Chapter 19
Chapter
Nineteen
SCARLETT
T here should’ve been people.
Right?
There should’ve been at least one person, or if James was to be believed, quite a few.
But there were none.
We stood on a slight hill, overlooking the edges of the city. The buildings closest to us barely showed any age or wear, their mud and clay constructions carefully smoothed out. There were probably at least fifty homes, spread out in a uniform circle, all surrounding a larger building in the center.
It still looked perfect.
I caught my breath, realizing what made the whole situation even weirder was that it looked like they were just there. They were there, and now they were gone. The people who lived here. The workers James hired. Vanished.
All of them. Gone, leaving their lives behind.
That wasn’t normal, no matter what textbook you went by.
Closer than the buildings, in a small clearing stood a dozen or so cloth tents, the fabric snapping in a breeze I could see but not feel.
A bead of sweat dripped down my back, inch by inch. I whipped my head back and forth to look at the men around me. Nash stared wide-eyed at the city, blinking slowly, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He took a few steps forward, running his hands over the low rock wall that surrounded the buildings, and then disappeared into the small collection of tents.
My head throbbed, my brain struggling to make sense of the scene laid out in front of me.
Camp stood back, still at the edge of the trail, clinging to a thick vine so tightly his knuckles were white. And James…I wasn’t sure James knew how to process what he was seeing. He was the deepest into the city, storming from building to building, his fury palpable even from a distance.
“Clancy?” he called. “Clancy this isn’t fucking funny. The guys’ tools are right there. If you didn’t want to face me, then you should’ve thought about that before you took all my fucking money and ran.”
James stormed from one collection of buildings, across the small street to the other, where a bunch of excavating tools sat piled around a small hole in the ground. “Clancy, I swear to fucking God you will never see the light of day again if you’ve run off! Fuck!” He kicked the tools in front of him, only managing to stir up dust.
A small part of me felt sorry for him, a grown man who had no idea where to put all the feelings that were obviously drowning him.
I couldn’t focus on my sympathy for him, because my senses were overwhelmed. This was wrong . Something about this entire situation was wrong .
We shouldn’t be here. We should have never left the boat.
My gut feelings were confirmed when Nash called over, “James.”
“I’m a little fucking busy if you’re looking to guilt trip me.”
I looked over, catching Nash’s gaze. He gave me a brief shake of his head, paler than I’d ever seen him.
“What is it?” I asked. I didn’t think he’d be able to hear me, my voice sounding weak even to my ears.
But somehow, he did.
He looked right at me, sending the worst kind of shivers down my back, although he spoke to James. “I don’t think Clancy ran off with your money.”
James paused in his path of destruction, eyes narrowing. “What the fuck do you mean?”
Nash held up a leather satchel, all too similar to the one James carried, impractical for the rainforest. “I don’t think he would’ve run off without his laptop. Or his passport for that matter.”
“What the fuck?” James sprinted to the tents, and I followed close behind.
Camp still lingered, as if he was frozen, afraid to make another move and set off some kind of irreversible chemical reaction.
I had a feeling we had triggered one the moment we’d stepped ashore.
Hell, maybe the moment we stepped on the boat , we’d been on this path, a fixed point in time.
It only meant we had no control over whatever happened next—whether that was a comfort or a threat, I didn’t know.
Sticking my head into the first musty tent, I was hit by the overwhelming realization that nothing looked abandoned. The cot the worker had slept in was still made up, tidy. Their small duffel bag of clothes sat to one side, unzipped, but not rifled through. A battery powered lamp on a makeshift nightstand, an action book, a glasses case…all of it was hideously normal.
You shouldn’t be here.
Hideously normal, and yet there was no one here. They were just gone, leaving all traces of their life behind.
A wild roar escaped through the tent fabric. James was steadily losing any solid ground he’d previously had, any stability he’d enjoyed until this point was shaken.
What were we supposed to do?
I didn’t know if looking for men was the right call. Or if it was best to just cut our losses and leave. There was one thing I knew I needed to do next though, if not for my sake, for the sake of everyone else on the boat.
With one last look at the tent, I stepped out into thick air, briefly meeting Nash’s eyes. An entire conversation passed between us, without a single word being spoken.
We should leave.
I know.
He’s not well.
I know that, too.
But wasn’t it at our lowest point that we needed someone? Anyone, really. Someone to put our arms around, someone to tell us it was going to be okay, even if it was a complete and utter lie.
I stepped toward the roar, into the tent that held nothing but heartache and destruction, a decision I knew I had no control over.
