Chapter 6
The flat-bottomed skiff cut through the bayou like a knife through silk, its small motor humming low against the vast silence of the swamp. Drew sat near the bow, arms wrapped loosely around her knees, her gaze fixed ahead, though her thoughts stayed stubbornly behind.
She still felt it—the tunnel. The airless press of damp earth, the closeness of walls barely wider than her shoulders.
The darkness. God, the darkness. And the bugs.
It took everything she had to resist the urge to scratch every inch of her body.
Her mind was playing a wretched trick on her but her skin crawled as if insects were, in fact, crawling over her skin.
She hadn’t said a word about it to Cross.
Wouldn’t. Couldn’t. But the cramped passage had pressed every one of her buttons.
Bugs, tight spaces, not being able to stand or breathe freely—and the sickening thought of something crawling across her hand had nearly undone her.
She’d gone cold in that moment, as if ice water had replaced the blood in her veins.
She was certain he’d noticed. That flicker of a glance. The tiny frown. But he hadn’t said anything, which was why he was still alive. If he’d said word one to her about her fear, she would have strangled him on the spot.
Now, sitting in the open boat as the humid night air wrapped around her like a damp blanket, she tried to shake it off.
The bayou felt almost alive—the air thick with the scent of moss and brine, flowers too sweet to be pleasant, and the rot of old wood and decay.
She hated everything about this swampy byway. Every. Damn. Thing.
Trees loomed on either side, their trunks rising like shadowy sentinels from dark water.
Spanish moss hung from gnarled branches, the ragged parasite drifting on the wind.
Frogs croaked from the reeds. Insects buzzed in clouds that caught the moonlight like dust motes.
The hum of the motor was the only thing keeping it all at bay.
Drew slapped at her arm. Another mosquito.
"They’re going to bleed me dry," she muttered.
When Drew glanced over her shoulder, she caught a small smile on Cross’s lips as he steered the skiff. "You’re sweet. They can’t resist."
She rolled her eyes but said nothing. Sweet wasn’t the word most people used to describe her.
And coming from Cross… well, she wasn’t going to unpack that.
Bad enough she’d been shot at but what sucked more, what knotted her shoulders worse than a tightly-knit cardigan, was the thought that she was now stuck in the middle of nowhere with Cross.
It had taken her more than a year to get over him.
He was larger than life to her. He had always made her feel secure, invincible, as if she could do anything.
The time she was with him was the first time she’d ever felt that way.
He’d banished the self-doubt she’d grown up with, and then he’d pulled the rug out from underneath her and left her reeling.
Cue the self-doubt crashing back into her life.
Maybe she hated Cross even more than she hated the bayou.
The last place she wanted to be was with Cross.
It was too hard on her psyche, not to mention too damn hard on her body.
She still wanted him more than she’d wanted any other man.
Life just wasn’t fair. So much for doing the right thing, the thing that she could live with.
It might just end up getting her killed.
She leaned back, letting the boat rocking beneath her lull her careening emotions.
Her legs ached. Her heart still thudded with the aftershocks of the ambush, the bullets, the rush of adrenaline.
And now here she was, in a boat in the middle of nowhere, running deeper into the Louisiana night with the man who had broken her heart.
"Where are we going?" she finally asked.
Cross didn’t look at her. His eyes stayed on the water ahead. "A safe place."
"Could you be more vague?"
"A cabin," he said. "Built over the water. Only reachable by boat. Nobody stumbles on it by accident. It doesn’t have a place name. It’s not official or anything."
She exhaled through her nose, trying to decide if that was comforting or not. “Does my sister or brother have a place there, too?”
Cross shook his head. “No. We thought it was better if we all weren’t holed up in the same spot back when we were…”
“Playing dead?” Drew supplied. She still hadn’t totally forgiven Savannah, Savvy as she liked to be called, and McGuire for that one.
Oh, she understood. They were all in danger, and it was better if the world thought they were all dead.
Still, it’s not like Drew was the world.
She wouldn’t have told a soul. Anger unwound in her belly.
Left out in the cold once again. What a surprise…
“Being in the same location would have made it too easy for someone to take us all out at once,” Cross stated.
The skiff banked to the left as he adjusted the rudder to turn, following a narrow waterway that twisted between gnarled cypress trees. The passage narrowed into a kind of channel, shadows pressing close. Then the trees broke open into a wider section of swamp, and Drew blinked.
There were lights.
Faint. Flickering. Warm yellow and pale blue.
A handful of cabins and shacks perched on stilts above the water, spaced out along the winding channel like waypoints in a forgotten world.
