Does she know that a means of escape is just a ten-minute hike away? Have they let the hostages leave camp at all?
“I have to talk to her. I have to tell her about the boats.” I turn to Luke. “Any ideas?”
“Well, if we had something to write with—or on—we could wad up a message and throw it at her. Or shoot it to her through a bamboo shoot. Like a spitball.”
“We don’t have anything to write with or on.”
Luke shrugs. “That’s why it was a hypothetical. I’m assuming neither of you knows Morse code?”
“A solid assumption.”
“Well, then, short of just shouting at her, I’m out of ideas.”
“I—” Wait. “You’re a genius. And not just a math genius. Like, a real genius.” I kiss him on the cheek, then stand, but he pulls me back down.
“Do not start shouting. You’ll get us caught.”
“Only one of us,” I tell him.
“No, Maddie, listen to me.” He takes me by both arms and stares right into my eyes in the dark. “I’m a genius. You just said so. And I’m telling you this is a very bad plan. Why don’t we just go make out in our tree hammock again? That was safe, and fun!”
“There’s a tree in this plan too, but you’re going to be in it by yourself. Find one nearby, where you can still see the camp, but won’t be seen.”
“Maddie, no.” Luke crosses his arms over his backpack straps.
“There’s no other way.” I’m talking fast, because I have to do this before I chicken out. Just like with the cliff. “I’ll tell them about the boats, and we’ll make a break for it the first chance we get. You just stay ready and follow us.” I glance at the rifle. “With the gun. Just in case.”
“No!” Luke whispers fiercely. “We’re in this together. We stay together.”
He starts to say something else, but I cut him off with a kiss—the only reliable way I’ve found to shut him up. “Mmmm, see? There’s making out in this plan too.”
“That was highly manipulative.”
“Yeah, well, sometimes a girl has to play dirty. Two minutes. Find some place to hide, or I’m giving us both up. But I really need you to be my backup, Luke.”
“Damn it, Maddie,” he mumbles. And that’s how I know I’ve won.
4 HOURS EARLIER
GENESIS
“Are you ready? It needs to be now!” I whisper, and Domenica gives me a shaky nod. “Have you ever actually had a seizure?”
“I used to get them as a kid. My parents would never let me go anywhere by myself, so I swore that when I grew up, I’d grab my backpack and . . .” Domenica blinks, and her eyes seem to refocus. “Never mind. I’m ready.” She stands, and Indiana and I start a game of war so we won’t be obviously watching her. But she only makes it a few steps before—
“Oh my God, Genesis.”
I look up to see Domenica staring over my shoulder.
I turn, and my cards land on the ground all around me. I forget all about the bomb pressed against my stomach.
Maddie stands on the edge of the clearing.
I stand and blink, expecting her to disappear like a mirage. But she’s still there. “Maddie?” She’s covered in grime, and her eyes look a little glazed. She’s in shock.
How did she get here? How is she still alive?
“Dios mío,” Silvana mutters from somewhere behind me. “Grab her!”
Footsteps stomp past me, and Óscar seizes Maddie’s arm. Rifles swing her way.
“No!” I shout. “Let her go! I’ll take care of her.” The rifles swing my way, and I step back with my hands up, suddenly hyperaware that I’m still wearing a bomb, which would definitely blow up if it were shot. “Please. Just let me see if she’s okay.”
“Let her go!” Sebastián runs past us all and shoves several rifles away from Maddie. He pulls her from Óscar’s grip. “¿Estás bien?” he asks as he looks her over.
Maddie nods slowly, and he turns to me. “Dale. Come get her.”
My eyes water as I step forward.
“Wait,” Silvana shouts. “Where did she come from?”
“She just stepped out of the jungle,” Natalia says. “Out of nowhere.”
“Are you alone?” Silvana demands, inches from my cousin’s face. “Where’s Moisés? And that kid with the cell phone?”
Maddie blinks, but her eyes don’t come into focus.
