When he says nothing else, I glance at Silvana, then give him a sympathetic look. “I know, you’re not supposed to tell me what this is really about. She’s such a control freak.”
Sebastián chuckles. “If you were half as smart as you think you are, you’d be a very dangerous girl.”
“If you had half the balls you pretend to have, you’d be calling the shots here,” I return without missing a beat.
Sebastián looks insulted. Then he laughs out loud. “I’m calling plenty of shots. And that’s all you need to know.”
34 HOURS EARLIER
MADDIE
“There! Do you hear that?” I grab Luke’s hand, and his fingers go stiff. “That’s definitely water.”
He smiles. “Good ear.”
We veer to the north, and soon we find the bank of the very river I jumped into seven hours ago.
While Luke gathers dry twigs, I unpack the small wood-burning camp stove we scavenged from the technological treasure trove of Holden’s abandoned tent, and together we manage to get a compact but bright fire going.
“Wait.” He frowns at the stove, then at the plastic water bottles, which will melt at the first lick of flames. “We need something to boil the water in before we drink it.”
“We have something.” I sit on a fallen log and pop the top on two cans of soup, then hand one to him. “Eat fast.”
We have to pour bites into our mouths straight from the cans because we don’t have any spoons, and I smile when Luke lowers his to reveal a half circle of tomato soup rising from the corners of his mouth, like a grotesque clown smile.
“Yeah, well, you have a clam chowder mustache,” he fires back with a grin while he wipes his face on his sleeve. For the first time in hours, I don’t want to dig my own grave and lie down in it.
But then the radio at Luke’s waist crackles, and my smile dies. We hear only static, but the fact that we’re picking up anything at all means we’re getting closer to Genesis and the other hostages.
Closer to my brother’s killers.
I’m only going to get one shot at them. I will damn well be ready.
GENESIS
Everyone stares at me as I rejoin the hostages across the clearing. Indiana’s subtle smile says he knows what I’m up to with Sebastián, but I’m not even sure I do, anymore. He’s harder to read than I thought he’d be, and I still have no idea how they expect my dad to get a bomb past customs, or what they want to blow up. Or why.
“What the hell was that?” Holden demands in a whisper. In spite of his plan to distract a couple of the gunmen with my nudity, he’s wearing jealousy like a wool sweater—as if it chafes.
“What was what?”
He leans in to whisper what probably looks like something sweet and soft, his breath brushing my hair. “You can’t work Sebastián over in front of the whole world. You have to take him into the jungle and give him something better to hold on to than that rifle.”
I shove him back until I can see his eyes. “Believe it or not, your sledgehammer approach isn’t appropriate for every problem,” I snap softly. “I can’t stop whatever they’re planning until I understand what that is. Which won’t happen until Sebastián trusts me. I’m trying to make a connection.”
Holden snorts. “We both know you don’t need to talk to connect with a guy. Stick to what you’re good at.”
“You have no idea what I’m good at,” I say, my cheeks flaming. Even Holden only sees what I show him, and I’m done showing him how to hurt me.
“You crossed a line with Penelope,” I hiss, my hands curled into fists. “And you damn well know it. You should be on your knees right now, begging for forgiveness, but you’re trying to pimp me out to armed terrorists instead. What the hell kind of apology is that?”
Holden glances around to see if anyone is close enough to overhear our quiet implosion. “You’re totally overreacting,” he whispers. “And we have bigger problems right now than—”
“Stay away from me.” I let my voice carry, and everyone who wasn’t already watching turns to stare. Pen is on the edge of her seat, waiting to see how this will play out. “We’re done.”
Sebastián and most of the other gunmen chuckle. Silvana makes a snide comment about Holden’s inadequacies in Spanish, using his name so he knows he’s being ridiculed.
Holden’s jaw clenches so hard I can hear his teeth grind. I’ve never seen him this mad, but my anger matches his so fiercely that for the moment, I don’t care how reckless it is to make new enemies, when I’m already being held at gunpoint.
