“Sit, princesa.” She pulls me down onto the stump again, and my bag hits the dirt at my feet. “You want to talk to your daddy? Vale, I’m going to give you ten seconds to convince your father to ship Sebastián’s product,” she says as she takes the clunky satellite phone from her pocket.
Her watch reads two thirty. My dad still has thirty minutes left until the deadline, but she clearly thinks he needs a nudge.
I swallow the lump in my throat. “I’m not going to ask him to help you kill people. That’s not going to solve the world’s problems.”
Silvana grabs my chin, and I pretend her grip doesn’t hurt. “Don’t mistake me for one of Sebastián’s bleeding hearts, niña. I don’t give a shit about Colombia’s problems. I’m here to collect ransoms and secure distribution, so you can talk your father into cooperating, or we can let him listen over the phone while Álvaro takes you apart piece by piece.”
She lets me go, and my focus strays to Álvaro, who’s sharpening his machete with a large rock.
The stump I’m sitting on suddenly feels unsteady. All I can hear is the metallic scrape of that rock across Álvaro’s blade. All I can see is sunlight glinting off the sharp edge.
I fight to slow my breathing and when I tear my gaze from the machete, it’s drawn to Indiana. He’s leaning against a tree on the edge of the clearing, watching me. Ready to step in at the first sign that I need help, in spite of the personal risk.
If I tell my dad not to help Sebastián, I’ll be sacrificing Indiana and all the other hostages, along with myself. I have no right to do that. I don’t want to do that. But I can’t—
Silvana autodials a number, and my heart races while the phone rings. Once. Twice. “If you try to tell your papi where you are, I will slit your boyfriend’s throat right in front of you.”
“Hello?” my father says, and a sob explodes from my throat. “Silvana?”
She hands me the phone, and I grip it like a drowning man clutching a life raft. “Papi?”
“Genesis.” He sounds so relieved. “Are you okay? Have they hurt you?”
“I . . .” The words freeze on my tongue.
“Listen, princesa, don’t talk to them. Don’t listen to them. Don’t even look at them. Just sit tight and be smart. I’m going to get you out—”
“Don’t do it, Dad.” I swallow a sob and clear my throat. Then I suck in another breath and say the worst thing I’ve ever said to my father. The only thing that will work. “If you help them hurt those people, I swear to God, I’ll slit my own throat right here in the jungle.”
Silvana snatches the phone from me and slaps me across the face so hard that I land on the ground, two feet from the stump I was sitting on.
“Genesis!” my father shouts over the line.
Indiana lurches into motion, then freezes when Silvana points her pistol at him. But his focus stays glued to me.
“We both know your princesa won’t do that,” she spits into the phone as I bring my hand to my burning left cheek. “Álvaro’s here, Hernán, and he’s itching to show Genesis what you’ve been shielding her from, up in that ivory tower.”
This is why my father is so paranoid and protective. This is why I had to take Krav Maga and learn to shoot. This is why he wouldn’t let me come to Colombia.
Why my uncle was murdered. Why I was kidnapped. Why Ryan was shot.
And my mom . . . ?
I hear a thud, and my mother makes a strange sound. A hurting sound. Tears leak from the corners of my closed eyes. There’s another thud, and she gasps. My whole body shakes.
The thuds go on, and she stops making noises. But I keep my eyes squeezed shut.
I am a good girl.
“This is your daddy’s fault,” the man says as his footsteps thump closer.
My father shouts from the other end of the line, making threats I can’t understand, with my heart hammering in my ears.
“I’m going to give you one more chance,” Silvana says into the phone. “If I don’t hear from you by midnight with the coordinates of your closest ship, you know what we’ll do to her, Hernán.” Silvana hangs the phone up and slides it into her pocket.
My father’s furious shouting echoes in my head as she picks up her bottle and leaves me shaking on the ground, in the ruins of the delusion I’ve been living my whole life.
