Domenica flinches.
Penelope lays one hand on his arm. As if just touching him could calm him down.
“Okay, that’s more than enough out of you.” Indiana swings himself over the exposed root and lands in the mud in front of Holden, fists clenched.
Silvana notices the conflict, and pulls a huge knife from a sheath at her waist. “Shut up and get moving,” she says, pointing the knife at each of them in turn. “Or one of you will lose a finger.”
Indiana turns and offers me a hand over the root, but the tension still feels thicker than the oppressive jungle air.
“Okay, offensive slut-shaming and pimping aside, this isn’t a cartoon, Holden,” I snap softly, determined to bring his reckless plan to a screeching halt. “I’m not wearing my Kevlar lingerie.”
Holden only rolls his eyes. “It’s not like I’m asking everyone to do something I’m not willing to do. I’ll take Natalia. But there are only three of you girls and five men with guns, so . . .” He shrugs. “You do the math.”
“Yeah, my calculation looks a little different.” I step into Holden’s personal space and look up at him as if I were towering over him—a skill I learned from my father. “Penelope was strike one. This is strike two. One more, and you’re out.”
MADDIE
No matter how hard I push, I can’t get there fast enough.
Ryan is dying.
Vines slap my face. Mud sucks at my boots. Perspiration drips into my eyes. I wipe my forehead, but my sweaty arm and damp sleeve are no help.
My leg itches, and when I scratch it, blood streaks across my skin. The red smear seems to float in front of me, and when I squint, I see tiny bits of mosquito scattered through it.
My stomach heaves, but there’s nothing to vomit. I can’t remember the last time I ate.
I pull up my wet shirt and squint at the display on my pump. My glucose level is at sixty-four. Not good. I drop my shirt, and the world spins again. I catch myself against a tree and breathe deeply until the vertigo passes.
If I don’t eat soon, I will pass out. Then I will die on the jungle floor, and there will be no one to help Ryan.
I push forward again, but every few steps, I have to stop and rest against a tree.
Score one for the jungle.
GENESIS
Domenica glares at Holden as Sebastián give us a “get going” gesture. “I’m not taking anything off,” she says
“Nobody’s taking anything off, and we’re not going for their guns,” I whisper. We veer west along the muddy trail again, facing into the sun. “Our plan needs to be one hundred percent less smutty and suicidal.”
“Agreed.” Indiana ducks under a low-hanging vine. “What do you have in mind?”
But then Óscar and Natalia pull even with us on the path, and we have to march in silence until they move ahead, fifteen minutes later.
“Soft targets and psychological manipulation,” I say when they’re out of earshot.
“Well, you are uniquely qualified for that one.” Holden means it as an insult, but I value every weapon in my arsenal.
“Silvana may as well be carved out of stone,” I whisper, just loud enough for the three of them to hear. “But Sebastián tried to help Ryan. I don’t think he wants anyone to get hurt. We can use that.”
Holden looks at me as if I’ve lost my mind. “So you want to what? Get him on our side?”
I shrug. “Or at least off Silvana’s side. He’s different from the others. He doesn’t seem to like violence, and he’s Nico’s friend.”
Holden rolls his eyes. “Nico’s had his tongue in your mouth, so naturally you trust his friend with your life. That’s a solid decision-making strategy.”
My gaze narrows on him. “And pimping out your girlfriend to an armed kidnapper in exchange for a gun is a much better plan?”
“Yes. Nico’s in on this, Genesis,” he insists. “We can’t trust anything he’s said or done.”
I thought so too, at first. But the kidnappers left Nico behind. They probably shot him. I think they’ve been using him from the time we landed in Cartagena.
From the moment I walked into my grandmother’s house and saw him fixing a cabinet, they were using him to get to me.
MADDIE
Bananas. Bunches of them. But they’re all too green and hard to eat.
I stumble on, shoving blurry vines and branches out of my way until a familiar greenish-brown fruit catches my eye.