Most of the structures looked cobbled together from salvaged wood and rusted metal.
Tin roofs, sagging porches, weather-beaten siding.
One had a line of glass bottles strung on twine, rattling softly in the breeze.
Another had wind chimes and a curtain of bones across the front door.
"Do people live here?" She kept her voice low.
Cross nodded. "Yeah. Off-grid folks. Some of them grew up out here, never left. Others came to disappear."
"Sounds cozy."
He gave a quiet laugh. "They keep to themselves. But they look out for each other, too. That one there—" he nodded to a small shack with faded green paint and an old satellite dish bolted to one side, "belongs to Boudreaux. Retired Navy. Swears he sank a Russian sub with a bow and arrow."
She raised an eyebrow. "Did he?"
"Hell if I know. He tells a good story."
They passed another cabin; the porch overhang was littered with hanging charms and strange symbols painted on driftwood. Candlelight flickered behind the curtains.
Drew shivered.
"Who lives there?"
"Mireille," Cross said. "She’s a Voodoo priestess. Not sure exactly what that means. I never ask specifics. Not the kind of woman you want mad at you."
"Should I be worried?" Drew asked.
"Only if you piss her off."
Drew slapped at another mosquito. Then another. They were nonstop biting her. "Jesus. These things are relentless. It’s like a form of torture."
Cross reached into a small bin beside the driver’s seat and tossed her a tin. "Bayou blend. Strongest stuff out here. Smells like hell but it works."
She cracked it open, took one whiff, and recoiled. "God. What’s in this?"
"Garlic. Mint. Some kind of oil Mireille makes. Might be a bit of crushed frog in there. Maybe some eye of newt. I never asked."
"Charming." But she slathered it on anyway. “You probably shouldn’t make fun. Who knows what kind of bad juju you could stir up.”
Cross nodded. “Probably true.”
They glided past the last shack, rounding a bend in the channel, and then Drew saw it.
A cabin. Larger than the others, though still small by any standard.
It sat on thick stilts driven into the murky water below.
A covered porch ran the full length of the front.
The wood was dark, weathered, and half-swallowed by some kind of swamp vines.
A tin roof sloped low overhead, and thick mosquito netting hung from the porch frame.
It looked to be in better shape than the other shacks they’d passed.
A small dock jutted off to one side, with a cleat for tying off the skiff.
Cross guided the boat alongside, killed the engine, and leapt out to secure them.
Then he turned and held out a hand. Drew hesitated, then took it.
His hand was warm and strong and far too familiar.
Note to self, no touching. She didn’t need this to be any more complicated than it already was.
The ramshackle dock creaked beneath her boots. A splash nearby made her freeze. She turned just in time to see two yellow eyes glint above the surface of the water—a gator drifting slowly between the cypress trees.
“Guard alligator? That’s novel.” She wasn’t sure how she found the energy to crack a joke. A bad one, but a joke, nonetheless.
"Don’t worry," Cross said, following her gaze. "He’s just curious."
"Great," she muttered. "Curious is how things end up with missing limbs."
He smirked. "Welcome to the bayou."
She shot him a go-to-hell look but followed him up the short stairs and onto the porch.
Her family had a long history in Louisiana and in the bayou, but she’d always hated it.
From day one. There was nothing good about the swamp, no matter how much people tried to convince her differently.
It was one of the reasons she made her home base in Miami.
Fewer bugs, less humidity. Plenty of gators, just not in her neighborhood.
Cross pushed open the cabin door, revealing a single-room space inside.
Basic but clean. Wooden floorboards, a small table, two chairs, a cot in one corner, and a stack of supplies against the far wall.
A gas lamp sat on a shelf beside a row of canned food.
Everything smelled faintly of cedar, sweat, and swamp.
"It’s not much," Cross said, "but it’s safe. There’s a bathroom in the back corner.”
Drew stepped inside, letting the screen door slam behind her.
Her whole body ached, residual tension from the adrenaline surge caused by being used for target practice.
Her skin itched. Her heart hadn’t slowed since the gunfight.
She stepped over to where Cross pointed and glanced in.
Bathroom might be a bit of a stretch. Wet room with a weird toilet was more like it.
A shower head on the wall, which, when it was on, would soak the whole space because there was no partition.
“Fabulous,” she said between clenched teeth.
“Just like the Ritz.” But for the first time in hours, she felt the tiniest flicker of calm.
"So," she said, glancing back at him. "Now what?"
Cross leaned against the door frame, arms crossed over his chest, his eyes unreadable.
"Now," he said, "we wait."
And outside, the bayou kept breathing—dark, wild, and watchful.