13.5 HOURS EARLIER
MADDIE
Another burst of static comes from the radio. “Hey, Shawn, can I get confirmation—”
I grab Luke’s hand as more audio fuzz swallows the rest. “That’s Julian.” Chills run up my spine. I’ll never forget his voice. “The man who shot Ryan.”
Luke’s hand goes stiff, and I swallow my disappointment. He still doesn’t trust me. But then his fingers intertwine with mine, and I give his palm a grateful squeeze.
The minute I really need him, there he is.
“Um, just a sec . . .” Shawn’s voice fades into more static while Luke and I stare at the radio. “. . . grab the list.” The radio goes silent for a minute, then the static comes back. “Okay, I . . . Angeles, Chicago, DC, Memphis . . . York, and Miami. Did you get all those?”
“Sí,” Julian says. “And Langley, Virginia.”
“No, man, Sebastián said the boss scratched Langley from the list last week.”
“Silvana . . . very clear,” Julian insists, his accent thick and harsh with anger. “No Langley, no deal. You do not . . . anger Moreno.”
“Okay . . . talk to Sebastián . . . get back to you,” Shawn says, and the static ends.
I squeeze Luke’s hand again, then let it go. “We are in way over our heads.”
Luke nods. “Yeah, that’s about the only part I understood.”
“It sounds like Silvana works for the Moreno cartel. What’s left of it, anyway.” The Morenos were big news during a rash of drug raids a couple of years ago. “And whoever Sebastián’s boss is, he isn’t afraid to piss the cartel off.”
“The cartel? So is this about cocaine?” Luke frowns. “The cities—are they some kind of distribution network?”
“But Langley?” My heart thuds in my ear while I try to figure out what’s going on.
“Maybe CIA agents like to party hard.”
“I don’t know,” I tell him. The only thing I’m sure of is that this is much bigger than what’s happened to Genesis, Ryan, and me.
11 HOURS EARLIER
GENESIS
“He hasn’t called.” My foot won’t stop bouncing. I grab Indiana’s wrist and glance at his watch. “It’s been three hours. He’s not going to call.” I’m not sure what I want my father to say, but I’m sure I want to hear from him.
Indiana scoots closer on the log and takes my hand. “He’s going to call.”
On the other side of our fire pit Penelope is running her fingers through Holden’s blond waves while he naps with his head in her lap. Domenica and Rog are immersed in a game of chess on a set that’s missing two pawns.
They have no idea what Silvana told my father. Or that the call I’m waiting on could get them killed.
Across the clearing, Óscar starts passing out soup cans and MREs to our captors for dinner.
I’m so tired. I want to lean on Indiana’s shoulder, but I can’t afford to look vulnerable. “I shouldn’t have told him I’d kill myself. Now he thinks he’ll lose me no matter what he does.”
Indiana lets go of my hand and slides his arm around my waist. “There’s no way your dad believes you’ll really do it,” he says into my hair.
“He does,” I insist. “A Valencia never bluffs.”
Indiana leans back and studies my eyes. “That’s not true. I lost two sticks of gum and my last clean shirt playing poker with you this afternoon.”
“Poker doesn’t count.” But I’m smiling now, and that seems to make him happy.
“Aren’t they going to give us anything to eat?” Penelope asks.
I turn to see that Óscar is eating his dinner. The hostages were not served.
“Genesis,” Sebastián calls from across his fire pit, and I tense at the sound of my own name. “Ven acá.”
I stand, and Indiana stands with me, so close I can’t see anyone else. “You don’t have to go. You could just stay here.” He slides one hand into my hair and his lips brush my cheek. “With me.”
I want to kiss him, and I don’t care who’s watching. But Sebastián was right—he’s calling plenty of shots. “I’ll be right back.” I can feel everyone watching as I cross the base camp. Domenica and Penelope look curious, but Holden’s glare feels like a knife in my back.
Sebastián and his men sit on logs and handmade stools, but he gestures for me to sit on the mat at his feet. “Are you hungry?” he asks as he scoops up a bite of canned ravioli.
Lunch was six hours ago, so of course I’m starving. But I know better than to admit it.
