33. Chapter 30 – Marley
“The only way out is through.”
The cosmic buzz of my orgasm just an hour before, when all was right in this fucked-up world, crashed back to earth as I stared unblinkingly at the two men in front of me in disbelief.
Madman had returned. With Jamie.
Was that his plan all along, to find the man we’d been searching for? Or had this been an inconceivable coincidence? Right now, the how’s and why’s didn’t matter. I was too stuck on Jamie’s last words.
When Madman moved to kick him again, I snapped to attention.
“Maddox, back away from him.” I didn’t enjoy using the name he hated, but the way he was treating my friend wasn’t acceptable. He’d left without any explanation. He didn’t get to dictate the terms now.
Reluctantly, Madman retreated two feet and crossed his arms over his chest in a clear indication this was all he was willing to give.
Fine.
Turning my attention back to Jamie, I drew in a breath and steeled myself for the explanation to come. Was he hurt? Had he suffered memory loss like I had? Why had he chosen to brave the elements and fend for himself instead of staying with the plane? What did he know that I didn’t?
“I’m going to need you to explain that, Jamie,” I said cautiously, unsure how to approach this broken man in front of me.
He barely resembled the person I’d held in my memory these last several days.
His bright eyes and jovial grin had faded into a shrunken husk.
I didn’t know much about his childhood, but the odds his father was also a doomsday prepper were next to none. What had this jungle done to him?
Jamie picked himself up from the dirt to sit. His hands shook in his lap when he stared up at me, his eyes almost—pleading?
Dread sparked like an ember in my gut. These were not the eyes of an innocent man.
“I know you found the drugs.” His gaze fell to his clasped fingers. “I watched you get rid of them. Aileron’s been delivering them for a long time to the El Chaco cartel out of Mexico.”
My brows knit together in a frown. He’d watched us? Madman had destroyed the evidence thirty minutes before we ventured into the woods to find him. The realization he’d been there and chose to run said everything.
Jamie had known about the drugs and had intentionally stayed away.
Our company had been cutting costs everywhere possible, down to the half-assed emergency kit we’d been forced to use for survival, only to pad those same bank accounts with cartel funds? The same cartel with a contract on Madman’s head?
Absolutely not a coincidence.
I’d been so convinced my mentor was innocent, that the man I knew would never sacrifice others for his own gain. Bile rose in the back of my throat, tasting like the truth on my tongue—acrid and bitter.
“You know I like to bet on the races.” His throat bobbed with a deep swallow before continuing. “I owe some powerful people a lot of money. When I was approached to look the other way, it was an offer I couldn’t refuse.”
My friend’s betrayal sliced through my stomach like an acid-dipped dagger. He’d sacrificed our licenses—my license—and endangered everyone in his care, to cover his debts like a coward.
“This time,” he said, but the words caught in his throat, and more tears bled down his cheeks.
“This time they wanted us to hand-deliver an inmate, too.” His wet gaze broke free of mine and he glanced over his shoulder at Madman, who emanated every bit of the dangerous air of the leader of a prison gang.
Jamie quickly looked away and his gaze landed next on Nikki, who’d stepped up beside me and linked his fingers through mine in a subtle gesture of solidarity.
I couldn’t return it. Had he known any of this? Had he been playing me like Jamie had?
“During our refuel, there was a man waiting to swap out the cargo, with coordinates inside for its next destination. That’s the way we always do it. Someone was waiting in Mexico for Maddox’s hand-off, and then we’d be free and clear, until the next time.”
He thrust his hands in the air with a defeated flourish, as if all would have been right in the world if only the job had gone according to plan.
“Aileron won’t attempt to rescue us because it’ll incriminate them.
A plane crash is out of their hands. The transportation safety board will investigate why, which will lead into a deep dive into their entire operation.
By now, they’ve probably taken the ELT data offline for no one to find and faked a rescue attempt.