It’s some kind of jungle mirage—my brain showing me what I need to see, rather than what’s really there.
But then I pluck one of the avocados hanging a foot above my head. It’s real.
Its skin is soft enough to pierce with my thumbnail, so I kneel in the mud and pull back a section of the green peel. I eat the meat like a mushy apple until I get to the pit.
Then I pick three more and eat them as I walk.
Food brings the world back into focus, and I realize I have no idea where I am.
I look from tree to tree, from vine to vine, searching for a familiar landmark.
Ryan doesn’t have time for this.
Calm down, Maddie. Think.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath. Use the sun.
I look up. Since I’m in the Southern Hemisphere, facing the sun means I’m facing north. So I turn to my right and head as close to east by northeast as I can.
Within minutes, I come to a narrow path. In the middle of it is a moss-covered log I tripped over shortly after the kidnappers started to march us out of camp.
Relieved, I take off down the path at a jog. Fifty yards later, I find a cigarette butt with Silvana’s lipstick staining the tip. I start running, stumbling with every other step, and when I see the top of a bright yellow tent, I stop in the middle of the path, sobbing.
I’ve made it. All on my own.
Score one for the girl with diabetes.
Fighting the urge to race through the camp in search of my brother, I creep along the back side of the line of tents instead. I listen for the footsteps and voices of anyone who might have stayed behind, but I hear nothing louder than the roar of my own pulse.
Ryan was shot at the end of this row of tents. I’m just yards away. A single orange tent blocks my view.
My heart pounds so hard it threatens to throw me off balance. I push back the flap of the orange tent.
Ryan is gone.
The camp is empty.
But there is a pile of loose earth beneath a tree on the edge of the clearing.
A single grave.
37 HOURS EARLIER
GENESIS
The gunmen prod us with their rifles, forcing us to move faster and faster in the slick mud, until we’re virtually sliding downhill. Penelope’s eyes are unfocused, and every time we need to climb over or under something, I have to practically shake her back to reality.
The temptation to slap her awake is almost irresistible, but she’s in too much shock to understand that my motivation is at least as much retribution as friendship.
If I hit her, I want her to understand why.
Indiana tries to help me keep her going, but Holden is lost in his own thoughts, and I can tell from how often he glances at the gunmen’s rifles that his thoughts are going to get us killed.
Finally Silvana calls for a bathroom break. “Five minutes,” she shouts. “Nada más.”
Pen, Domenica, and I head into the woods to relieve ourselves, escorted by Natalia and her rifle. On my way back to the clearing, I hear Sebastián and Silvana arguing in hushed voices. I stop behind a tree, trying to listen, but I can only pick up bits and pieces.
“No se suponía que iba a morir . . .” Sebastián hisses. He wasn’t supposed to die.
They’re talking about Ryan. My hand clenches around my backpack strap, and the buckle bites into my skin. Do they know he’s dead or are they just assuming?
“. . . mi jefe se pondrá furioso . . .” My boss will be pissed.
“My boss won’t give
a shit, as long as he gets what he wants,” Silvana replies.
My head spins. She doesn’t work with Sebastián. And she obviously doesn’t care if some of the hostages die. She could be part of some splinter political group or maybe a member of a drug cartel. Maddie said the conflict in Colombia was over, but it’s not like people have stopped using drugs.
A stick breaks beneath my foot, and I suck in a startled breath, waiting to see if they’ve heard me. But they’re still arguing.
Silvana lets her rifle hang from its strap and props both hands on her hips. “You deal with the hostages and let me do my job.”
Does that mean he’s in charge of us?
“Llámale,” he replies, pulling the satellite phone from his bag. “En seguida.” Call him. Right now.
Silvana glares at him. But then she takes the phone and presses a button.
I hear a series of soft tones as the phone autodials. She holds it to her ear, and a second later she speaks. “Buenas tardes, Hernán. Tenemos Genesis, Ryan, y Madalena. You know what we want for them.”
