Chapter 24
Please Keep All Limbs Inside the Vehicle
JULIETTE
By the time the first transfer rolled out, the lodge had gone quiet in the wrong way.
The frantic, high-decibel energy of a dozen guests being told they couldn’t leave had been replaced by a heavy, pressurized stillness.
I stood on the veranda, the ceramic of my coffee cup long since drained but still clutched like a blunt object.
Below me, the gravel was a scarred map of tire tracks.
Sarah was moving among the remaining guests—the ones whose nerves had frayed into brittle compliance—using that specific, honeyed hospitality tone that was designed to sound like reassurance but functioned as a gag order.
“The second wave will be departing shortly,” she told two lodge guests from Brussels who were currently vibrating with the need to discuss their missed connection.
Comfort. Right. Nothing said luxury travel like being staged for evacuation beside a fruit platter.
Nick was at the center of the staging area, an axis around which the rangers and staff rotated.
He was giving instructions in clipped bursts, his attention never settling on one person for more than a second.
He looked less like staff and more like the only thing keeping the morning from breaking apart.
"Juliette."
One second the space beside me was empty, and the next, the air shifted with the faint bite of peppermint.
"You're in the second vehicle," Nick said. He didn't look at me; he was watching Daniel check the winch on the lead Land Rover. "We’re consolidating. I’m driving your vehicle."
“With what luggage?” I asked. “Unless you’ve taught the local baboons how to finish packing and check out a guest, my life is still sitting three miles that way.”
"I know where your things are." His gaze finally cut to mine.
"The other two suites in your sector are occupied, too. We’re looping the western access to retrieve all the bags from the bush tents at once rather than sending three separate runners.
I don't want any of you out there in a solo transfer. "
The interior of the Land Rover was an oven. Nick sat behind the wheel, the radio at his hip crackling with short, staccato codes. Daniel was in the vehicle behind us, keeping a tight three-meter gap that felt more like a tether than a following distance.
I sat in the front passenger seat. To my left, Nick’s hands were steady on the wheel, his knuckles slightly pale. Alina sat in the row behind us with the Brussels couple, her presence a professional anchor in a cab that felt increasingly like a powder keg.
The lodge shrank in the rearview mirror, disappearing behind the thick, silver-green curtain of the thorn trees. The silence inside the cab was active—vigilant.
We were two miles from the tent sector when the air changed.
The birds that had been a constant, chittering background track since dawn simply stopped. Nick’s foot eased off the accelerator. The vehicle slowed, the engine dropping to a low, guttural hum. Behind us, Daniel’s vehicle stopped instantly.
"Nick?" the woman from Brussels started to say.
"Quiet," he said. It wasn't a request.
He wasn't looking at the road. He was looking at a patch of dense scrub where the drainage line intersected the track. A thin veil of dust was settling over the bushes—too much for the wind, too little for a vehicle.
He lifted the radio. "Daniel. Hold. Do not reverse."
If his hands were supposed to shake, the absolute steadiness of his fingers gave nothing away.
The scrub shifted, and a shadow stepped free. A white rhino cow, massive and prehistoric, stepped onto the red dirt of the road. She wasn't grazing—her head was up, ears snapping between us and the drainage line. Behind her, a juvenile pressed against her flank.
The cow took two slow steps toward the Land Rover, close enough that the windshield filled with horn, hide, and dust. Then she huffed, a harsh rush of breath that fogged the glass.
"Don't move," Nick said, his voice low enough that everyone had to go still to hear it. "Everyone. Slow breaths. No movement."
I froze. My brain cataloged exit strategies and found nothing but thorns. My hand moved an inch before I stopped it.
She moved closer, not charging, not retreating. Deciding.
In the back seat, the Brussels woman was fumbling with her bag, her hand shaking as she pulled out a smartphone.
"Phones down," Nick said. He didn't turn around. "Now."
"I just—"
"Put the phone in your lap," I said, my voice cutting through her panic with a cold edge. "Now."
Nick didn’t rev the engine or honk. He just sat there, becoming part of the landscape. He was giving the animal the only thing she needed: room to choose a different path.
He made room for her to leave without turning it into a fight.
"Movement on the eastern drainage," the radio barked. "The crash is pushing west. Something's behind them."
Nick’s jaw tightened. Whatever had touched the boundary had reached the road.
The cow tossed her head, her horn carving a violent arc in the air. She looked toward the drainage, then back at us.
"Stay still," Nick whispered.
Finally, the cow groaned—a deep, chest-vibrating sound—and nudged her calf. They turned, their heavy footfalls thudding against the earth as they disappeared back into the thicket.
Nick waited. One minute. Two. Long after the road looked clear.
Only then did he exhale.
"Daniel," he said into the radio. "We're turning around. Abort the loop. All vehicles back to the lodge. Now."
The return trip was a blur. By the time we reached the lodge, the reinforced lounge had been stripped of atmosphere and turned into containment.
Nick opened my door. He was already looking past me toward Sarah.
"We're not retrieving luggage today," he told her.
"Nick, my laptop is in that suite," I said, stepping onto the gravel. My knees registered the gravel a second after my boots did. "And the guests in four and five—they’re leaving today."
"Not today," he repeated.
"That was not a suggestion," I said.
"Neither was my answer." He stepped closer, his shadow falling over me. "I’m not risking a ranger for a suitcase, Juliette. Not when I don't know where the pressure is coming from."
I looked at him—really looked at him. The dust was thick in the lines around his eyes. Dust had worked its way into him by then: collar, cuffs, the tired set of his mouth. His hand stayed closed around the radio long after he stopped speaking.
The anger died. I understood.
"Fine," I said. "Then I need a toothbrush, clean clothes, and somewhere to work."
His eyes stayed on mine for half a second too long. "You're not arguing?"
"I'm adapting."
The corner of his mouth moved, barely. "Dangerous habit."
"Clearly, that was going around."
He started to say something else, but his phone buzzed in his pocket. I saw the name flash: Sofia.
His jaw tightened. He looked toward the service yard, then back at the screen, thumb moving fast.
ME: Active situation. Safe. Will call as soon as I can.
He sent it before the mask went back up.
The reserve took his attention again, but not before I understood the cost of it.
I watched him walk away before following Alina toward the lounge to find a toothbrush and a stiff drink. The reserve had pressure points. Clearly, so did I.