What better place to bury a plane than the Darién Gap? It’s what I would do.”
He let out a choked laugh that progressed into a series of hacking coughs.
The harsh realization was a concrete smash over the head. We’d been left for dead.
“You’re fucking unbelievable, Jamie. Fucking unbelievable!” Nikki blew out a breath with a slew of curses I’d never heard. He released my hand and tugged hard on a ringlet on the side of his head. I’d never seen anger cross his beautiful features, let alone this unconcealed display of rage.
The weight on my heart lightened a fraction. His raw emotion convinced me he’d known nothing about this. Ambrose had gone uncharacteristically silent, and Brooks and Tessa, outside of my view, said nothing. What was there to say?
The stunning revelations of our current reality sat on top of all of us like a suffocating pillow. No rescue was coming. We were stuck.
“Was the crash an accident or on purpose?” I grit out, as the bile threatened to choke me. I’d begged the universe for my memories for five days, and I cursed every single entity I didn’t have them now.
His eyes widened like a caught animal in a snare.
“An accident, Marley!” He held up both hands in a placating gesture, as if his word could mean anything to me anymore.
“One minute, we were cruising. The next, the right wing was out. That landing was a fucking miracle, and only because we managed to get some drag to slow us down.”
The crash wasn’t my fault. Tears bled from my eyes in burning waves, but I couldn’t even be relieved. Crushing guilt sat on top of my lungs instead.
I hadn’t caused the crash, but we’d survived five days for nothing. We wasted our resources by staying still instead of moving north to civilization.
My hope was our death sentence.
Charlie’s ghostly hands swept across my shoulders. Closing my eyes, I leaned into the soothing hug, before I realized it was Ambrose’s touch I was pressing my weight against.
He wrapped his arms around me from behind and held me as I fell apart. But I locked my screams of despair inside my head and whimpered in silence. Nikki’s hand found mine again, and this time I gripped it like it was a lifeline.
Madman leaned over and clamped a large palm around the back of Jamie’s neck and hauled him upward, dangling Jamie’s body as if he was trapped in a noose.
“You’ve said your piece.” His growl was truly terrifying, the terse bark of a commander. “That is all I promised. You’re done here.”
“Wait, no!” Pure terror filled Jamie’s eyes and he struggled to get free.
“There’s a cartel run close by, Marley. I ran into them, and then I ran away from them and—” His words faltered as Madman squeezed him tighter. “The only way out is through, Marley. There are hundreds of people coming through each day. Hundreds!”
His voice rose higher in pitch with each word. “We just need to blend in with them. My guess is we’d be out of this jungle in four days tops, with a steady pace.”
A cold sweat burst out across my brow at their proximity. The danger the cartel posed versus the danger of the untamed jungle. Could it be true? If they were that close …
Joining their trail might be the only way we’d make it out of here alive.
“Why would we take you with us?” Ambrose’s words vibrated through me and his arms tightened further. “You got us into this mess, and now you want to save your skin alongside us? Fuck you.”
Jamie’s body sagged, limbs dangling as he begged for his life. “I’ve got kids,” he wheezed. “I’ll do anything to get back to my kids, Marley. Please.”
His kids. His husband. He had people who would be just as devastated to lose him. He knew my father died when I was a teenager, what it did to me. He knew this was my weakness.
Had I always been this easy to manipulate? Or was Jamie just particularly good at it?
“Madman, please let him go.” It wasn’t an order, only a true request. “Let him go and I’ll—”
“You want to live?” Ambrose interrupted.
He released his hold on me and walked over to Jamie with a stony frown.
“I’m suing the shit out of Aileron when we get out of here.
Help us get to the trafficking route, protect us enough to get us home, then testify against them.
Then Madman here won’t kill you and leave you to rot. ”
The suggestion startled me, but it was a good one. I didn’t want Jamie to die, and the murderous look in Madman’s eyes told me he was a minute away from snapping his neck. Death was an easy way out. He needed to pay penance for his decisions.