“How did you find us?” Silvana practically shouts into her face. When Maddie doesn’t answer, she turns to Sebastián. “Something’s wrong. Why would she just give herself up like that?”
“Because she’s clearly in shock and starving.” I try to take Maddie’s arm, but Silvana points her pistol at me until I back away.
“Then how the hell did she find us?”
“Insulin.” Maddie’s so hoarse I can hardly hear her. She’s looking right at me, but her focus is off. “You have my insulin.”
And that’s when I remember.
I frantically pat my shorts pockets until I feel the small vial. “She came back for this,” I say as I pull it from my pocket. “She had no choice.”
Silvana grabs the vial before I can give it to Maddie. She squints as she reads the label. Then she rolls her eyes and gives it back to me. “Take care of her.” She turns to Sebastián. “You watch them both. They’re your problem.”
I lead Maddie to a mat near the fire, and Sebastián follows us. “Look, she’s clearly traumatized,” I tell him. “She’s no threat. Can you just let me get some insulin into her before you start interrogating her?”
He shrugs and sits on a tree stump several feet from our campfire. “Go ahead.”
“Water,” Maddie whispers as I lift her shirt to study her insulin pump. I have no idea how it works.
Sebastián frowns. “What did she say?”
“Can you get her some water? She’s probably dehydrated.” He starts to argue, and I turn on him. “Unless you want to ransom a corpse, go get her some damn water!”
Sebastián scowls at me, then grabs the nearest of his men by the arm. “¡Agua! ¡Ahora!”
While he shouts orders, I turn back to my cousin, her insulin vial in hand, and she looks at me. She really looks at me, with total clarity and focus.
Maddie’s not in shock. But she’s one hell of an actress.
“Genesis.” Her voice is hardly a suggestion of sound. “There are six warheads and two boats on the beach. We have to get everybody out of here.”
3 HOURS EARLIER
MADDIE
“Warheads?” Domenica whispers as she pours more water from a plastic jug into a bottle for me. She and Indiana have gathered close enough to listen as Genesis pretends to get me settled into the hostage situation, but Penelope and Holden just stare at me from across the campfire.
Rog seems to be watching everything from his seat beneath a tree on the edge of the clearing.
“Yes. Six of them.” I move slowly as I change my insulin cartridge, clinging to my dehydrated-and-in-shock act to deflect suspicion. “Luke says they’re conventional, so they’re not leaking chemicals or biological hazards, but he thinks that’s enough of a payload—”
“To kill thousands, if they hit the right targets,” Indiana breathes from my cousin’s left.
“Yeah.”
“You found Luke?” Genesis asks as she unscrews the lid of the insulin vial for me. “Where is he?”
“Hiding in the jungle. Watching. Safe, for now.” I glance over my cousin’s shoulder, and find Silvana watching us from one of the other campfires. “Genesis, they’re making homemade submarines, out in the marsh. We saw them loading bricks of cocaine onto one, but some of the bricks looked different. I think they’re bombs.”
“Wait, I thought they wanted your dad to ship their bombs,” Domenica whispers.
“What?” My hands freeze in the process of uncoiling the tubing for my insulin pump.
“That’s why we’re here, Maddie,” Genesis says as she tucks my used medical waste into
a pouch in my backpack. “They’re using us as leverage to make my dad ship the bombs into the States.”
She’s holding something back. Something painful. I can see it in how tightly her lips are pressed together. But she won’t tell me until she’s ready, and I’m not going to waste time trying to make her.
We have to get out of here.
Indiana sits on a mat made of leaves and begins gathering up a scattered deck of cards. “Why load bombs onto submarines, if they think they’re going to get ships?”
“Because a cargo ship can’t deviate from its scheduled route or make unscheduled stops without looking suspicious and risking extra inspections.” Genesis frowns as she thinks out loud. “That’s why Silvana didn’t ask my dad to send a ship here. She asked for coordinates of where it will be. They’re going to send bombs out to the ship in their submarines. And from there, who knows where . . .”