He sits on the log next to Penelope and pulls her close for a kiss. I laugh out loud. Poor Penelope is the only one who can’t see that his pathetic display is actually for my benefit.
Indiana watches me as he stores a nearly empty water bottle. His brow rises, asking a silent question.
Did that go as planned?
Are you okay?
Do you want to rethink this approach?
I’m not sure which of those he’s asking, but the answer to all three is no.
33.5 HOURS EARLIER
MADDIE
“We can’t hike all night,” Luke says as he refills our last plastic bottle with the cooled water we boiled in our soup cans.
Yet that’s exactly what I want to do. We’re close enough to my brother’s killers to pick up radio static, but they’ll slip farther and farther away while we “rest.” As if I’ll be able to sleep while the kidnappers are out there getting away with murder. And hunting for me, if they’ve realized Moisés won’t be bringing me back.
“Come on.” Luke slides my backpack from my shoulders. “They won’t be hiking all night either.”
I should insist that we press on. That this is our chance to gain some ground. But the harder I push my body, the less predictably it will use the insulin I have left.
So as the last rays of daylight sink behind the jungle canopy, I reluctantly pitch our one-person tent on the bank of the river. While Luke gathers more wood for the camp stove, he lists his favorite movies in which people get lost in the wild. “And then there’s Alive,” he says as he shoves two more sticks into the stove. “That one about the plane crash in the Andes where the survivors resorted to cannibalism.”
I frown at him as I look up from the last tent pole. “Do you think you could leave out all the movies that don’t have happy endings?”
Luke’s sudden silence does little to reassure me of our chances. Suddenly the jungle seems built of shadows, rather than trees.
“We’re going to be fine,” I insist as I crawl into the tent. “We’re in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. Not the Andes.”
He climbs in after me, then zips up the transparent roof/door section. “True. Although we’re not far from the northern tip of the Andes.”
Of course he would know that.
33 HOURS EARLIER
GENESIS
Ahead, several flashlight beams pierce the darkness, illuminating slices of the jungle path as if they were thrown from a disjointed disco ball. Branches and vines seem to loom over us, jumping each time the light shifts.
I’m starting to think they’re going to march us all night.
Holden and Penelope are near the head of the line, walking so close together that their shoulders keep brushing each other. Álvaro takes up a position on my right, and the way he watches me makes me feel like I’m still kneeling on that cliff. As if he still holds his machete to my throat, and he’s waiting for me to flinch.
Fortunately, he loses interest in me when Óscar clips a small portable radio to the shoulder strap of his bag and begins dialing through the FM band.
The other gunmen argue in Spanish about whether or not we’re close enough to their base camp to pick up a signal. When Óscar finds not one, but three different stations, the gunmen cheer, and I’m tempted to join them. If they can pick up a radio signal, they might also pick up a cell phone signal.
Not that either of those will help, unless I can get a
hold of a radio or a cell phone.
Óscar turns up the volume and sound crackles over the airwaves. I trip over my own feet when I hear my name come from the radio.
“. . . Genesis Valencia is seventeen. Her cousins Ryan and Madalena Valencia are eighteen and sixteen. Penelope Goh, an Olympic silver medalist on the uneven bars and a local celebrity, is seventeen. Holden Wainwright, only son of . . .”
At first, I am so shocked that the familiarity of the voice doesn’t register.
“Neda . . .” Penelope turns to look at me, having evidently forgotten that the only reason she and I are still on the same continent is that we’re being held at gunpoint. “How did she get on the radio?”
“Shhh!” Suddenly my feet don’t hurt. My mosquito bites don’t itch. The rest of the world fades away as the gunmen cheer over the realization that their efforts have made it onto an English-language radio show—surely the first part of whatever message they’re trying to send.
I listen, desperate for information from outside the jungle. I’ve been without my cell phone for all of eleven hours, and I already feel like the world has moved on without me.