James stood in front of a flipped cot, breathing heavily. Sweat soaked his entire back, leaving it clinging to the muscles roped across his shoulders. He had to have known I entered his space, but he stood still, back heaving with the effort of his breaths, until I placed a hand on his arm.
It was nearly imperceptible, but he relaxed under my touch.
“It’s not supposed to be like this, Scarlett,” he murmured, shaking his head. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this at all. We had a plan, dammit. We had a fucking plan .”
He clenched his fists, muscles tensing all the way up his arms. When he looked down at me, his eyes were red, puffy with the effort it was taking him to hold back.
James’ reaction was merely the lightning before the storm. An entire tsunami of emotions brewed beneath his carefully polished surface, and one carefully placed blow would spill them out, uncontrolled.
I wasn’t sure we’d be able to fix him if they all left at once. This was a man who hadn’t been taught to process a single emotion, let alone decades—I assumed—of trauma.
“It’s okay,” I whispered, squeezing his arm. “It’s okay. I promise you, however this turns out, it’s going to be okay.”
“How can you be so sure?” His frantic blue eyes searched for something to save him from drowning.
I sucked in a quiet breath. “I’m not sure. But what I can tell you is that you’ll be okay. Haven’t you made it this far?”
“You don’t understand.” He started to pull away, but I held his arm tighter. “This was my last chance. My last shot at keeping it all together. Clancy fucking promised me it was a gold mine, infallible. But what’s here, Scarlett? I’ll tell you what’s here. Absolutely nothing. No people. No treasures. No riches. Nothing to keep my family’s business from crumbling, the business that was left to me .”
“I’m here.”
James froze, eyes looking at me, through me, piercing me until goosebumps ran across my skin for an entirely different reason than before. “Are you really, though?”
I laughed, letting go of him to sit on the lone seat that hadn’t been overturned in the tent—an awkward camp chair. “I mean, I’d like to think I’m really here. Otherwise I’ve been doing a hell of a lot of work for nothing.”
James didn’t laugh. “I know you’re here. I know you’re in front of me. But are you really here ? Do you really care that much about me, or are you just here to ward off the explosion Nash is out there panicking over?”
The words I wanted to say tripped over one another in an attempt to escape my mouth, until I settled on, “Of course I care about you, James. I wouldn’t be here otherwise. If I didn’t, I’d let you simmer, boil, explode, and come back down to Earth, all on your own. I’m sure you’ve done it before.”
He crossed the room, crouching in front of me with his hands on my thighs. I tried to ignore the way his palms ran over my skin, stirring up feelings I’d been struggling to maintain. When he looked at me, nearly the same height thanks to his kneel, his icy blond hair was wild and skewed, his gaze searching.
“Why?” he asked. “Why do you care?”
“Isn’t that what you’ve been looking for, really? Isn't that what we’ve all been looking for? Someone to care despite the superficial.” I smiled, stopping myself from reaching out and stroking his face, or fixing his hair. “You think you’ve failed. But you haven’t failed me, James. Maybe it’s time to think about everything you have accomplished, instead of the things you haven’t. Do we know where Clancy and your men are? No. Do we know why they aren’t here? No. But stop for a minute, and look at what you’ve done . Your investment found a city even the locals thought was fiction. Did you ever think you’d be here? In the rainforest of all places?”
I might have stopped myself from touching James’ face, but he didn’t have the same restraint, snapping his hand out to grip my chin. “I don’t understand how you see right through me, every time.”
“A gift.” I shrugged, raising a brow. “Or maybe you’re more like me than you want to think.”
James closed the gap between us. My eyes widened. He was going to kiss me. Right now, of all times.
Logically, it made sense. Passion didn’t discriminate while it burned everything it touched. It just set it aflame indiscriminately, moving onto the next.
“I hope you’re not like me,” he murmured.
“Would that really be so bad?” My breath caught in my throat, my heartbeat hammering a rhythm I couldn’t count if I tried.
“Maybe if I were a better man. One worthy. Deserving.” He smiled, a sad, wry expression that didn’t quite meet his eyes.
It was my heart’s turn to catch midbeat. “I don’t think I’m any better than you.”
“Love, just the fact you’re here now means you’re a thousand times better than I could ever be. You’re not here because you have to be, or because you feel obligated. You’re here because you want to be. And that singular word puts us lightyears apart. Want. ” His lips were a whisper away, a hair’s breadth, a butterfly’s wing. “You’re here in this tent because you want to help. I’m here on my knees in front of you because I want you .”
