Page 77 of Girl in the Water

Chapter Fourteen

Daniela

As more guards followed the first one, Daniela and Ian ran for the chain-link fence at the back of the factory lot.

Panic rattled Daniela as she stumbled on the loose gravel, then caught herself. Her lips still tingled, her heart a confused mush, but she had no time to think about that now.

The fence is too far.

They wouldn’t be able to get away before the men caught up with them.

Rain had begun to sprinkle while she’d been inside. She prayed it wouldn’t turn into a serious downpour. At least the guards weren’t shooting. But why? Had they been ordered not to kill the prisoner?

To avoid getting caught halfway up the chain-link fence, then being dragged down by their ankles, Daniela and Ian stopped short of the fence and stood ready to take down the four guards who were quickly catching up, shouting at them to halt.

“The two on the left are mine,” Ian said.

Which implied the two on the right were hers.

What, he wasn’t even going to try to shove her behind him?

She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. He looked grim and ready to fight. And he was letting her fight by his side like a real partner. Then she had no more time to marvel, because the men reached them.

That they apparently weren’t allowed to shoot made all the difference. They turned their rifles in order to use the butt of the weapons to knock Ian and Daniela down, but before they could get that far, Ian knocked one unconscious with a roundhouse kick.

Daniela attacked the skinniest guy, the one nearest to her. She went for a punch to the solar plexus, like Ian had taught her, ducking under the rifle, swinging her right arm back and putting her whole body behind the punch, aiming not at the guy’s chest but about a foot behind it, as if wanting to put her fistthroughhim.

The guy didn’t take her seriously, didn’t try hard enough to block. Big mistake. She knocked him back on his ass, where he stayed, gasping for air.

The next guy approached her more warily, but she knocked him down too, with a well-aimed roundhouse kick just like Ian’s—thank God for the heavy-soled hiking boots she’d brought on the trip in case they needed to go into the jungle.

Ian’s two were down too, and he turned to help, but she was already lunging at the fence. The rain made the aluminum links slippery, but she’d been born to climb trees in any kind of weather. A little water wasn’t going to defeat her.

Ian was right behind her. Then they were over the top, jumping the ditch outside the fence, then in the rental car that waited where she’d left it on the shoulder.

She slammed behind the wheel, and he didn’t argue as she got them the hell out of there.

“Are you hurt?” he asked instead, checking her over.

“No. You?”

“A couple of bruised ribs from last night. I’ll live.”

He flipped down the sun visor and checked out his face in the mirror. He pulled up his shirt and wiped off the last of the blood with the inside of the shirt before tugging it back down. Then he ran his fingers through his hair to comb it back into order.

When he was finished, he flipped the visor up. “How do I look?”

Like the man I’m falling in love with.God, she couldn’t say that. “Your eyebrow is cracked. You have a black eye to put all black eyes to shame. And your knuckles are busted.”

“If airport security questions me, I’ll say I’ve been in a car accident.”

“Or beat up by someone who wanted your wallet. They’d definitely believe that.” Then a different problem occurred to her. “Do you have your passport? You can’t get on a flight without ID.”

But he nodded. “They only took my phone and gun.”

“What gun?”

“I bought some protection before I went to see Marcos at Lavras. I got it in the building without trouble. It’s a sugar company, not a courthouse. They don’t have metal detectors. But they caught up with me later.”