Chapter 2 #2
Huge machines, trailers, logging equipment, mules, horses, and trucks filled the area where the men camped. A man stepped down from a trailer. His boots were expensive. His button-up shirt was clean. His watch was diamond encrusted.
“Miss Alves, welcome to base camp.”
“Who are you?” Jordana asked, but it came out as a harsh whisper since her mouth and throat were so dry.
The man walked forward and held out a bottle of water.
Jordana went to grab it, but her knees buckled.
The men laughed as she went down to one knee.
She snatched the bottle and sipped the water.
She wanted to chug the whole thing, but she knew that could make her throw up and then she’d be even more dehydrated than she already was.
“My name isn’t important. You can call me Boss.” Jordana looked up at him. He was in his early fifties. His hair was trimmed neatly and had some silver at his temples. Everything about him indicated that he was a professional of some sort.
“What do you want from me?” Jordana asked before taking another small sip of water. Nothing had ever tasted better than that water coating her mouth, filling her tongue with moisture, and sliding down her sandpaper throat.
The man put his hands in his pockets and grinned.
“You’re going to be our guest.” Jordana barely managed to stop rolling her eyes at him.
She wasn’t a guest. She was a hostage. “Now, the rules. How you are treated depends on how you behave. Don’t talk.
Don’t ask questions. Don’t try to run. Don’t try to hurt anyone.
Obey those rules and you will be given food and water.
” Jordana opened her mouth to ask more questions, but his eyes narrowed at her.
“That starts now. You ask one more question and I’ll take that water away. ”
Jordana snapped her mouth shut and took another sip of water. She didn’t know when she’d get more. It might be worth the risk of throwing up to get some more water into her system.
“Show her to her living area and take her picture.” Boss tossed a newspaper to one of the men holding her. He caught it with one hand. Ransom. That’s what this had to be. How could she send a clue to her father?
The men grabbed her by the armpits again and Jordana clung to the water bottle as they dragged her to a small tent in the middle of the camping area.
The roof was canvas. The walls were mosquito netting.
The floor was packed dirt. There were two small blankets, a bucket out the back side, and a metal pole in front of the tent.
Jordana wanted to fight, but she knew it was pointless.
She was tossed into the tent, landing hard on her hands and knees.
Before she could even flip over to see, she felt a metal shackle lock onto her ankle.
Jordana turned around and reached for the chain that was attached to the metal pole out front. The newspaper was tossed at her. “Hold it up and smile, beautiful.” The guard leered at her as he held up the camera.
Jordana took the paper and made sure only three fingers were visible. It was her first clue to her father. Three days to get to where she was. She narrowed her eyes and gave her father her determined face. He’d know she was fighting. Hopefully that brought him some peace.
The camera flashed, then they were gone.
Jordana grabbed one of the blankets and headed out the back of the tent to relieve herself.
She went back into the tent and assessed her surroundings as she sipped the water.
There had to be thirty men in the camp and it must be an illegal logging operation.
Her father was fighting against this, which is probably why she was taken and poor Luiza and Enzo had been killed because of it.
They weren’t valuable as hostages but she was.
So, she sat and watched. She learned the timing of their shifts, and she learned she was fed exactly at eight in the morning and eight at night.
She got water at those times too. Never enough to not be thirsty, but enough to fend off severe dehydration.
She ate and ate, then she began to hide her food.
She ate smaller amounts over the course of the day, but always kept enough for when she’d make her escape. Because she would.
Jordana learned they would take a picture every week to send to her father.
The first picture she gave him was the three.
The second, she used her fingers to make an L and O.
The third, she made the best G she could.
She had no idea if he was getting her messages, but it wouldn’t stop her from trying to send them.
The fourth she made an R and an N for run.
There would be no fifth. She knew how to escape now.
After the first two weeks, Jordana switched to sleeping during the day. She knew their routines now. Night would be when she’d make her move. Everyone slept at night except for two guards charged with patrolling the grounds, but they mostly played cards together.