“I know where. We heard a list of targets, over Moisés’s radio,” I say as I thread the tube through the lid of the vial. “Um . . . LA, New York, Chicago, DC, Memphis, and Miami. They’re going to blow up Miami, Genesis.” Our home. I feel sick at the thought of how many people might die. People we know. My mother. “We have to warn them.”
“We’re going to do better than that.” Genesis lifts her shirt just high enough for me to see that there’s a phone—her phone—tucked into her waistband.
“Where did you—” I squint, resisting the urge to bend for a closer look. Taped to her phone is a slim brick of a claylike material with wires sticking out of that. “What is that?”
“C-4,” she whispers. “They turned our phones into little bombs.”
My cousin is wearing explosives like some kind of designer belt. Before I have a chance to process that realization, another one sinks in.
This is what Luke was talking about.
“They’re detonators,” I whisper. “Small bombs to set off the big bombs down on the beach.”
“That’s the plan,” she says. “I’m going to use the extra phone to set this one off in the jungle.” She pats a small lump in her pocket. “While the terrorists are trying to figure out what happened, I’ll grab some more detonators from the tent, then run down to the beach and blow up the warheads,” she explains. “But—”
“That was the plan when we thought they were IEDs,” Indiana says, firelight flickering on the side of his face. “Pressure cooker bombs. But warheads are way too big, G. They’ll catch you before you can get far enough away to safely blow them up.”
“No they won’t, because we’ll be on the water,” Genesis says. “We can set the detonators on the warheads, then get in the boats and trigger the C-4 once we’re far enough away.”
“What about the men on the beach?” he asks.
“There aren’t any right now,” I whisper as I clip my new infusion set into place against my stomach. “They’re all in the jungle, working on the submarine.”
“But we still have to deal with the ones here,” Domenica points out. “They won’t all just run off and leave us unguarded when Gen’s bomb goes off.”
“No,” Genesis says. “We’ll have to fight. Are you in?”
Domenica hesitates for a second. Then she nods. “You still need a distraction, right? So you can plant that thing in the jungle?”
“Luke’s right outside the camp. Let him plant it,” I suggest. “The less time you’re in the jungle, the smaller the chance they’ll discover you missing.”
Genesis looks hesitant. “He’s just a kid, Maddie.”
“He’s not a kid.” I can feel my face warm. “I wouldn’t have gotten this far without him.”
She frowns at me for a second, and I can practically see her internal debate. Finally she nods. “Okay. But I still need a distraction so I can get the detonator to him.”
I give her a grim smile. “I’ve got that covered.”
GENESIS
“Tú. Y tú. Boil more water.” Sebastián points at Domenica and Indiana as he crosses the clearing toward us, and while she still has her back to him, Maddie flicks water at her own face and neck. “Vamos. Let’s talk.” He pulls Maddie up by one arm, and she stares at the ground, her gaze hardly focused. The water droplets glisten on her skin like sweat.
“Okay.” She walks slowly and keeps pushing hair back from her face. Her hands are shaking and she stumbles with every other step.
I’ve seen her go into diabetic shock twice before, and this act looks so much like those episodes that I’m starting to wonder if she was faking then too.
She’s halfway to Silvana’s fire pit when her legs fold beneath her. And just like she predicted, half of our abductors descend on her like angels from on high, while the rest turn to watch the drama unfold.
They need her, and they’re not going to let her die. Not after losing Ryan.
An ache resurfaces deep in my chest, but I force myself to focus. Grief is a waste of energy, but with any luck, blowing things up will be therapeutic.
When I’m sure all the guards are focused on Maddie, I slip into the jungle. “Luke!” I whisper as I walk, taking frequent glances back at the camp. I can’t even see Maddie, because of the crowd gathered around her.
“Luke!”
Each second that slips by makes my palms a little sweatier. My throat a little tighter. I can’t mess this up.
“Luke! Maddie sent me.”