“I’ll go to prison,” Jamie gasped out, his face now cherry red and swollen.
“You will,” I agreed and moved next to Ambrose. “And you’ll have earned that privilege. Start making up for your selfish choices now by saving the rest of these lives. Your children can visit their living father in prison, or pay respects to an empty casket at home.”
I didn’t mean it. Or maybe I did. There was an entire plane filled with soggy corpses less than a mile away, whose families would never get closure because they’d never be found.
Bodies Jamie knew about because he’d hovered from the tree line and watched us struggle to survive instead of acknowledging his role in our suffering.
The distinct, sharp click of something metal resounded through the trees and Tessa’s cry tore my attention from Jamie to the sound at my back.
Ambrose and Nikki immediately shifted in front of me, and the dull thump of a body dropping into the dirt told me Jamie had been spared. When I saw the reason why, I froze.
“I fucking hate you, cabrón.” Diaz snarled.
Vicious violence radiated from his every pore as he pointed a small pistol at Madman’s head from about twenty feet away.
His thick arm wrapped around Tessa’s slender frame, holding her hostage against his chest. Her blue eyes flashed with horror as she struggled within his grip.
“I thought I’d lost my payday, and now here you are.” His dark laugh chilled my bones, completely lacking any semblance of humanity.
The manic look in his eyes was cold and unfeeling, like we were ants and not people—an inconvenience at most. Wherever he’d been these last several hours, he hadn’t fared very well.
Angry welts covered his face, and the bottom half of his clothes were completely shredded.
Beneath the polyester strands of his pants, I could see the thick black strap of an ankle holster.
He’d had another gun all along. Bastard.
“The migrant route is a good idea, but I have a better one. El Chaco has spies in the Gulfo Cartel, and I know how to find them.” His unfeeling stare morphed into murderous. “They’ll get us out, but I won’t be taking anyone else with me.”
Righteous anger flooded through my veins like a rolling wave. We hadn’t survived a plane crash, a jaguar attack, and a flash flood to have this deranged man murder us all in cold blood. Fuck him.
“You’re going to kill us,” Ambrose stated.
Diaz’s responding nod was all it took to convince me of the path forward.
“Come on out, Torres,” Diaz taunted, “and I’ll spare your precious captain for now.”
Yeah, right.
Slowly, deliberately, I reached into Nikki’s shorts pocket, where he’d shown me he still had the gun. Ambrose shifted his weight, covering my movements, and I slipped the revolver behind Nikki’s back and held it flat against the base of his spine.
But I wasn’t the first of us to try to be the hero. In my periphery, Brooks ran toward Diaz with a stick the size of a baseball bat. Their bravery diverted Diaz’s attention just long enough for everyone to scatter.
A knife whistled past my head from behind and sailed through the thick air toward Diaz’s head. I was too distracted to see where it went, but I didn’t miss the sharp, guttural cry of pain when it landed.
Nikki reached behind him and grabbed the gun from my waiting hands, then dropped to the ground in front of me. As if they’d telepathically coordinated, Ambrose dove on top of my body and drove me into the dirt, blocking my view.
“Don’t move, Jagiya,” he whispered in my ear. The piercing snap of gunfire echoed above our heads. I struggled against him, desperate to see who’d been hit, who we’d lost.
“Nikki!” I screamed into Ambrose’s face. “Madman!”
I sobbed the words over and over into his shoulder, smothering him with tears and snot, but he refused to let me move.
The toned biceps and muscular thighs I used to admire held me in chains while more gunfire filled the air.
Then, the banshee scream of someone hit pierced the last of my defenses, drowning me in terror.
The calm warmth of Ambrose’s honey-brown eyes was the last thing I saw before a body fell on top of us, showering our faces with blood.
Oof – I know that was a rough one.
I'd be really worried about this crew too, if I didn't know their HEA was right around the corner.