Page 20

20

Lyon

Sweat dripped down my face, soaking into my shirt as we pushed deeper into the thick, suffocating jungle. The Brazilian rainforest was breathtaking—if you could ignore the fist-sized spiders, venomous snakes, and every other nightmare creature lurking in the underbrush.

I swiped at my neck, shuddering. God, I hate snakes.

“Fuck! If another one of those things drops on me, I swear to God, I’m gonna start screaming like a damn girl,” I growled.

River smirked. “You already screamed like a girl.”

I shot him a glare.

He grinned. “You haven’t shut up about it since that spider landed on your face the first morning.”

“That thing was huge! And we were inside a cabin!” I shot back. “Spiders are supposed to stay outside .”

Raven chuckled, leaping over something that didn’t look particularly safe. “Then maybe zip up your tent at night. You keep leaving it open—you’re inviting them to bunk with you.”

“It’s so damn hot, I can’t breathe with it zipped up.”

As if the jungle wanted to punish me for complaining, the sky cracked open, and a sudden downpour drenched us in seconds.

We just stood there, soaked, before bursting into laughter.

“Why the hell would Tag hike through this jungle?” Raven muttered as we slogged forward. “He wasn’t here for the hiking. There had to be a reason.”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” I said. “Remember when he told us about his friend who owned a gold mine out here? He was worried because the guy wouldn’t shut up about how rich he was getting. Then he stopped hearing from him.”

“Yeah,” Raven nodded.

“Tag figured he’d gone to visit family or something,” I continued. “But he also mentioned that the guy had become obsessed with the mine. Like, gold-fever obsessed. It was all-consuming.”

River frowned. “So, what? You think he came here to check on his friend?”

“Maybe he heard something—maybe the guy went missing,” I guessed. Not knowing what Tag was doing.

Before Raven could respond, a rustling sound made me pause. I turned just as a massive tiger sprinted past us, its muscles rippling as it disappeared into the trees.

We froze.

The next second, a group of men ran past, gripping rifles. Chasing the tiger? Or running from something worse?

“What the fuck?” I whispered. From where we were hidden.

Then came another sound. More running— hundreds of feet, pounding the ground like a stampede.

We barely had seconds to react before a wave of armed soldiers burst through the jungle.

“What the hell is going on?” Raven muttered as we stepped deeper off the trail, making ourselves as invisible as possible.

The Brazilian Army stormed past, focused on the men ahead.

“That was weird,” I muttered, watching them disappear into the trees.

“Let’s get the hell out of here before we end up in the middle of something we don’t want to be a part of,” Raven said.

We picked up our pace, jogging in the opposite direction of the army. The path was busy enough, but leaving it wasn’t an option. In a jungle this dense, stepping off the trail could mean the difference between making it out alive or vanishing forever.

“Anyone know what day it is?” Raven asked, wiping sweat from his forehead. “I swear I’ve lost all sense of time.”

I shrugged.

Raven sighed. “It’s my dad’s birthday next month, on the twenty-seventh. We better be back by then. Hopefully, we’ll find Tag in the next four days.”

We chuckled. Raven was close with his family—most of whom he’d found through DNA testing. His dad, apparently, had been quite the ladies' man in his youth. That’s how Raven discovered his sister, Laney, and her daughter, Haley. A DNA test had confirmed they were all connected.

“It’s the tenth,” I told him. “You’ll have plenty of time to get back for his birthday.”

We stopped dead in our tracks when the sharp crack of gunfire echoed through the jungle.

“Move!” I hissed.

We ran. Fast.

The sun had started dipping beneath the horizon when we stumbled upon a shocking sight.

The jungle… was gone.

Trees that had stood for centuries had been ripped from the earth, leaving behind a vast, empty stretch of destruction. It looked like a giant had reached down and torn the rainforest apart.

We stared in disbelief.

“Holy shit,” Raven breathed.

“This is why people are protesting,” I muttered. “This… this is insane .”

Further ahead, a crudely built shed stood alone in the wasteland.

“Maybe we can stay there for the night,” I suggested.

River eyed it warily. “One of us will have to keep watch. We can sit on the roof.”

Before we could check it out, the shed door creaked open.

We all jumped back.

The shed was filled with snakes .

We slammed the door shut and backed away.

“Nope,” Raven muttered. “Absolutely not.”

With no other choice, we moved on, crossing the demolished land until we found a safer place to camp.

Three weeks.

Three weeks of trekking through the jungle, asking locals if they’d seen Tag.

Nothing.

We described him: tall, gray-eyed, brooding as hell. Added that he had a right to be cranky—after all, he’d spent two years in a wheelchair, convinced he’d never walk again.

Still, blank stares. No one had seen him.

Then, finally, we found a village with Starlink internet.

We charged our phones.

A message popped up.

Tag: “Call me.”

I stared at the screen. “What the fuck?”

I hit call. The phone rang twice before Tag answered.

“Where the hell are you?” I demanded.

“Alaska,” he said casually.

Silence.

“Excuse me?”

“I talked to my crazy sister,” Tag continued. “Apparently, she thought I was lost in the Brazilian jungle.”

I clenched my jaw. “You’re telling me we’ve been fighting off wild animals for three damn weeks because your sister got her wires crossed?”

He hesitated. “I… guess so?”

I exhaled sharply. “Tag. Do you have any idea what we’ve been through? Spiders the size of my face . Snakes everywhere. I hate snakes.”

“I told her— hypothetically —‘what if I was lost in the jungle, and no one knew?’” Tag sounded defensive. “She must have taken it literally.”

I was going to murder this man.

River grabbed the phone. “Tag,” he said, voice dangerously low. “Have you even been in this jungle?”

“Not for years. Last time I was there, I got bitten by a spider and was sick for weeks.”

River closed his eyes. “Then why the hell would your sister think you were here?”

“She and I haven’t talked much,” Tag admitted. “I might have mentioned the jungle once. I might have said something about people going missing. She might have been drinking.”

River groaned. “No shit. We’ll see you Monday.”

Tag hesitated. “Listen… I really appreciate you guys looking for me, even though I wasn’t lost.”

River sighed, his frustration softening. “You’d do the same for us.”

“Damn right, I would,” Tag said. “Thanks for knowing that.”

I rubbed a hand over my face. We wasted three weeks. At least he was safe and alive.

“Next time,” I muttered, “just send a damn text.”