Risky Romance (Wolf Security #4)

10. Cody

CHAPTER 10

Cody

As I led the woman through a dense thicket of Giant Monkey Grass, shadows swallowed the world in darkness. Only a handful of stars peeked through the thick canopy above us and the relentless thump of helicopter blades echoed in the distance, confirming we were still being hunted.

They wouldn’t stop chasing me now. Especially Bruce, not after I’d shot him. He wanted me dead. And I had a rotten feeling Uncle John did too. I couldn’t believe he’d attacked me.

The woman’s ragged breathing was proof she was still behind me. As I shoved past a massive palm frond, my thoughts spiraled back to John’s comment about me being a burden. I was just eleven years old when Dad vanished and two weeks after that, Mom had been dragged away in handcuffs. I spent three weeks bouncing around foster homes before I was driven to Uncle John’s home, and I’d lived there ever since.

Uncle John was wrong about me being a burden. I was grateful to him for taking me in after what my parents did. He was the only family I had left. I wanted to impress him. I earned every morsel of food he put on my plate. In fact, more often than not, it had been me cooking for him because he was too drunk to strike a match for the gas hotplates.

“Can you slow down?” the woman begged from behind me.

But I couldn’t slow down, couldn’t even reply. Anger coursed through me, propelling me forward like a mudslide. I stepped over a massive log with a surface thickly carpeted with moss. Charging ahead, I clenched my fists, trying to suppress the chaotic thoughts crashing through my mind.

The sounds of the motorbikes faded into the distance. They were probably monitoring the road into the plantation. We would be dead if we went that way. But heading deeper into this rainforest was just as deadly. We had entered the Mossman Gorge section of the Daintree National Park which stretched over 56,000 hectares of virgin rainforest.

Each year, a handful of people got lost in this jungle and never came out. The dense vegetation, rugged terrain, and vast size made search and rescue operations nearly impossible. Some were reported missing while hiking or camping, and then there was my dad . . .

“Cody, will you just stop?” Her voice pierced the air, tinged with both desperation and anger.

“Either keep up or fuck off,” I snapped, not slowing my pace.

She gasped. “I can’t keep up, okay? I spent the afternoon fighting your fucking mate.”

“He’s not my mate!” I clenched my fists, digging my nails into my palms until they hurt.

“Yeah, right.”

“Look, lady, I don’t know what your?—”

“Don’t call me lady!” she yelled.

I turned to her but could barely see her in the darkness. “What do I call you then?” My frustration boiled over.

She halted three feet away, hands on her hips and breaths coming in heaves. “Whisper.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re yelling as loud as me, lady.”

“No.” She shuddered as if something slithered in her gut. “My name is Whisper.”

I scoffed. “Yeah, bullshit. Just like everything you’ve said.”

I turned and charged through the fan-like leaves of a Travelers Palm.

The distant thud of the helicopter grew louder, and its spotlight sliced through the trees. Panic surged through me as I pushed deeper into the undergrowth. Branches clawed at my skin. Leaves slapped my face. And the woman’s ragged breaths added to my fury.

Whisper . . . what a load of crap!

Her bullshit was just as infuriating as Uncle John’s. I’d had it with people lying to me. I charged uphill, half-hoping she would drift away. I didn’t need her crap. My life had already imploded because of her.

The air grew thicker, heavy with moisture and scents of damp earth and rotting leaves. Rain was coming. My heart thumped in my ears, matching the relentless beat of the chopper blades hovering around like a giant wasp.

“Cody, wait!” Her voice was strained. She gasped. “Shit!” She crashed to the ground behind me.

Unable to stop myself, I turned to her. She was on her hands and knees, struggling to catch her breath. I didn’t ask if she was okay again.

She glanced up at me, then slumped sideways, gasping for air as she dusted her hands on her tiny shorts. “My real name is Jewel Wagner, but everyone calls me Whisper. It’s a nickname I’ve had since I was a kid because I was always so fucking loud.” As she yelled the last part, her eyes bulged as if to punctuate her point. “Okay? I’m not lying.”