During the third week, she’d been given a cheap fork to eat her meals with.
It took all week, but at the end of the week, she’d found a way to snap one of the prongs off.
She buried it by her bathroom bucket. Then, this past week, she’d asked if she could write a letter to her father after the Boss had stormed from the trailer in a filthy mood.
Her guard, hoping to get in good with his boss, had given her a piece of paper and a pen when he’d brought her food.
She’d snapped off the metal clip and buried it on the other side of the bathroom bucket.
When the guard had come back, he’d frowned at the pen, searched her tent, but came back empty.
She had sworn to him that the pen was already broken when he’d given it to her.
Not finding it, he shrugged, and took the letter.
The letter in which she begged her father to do whatever it took to free her.
Boss visited her after that. He didn’t say anything. He simply yanked the chain, dragged her out of the tent, and backhanded her across the face. Pain had shot through her face, leaving her breathless on the ground.
“If I wanted you to write a letter, I would have told you to.”
She didn’t see the guard again. But that didn’t matter. She had what she needed to escape.
The sound of her food being set down outside her tent woke her up.
Jordana ate the fruit and beef jerky. She tore open the protein bar and walked back into her tent as she pretended to eat it.
She had several beef jerky sticks and protein bars saved in the roof of the tent.
Her guards always looked at the floor, they never looked up.
Hidden between the canvas and the netting were her getaway meals.
Meals that late tonight, she would pull down and stuff into the cargo pockets of the same pants she’d worn for the past four weeks.
Now it was time to wait. Jordana lay on her side with her blanket pulled up to her eyes, watching the guards.
They always patrolled more diligently from ten to one.
By midnight, everyone in the camp was asleep, even the boss.
Once all the lights were out, they patrolled for another hour before the cards were brought out.
Then their patrol became erratic. Sometimes hourly, sometimes every two hours, if not more.
Every minute seemed an eternity as she clung to the piece of the fork and the clip that she’d dug up right before she went to bed.
The day guards hadn’t noticed that she slept all day and every night.
She pretended to sleep when the night guards did their patrols.
Tonight, all her patience was going to pay off.
They passed by her and she quickly closed her eyes, even though they were looking at the back of her head.
They were talking about the last football game and then mentioned their card games.
This was her time. Their voices faded in the distance and Jordana got to work picking the lock on her ankle.
It took over an hour, and she’d had to stop once and pretend to be asleep as the guards hurried by, excited to get back to their game.
The click of the lock tumbling free was so loud Jordana was sure men would come bursting out of their trailers to tackle her. She didn’t breathe as she waited for the alarm to sound. But nothing came except for the loud pounding of her heart.
Jordana wrapped the blanket around the clamp and chain and slowly opened it enough to slide her ankle free.
She almost cried with relief as she touched the raw skin beneath.
That was going to be infected for sure. She rolled her ankle experimentally and took a deep breath. Okay, time to set the scene.
She used her bottom blanket to bunch together to look like a body and then lay her top blanket over it.
She made sure the chain was under the blanket.
No one could see that it no longer held her foot.
She slowly stood, reaching up into the canvas roof, to retrieve her stash of food.
She stuffed it into her pockets and crouched back down.
The sun was still not up, but she couldn’t wait for the light. She’d counted the paces it took men to reach their machines from the forest on the other side of the camp. She added some steps to make up for her shorter stride and then she moved.
Jordana slipped from the tent, passed the trailers, and into the jungle. The pain was agonizing when her bare feet hit roots, downed trees, sharp vines and more, but she didn’t stop. She knew the dangers of the , and right now she’d rather face a jaguar or a boa than stay in that camp one more day.
Leaves, branches, and vines all slapped her face as she ran. She knew it wasn’t only her feet bleeding now, but her face. As the sun rose she picked up her pace, knowing they would be coming for her.