“Neda, what can you tell us about the others who were kidnapped in the north Colombian jungle along with your friends?” another voice asks over the static, and I recognize the practiced cadence of Bill “The Thunder” Lewis, one of our local Miami DJs.
Neda is being interviewed. Either Óscar’s radio is picking up a signal from Florida—is that possible?—or the show has been syndicated.
Either way, our disappearance has obviously become big news.
“I don’t have the names of all the others who went missing,” she says. “But I’m working closely with the US authorities to answer their questions to the best of my ability. And I appreciate this opportunity to tell my story to the world. It was such a close call, Bill. If I hadn’t been airlifted out of the jungle last night, I’d be out there right now, fighting for my survival. Only with my injury, I’d have a distinct disadvantage.”
Yeah. Because Maddie’s diabetes made things so easy for her.
“I can only imagine.” Bill clucks his tongue in sympathy with the girl who wasn’t kidnapped at gunpoint. “We need to take a quick break, then we’ll be back with Neda Rahbar, to hear more about the six Miami teens who went missing in the Colombian jungle this very morning.”
“They know we’re missing!” Penelope clutches Holden’s arm as the radio goes to a commercial break, and my teeth grind so hard I can hear my jaw creak.
Indiana gives me a sympathetic smile and aims his small flashlight at the ground in front of our feet, lighting the way.
“It sounds like they only know about the people your friend felt like talking about on the radio,” Natalia says, and the pointed smile she shoots at Indiana, Rog, and Domenica looks extra smug in the indirect glow from Óscar’s flashlight.
“Well, then they mostly know about Neda.” I try to summon a smile, as if I think my absent friend’s narcissism is in any way amusing while the rest of us are being held at gunpoint.
“At least they know something,” Domenica points out as we trudge through a puddle of mud that Indiana’s flashlight failed to illuminate.
Silvana’s soft laughter is cruel. “Yes, they know you’re out here somewhere, and they only have seventeen thousand square acres of dense jungle to search on foot in order to find you. You’ll be rescued in no time!”
MADDIE
“So . . . what’s the plan, Maddie?” Luke asks as he lies back on the floor of the tent with his hands folded beneath his head. “For real.” His tone is carefully neutral, as if he’s afraid of upsetting me with the question. “Why are we really out here, instead of waiting for the helicopter near the bunkhouse?”
“I told you.” I pick at a string hanging from the side of the sleeping bag and avoid eye contact because I don’t want to lie to his face, even if that lie is partly true. “I have to find Genesis and get my insulin.”
“You’ve hardly glanced at your pump all day. You don’t seem very worried about running low.”
I’ll be more worried about my insulin if we don’t find Genesis before tomorrow afternoon. But that’s not what he’s asking about.
“I’m . . .” Luke deserves the truth. But he’s not going to talk me out of it. “Look, you didn’t have to come. I told you to stay near the bunkhouse. You—”
“I wanted to come with you, and I’m not going to leave you out here,” he insists. “But I need to know the plan. The real plan.”
“They have to pay for what they did to my brother,” I say as I finally look at him.
“Okay, but even if that were a plausible goal—and most critical thinkers would agree that it’s not—what are you going to do?” He sits up, and now we’re eye to eye. “There are two of us against who knows how many gunmen. Not to mention the jungle itself. Do you have any idea how many things could kill us out here, even if we never find the kidnappers? Jaguars. Piranha. Poison dart frogs. Caimans. Snakes. Spiders. We’ll be lucky if we don’t catch malaria from the mosquito that just bit me. Or we could drown in the river or fall off a cliff.”
“I’ve already survived a cliff, a river, and more than one gunman. And this mosquito . . .” I reach up and smash it into the top of the tent, leaving a small smear of blood against the overhead view. “As for the rest, we’ll just have to keep our eyes open.”
“Maddie, Ryan’s gone, but your cousin’s still alive, and she needs help,” Luke says. “We owe it to her and her friends to report them missing.”
