Chapter 3
“Donnie?” Lorna asked as she was being ushered away from the water’s edge. The river was rising and they couldn’t afford to hang around this area much longer, especially with the threat that had been on Amy’s heels.
She shook her head as her gaze landed on Knox. A one-man cavalry had arrived who was even more gorgeous than she remembered. Knox was six-feet-four inches of pure steel. The man was a sight for sore eyes with tight-clipped dark hair that was almost jet black. His magnetic eyes drew her in, made her want to take a step closer to study their depths. He had one of those carved from granite faces that most would agree resembled more god than man and made her fingers itch to reach out to him, to touch him. The same pull she felt toward him as a fourteen-year-old reared its head, but he’d never seen her as anything but Garrett’s annoying little sister.
She told herself the almost overwhelming attraction gripping her was all about a white knight riding in on a horse to rescue her and not something real. He was here to save her life and, for the first time since this ordeal began, she had a glimmer of hope that she might make it out of this jungle alive.
Would he be enough to navigate them out of this nightmare? “Donnie split off from me. We were running parallel when the men tracking us fixated on me, so he took off in the opposite direction.”
Knox’s jaw clenched. “We need to stay on the move,” he said as they huddled so they could hear each other’s voices on top of the driving rain.
Knox reached for her hand, and then clasped their fingers. Her heart free-fell as electricity buzzed through her from the point of contact. She reached for Lorna’s hand, as much for reassurance as to ensure they stayed together, creating an unbreakable chain as rain battered them. The deafening noise made it impossible to hear anything else as rain flooded every orifice. The only thing Amy managed to hold onto was the camera strapped around her neck. Everything else, what little survival items she’d had, were lost, consumed by an unforgiving environment.
The jungle floor tried its best to suck them in, making every step more and more difficult as they trudged through the mud. Hunger bit like an angry dog. Even with the ‘free shower’ happening, Amy was certain she stunk to high heaven. When it wasn’t raining, the humidity caused a near-constant sweat, making it difficult to breathe. And there’d been no escape from it since A.J. had left them. No sleep. No food. No sign of a break.
Until now.
If anyone could get them out of the jungle alive, it would be Knox.
Knox maskedhis limp as best as he could while leading the trio through the jungle. Confidence was key. Moral saved lives. He didn’t want Amy and Lorna to know just how much pain he was in or how damn hard walking through the mud was becoming.
Pain was a near-constant companion since the crash. The weather made his wrist and ankle stiff, achy. The headache was the worst though. Taking pain relievers would dull his senses, so he wouldn’t take one of the so-called magic pills tucked inside his rucksack. It was meant for emergencies. To Knox, that meant a step away from death. There were two. One for the initial shock and the second to help him make it to a doctor or hospital or give him time for someone to get to him.
Amy stopped, dropped down to her knees. “I can’t keep going.”
Even muddy and soaked, she’d grown into something beautiful. No, beautiful was too simple a word for the woman. She’d robbed his breath the second she emerged from the trees half an hour ago. He tried to convince himself that his pulse pounded every time he looked at her because of the rescue and not because she had an impact on him like no one else. Amy’s physical beauty was beyond beautiful, but there was something about her presence that drew him in, made him want to get to know her again.
The rain swept over and through, easing in this area. The torrential downpour was like the stomach flu, it hit fast and hard. The good news was that it was moving on quickly. In the jungle, you never knew how long a downpour like this would stick around. If Knox believed in luck, he’d say they were lucky.
Pinching her side, Amy looked up at him. An apology was written all over her face.
“How long since you hydrated?” he asked, dropping his rucksack off his shoulder and kneeling beside it. Lorna had dropped down too, wrapping her arm around Amy. Her friend had lost all color, except for her lips, which were blue.
Amy shook her head and shrugged. She motioned toward her camera. “This is all I had, because it was hanging around my neck when the men found us. I didn’t trust drinking from the river.” She held out her tongue, trying to catch raindrops.
“Good move,” he said as he pulled a small bottle of water from his rucksack. He added a hydration powder like the over-the-counter one runners used. His powder was that on steroids. He poured the contents of the orange packet into the bottle, replaced the cap, and shook before handing over the bottle.
Amy thanked him, took the offering, and attempted to open the bottle. She couldn’t. That wasn’t a good sign. Her physical strength was drained. She needed rest. Under normal circumstances, he would toss her over his shoulder fireman style to keep going, but his ankle wouldn’t be able to take the extra weight and he’d lost track of their location during the run.
“We can’t leave Donnie,” Lorna said, crumpling beside her friend like air being let out of a balloon.
“Three of us are alive,” Knox pointed out as he took the bottle from Amy and unscrewed the cap. It took surprisingly little effort, which concerned him about her general condition. “My mission was to rescue Amy.” He glanced around, not thrilled with how easily Donnie had slipped away, and allowed Amy to draw the threat away from him. “Last I checked, we aren’t exactly out of the woods yet.” He frowned at his own bad play on words.
