Chapter 17 #2
Trees dotted the grassland, giraffes grazing at a few of them. Squawking birds flitted from branch to branch, migrating closer to the jungle’s shelter as the clouds crept in. Other than that, the savanna had quieted.
“There!” She pointed.
Something a few yards out zigged through the grasses, then zagged, then zigged again—she just couldn’t see what. Whatever it was hulked toward them, crouched low. The noise ramped up, stuck between a rattle and a deep-bellied roar. Louder this time. Closer.
“Get me down. Get me down. Getmedown.” She smacked Waylon’s hands. “Now. Now.”
“What was it?” he asked as he lowered her.
No sooner than her feet hit the dirt did Fletcher power forward. Stalks razed down her arms, her legs, leaving her skin red and raw. “It sounds like a lion had a baby with a super venomous snake.”
Waylon stayed close on her heels, a hand on the small of her back propelling her forward. “That’s biologically improbable.”
Fletcher sighed. “Okay, Steve Irwin. What do you think it is?”
The grass growled again, and he pressed closer to her. “Maybe a lion or a snake, but not both.”
She had her mouth open to argue that after everything they’d witnessed this week, a lion-snake hybrid hardly seemed outrageous.
There was a whole rebuttal on the tip of her tongue about how his dad could have very well hired private zoological geneticists to create the first mammal-reptilian crossover species.
A useless vanity project for the sake of playing god.
The Tesla Cybertruck of predators. A slion.
But then, Waylon gripped her shoulder, jerking her to a halt. He roped her against his chest, arms looped around her shoulders.
“Using me as a human shield is a new low, Cartwright,” Fletcher whispered.
He exhaled. Almost a laugh. His breath brushed against her ear, still minty from their riverside freshening-up this morning. “You really don’t get it, do you?”
A hiss raised goose bumps up Fletcher’s skin. She didn’t imagine the way Waylon’s fingers flexed, the way he shifted her into him, the way their hearts pounded in sync. There was nowhere else to run. When the grass parted, they’d meet the slion’s fanged maw, and it would sink its teeth into—
An ostrich barked at them.
A beaky thing the size of a lesser dinosaur with black beads for eyes broke through the brush.
It made that sound—the slion sound. She’d hardly call herself an ostrich connoisseur, but she knew the universal noise for pissed off.
The ostrich poked its head over the grass, peeked behind it, and then ducked back down.
When it charged, Fletcher gasped. It wasn’t running toward them. It was running away from something else.
The something in question shouted, “Come back, birdbrain. I’m trying to ride you!”
Fletcher and Waylon turned to each other and, in unison, said, “Deepti.”
An evil ostrich was one thing but a CFO riding an ostrich was the thing of Fletcher’s nightmares.
Without someone to tether herself to, Deepti had gone fully rogue. Dirt smudged her polka-dot blouse, the hem torn, and her elbow-patched blazer had been tied around the waist of her knee-length skirt. No Prada loafers deserved to be slathered in mud like hers were.
Unfortunately, she had her briefcase hitched high, as if to bore the ostrich into submission with payroll, and Fletcher and Waylon were in her warpath.
They sprinted, shooting off through the brush, sandwiched between the ostrich and Deepti.
“Look who’s back,” the CFO snapped. “Get out of my way.”
“Okay, okay! We’re getting!” Fletcher called. Her fingers laced through Waylon’s, and she tugged him hard to the right.
The momentum threw them off-balance, sending them toppling downward instead of forward. Their limbs tangled, so much that Fletcher couldn’t tell where her elbow ended and Waylon’s arm began. When her world stopped spinning, Fletcher looked down at Waylon where he sprawled across her belly.
Being around Waylon was proving to be a risk to her physical well-being. This much heart pounding, breath holding, stomach clenching couldn’t be good for a woman.
And it didn’t help that during their tumble, Deepti had managed to wrangle the ostrich and mount it. Now she charged toward them.
She rode sidesaddle. Of course. Deepti was a lady. She’d grown up near the city, her family members of the polo club. One arm wound around the ostrich’s neck, and the other snaked around her briefcase handle like a mallet, poised to pummel them to death.
“My two least favorite people,” she said. Then her eyebrows shifted. “Actually, second and third. My first least favorite is Raul’s wife.”
“Have you ever considered that maybe the problem is the person doing the cheating and not the person they’re cheating on?” Fletcher asked, breathless beneath Waylon’s body.
Deepti’s eyes narrowed. She was also cheating on her husband, so no, Fletcher suspected she had not considered that.