He brought his lips down against me, and without thinking, I kissed him back. James kissed me like a man starved for water, for air, for life . His lips pressed against mine, demanding and insistent, everything I expected him to be. Everything I wanted him to be.
Everything I needed him to be.
I wanted to lose myself in the moment, in the way his hands slid up and gripped my ribs, bruisingly tight. I didn’t want to think about anything other than the way his chest crushed to mine, eliminating any space between us, enough so I could feel each shuddering beat his heart took.
James was wrong. I wanted this . I wanted this strong man, the one who needed nothing other than himself. I wanted him on his knees in front of me.
But I didn’t want this moment, this kiss, like this. Not as an alternative second-place prize because he failed in his original goal. I wanted to be the only prize.
I pushed him back with a gasp. “Stop. Stop.”
James stopped immediately, looking at me with concern, hands pressed on either side of my face. “What’s wrong? Are you okay? Did I hurt you? Fuck, I’m sorry.”
I pressed one hand on top of his. “Hush. I’m fine. I just…I don’t think now is the right time for this.”
He fell back onto his heels, frowning. “You’re right. I’m an idiot. Here I am, thinking about myself and my wants instead of worrying about Clancy. I told you I was a selfish fool.”
“I don’t think you’re selfish.” I leaned forward, tracing the outline of his lips with my fingertips. He pushed into the touch, raising his eyebrows at me. “Okay, so you’re a little selfish. But that’s not why I stopped you. I don’t want you to use me as an alternative to the emotions you’re feeling, James. I want you to be with me because I’m all you can think about. Because the thought of me keeps you up at night.”
“If you only knew what kept me up at night.” He sighed, blue eyes somber. “I’ll do whatever it takes, Scarlett. Whatever you need from me to prove to you that I want this, I’ll do it. Just tell me who you want me to be, and I’ll be it.”
I smiled, small tendrils of contentment overlaying the discomfort that still threaded through my veins. Despite the small reprieve, I was all too aware we were still in a ghost town filled with the worst kind of premonitions, and James had some important decisions to make that were better made outside of this space.
“James, I’ve only ever wanted you to be yourself. I’ll take you, what you perceive to be your flaws and all. I just want you to embrace them for what they really are.”
He pressed his cheek into my hand. We stayed like that for a moment, neither of us wanting to break the quiet bubble we found ourselves in. Was this a treaty? A truce? Something more?
In a way, it was up to James. I had no idea how he would react when the dramatic emotions left his bloodstream, and he could cool off to ice me out completely.
Nash poked his head into the tent, and if he was surprised to see James and me this close, his face cradled in my hand, he didn’t show it. “I don’t want to interrupt. I don’t know about y’all, but I really don’t want to be here after dark if we can help it. I’m going to do one last loop of this city and make sure we haven’t missed anything imperative, and then I think we should head back to the Carpe Diem and regroup there.”
I nodded. “I agree. I don’t know what it is about this place, but I don’t want to be here any longer than I have to be.” I glanced over at James with a wince. “No offense.”
“None taken.” James got to his feet, brushing imperceptible dust off the knees of his pants. How he managed to keep himself so clean while the rest of us struggled was a complete mystery to me. “I don’t disagree. I don’t believe in the heebie-jeebie stuff the locals told me about the ‘lost city’ but when it’s this empty, it puts me on edge.”
We stepped out of the tent, and I looked toward Camp. “We’re going to do one last loop of the city to see if we missed anything. Want to join?”
Camp hesitated, shutting down for a brief moment, and then nodded, making his way down the hill slowly. If I didn’t know any better, he looked like a man walking to the gallows.
I looked between the three men, realizing their faces all reflected how I felt. Uneasy. Unstable. Unsure.
“Right.” Nash stepped forward. “Camp, you and James can go through the middle of the city. Scarlett and I will take the perimeter. We’ll meet back here in fifteen minutes, unless someone finds something.”
I expected Camp to argue with the groupings, but he barely even reacted, giving a quick nod of his shaggy head. With one last look, he entered the city streets with James.
Nash offered me his hand. “Shall we?”
I took his hand, falling into step with him as we turned into the small gathering of tents first. “It’s weird, right? Like, it’s not just me?”
“No. It’s definitely weird. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve heard of illnesses whipping through small communities before, especially during this season, but I can’t imagine any kind of disease that would decimate this many people.” He winced, looking down at me. “The lack of bodies is also a little hard to explain.”
“Animals?” I offered, sticking my head into another perfectly made-up tent. Just like the one I’d explored earlier, there was nothing out of the ordinary to say that they weren’t coming back to go to bed. “You said yourself how dangerous the jaguars and the like could be.”