The realization washes over me like the shock of a cold rain. “Dad!” I run at her, grasping for the phone, but Sebastián catches me around the waist. “Dad!”
“Genesis!” my father’s voice is soft, stretched over the distance and the wireless connection, but I can hear the power in it. He’s shouting. In his office at home, the glass case behind his desk is probably rattling.
“Let go!” I slam the heel of my boot into Sebastián’s shin. He only tightens his grip. I shove my elbow into his ribs. He grunts, and his hold weakens. “We’re in the jungle!” I shout. “Somewhere near the—”
Silvana pulls her pistol left-handed and aims it at me.
“Stop,” Sebastián whispers into my ear with a thick accent.
“She’s lying!” I yell. “They don’t have—”
Sebastián’s hand covers my mouth.
“Give us what we want, and you’ll get all three of them back,” Silvana says into the phone.
“Don’t touch her!” my father shouts. “Silvana, if you hurt her, I’ll—”
“You have until three p.m. tomorrow. Twenty-four hours, Hernán.”
Silvana gives me a smug smile and ends the call.
MADDIE
I sink to my knees in the dirt. Tears fill my eyes, blurring the clearing around me.
It’s not Ryan. It can’t be. We heard seventeen shots. Anyone could be buried under that tree.
But seventeen anyones could not. It’s a single grave.
I crawl toward the fresh earth. Rocks bruise my palms and cut into my knees. The rest of the camp blurs into nothing on the edges of my vision.
I have one mission, and it has only two parts.
Dig up the grave.
See any face in the world other than my brother’s.
I pick up the first clod of dirt, then I’m digging, frantically tossing handful after handful over my shoulder. Soil cakes beneath my nails. Bugs land on my neck, but I hardly feel the bites. My breath hitches with each inhalation. I’m choking on my own fear.
Eighteen inches down, I scrape a muddy swath of cotton. I fall back on my heels and wipe my eyes with both grimy hands, breathing through the fierce ache wrapped tightly around my chest.
I claw at the dirt now, sniffling, and each bit I remove exposes more of a blood-and-dirt-stained shirt.
My finger scrapes metal, and I freeze.
No.
I brush the dirt away. My hand trembles as I clutch the medallion.
My father wore one just like it. They used it to identify his remains, in the burned-out van where he was found, on the outskirts of Cartagena.
Like my father, Ryan never took his medallion off.
“No, no, no.” I pull Ryan up by his shoulders, devastated by the pliant resistance of his weight as I hug him to my chest.
“Ryan . . . Ryan!” This can’t be real. He can’t be gone.
A twig snaps to my left, and I look up, still clutching my brother’s body.
Moisés stands fifteen feet away, his rifle aimed at my head. “Well, isn’t that sweet?”
GENESIS
“Why did they only call in her ransom?” Domenica asks as we wade into the narrow river.
Penelope picks her way across several small rocks sticking up from the surface. “Her dad owns the world’s largest independent shipping company.”
“Like, UPS?” Domenica frowns. “How big could it be, if I never heard of it before this morning?”
“Genesis Shipping is freight transportation,” Pen explains. “Gen’s dad has a huge fleet of trucks, planes, trains, and cargo ships moving merchandise and materials for companies all over the world. He even has contracts with several governments. Ransoming her is a massive payday.”
They think I’m too upset to listen.
They don’t know me at all.
“I’m worth more than she is,” Holden insists. But our kidnappers clearly think they can get three ransoms from my dad, as long as he doesn’t know about Maddie and Ryan.
But he should know. My aunt and grandmother should know.
I can’t be the only one who knows what happened. Not again.
“Genesis. Mija. Where is your mother?” My father kneels next to me on the living room carpet. He looks scared.
I’ve never seen my father scared.
“Genesis.”
I see him. I hear him. But I can’t answer. Maybe if I close my eyes, I won’t even be here anymore.
He takes my hands, then drops them and stares in horror at the blood on his palms. At the blood on mine. Then he looks past me. Into the kitchen.