“Peck their eyes out,” Deepti stage-whispered into the bird’s ear. (Did birds even have ears?)
Waylon scrambled up first and hauled Fletcher up by the forearm. “Run now,” he said. “Plan later.”
Here, the grass was shorter, knee-high in some places and nothing but dirt in others, like the earth had alopecia. It made it easier for Fletcher to see the deranged look on Deepti’s face as she chased after them.
New rule: No more looking back.
Waylon’s strides were twice as long as hers, but he kept a firm grip on her arm. Every three or four steps, Fletcher wobbled, toes blistered from gripping the soles of her flats for dear life.
Ostriches ran faster than either of them. Deepti appeared to their right in a flash. Her heels dug into the ostrich’s sides, spurring it forward, but instead of rushing toward them, it hesitated with a squawk. Again, she kicked him. Her ostrich thrashed his neck, bucking Deepti off its back.
She lay there, unmoving, as the ostrich sent dust flying and beelined back toward the tallest grasses.
Deepti laughed, a hollow sound.
No, not Deepti.
Deepti was righting herself, a hand to her sore scalp, but she froze suddenly in her tracks. Waylon skidded to a stop, Fletcher following suit with an alarmed inhale.
Hyenas. Eight of them.
Whatever she thought hyenas looked like based off The Lion King, she was wrong. These were spotted like cheetahs but twice as bulky. Fifty-five percent muscle fiber, forty-five percent sharp teeth, bared and ready to bite.
The CFO’s head swiveled between Fletcher and Waylon and the hyenas. Fear burned in her gaze. Her eyes flared with an unspoken question. Truce? As if thirty seconds ago, she hadn’t instructed her temperamental pet ostrich to blind them.
Deepti readily subscribed to the Denis Bertram School of Thought that Fletcher was overambitious and underqualified for a Lydell invite, but a clan of hyenas really evened the playing field.
Hyenas didn’t care about corporate politics or the socioeconomic leverage Dyer used to pit everyone against one another.
They weren’t here under the guise of promotions: They just wanted blood.
Eight pairs of eyes flashed at them, searching for the tastiest dinner.
Personally, Fletcher’s money was on Waylon. He had more muscle on him than Fletcher and Deepti combined—and Deepti kept a Peloton in her office.
Waylon laughed—one stiff, bemused huff. There was no time for truces. In the wild, everything moved at the speed of survival. (Especially less than twenty-four hours after being Tased.)
One of the hyenas yipped, and it set the three of them off.
Every inch of Fletcher ached as she ran. Arms pumping. Quads searing.
The first chance she had, Deepti yanked Fletcher by the shoulder and threw her behind her, which was the exact reason Fletcher had hesitated in entering a truce with the CFO.
Ordinarily, Fletcher was happy to root for a give-no-fucks mentality from women in a male-dominated workspace, but this time, just this once, it would have been nice for a singular fuck to have been given on her behalf.
One of the hyenas, the pack leader maybe, smacked its teeth in the general vicinity of Fletcher’s leg. Rather fond of her left ankle, Fletcher made a fast break for it.
Waylon cut a hard right. Then he cut back to the left. Each time they crisscrossed, there was a little more distance between Fletcher and the hyenas.
On their third cross (or was it a criss?), he called out, “Hyenas can’t swim very well, and they climb worse. We have to make it to the jungle.”
The rapidly approaching jungle suddenly felt five hundred miles away. Fletcher’s shirt was soaked with sweat. She wouldn’t make it five hundred miles. She might not even make it one mile. Especially not with the way Deepti kept trying to trip her.
“Could you maybe stop trying to use me as a human sacrifice?” Fletcher asked.
Deepti frowned. “Why? So you can use me as one?”
“Believe it or not, I’d rather not see you get mauled by a bunch of hyenas.” Fletcher found herself slowing her pace to keep in stride with Deepti, even if just to look the CFO in the eye as she said, “We can both survive this.”
A cold laugh shook Deepti’s shoulders. “We both know we can’t. You want Dyer’s money as much as the rest of us.”
“I don’t,” Fletcher panted. Why couldn’t they have had this conversation over coffees?
“Why else would you have been so adamant to come? You know, when I saw you at the airport, I assumed Dyer forgot his reading glasses.”
He had, actually. Fletcher had stashed them in the bottom of her bag after she found them neglected on his desk beneath a stack of paperwork Melv dropped off the night before. Paperwork that, in hindsight, she probably should have paid more attention to.
