29. Chapter 26 - Nikki
I’d once heard a man speak of drowning as if it were a peaceful death. I begged to differ.
The sea of swirling mud and silt stole my breath and every bit of my control along with it.
I crushed my glasses in my fist, only managing to grab them within seconds of sinking, but they were of no use to me underwater.
The sediment scratched my eyeballs, blinding me more than genetics already had.
I clenched my eyes shut in a poor attempt to calm the burning pain.
The raging river thrashed me about, pulling me through its barrage like a puppy with a chew toy, but never close enough to the surface to catch a breath.
Flailing through a force far more powerful than I, I knew I needed to relax into it, but it was damn near impossible when the frozen fear of panic slipped into every fiber of my being.
Danny was gone. His lack of fight had settled him like a stone in the water, swept beneath the current before I’d even fallen in.
Perhaps his drowning had been peaceful, a reprieve from his suffering.
Thankfully, I’d enough sense to draw in a gulp of air before face planting into the muck, so I hadn’t yet drowned in the ’s filth, but I was close to succumbing.
I’d taken up swimming as a boy, learning in the lap pool on our estate the length of an Olympic training ground, so maintaining my strength in the water was not my concern. Oxygen, or rather the lack of it, was.
Focusing on living rather than the painful panic bursting my chest at the seams, I reached outward for any indication of up or down. My hand grasped a gritty clump of pebbles, substantial enough to be considered downward.
Stiffening to have an ounce of resistance against the powerful flood, I used the dragging force to drop my legs and pushed upward off what I assumed to be ground.
My body spun with the motion, but rising like an arrow, my head breached the surface not a moment too soon.
My lungs were aflame and the sweet lungful of balmy air barely soothed the burn.
While I drew in another musty gulp, the torrent continued to push me further down river.
I couldn’t make sense of my position. It was impossible to turn around, and the surrounding landscape looked nothing like the dried-up riverbed I’d grown accustomed to.
Not that I could see, anyway. My glasses remained tightly held in one fist, their presence my only lifeline if I survived drowning.
If I survived at all. I’d gotten by on the skin of my teeth on a number of occasions, but that was more avoiding bar fights and evading law enforcement. Without Marley, there was no way I could survive this jungle on my own.
Marley.
Violent waves jostled me back and forth while I considered the woman I’d left behind.
When I’d watched her body go under—when she hadn’t come up for air—dread wasn’t a powerful enough word to describe my terror.
My heart seized as if I’d lost a piece of it, the reckoning so fierce it had shocked me with its force.
Adrenaline pumped through my heart and out to every limb as the current pushed me farther and farther from her.
I let it take me, waiting for an errant tree limb, or something with enough substance to grasp.
As long as my head was above water, I couldn’t waste energy fighting something with the entire strength of Mother Nature behind it.
The thought of living through this deluge and never seeing her face again …
I couldn’t bear it.
Apparently, all it took was a near-death experience to uncover my true feelings. Marley West wasn’t just my captain, my colleague, or my friend. She wasn’t even a courtesy crush or my most sensual fantasy in living color.
Marley West was the person I’d rather live with here in the rainforest than live without in the real world.
And it wasn’t near death—I was still floating in this river like a Queen Elizabeth bobblehead, relying on the whims of nature’s queen to keep me alive.
I had to get back to her.
The river narrowed, and the rushing water picked up speed at the bottleneck, shoving my head back underwater. The rapids zigzagged my body through the muddy water like a released balloon and I desperately clawed for purchase at anything around me while holding the little air remaining in my lungs.
My trepidation became hysteria when the length of my body smacked against a hard and smooth surface with such impact, every part of me was instantly tenderized.
The plane. I was pinned against the plane.
Pushing against the metal with all my might, I crawled along its surface.
Sparks burst behind my eyelids from the lack of oxygen, but before I could successfully pass out and drown the saddest, loneliest death known to man, I launched upward, barely breaching the surface again before unconsciousness won.