A twig snaps behind me, and I whirl around to see him holding the automatic rifle Maddie said they took from Moisés. His chin is stubbly and dirt streaks his arms. He looks like an extra from Lord of the Flies. A cute extra. I can kind of understand what Maddie sees in him.
“Genesis?”
“Yeah. Here.” I pull the C-4 detonator from beneath my shirt and shove it at him. “Maddie said you could plant this in the jungle for us? Just put it at the base of a tree somewhere about half a mile out. Then come back here. I’ll watch for you, and when I see you, I’ll call the phone to detonate it.”
“You’ll . . . ?” He looks confused, but there’s no time to explain about the other phone. The crowd around Maddie is already starting to dissipate. Óscar looks like he’s taking a head count.
“When it goes off, run for the beach, and make sure Maddie gets in one of those boats. If I’m late, do not let her wait for me.” I have to place detonators on the warheads in the beach tent. “Got it?”
“Yeah. Okay.”
“Great. Go!”
He takes off at a run, clutching the C-4 in his left hand, and I hurry back to camp. I can see Indiana looking for me through the trees.
I’m three steps from the clearing when Óscar’s hand wraps around my arm, and I jump, startled.
“Look who I found,” he shouts as he hauls me back into camp. “Trying to escape.”
MADDIE
Óscar drags Genesis back into camp, and my pulse spikes so hard that for a moment, I’m afraid I’ll pass out for real.
My mind races. Is she still wearing the bomb? Did she find Luke? Have we lost our shot?
I stand, but Natalia pushes me back down on the folding chair and hands me a full-sugar soda, evidently the best they can do without juice or hard candy. “You said you needed sugar. So drink.”
“What did I say would happen if you tried to escape?” Silvana demands as Óscar hauls Genesis closer.
The can shakes in my hand, and this time I’m not faking.
“You can’t kill her.” Indiana steps between Silvana and Genesis. His voice sounds strained, but his words carry loud and clear. “You need her.”
“True.” Silvana frowns, mocking Genesis as she pretends to consider the situation.
Genesis tries to pull her arm free, but Óscar only tightens his grip. “Silvana—”
“¡Cállate!” Silvana snaps at her. “You and your cousin represent not one, but three different ransoms. But you . . .” She grabs Holden by one arm, and her words drip with gleeful malice. “You only represent yourself.”
She has no idea how right sh
e is.
Silvana pulls Holden close and sneers in his face. “Your mami will pay whether you are dead or alive.”
“No!” Penelope cries.
“Whoa!” Holden turns on Genesis, eyes wide with fear. “This is her fault! I didn’t do a damn thing!”
Silvana nods to Álvaro, and he unsnaps a huge knife from his belt. My soda can hits the ground. My throat feels thick and swollen.
Penelope chokes back a sob but Genesis clenches her jaw shut.
Silvana throws Holden to the ground. He falls to his knees in the dirt, and Álvaro is on him in a second, his knife at Holden’s throat.
“Please, don’t do this.” My cousin’s voice is unsteady. “He hasn’t broken any of your rules.”
I’ve despised Holden since I caught him making out with another girl at Genesis’s quinceañera, but he doesn’t deserve to have his throat sliced open in the middle of the jungle.
“Yeah. This has nothing to do with me.” Holden’s voice shakes and his hands tremble.
Silvana shrugs. “Any last words?”
“Please,” Genesis begs, fighting Óscar’s grip, and her desperate plea makes my eyes water. “I’m the one you want to punish.”
Silvana’s eyes practically sparkle. “That’s exactly what I’m doing.”
2 HOURS EARLIER
GENESIS
“¡Espérate!” Sebastián shouts, and relief washes over me. Setting off bombs a thousand miles away is one thing, but he can’t distance himself from the murder of someone his own age, right in front of his face.
He won’t let this happen.
“Wainwright is old news,” he says, and I frown, confused by his tactic. “Ella no se preocupa por él.”
Silvana turns to me, brows raised in mock surprise. “Then what is the new headline, princesa?”
“Him.” Sebastián shoves Indiana down in the dirt next to Holden.