23. Chapter 20 – Marley
I awoke with a start to a coarse palm cupping my cheek, a heavy arm wrapped around my waist, and a hard rod jutting into my backside.
A bleary, hulking form kneeled in front of me, a demonic shadow with the firelight at his back. The soft timbre of Madman’s rough voice stifled my coming scream.
“Your turn for watch, ángel.” The pad of his thumb slid down my chin like a caress before dropping to his side.
Fuck. My sandpaper tongue and gritty eyes proved I had drifted into a deep sleep, but the dull pulse in the back of my head screamed it hadn’t been enough.
Of course, it hadn’t. I could get a fitful sleep when we were rescued. The sobering thought was enough to get me moving. A muffled groan rose from the body behind me and the hard rod deepened its placement between my ass cheeks.
The body behind me … My sluggish brain struggled to keep up. Nikki. Nikki was going to sleep next to me last night. Apparently, we had different understandings of what that meant.
I needed to get away—we were still colleagues. A line I wasn’t ready to cross.
Madman’s gaze followed while I shuffled out of Nikki’s tight hold. When I’d made it out from under him, his body collapsing on the mat woke him out of his own stupor.
“Wha?” he mumbled, smacked his lips, and rubbed sleep from his eyes in his own daze. “Whas go’n on?”
“Shhhh,” I soothed, not ready for the cuddle conversation. “My turn for watch. Go back to sleep.”
Nikki shot off the makeshift bed as if it burned him, instantly alert. How did he do that? “I’ll get up with you.”
“That’s not necessary, Nik, I’m fine.” I slowly pushed to my knees on the wet ground. Madman hadn’t moved and still blocked my way. Cocking an eyebrow, I stared into his calculative eyes. “May I get through, please?”
He dipped his head once and shifted his body sideways so I could pass.
“Good idea,” he said to Nikki over my head. “You two take watch together. I’ll rest here.”
Rubbing a hand over my face and shaking my lifeless body alive, I swallowed my protests.
Nikki had said he needed to talk to me yesterday, and we hadn’t gotten the opportunity for any privacy.
Now would be as good a time as any. He slid past me and grabbed one mat from our shelter, beckoning me forward with his hand.
“Que descanses,” I murmured to Madman when he moved into the shelter and lay on his back, still shirtless beneath his leather jacket, because I wore his.
“Dormiré de ángeles,” he returned. I will dream of angels. He turned on his side, away from the fire, and heat spread across my neck and chest at the insinuation as I stared at his back.
Slowly, I followed Nikki to where he’d laid out the mat at the edge of the fire. The ground was soft and wet, and I sank into it when I sat down on it beside him.
“Good morning, Captain,” he whispered with a cheeky grin. He popped open a tin of mints with slightly shaking hands and took one before handing the tin to me. “It’s not a toothbrush, but it’s something.”
Gratefully, I accepted it, rolling the fresh flavor all around the inside of my fuzzy mouth and savoring its cooling effect. Brooks had taught us that the chunga palm leaves could be used as a natural tooth brush, but I had no desire to forage for any in the dark.
I glanced at my friend who was always quick with a smile and a light joke. Heavy circles hung beneath his eyes. His flawless skin was slightly sallow in the dim glow. He always made sure everyone else was settled, but who was taking care of him? I’d keep a better eye on him come morning.
The darkness beyond seemed softer tonight after the heavy rain. Cicadas chirped and leaves rustled, but not with the same crispness of the dried brush the evening before. I wrapped my arms around my knees and stared into it, immediately clearing my mind for the task ahead of us.
There were more jaguars out there, and snakes and creatures I probably couldn’t name but would be just as terrifying. Nikki’s presence beside me was an immense relief. We’d encountered a jaguar only twenty-four hours ago, and the darkness reminded me of the terror all over again.
“What did you want to talk to me about yesterday?” I asked in a low tone, determined to hold the realistic fear at bay. It was a safe topic, one where we didn’t have to address the previous cuddle situation and admittedly large penis poking.
Nikki pulled something out of his pocket—a hunk of plastic in the shape of a foot. A shoe. I was looking at a shoe.
“Found this upriver,” he whispered, “and a few old food wrappers. They probably washed down from well beyond where we are, but there's definitely evidence of people here before us. Traffickers, I’d bet.”
So much for keeping the fear under control. My heart seized in my chest, thinking of the small child who’d worn that shoe at one point. And their parents taking their chances through the jungle for hopes of a better life.
The Colombian cartels capitalized on the misery of so many, offering them passage through the Darién Gap for a hefty price, but then they would abandon them at the Panama border halfway through the territory.
People had died making the passage. Children had been stolen, women raped.
Rumors had it that trafficking was now the cartel's biggest source of income, half a million dollars per day off the backs of people who’d do anything for a brighter future.
Desperate people did desperate things. The truly evil sold their desperation back to them, repackaged as hope.
The Darién Gap was a sizable stretch of territory, and this river could run the entire stretch of it for all we knew, but evidence of someone else here wasn’t a comfort, it was a screaming red flag.
The cartels of Colombia were not in the business of saving people—certainly not people who hadn’t paid their fee.