“Report to whom?” I demand. “Even if we find police or more soldiers, we can’t be sure they aren’t in on this like the soldiers at the bunkhouse.”
Luke looks shocked, and I realize he didn’t know that, since he missed the actual kidnapping.
“What did you overhear while you were hiding?” I ask.
He shrugs. “I’m in second year Latin, not Spanish.”
My brows rise. How can anyone live in Miami and speak no Spanish?
Fear lines his forehead, and I try not to let him see how scared I am too. “Look. There’s no one to report this to. There’s no one else to help Genesis.” And like her or not, I’m not losing another family member.
“Do you have any idea where they’re taking the hostages?”
I shake my head. “All I know is that they were heading northwest. If you’re not up for it, I understand. But I have to—”
“I’m with you, Maddie.” He says it softly, but the words hold no doubt.
I exhale in the dark, grateful to know that I won’t be out here in the jungle alone.
32.5 HOURS EARLIER
GENESIS
Everyone stops talking when Bill Lewis comes back on the air.
“Thanks for tuning in to Power 85 FM for this exclusive interview with local high school junior Neda Rahbar, whose friends disappeared in the Colombian jungle this morning. For those of you just tuning in, the US embassy received a report around ten hours ago from the mother of Luke Hazelwood, one of the missing Miami teens, after she got a text from her son, saying that armed gunmen had taken over a supply base in Parque Tayrona, on the northernmost coast of Colombia.”
“Luke?” Holden turns to walk backward, and even in the dark, I can tell he’s scowling at me. “Your dad didn’t report us missing?”
“Hernán knows better,” Silvana says with a laugh.
And Maddie’s lovesick puppy dog has proved more resourceful than I gave him credit for. Yet he’s evidently still missing.
“We have a special caller on the line,” Bill “The Thunder” Lewis says over the radio, and everyone goes quiet again. “Hello, Mrs. Wainwright?”
“Yes, this is Elizabeth Wainwright.”
Holden makes a strange choking sound from the front of the line.
“Thank you for taking our call. Please, tell us something about your son.”
“Holden is my only child. He’s a sweet boy,” Elizabeth says, and she genuinel
y seems to believe that. “He’s allergic to mold and he’s never really been fishing or even camping without prepackaged meals, so the rain forest is truly a less-than-ideal environment for his health.”
Silvana shines her light at him, and Holden’s jaw is so tight I’m afraid he’ll dislocate it. He loves to talk about going on safari with his dad, as if that makes him a badass, but he never mentions the private guide who cooks, packs the Jeep, and makes all the travel arrangements.
Holden camps like a rich boy.
“So, if whoever has him is listening, please tell us what you want. We’ll do anything. Just please send our boy home.”
The back of Holden’s neck is flaming now. If he were a cartoon, fire would be shooting out of his ears.
“Mrs. Wainwright, we hope your son’s captors have heard your plea. That’s it for tonight, folks. Please tune in tomorrow when we come to you live with Neda Rahbar at the sit-in vigil at Elmore Everglades Academy. And don’t forget you can pick up your ‘keep hope alive’ bracelets here at the studio!”
Silvana steps in front of Holden as Óscar turns off the radio. “‘Oh, please send him back! He’s good for nothing, but we’ll pay anything!’”
The gunmen laugh, and she turns to play to her audience.
“If Wainwright’s mami will pay a fortune for her entire son, what would she pay if we send back just a piece of him at a time?” Silvana pulls Holden to a stop by one arm and lays the blade of her huge knife flat against his left nostril. “How much for his pretty little nose?”
We’ve all stopped walking now. Most of the flashlights are trained on them, so we can all see the show.
Holden is frozen. Pen looks terrified, and I want to throw up.
This is all my fault.
Silvana’s men laugh harder, and she lets him go, muttering in Spanish about how useless he is.
Holden fumes, humiliated. Penelope watches him, obviously unsure how to help.