“Genesis.” Indiana takes my hand, and I let him tug me into the shallow water. It’s easy to pretend I’m mired in shock, rather than in thought, and the more the kidnappers underestimate me, the better off I’ll be.
My father was right there. I wanted to tell him that I’m sorry for bringing us here. For lying to him. For putting us all in danger.
I mentally replay the phone call as I step out of the river onto the opposite bank, but it still makes no sense. My dad knew Silvana’s name. She didn’t bother to set a price because she thinks he already knows what she wants.
Understanding hits me like a knife to the gut. Whatever is happening here is the reason I’ve never been allowed in Colombia. It may even be the reason Uncle David was killed.
My kidnapping and his murder within a year in the same country can’t be a coincidence.
36.75 HOURS EARLIER
MADDIE
Moisés’s lips turn up in an ugly sneer, his brows bunched toward the middle of his forehead. “Get out of the hole.”
“No.” I am covered in dirt from my brother’s grave, holding his still-warm body, yet suddenly a seething storm of anger churns deep in my belly.
“Salga del agujero unless you want me to bury you in it.”
Slowly, I lower my brother back onto the ground. My tears leave wet trails on his cheeks, as if he cried them himself. “You’re not going to shoot me,” I say as I run one hand through the hair at Ryan’s temple, arranging it the way he wore it. “You weren’t supposed to shoot my brother either.” My uncle may not be the man my father was, but he will pay to get me back.
He would have paid for Ryan too.
I stand slowly, wiping my palms on my shorts, but that does no good. I’m covered from head to toe in grime.
“Silvana needs me, doesn’t she?” I make myself look away from his trigger finger and meet his gaze.
“She thinks you’re dead. She’ll be happy to see you breathing, no matter how banged up you get on the way.”
I swipe one hand across my nose, smearing snot and tears through the dirt on my face, punctuating my determination not to cry anymore. “I’m diabetic, and I’m on the verge of an insulin reaction from too little food and too much exercise.” I show him my insulin pump. “If you make me hike, my body will shut down and I’ll die. How pissed will Silvana be if you lose
her another hostage?” I can hardly believe my nerve. But he’s not going to kill me, and I have nothing left to lose.
“I’ll worry about Silvana.” Moisés shifts his rifle into a one-handed grip and pulls a length of nylon cord from his belt loop. I recognize the cord—he cut it from one of the tents on his way to the clearing. “You turn around and put your hands behind your back.”
I can’t outrun him. Not without rest, food, and insulin. But I can’t give in either.
Heart pounding, I take a step back and trip over a lump of dirt, then fall into my brother’s grave. The impact slams my teeth together. Blood pours into my mouth from my bitten cheek.
Moisés swings his rifle onto his back, then hauls me up by one arm. “You spoiled Americans are all the same.” He throws me to the ground. My hands and knees hit the dirt, and I grunt from the impact.
“You think the rules don’t apply to you. You think there’s nothing that can’t be bought, but you’re about to learn—”
Moisés’s rant ends in an oof of pain, and his hands fall away. He lands on the ground next to me, his eyes closed. A fist-sized rock lies a foot from his head.
I scramble back on my hands and knees, eyes wide.
Luke stands ten feet away with his right arm pulled back, staring at the unconscious gunman. Ready to throw another rock.
GENESIS
“¿Tenemos tiempo para descansar?” Julian asks as he and Óscar haul a fallen tree out of the path.
“No!” Silvana shouts. “We keep moving!”
Domenica groans as she steps over a log. I shift my backpack from my left shoulder onto my right, and the relief is immediate. Being driven through the jungle at breakneck speed is more grueling than any workout I’ve ever had.
Despite her Olympic pedigree, even Pen looks wiped out.
At the front of our ragged procession, Sebastián and Silvana are arguing again. I move closer so I can hear.
“What are they saying?” Indiana asks as he falls into step with me, holding a packet of peanuts.