That was beside the point. The point was—
“We don’t have to watch each other die, Deepti. I like you.” Well, enough to not want to murder her, at least.
The smooth skin around Deepti’s eyes crinkled.
Not quite laugh lines but something close.
She wasn’t much older than forty, but suddenly Fletcher wasn’t sure she’d ever seen her truly happy.
Controlling the finances of a billion-dollar corporation probably didn’t lend itself to smiling much.
(Not that she should have to smile at work, anyway. That’s an inherently sexist ask.)
“Yeah? What does Fletcher Spence like about Deepti Kaur?”
It wasn’t a trick question, but the words suddenly felt hard to reach.
Could be the runner’s cramp scraping down Fletcher’s abdomen.
“I really admire how you present yourself in meetings. Remember that time Bertram interrupted you, and you waited until he’d finished talking to apologize to the board for his inconsideration. Badass.”
Deepti brightened. “I didn’t know anyone noticed that.”
“As much as I love all the team building happening back there, is now really the time?” Waylon asked. Fletcher’s side protested with lactic acid, but he hadn’t even broken a sweat. How much casual cardio did this guy do?
One of the hyenas giggled, and the rest followed suit. Answering his question with a resounding: No, now was not the time. They weren’t slowing down.
Water shimmered at the edge of the jungle where the savanna grasses gave way to waxy leaves and weeping vines. Mirage or not, it was their only chance. She couldn’t keep running much longer.
“This way!” Fletcher called. The sudden change of direction bought them a little extra time as the hyenas regrouped, but not much.
Fletcher splashed into the water, more toddler with a soggy diaper than Baywatch.
Waylon and Deepti rushed in behind her, Deepti less than enthusiastically.
Unlike the river’s clear, cool blues, the watering hole was like wading in the Manhattan sewer line.
The water left a brown slime on everything it touched.
Still better than being lunch.
The hyenas stalled at the water’s edge. A couple of them dipped their paws in but backtracked with growls. Fletcher’s lungs ached with relief, or maybe just exertion, as she paddled out deeper.
Any semblance of relief vanished when Deepti grabbed Fletcher’s ankle and jerked her back.
Hands pressed against Fletcher’s shoulders, dunking her under. Her eyes flung open in surprise despite the stinging silt. It made little difference. The soupy brown water was nearly impossible to sift through. Up was down and left was right.
She kicked and clawed, gasping when her head finally broke the surface.
“What is wrong with you?” Fletcher asked, breathless as she grabbed hold of a sturdy rock outcropping and spat out a mouth of mud-water.
Waylon appeared next to Fletcher, a firm hand against her waist. He said her name like a warning. “Fletcher, we have to keep moving.”
“Don’t—” Deepti bubbled, barely breaking the surface.
It hit Fletcher like a NYC heat wave. Deepti couldn’t swim. She didn’t step within eight feet of the infinity pool at the estate, and her stories from the Maldives involved beachcombing and basting herself in tanning lotion.
The CFO bobbed in the center of the watering hole, panic seizing her limbs. There was no coordination in her movement. Desperate, weary motions that turned knives in Fletcher’s stomach.
“She’s going to drown,” Fletcher said, but Waylon only tugged harder.
“We have to go.” His knuckles caught the fabric of her shirt and hauled her back. “Now.”
Fletcher’s fingers tightened around the rock. Obviously, Waylon didn’t kiss the ground upper management walked on, but she didn’t think he’d actively endorse leaving someone for dead.
That was, until the rock…blinked?
Very much not a rock at all, actually.
A hippopotamus reared out of the water with a wide-open mouth. Waylon reeled Fletcher against his chest, dragging her to the far shore. Deepti flailed, too busy fighting for her next breath to escape, and the hippo’s massive jaw clamped down around her. Her torso disappeared into its mouth.
Fletcher scrambled up the grassy bank, terror weighing down her bones. Wet and shaky, she flopped onto her back while the hippo was preoccupied with spitting out Deepti’s legs. Her dismembered body parts floated around the pond. It clearly wasn’t interested in eating her, just territorial.
Distantly, Fletcher was aware of Waylon settling down next to her. Both of their chests heaved in uneven tempos. Waylon smoothed the hair away from her face. “You okay?”
An auto-response yes crawled toward her lips. But then, the wheeze of the hippo, the splash as it sank into the watering hole, and the chilling silence that followed held her words captive.
Even if they didn’t kill each other, the island would do the honors.