“You can eat as soon as you get your dad to cooperate.” He takes a bite and speaks around it. “Time’s running out.”
“I’m not going to ask my dad to help you kill people. Why are you doing this? I thought you wanted to make things better!”
“We are making things better. The world is no different than a gangrenous limb, Genesis. You have to cut out the rot to save healthy flesh.” Sebastián glances at Silvana. “She’s telling the truth. Your father is not the man you think he is.”
“He’s the rot,” the American to his left says.
“Shawn,” Sebastián snaps. But the American only shrugs.
“My dad never forced anyone to get high.” I’m clinging to that certainty because I don’t know how else to defend my father. I don’t even know if I should. “People make their own choices and pay for their own mistakes.”
Shawn looks disappointed. “The apple and the tree. She’s going to take root right under him.”
My face burns. “And where are you taking root?” I demand. “How is blowing people up any better than shipping cocaine?”
Fervor burns in Shawn’s eyes like some kind of mania. “The American sense of entitlement and ruthless capitalist agenda has preyed upon the disenfranchised—both here and in the States—for decades. We’re going to destroy our country’s symbols of greed and excess. We’re going to open peoples’ eyes!”
I turn away in disgust, but Sebastián grabs my arm.
“You don’t recognize the problem because it’s been staring at you en el espejo every day of your life. But just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there. You reek of waste and destruction.”
I pull free, but he’s still talking. “You may not be hungry, but your friends are. None of you eat until you convince your dad to cooperate.”
“It’s seven hours until the deadline,” I remind him. “I think they’ll survive.”
“Make sure they know why they’re going hungry, princesa!” Silvana shouts as I return to the hostages’ fire pit.
“What does that mean?” Holden demands, but I march right past him. They’re not truly trying to starve us; they’re trying to manipulate me with social pressure. “What did you do this time?”
“Nothing.” I sink onto the log next to Indiana again, and I can feel Holden glaring at me, but I block him out. “They’re not going to feed us until I talk my dad into cooperating,” I whisper.
“No one can blame you for that,” he insists. “Just tell them what’s going on. It’s not like anyone wants terrorists to set off bombs in the States.”
But it doesn’t seem fair to tell them that I’ve already chosen the lives of hundreds of strangers over theirs. Over all of ours.
“Holden doesn’t consider anyone else’s well-being his responsibility, and right now Penelope would follow him off a high dive into a pool full of venomous snakes if he so much as smiled at her.”
Indiana gives me a crooked smile. “So all we have to do is convince everyone that we’re actually on a hunger strike.”
“And that it was Holden’s idea,” I add with a laugh.
10.5 HOURS EARLIER
MADDIE
“One rifle and five shells won’t be much of a threat to a drug cartel, but in case you have to pick this up, you need to know how to use it. They’ll know right away if you don’t.”
I study the rifle as Luke ejects the chambered round. “Don’t I just take aim and pull the trigger?”
“Kind of.” He bends to pick up the ejected bullet. “This is like the one I learned on, except it has an automatic and a semiautomatic mode. I’ve switched it to single fire, because—again—we only have five bullets.”
I take the rifle from him, and it’s heavier than I expected. I thought it would make me feel strong, but it makes me feel small and awkward. “How do I hold it?”
“Like this.” Luke positions the back of the stock against my shoulder, then guides my left hand to cup the grip around the back of the rifle’s long barrel. “This is called the handgrip.”
When he moves into place behind me, his chest brushes my back, and I want to lean into him. To just . . . close the space between us and let that gesture say the things I don’t know how to tell him. Because I can’t trust my mouth not to mess this up again.
“It’s unloaded, but you should get in the habit of keeping your finger off the trigger unless you’re ready to fire,” he says, and I can feel his breath on my neck. “Now aim at that tree.”
“That one?” I let go of the handgrip to point, and Luke guides my hand back into place. He’s confident with the rifle. His hands are steady.