“I can’t leave the area without him,” Lorna protested as Amy drained the contents of the bottle in a matter of seconds.
Knox reached inside his rucksack and then produced a protein bar. “Tastes like mud but it’ll get the job done.”
“Whatever keeps my stomach from gurgling and causing me to almost double over from pain will taste like steak to me.” Amy waited for him to rip open the small package before she took the second offering, devouring it almost as fast as the water had disappeared. She exhaled and caught his gaze. One look shouldn’t send his pulse racing or cause tension to cord his muscles. This seemed like a good time to remind himself he was looking at his best friend’s little sister. Although, his brain protested, there was nothing little about Amy Hunt.
A little girl didn’t have just the right amount of curves—curves that made his fingertips itch to draw lazy circles up long legs toward that sweet bottom of hers.
“Knox?” Amy said in her very grown-up singsong voice—a voice that threatened to break through carefully constructed walls around his heart.
Jesus, what would Garrett think of Knox practically ogling his baby sister? It was bad enough Knox couldn’t save his best friend’s life. Letting his guard down or becoming distracted when he needed one hundred percent of his focus to save Amy would only add to an already heavy sense of shame and guilt if this mission went south.
Pull it together, dude.
“Hey,” Amy said, snapping her fingers like he was in some sort of trance that needed breaking.
Shit.
He pushed through the physical pain and mental monologue. “Did you say something?”
“What about Donnie?” Amy asked.
“After what he did to you?” Knox’s hand fisted at his side.
“I’m sure he had a good reason,” Lorna interjected, but there was little energy in those words. She had to know her boyfriend made the decision to save himself and leave Amy to fend for herself.
“Yeah, to save his own ass at the expense of others,” Knox hissed.
His comment didn’t go over well with Lorna, but Amy’s expression said she thought the same thing. She cast her eyes down to the muddy earth.
It might be a dog-eat-dog world out there but there was no excuse for Donnie’s actions in Knox’s book. In fact, Knox didn’t want to look at the man after the stunt he pulled. People acted true to their nature in deadly situations and most fended for themselves, women and children be damned. He’d read the accounts of men climbing over women and children, pushing them down, trying to get to the few lifeboats on the Titanic. And yet, if you asked men in advance how they would react in a horrific situation, most would say they would protect the very people they climbed on to find salvation.
People always assumed they would do better when faced with something as primal as survival. They were dead wrong.
“Tell me about the men,” he said to Amy.
“They just appeared out of nowhere and we bolted,” she explained. “After A.J. abandoned us in the Flooded Forest, we had to walk on moss and treetops until we eventually found solid ground.” She picked up mud in her palm and let it drip off. “If you can call it that.”
“What did they look like?” he pressed. “What were they wearing?”
“They were short, not much taller than me,” Amy explained. “Dressed to blend in with the jungle. They wore hats too.” She paused. “I saw their guns but didn’t stick around long enough to ask what they wanted. We left everything behind and ran.”
“Did you get them on camera?” Knox asked.
Amy shook her head. “I’m still kicking myself.”
“You had no choice but to get out of there,” he pointed out.
“Still,” she said, clearly disappointed with herself.
He would tell her not to beat herself up over her mistake if it wouldn’t make him a hypocrite. Knox knew what it was like to make a mistake that could never be undone. He would live the rest of his life wishing he hadn’t asked Garrett to trade seats on that chopper ride. But he had.
Would Amy hate him if she knew that he was the reason her brother was dead? Would their mother? He would deserve it. And yet, he couldn’t bring himself to say the words. He would, though, at some point. They deserved to know that Garrett would be alive today if not for Knox once this was over.
Amy had looked up to her older brother. Garrett had been nothing but good, whereas Knox couldn’t say the same about himself. Guilt and shame were near-constant companions. Was it his father’s DNA that had tainted him? Curse him to be a selfish SOB? If the situation on the chopper had been reversed, Garrett would have found a way to save Knox’s life.
“Knox, are you okay?” Amy asked, studying him.
“Other than the obvious, yes,” he answered. “What makes you ask?”
They were lost in the Amazon jungle with a pair of men who knew the terrain hunting her. Why wouldn’t he be alright?
“Your eyes narrow and the blue deepens from pale to cobalt blue when you move, which used to happen when you were in pain,” she said. “The deep groove in your forehead is a sign of stress. It doesn’t do that when you’re relaxed. You’ve had the same one since we were kids.”
“You were a kid,” he countered. “I was a man.”
She didn’t immediately speak. “Okay, when I was a kid and you were eighteen. Clearly, so much more of an adult.”
“It’s the difference between being able to vote, serve your country, and buy a cigar before you were old enough to drive,” he defended.
Amy raised her hands in the surrender position, palms toward him exposing a two-inch cut on her arm.
“Hey, why didn’t you show me this before?” he asked. “Contract an infection out here and you could die faster than if one of those snakes caught you.”
