No Turning Back (Suddenly Us #2)

Prologue

The bus jostles me, and I try to hold in a groan.

My body aches everywhere. Even the hair on my head hurts.

The pain is almost too much to bear, but I bite down on my tongue until I taste blood.

I rub my hand over my still flat belly. I didn’t know I was pregnant at the start of this journey.

I need to be strong for my child. My unborn baby is my driving force to survive.

These people helping me are risking their lives to get me out of the country. A country where no one who cares about me knows I am. Everyone who came here with me is gone. Everyone I worked with is dead. A team that was more like a family than coworkers.

I was hurt in a country I told my mother I wouldn’t go to. She’d warned me it wasn’t safe, but I couldn’t pass up the assignment. My career was more important than the danger.

In my heart, I wonder if my team would still be alive if I hadn’t been there. It’s a question that is going to plague me forever if I survive this.

I’ve spent my life not only filming but also studying the biggest land mammals.

When I got the opportunity to go on this expedition, I knew I would risk everything for it.

It was supposed to be a trek into Botswana to follow a herd of elephants into Zimbabwe.

I didn’t know I would be faced with an impossible choice, a choice I don’t regret making.

I also didn’t know my life would change irrevocably in a single moment.

My papers, my passport, everything was destroyed. My only chance is to get to the consulate in Pretoria. My mother works there, and I know she will help me. If I can reach her, we will be safe.

I drift off for a moment as the bus travels toward the border crossing at Groblerbrug.

The family helping me could be arrested along with me if this doesn’t work.

At the last safe house, they colored my hair with temporary dark dye to cover the brilliant red.

My skin is caked in makeup and dirt to cover my pale complexion.

I need to get across the border into South Africa and on to Pretoria. There I know I’ll be safe. My mother will get the help I need to escape the men hunting me. I will be able to get new papers and leave the country I’ve called home for years.

The Brigade will not give up hunting me, just like they hunt the animals I’m sworn to protect and study.

The Brigade is an organization that not only massacres endangered animals for monetary gain, but they also fund terrorist groups.

Crossing paths with them is normally a death sentence.

I shouldn’t have survived. I should be dead along with my team.

The bus starts to slow, and the young girl, Gorata, moves toward me.

She’s about eighteen and helping her family with my escape.

It feels like I’ve known them for years instead of just a day.

The eleven-hour drive from their small village near the Botswana-Zimbabwe border has cemented them into my heart and soul.

A friendship has formed that I will cherish forever.

I’ll never forget their sacrifice. They didn’t have to help me.

They could have turned me over to the authorities or even the Brigade, but instead they made a choice.

“Keep your face to the wall. Act like you’re sleeping.

” Gorata’s heavily accented voice bleeds through my pain as she unhooks the IV bag replenishing fluids to my broken body.

She carefully pushes it between the wall of the bus and my side.

Her beautiful reddish-brown sepia skin is flushed because she’s nervous.

She starts to pat my shoulder but stops when she sees the bandages there.

She pulls the blanket higher to keep me covered as I roll away from her, praying this works. I hate jeopardizing their lives.

When I stumbled into their village yesterday, I didn’t know they would end up helping me like this.

I only wanted to find someone to get a message to my mother before I died.

Instead, they got a local villager who was a nurse to bandage me up.

They braced my foot, still in my boot, to keep it held together.

All of them helped me escape, and we’ve been driving ever since to get me home.

Well, back to my mother at least. Although I’ve lived in South Africa for about sixteen years, my home is really in America.

After this, I will have to make a choice about my life.

I didn’t expect these changes, but I can never return here.

I’ll be a target for the Brigade for the rest of my life if I stay.

This family has sacrificed too much helping me, and for them I won’t risk it again.

I won’t take that chance. I don’t want the Brigade to ever link us together or come after them.

We come to a stop, and the engine shuts off.

The door opens, and someone boards the bus.

It’s the border patrol. The guard asks where we are headed and who we are.

He asks who I am, demanding to know why I didn’t present myself for inspection.

The family explains I am their cousin and sleeping off motion sickness.

The heavy tread of the guard’s boots grows louder as he walks down the aisle toward me.

“Who are you?” he says in English as he pokes me in the back with something. I groan in pain from the contact and hope he thinks it’s from me waking up. But I answer his question while keeping my face covered and turned away from him.

“Rinda. My name is Rinda,” I say in Tswana, using the alias the family gave me of a relative.

I hope the Southern American accent many say they still hear in my speech isn’t noticed by this guard.

I keep my head down under the covers. My dirty, knotted hair makes it look like I have long dreadlocks.

I stopped worrying about how I smelled days ago.

It took me over a day to get to the village after the attack.

I’m lucky the natural predators didn’t take me down or that the Brigade didn’t come back to see if anyone survived. They were sure they killed everyone.

“Okay.” The border patrol officer moves back to the front of the bus.

The whole bus has been converted into a home.

The family borrowed it from another relative to take me to South Africa.

“Pass,” the guard says just before I hear the door close.

I don’t relax yet because I’m still scared.

Until I’m in the consulate and safe, I won’t breathe a sigh of relief.

We make our way into South Africa and continue to our destination.

I struggle with consciousness as the blood loss is becoming almost too much for my body.

The fever chills my skin, and no amount of blankets can make me warm.

The nurse gave me some of their precious pain meds before we set out.

The family was able to procure me a second dose.

But now the meds are wearing off, and the pain is so intense it makes me nauseous.

When we arrive outside the consulate, I know I’ll have to walk to the entrance and ask for my mom.

I’m going to have to stand on my injured leg again.

Just the motion of swinging my legs off the bunk makes my stomach roll.

I choke back the vomit rising in my throat and breathe through my nose.

I’ve barely eaten because of the pain and nausea.

As soon as my boot hits the floor, the pain overwhelms me. I fold in half, ready to just die, but I can’t. My hand goes to my precious bundle. I’ll do whatever I have to for my baby.

I’m almost there. I’m almost to safety. My vision is haloed from the fever and dizziness. Gorata slips several of her bracelets off her wrist and hands them to me. I shake my head to decline them, but she slips them on my wrist anyway.

“You keep. To remember me.” Her voice is soft and comforting.

“I’ll never forget everything you’ve done for me. You and your family will always be in my heart. Thank you,” I say in hushed tones to her and her family, hugging them all.

It’s true. If I survive this, I’ll never forget them.

I hobble off the bus and limp toward the guards at the gate. Blood fills my boot as I move closer to them. The squelching sound turns my stomach. They lift their weapons in caution, and I raise my hands, ignoring the nausea.

“I’m an American. Sharon Parrish is my mother.” Those are the only words that come from my mouth before my body goes slack and I collapse to the ground.

A guard pulls me to him, cradling me close. I scream in pain as he holds me. Blood begins to spread across the pavement beneath us from my wounds.

I force my eyes to stay open. I won’t pass out until I see her. My mom needs to know that I love her. That she was my last thought. Her and the unborn baby I carry.

“Sydney,” I hear her cry out, and my eyelids fall closed. I never get to tell her I love her.