“Yes. Keep both hands on the gun.” He lifts it a little higher against my shoulder, and he’s pressed so closely against me now that I can feel every breath he takes. “Now line up the rear sight and the front sight and make sure they’re right over what you want to shoot.”
“What do I want to shoot?”
“See that knothole?” His breath brushes my ear, and I nod, afraid that if I speak, everything I’m thinking will fall out. I need this lesson. This gun and those five shells are the only chance I’ll get to avenge Ryan. But the closer I get to Luke, the less I want to drag him into this.
Luke readjusts my grip on the rifle, and his hip presses against mine. He lifts the barrel a little higher, and a cord of muscle stands out from his arm. I blink and force my focus back to the tree.
“Line the sights up and squeeze the trigger. Gently.”
I squeeze. The trigger clicks. Luke pushes the rifle up by the barrel and shoves the stock into my shoulder.
“Hey!” Startled, I drop the gun.
Luke catches it with one hand.
“What was that for?” All thoughts of kissing him are gone.
“I was simulating kickback,” Luke says. “For an authentic experience. The first time you fire a rifle, it might knock you back a couple of steps, if your stance isn’t right. You have to be prepared. Which does not include dropping the gun.”
“Well, you could have warned me!”
“Sorry.” He tries to hide a grin.
“What’s so funny?”
“You just looked so surprised.”
It’s hard to be anything but tired and terrified, knowing that the Moreno cartel is involved in my cousin’s kidnapping and my brother’s murder, but Luke’s smile is contagious. And he’s finally stopped putting distance between us.
“Are you ready?” he asks, still grinning.
“Yeah.”
Luke picks up my backpack and hands it to me. “Let’s do it.” His face flushes over the accidental innuendo. “That’s not what I meant,” he says, and I can’t stifle a laugh.
I like that I don’t have to wonder what he’s thinking or feeling. He isn’t playing games. He isn’t trying to get me drunk. He isn’t hiding a beautiful French girlfriend.
He isn’t hiding anything. Every thought he has falls right out of his mouth, and that’s actually kind of refreshing. And funny.
With a warm jolt of surprise, I realize I really want to kiss Luke again.
10 HOURS EARLIER
/> GENESIS
Across the fire pit, Holden is whispering with Penelope, Domenica, and Rog. I can only hear every other word, but that’s more than enough to lift the mystery from his escape plan.
Wait until everyone’s asleep. Disable the guards on duty. Run.
His plan is disastrously simplistic and dangerous, but I can’t blame them for considering it. We have to do something. And my plan has failed.
“He’s going to get them killed,” Indiana says as he sinks onto the mat next to me and hands me a bottle of water.
“I don’t know.” I unscrew the lid and drink until my stomach feels a little less empty. “Maybe Holden’s onto something.”
“No,” Indiana says. “He’s not.”
I set the bottle down and turn to face him fully. “Silvana is going to let Álvaro chop me into pieces so my dad can hear me scream over the phone,” I tell him.
Indiana’s jaw clenches. He takes my hand. “Genesis, I won’t—”
“You can’t stop it. And my dad won’t be able to stand it. He’ll cave, and a lot of people will die. Then he’ll go to prison. But if I run, Silvana will have no way to convince my dad to cooperate.”
“Holden’s plan doesn’t sound any smarter when it comes out of your mouth, G.” He rubs my knuckle with his thumb. “We won’t all make it out of here if we try to run, and the terrorists will still have their bombs. They will find another way into the US. If you run, you’ll only be delaying the inevitable.”
“Damn it.” I give him a small shove, but his chest is tantalizingly unyielding. “Why do you have to poke holes in my plan?”
He laughs. “It’s Holden’s plan, and you were never going to go through with it.”
“How do you know that?”
Indiana leans in, and I’m caught in his hazel gaze. “I know because you are the moon, not the tide.” His lips brush the corner of my mouth with each syllable, and anticipation blazes through me. I’ve never wanted anything in my life like I want to kiss him. “You don’t roll with the flow, Genesis, you create the current. And Holden is nothing but a boat bobbing on the waves.”