Page 26 of Haze of Obedience

"You don't know how long you've been missing?"

"No."

"Fourteen months."

Fourteen months. That's over a year.

"It's probably been thirteen or thirteen and a half months."

"That's amazing. I'm proud of you."

"You wouldn't have been."

"What do you mean?"

More tears of shame fall. "I had to detox twice in the same month."

"Okay. But you did it."

"No, you don't understand what he did to me."

"Who?"

"Santiago."

His face hardens. "What did he do?"

"I don't want to talk about it. Can we not?"

He sighs. "Okay."

“What country am I in? I don’t even know.”

“Belize.”

I glance around. "I better wash up."

"All right. When we get out, can I at least spray your bites? I’ll use what Malin put on your leg last night."

Slowly, I agree.

"Don't go any deeper. I'll grab the toiletries." He kisses my forehead and grabs it off the rock.

We finish bathing, and he washes the muddy T-shirt as much as possible. He grabs his first aid kit out of the rucksack and has me stand near the rock. He dries me off with the towel, sprays my wounds, then puts a dry T-shirt from his bag over my head.

I let him change his underwear to dry ones then turn. "Thank you." I reach out and hold the pendant on his necklace. "What is this?"

"The rattle from the first snake I killed."

"Really?"

"Yep."

"Are you an outdoorsy guy?"

He arches an eyebrow. "Yeah. What made you ask that?"

"There are guys I know who consider it a sport to hunt snakes."