“Okay, and what were you doing at the plantation?” I shot back. A mix of anger and curiosity churned in my gut.

“I told you. I was trying to save my brother from you bastards and your fucking drug bullshit.”

The chopper’s thumping beat added to the pounding throb behind my eyes. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. We grow corn. Get it? Corn.”

She chuckled bitterly. “Oh yeah? Is that why that bastard tied me up and gagged me in that barn? Because of corn?”

“He did that because you were sabotaging my corn!” I yelled the word “corn”, and it seemed to echo in the stillness.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

I threw my arms out in frustration. “The bugs. Fall Armyworm. Don’t act like you don’t know.”

“Oh, for God’s sake. I don’t know anything about your stupid bugs. Dane rang me to say he was in trouble. He begged me not to tell the cops, saying they would kill my family.” She glared at me.

“What? Why?” I glared right back at her.

“Because of the drugs. That’s why.”

“You’re delusional. My farm grows organic corn. Not marijuana.”

“Oh, great. Now who’s acting like they don’t know anything?”

I scowled at her. “I don’t need your bullshit. Everything I’ve ever worked for just imploded because of you. Fuck this!” Clenching my fists, I stomped away.

“Hey, stop! Wait for me!”

I was not waiting.

“We need a plan!” she yelled behind me.

“Yeah. Getting away from you is step number one.”

“I am not the enemy!” she shouted, her voice cutting through the darkness.

Damn, she was loud. Maybe she was telling the truth about her nickname.

“Cody. Will you just stop, please? Let’s talk about this.” Her urgency reached me, and I hesitated.

The chopper’s spotlight swept through the trees ahead of us. I pressed my back against the trunk of an enormous gum tree. Whisper did the same and her ragged breathing was overtaken by the thump of the rotor blades.

The helicopter seemed to slow down, homing in on our location like a lion stalking its prey.

“Shit.” She gasped. “Can he see us?”

I peered upward and the blinding light obscured everything else. “Maybe, but even if he can, he can’t land here, and he can’t stop us, so we’re okay.”

But doubt gnawed at me. The spotlight swept low, illuminating the underbrush around us, and a knot of fear twisted in my stomach. What if he had a gun and was just waiting to pick us off like ducks on a pond?

“When I say run, sprint to that giant fern.” I nodded toward a plant ahead of us with leaves as big as my body.

“Okay.” She curled her dark hair behind her ear, revealing three different earrings in her lobe and a star-shaped stud at the top of her ear. None of them matched yet somehow, they still looked good.

I dragged my gaze from her, pissed off that I even noticed her jewelry. The downdraft battered us, making the jungle tremble with shifting shadows as the spotlight scanned the foliage. My heart raced in sync with the chopper’s blades.

“Cody,” she whispered, her voice barely audible over the noise. “I’m telling you the truth about the drugs. Trust me.”

“Trust you? I don’t even know you.” Trust was a fragile thing I no longer believed in. My parents had stolen that invisible commodity from me when I was a kid, and Uncle John had just proven he’d been lying to me for eighteen years.

“Okay. Don’t trust me, then, but?—”

The light beam from the chopper swept away.

“Run!” I launched myself toward the fern. I dove beneath its broad leaves and turned toward Whisper as she flopped to the ground beside me, gasping for air.

The chopper blades thumped to a menacing beat and the sound echoed through the trees.

The spotlight hovered above us, dragging us from darkness into daylight. The downdraft made the jungle come alive with rustling leaves.

Whisper turned her face toward me, and the terror in her eyes cracked something inside me. It took me back twenty years to my mother, glaring at me from the floor. But my mother’s guilt had put her in that position.

I didn’t see guilt in Whisper’s eyes, I saw pure, unadulterated fear.

A gnawing suspicion settled in my gut—she knew a hell of a lot more than she was letting on. And now it wasn’t just her in trouble.

It was both of us.