I took the small shoe in my hand and turned it over in my palm.
The only children in my life were a few families in my building that occasionally waved hello.
I couldn’t even guess the age of the child who had worn it, only that they were a tiny human I could only hope was still alive on the other side of the border.
It was tragic and a demonstration of everything wrong with humanity, but a very unlikely problem we’d have to deal with, unlike the actual threat of dehydration and infection. And snakes.
And it certainly wasn’t a concern if we were being rescued in the next two days.
“Thanks for showing me,” I finally managed to say as I turned the shoe over and over in my hands like a fidget toy.
“But I really don’t think we need to worry about this.
Aileron will have us rescued long before we encounter anyone out here.
They transport hundreds of people through the jungle a day—we’d have plenty of notice if we heard a herd of humans through the woods. ”
Nikki didn’t look convinced, but he said nothing.
I blew out a long breath into the void beyond the light of our fire. “I’ve got to get back to the plane tomorrow,” I announced abruptly in a harsh whisper. “Don’t try to talk me out of it. I need to try and find Jamie.”
“And we need to throw away the cocaine,” Nikki added, turning his head toward mine, gaze serious and imploring. “If Aileron shows up tomorrow, we can’t be implicated, Marl. We’ll be facing drug enforcement as soon as we land back home. We just need to ditch it and pretend like it never happened.”
Acid singed the insides of my stomach like I’d swallowed a lit match. “Evidence tampering is also a crime, Nik.”
“And what’s the penalty for that? Do you know it? I’d wager it’s less for that than for transcontinental drug smuggling.” His one clear eye through his cracked glasses stared at me so keenly, I had to look away.
As much as I hated to admit it, he was right. Fighting to prove our innocence would be a hell of a lot harder with a missing pilot and an entire cargo hold of cocaine. I swallowed the mint whole to extinguish the heat in my gut.
“There’s another thing.” Nikki drew out the words, extending every syllable. “Madman still has the gun.”
My head snapped up so fast I pulled a muscle. He still had the …
“We need it back,” I declared as I anxiously fiddled with the hem of my shorts.
In every interaction, Madman had proven himself far less of a loose cannon than I’d have expected, but the only incarcerated criminal of our group having the sole operational weapon felt pretty damn irresponsible.
“Agreed,” Niki muttered solemnly. “I have an idea, but you might not like it.”
He glanced toward the group behind us before continuing. “Take him with you tomorrow, and I’ll stay back and monitor things here. Diaz tolerates me at least, and someone should stay back who knows first-aid for Ambrose and Danny. While he’s with you, try to get it from him.”
Sputtering, I blinked as if clearing my eyes would clarify that statement. “And how do you suggest I do that?” I hissed into the humid night air.
His brows wriggled suggestively. “Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed he fancies you.
Use that feminine charm. Seduce it out of him if you have to.
I don’t think it would be that hard to be honest.” His tongue darted out to lick his bottom lip, voice lowering to a seductive sigh in that sexy British accent. “It would work on me.”
My cheeks heated to boiling. Instead of addressing the growing tension between our bodies and the tingling sensation in my groin, I shifted two inches to put much needed space between us.
Was Nikki coming on to me while suggesting I bed another man?
Pursing my lips and fighting my hormones, I raised an eyebrow. “So, your bright idea is to seduce an armed criminal?”
“Technically correct,” he mused, picking at his nails with a growing smile. “And it might not even take seduction. Bet you he hasn’t been kissed by a beautiful woman in a long time.”
He waved his hands at our jungle surroundings.
“I truly believe he cares about keeping us safe—keeping you safe, most definitely. And, I’ll bet my left arm he won’t have any qualms about hiding evidence.”
He brought one hand down to rest on my knee, which heated at the touch. “I wouldn’t suggest it otherwise, baby girl. I would never put you in danger.”
Baby girl. That nickname did things to my heart and my underwear.
The sincerity in his tone pulled my eyes back to his. I hadn’t forgotten the way he’d kissed my forehead and gripped me to his chest, gentle and protective. I believed him.
I just needed to get the gun from a very dangerous and highly attractive madman, no big deal.
You went up against a bear and won, Marley. You can do this.
They had one thing in common, after all. They both wanted to eat me for dinner.
Another blush heated my cheeks. My seduction skills were nonexistent. Maybe he’d have low expectations and I could get away with a handsy kiss and a few well-timed giggles. I had a feeling our resident convict had gotten laid a lot more recently than I had.
I knew how to use the gun, at least. My father’s obsession with Armageddon had more than prepared me on the proper use of weaponry. I hadn’t carried one in years, though.
“This plan is insane,” I grumbled as the sky bruised purple on the horizon, marking the start of dawn.
Nikki hadn’t removed his hand from my knee and his thumb moved in tiny rhythmic circles along the sensitive outer skin. I couldn’t bring myself to remove it.
“It is,” he agreed, speaking into the sunrise instead of to me, as if neither of us acknowledged this thing between us, it wasn’t happening. “But, we’re desperate. We can’t be blamed for what we do when we’re desperate.”
“Desperate people do desperate things,” I repeated my earlier thought. “Let’s hope this is as desperate as it gets.”