips curve up. “I guess I should feed you, huh?”

“Wait, you’re not leaving, are you?” I asked when he started to get to his feet.

“I won’t go far. I think I saw an acai tree not too far away.”

“We should stay put,” I insisted.

“You are going to,” he said. He grabbed one of the plastic bags from his pack, but left the backpack itself.

“Wick, we shouldn’t split up.”

“I know where you are.”

“But what if—“

“If you hear something, you stay your ass in here, do you hear me?”

“Wick…”

“We don’t both need to die.”

“Um, I’m pretty sure I’d die without you here too. I’m not exactly Rainforest Survival Barbie here,” I reminded him.

“You don’t give yourself enough credit. But I don’t plan on dying out there. So just wait for me, okay?”

“Fine,” I grumbled, feeling a little guilty about how much I wanted to stay put.

“I won’t be long,” he assured me, giving my hip a squeeze. He looked like he wanted to kiss me, but neither of us had gotten a chance to brush our teeth yet.

“I’ll be here,” I told him, reaching to give him a bottle of water.

Then he was gone.

I watched him through the waterfall as he disappeared, then went ahead and brushed my teeth, not wanting to miss another opportunity to kiss Wick if it popped up.

Finished with that, I sat back down and worried a lot more than I could have anticipated.

I was so lost in my worst-case scenarios that I nearly jumped out of my skin when a strange squeak sounded right near me.

“Jesus Chri—oh,” I said, pressing a hand to my racing heart when I saw the source of the sound.

A little… frog? I mean, I was pretty sure that was a frog. It was hideously cute, looking more like a little ball with an angry face than a normal frog.

“Listen, I’m cool with you being here so long as you don’t try to, like, wipe me with your hallucinogenic goo or something.” To that, I got another squeak. “You sound like a dog toy,” I told him when he let out another surprisingly loud squeak for such a little dude.

Seeing something, he hopped forward, giving me a view of his backend.

“Oh, my God. You have little butt cheeks,” I said, letting out a strangled little laugh. I was pretty sure I’d never seen a frog with cheeks before.

The frog, oblivious to my delight, kept hopping forward. His little pink tongue flashed out, grabbing some sort of insect, and pulling it into his mouth, munching away.

“Hey, if you’re here to eat bugs, we can be friends,” I told him.

I kept an eye on him as I waited for Wick, my heartbeat tripping faster and faster with each passing moment when he didn’t return.

Even though I didn’t hear men’s voices or gunshots, my stomach was twisted in knots as the sun started to dip lower and lower.

Inside the cave behind the waterfall, the temperature dropped more than usual, making me shiver.

Then, a crunch.

I went up on my knees, trying to squint through the water, but it was impossible to see more than a blurry shadow.

“Marco,” he called, voice low.

“Polo,” I called back, startling my frog friend enough to squeak again.

“You were gone a long time,” I said as he moved into our little cave.

“The acai tree was further than I remembered. Were you worried about me, duchess?”

“What? No. Of course not. I made a new friend,” I said, waving over toward the corner of the cave. “He has a butt.”

Wick let out a little chuckle at that. “Does he also have a frowning mouth?”

“Yes!”

“He’s a rain frog.”

“He makes really cute squeaks.”

“Until he won’t shut up when you’re trying to sleep,” Wick said, sliding in beside me, and putting a heavy bag on my lap. “Got a ton of acai. Some monkeys must have climbed the tree and shaken a bunch down. We got lucky.”

“These are kind of tart, right?” I asked, sniffing one of the fruits.

“Yeah. Kind of bitter, but with a hint of sweet too. I had a few. They’re decent. They’ll hold us over, anyway. Hopefully by this time tomorrow, we are in a fancy hotel and you are in a food coma.”

“From your mouth to God’s ears,” I said as I popped fruit into my mouth. My eyes winced a bit at the tartness, but after a few of the berries, I got used to it. It was food. I couldn’t complain.

“How’re your legs?” Wick asked once we both had our fill and sealed the bag back up.

“They’re sore, but tolerable. How’s your head?”

“Throbbing a little, but I’m not dizzy anymore, so that’s a win.”

“It’s chilly,” I said as a little shiver moved through me.

Wick’s arms reached for me immediately, pulling me until my legs were over his and my head was against his chest.

“I’m gonna sleep like this,” he told me, his hand rubbing up and down my back. “I don’t think my back could handle sleeping on the rocky ground.”

“This works for me,” I said, already feeling his warmth leach into my cold skin.

We were both out in no time at all.