Each inhale felt as though my chest could collapse in on itself from the pressure of inflation. I climbed up over the plane’s nose and straddled it, collapsing to collect more oxygen to satiate the burn.
Clinging to the smooth aluminum surface with all the strength I possessed, I felt the rush of water flow beneath the nose and against the hull, but it wasn’t high enough to wash over me.
Jesus. That meant the water was at least ten feet deep, and the passenger cabin and cargo hold were mostly submerged.
How silly were we to not consider a bloody flood could wash away all our sins?
I hastily placed my glasses on my nose and squinted through the misty air.
Now truly above water, I could see the rain had stopped, but the air held tightly onto the steam as if the entire jungle had become a Turkish bath.
It was hard to see through it, far harder with just one lens, but my gaze landed on a thick vine the thickness of my calf, hanging three feet from where I sat.
It was shorter than was practical, thinner than I’d prefer, but the only way off this metal island.
Fear pricked at my heart like I’d walked into a cactus. If I leapt now and the vine gave way, I’d be sucked under the dagger-like blades of the front propeller for an instant, bloody death.
I clung to this plane for dear life because I’d chosen to place my faith in jungle foliage. Experience would tell me this was a terrible plan.
The alternative, though, was waiting for the flood to subside and cautiously swim to safety, then follow the riverbank back to where we’d settled.
That could take ages—if it happened at all. Biology wasn’t my strong suit unless we were talking human sexual reproduction. What if we’d landed on a floodplain in a drought and this was the river’s normal state?
What if it didn’t settle until nightfall and I was a sitting duck for another famished predator? Weren’t jaguars excellent swimmers? Ambrose would know.
Ambrose. The sexy, grumpy man had warmed to me, and I liked him. I wanted to see him rescued. He had a world to save with his computers.
And where had Maddox gone? Even in the floodwater's swell and the chaos of making it to safety, he hadn’t been present. Ambrose was still injured, and Diaz was still suspect. Was I really entrusting the safety of the woman I cared for to Tessa and Brooks?
My chest twinged at Danny and Vanessa’s deaths, but their suffering had ended quickly. Drowning was a blessing compared to more days steeped in immeasurable discomfort. I didn’t assume responsibility for nature’s wrath, but Marley would.
Marley would suffer from her guilt far more than either of them had suffered in their pain. Watching her almost drown had nearly broken my heart. What would I do if I found her in a few days’ time mauled or maimed by some creature? Or so mentally overwrought she’d given up fighting altogether?
The back of my nose and throat burned with the imagery, threatening tears.
I couldn’t bear it. We could live together or die together, but I was not leaving this jungle without her by my side.
Feeling around my pockets, my palm landed on the gun, incredibly still safely tucked within the netted mesh insert. My other pocket held my last bottle of vodka.
I’d been saving it, a part of me finally acknowledging the hold the love of drink had on me. Denial had been my mistress far longer than any other woman, but I was ready to trade her for a real woman who might love me back.
If I could only make it back to her in time.
Uncapping the bottle, I sniffed its astringent, clean scent, comforted by its familiarity. My last bottle of liquid courage, my last hurrah.
“Cheers,” I said aloud and toasted the steamy air before swallowing the contents in a single gulp. The soothing burn down my gullet settled my roiling nerves within moments, bringing me the false sense of security it always did.
I would miss it. I really would. And the next few days would be a bitch. Hopefully, I could get by with no one noticing.
Breathing in another fitful lungful of fetid air, I pushed upward on the nose to stand.
I’d patted myself on the back every day since we’d crashed that I'd been smart enough to pack trainers, and they gripped the smooth metal well as I squatted into position.
Every muscle, bone, and blood vessel protested in pain, but I ignored their screams as I prepared to jump.
If it took me all night, I’d return to her. I’d return to him. None of us was leaving here alone.
With one more fateful breath of air, I jumped.