“Sure, it’s a possibility.” Nash cocked his head, leading us further into the tents. “Without getting too gory…where’s the blood? Animals aren’t exactly the tidiest eaters. There’d be evidence of a struggle at the very least. Or bones. Hair. Something. But everything here just seems…”
“Clean,” I finished. “It’s all clean.”
“Exactly. Everything is tidy. Everything is in its place. Whatever happened here, it wasn’t an animal attack or an illness. They left quickly, which means they left afraid.” Nash’s gaze darted around the campsite, nervous.
I almost didn’t want to vocalize what I was thinking, because it was absurd. I licked my lips, weighing up my options.
At the end of the day, even if I didn’t say anything, it didn’t mean it wasn’t true. “If it was nothing tangible, like animals or illness, then you’re talking about something more…supernatural. I didn’t peg you for the kind of person who believed in ghost stories.”
Nash stumbled over a rock, half buried in the dirt, righting himself with a cool stare in my direction. “If you live here long enough, you start to believe all sorts of things you never thought you would. The people here, Scarlett, they’ve lived a different life than you or I have. And as much as it’s easier to chalk things up to ghost stories meant to scare kids, some of the tales about the things that go bump in the night are based in truth.”
I fell silent, unsure how I could even respond. I didn’t disagree with him. As much as science taught us to look at logic, to think deeper, to understand what was really going on, I was sure everyone had an experience they couldn’t readily explain.
I just didn’t think I’d seen one on this large of a scale before. While we were alone. In a rainforest that would kill us and consume us whole if given half the chance.
I cleared my throat. “Well, um, I’m not seeing anything that would tell me what happened here. Should we do a quick loop of the city and meet up with the other two?”
Nash nodded. “Yeah. Let’s just check out this last tent quickly, and then we’ll loop.”
The final tent looked the same as the rest. A bed, tidily made. A water bottle untouched on the bedside table. A bag of clothes. Nothing out of the ordinary.
And yet everything was out of the ordinary.
Nash sighed. “Okay, well, it was worth a shot. Maybe Camp and James found something.”
Something out of the corner of my eye caught my attention. “Wait.” A small brown book, half hidden by the pillow.
I pulled it out, flipping through the pages. “It’s a diary. I don’t know how much it will help us, but it looks like he kept it up fairly regularly.”
A shiver shook my back. There was a strong possibility I was holding a dead man’s diary, and something about that sat uncomfortably in my belly.
“Bring it. It might have at least something worthwhile in there.”
I snapped the book shut, stuffing it into my backpack and following Nash out of the tent. We made quick work of the tidy perimeter of the city, seeing nothing out of the ordinary besides the same smooth marker rock we’d seen on the riverbank.
There was something I couldn’t quite put my finger on though. Something so entirely wrong about this situation I couldn’t figure out what it was.
Small windows into the mud houses showed living quarters barely touched by time, similar to the tents. The city was filled with everything I wanted to explore and discover, mark down in my journal, see what fell into place with what I knew and what didn’t. And yet, I didn’t like it. It bore an eerie resemblance to a cemetery, frozen in time.
I didn’t want to explore.
I wanted to get out.
Nash and I walked in silence, meeting up with an also silent Camp and James at the trailhead.
“Anything?” I asked.
James shook his head, shoulders tense. “Absolutely nothing. They were working here. We found the tools, and gear I know was Clancy’s. But as for where they might have gone…nothing. They just disappeared into thin air.”
I shivered again, closing my eyes. “Okay.”
“Everyone good to head back?” Nash asked. “I think I’ve had enough of exploring for one day.”
We all turned, and stepped back onto the trail. As soon as I swept through the wall of vines I realized what was bothering me. “Wait.”
The men paused.
“Do you hear that?” I asked.
James shook his head. “I hear the birds, Scarlett. That’s it.”
“Exactly.” Beneath the natural ceiling of the rainforest, the symphony of birds was overwhelmingly loud. But, when I took one step off the trail, back into the clearing of the city, silence reigned. “There’s no bird call out here. There’s nothing.”
One by one they each stepped out, and back in. In the clearing there was nothing but dead silence, and the crack of the fabric as it blew in the wind. The forest was filled with noises that made it come alive.
It was like there was a barrier surrounding the city, an invisible wall we couldn’t see.
I had no idea what we had stepped into when we went looking for James’ crew. I didn’t think any of them did.
It terrified me to think we were about to find out.