“When was I supposed to point this out?” she asked right back. “I didn’t think it was as important as getting away from the men with machine guns who were chasing me when I ran into you.”
Knox smirked. Most people backed off when he challenged them. Amy pushed right back. It was good to know some things hadn’t changed and the fire was still alive in those sky-blue eyes that now sparked with anger. She wasn’t mad at him. He realized that. She needed someone to vent her frustration at. This was a lot for any civilian to take in. Based on what Lorna had said during her call, Amy wasn’t used to environments like this.
Did she know the spark made her eyes even more beautiful?
All he had to do was keep her securely in the dead best friend’s little sister category to tamp down any inconvenient attraction. And that was exactly what this was. Inconvenient. Knox hadn’t spent time with a woman, any woman other than Taz’s wife Hannah, who’d invited him and the others who survived the crash to her rehab ranch.
Knox pulled the small first-aid kit out of his rucksack. He opened the kit, using the top of his bag as a makeshift table. The even surface held the small kit. He set out a cleaning wipe, antibiotic ointment, and a bandage with adhesive strong enough to stick to a tree during a downpour.
“Give me that,” Amy interrupted his thoughts, jarring him back to reality. “I can do it myself.”
“Same old Amy,” he muttered.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, clearly offended. The twitch at the corner of her mouth wasn’t something he should stare at. So, he forced his gaze away from her full lips.
“You never would let anyone do anything for you,” he stated. “You always had to do it for yourself.”
“Is there something wrong with being self-sufficient?” she asked with enough heat in her voice to warm them for the rest of the day. “Because last I checked, not being needy was considered a good thing.”
He decided this wasn’t a good time to point out the fact she wasn’t able to take care of herself or he wouldn’t be here. What the hell? He might as well poke the bear. “Except when it comes to being lost in the jungle.”
“Don’t be an ass,” Amy said, snatching the cleaning wipe off the makeshift table.
“Can you open that on your own or do you need my help?” he pressed, amused with himself.
The determined look on her face said she’d rather die than ask for help at this point.
She wrangled with the package until she managed to find the perforated edge and rip it open. After shooting him daggers, she snatched the antibiotic ointment.
“Hey, let me help,” Lorna said, who had been quiet.
Amy handed it over.
“I see how it is,” Knox teased. “I’m not allowed to help you, but she is.”
“She isn’t actively trying to piss me off,” Amy shot back with more of those daggers and the slightest spark.
He cracked a smile, which served to piss her off further.
Good. She looked like she’d rather poke her eyes out than speak to him. All sparks dissipated. It was for the best this way.
Lorna leaned in as she applied the ointment and whispered, “So, did you get any of the footage we came out here for?” Lorna’s voice was so low Knox almost didn’t hear her ask.
Amy gave a small headshake.
Did he need to point out Amy was too busy trying to stay alive after being abandoned by a guide who’d been set up presumably by Lorna and Donnie? And then she became target practice for a pair of men who had yet to be identified while Donnie abandoned her.
Knox made a show of cleaning fake earwax out of his ear. When he had both women’s attention, he laser-beamed Lorna with his gaze. “Did you really just ask that question? You think your biggest concern right now is whether or not Amy got the footage you wanted? What part of you risked your friend’s life and now all you care about is footage do you not understand?”
“I didn’t…I wasn’t…” Lorna stammered.
“She’s just making conversation, Knox,” Amy cut in. “Could you settle down?”
“No, I can’t. Not while there are men with guns who want to kill you and could be anywhere in this jungle, not to mention the fact they could be within spitting distance right now with the barrel of their automatic weapons pointed right at us.” The truth hurt. The men could be anyone, anywhere.
In fact, he needed to take a minute to think about who those men might be. One plausible explanation would be environmental workers. They risked life and limb to protect the rainforest. But why would they shoot at Amy?
Why would they want to stop—kill?—an American documentary filmmaker?
Didn’t add up. She wasn’t trying to damage the environment. She certainly wasn’t trying to harm the creatures. The men might not know that, though. Would they believe she worked for a developer? Someone who wanted to cut into the jungle for profit?
The problem was real.
Another explanation for the men was they didn’t want witnesses in the area of the jungle Amy and Donnie were in. Sinister? Yes. But erasing a witness wasn’t exactly a new reason for murder.
The men could be working for rebels instead of the government. They could be drug runners. Although, most folks shied away from the deadly jungle, searching for an easier route.
What kind of person, organization, or government sent weaponized men inside the rainforest?
He would have to chew on that idea more later because he was coming up blank.
Could they be assassins?
Sure. They could be anyone or anything at this point. There was no way to rule out possibilities with the little information he had so far. Almost anyone could throw on camo pants, shirt, and hat and carry an automatic weapon in the jungle without drawing too much attention. Unless they wanted to be seen.
The pair of men shot at Amy. They could have sprayed bullets. Could the shots have been a warning?
Or did they want her alive for some reason?