Chapter 5 The Monkey Camp
Santi
Rain keeps falling, a steady hiss against the leaves, softer under the canopy than it had been out on the trail but still relentless. The rock overhang shields us from the worst of it, yet damp creeps in everywhere—through my socks, under my collar, beading along my hairline.
I crouch near the mouth of the shelter, studying the forest. Copérnico sits in a crotch of branches above, thick tail looped around the trunk, face tilted toward us like we are the most boring nature program he’s ever seen.
His coat looks dry. The only creature who apparently knows where he's going has the high ground and built-in rain gear.
My emergency blanket is now clipped to branches along the overhang lip, angled to widen the dry space and catch any runoff before it can drip inside.
The silver side faces down, heat-trapping.
The orange side faces out as a signal color, in case anyone is actually around to see it.
Our packs sit in the driest corner, wrapped in the second plastic cover we have.
I get a fire going under the lip of an exposed root system, coaxed out of damp wood.
"You're disturbingly good at this," Nora says, watching me feed the flame a sliver of dry bark I peeled from the underside of a fallen branch.
"Your corporate bio says 'Director of Security and Risk Assessment.
' It does not say 'also capable of building shelters and campfires with damp wood in the middle of the jungle in minutes. '"
"It's an oversight in my LinkedIn profile."
"A significant one." She tucks her knees up under the emergency blanket, watching the flame catch properly, gold light moving across her face. "Where did you learn to do this?"
"Later," I say. I'm not ready to answer that question yet, not when answering it honestly means opening a door I haven't opened with anyone in a long time. "Eat first. Talk after."
She eats. I eat. Copérnico, who has apparently decided that our accommodations meet his standards, settles into the canopy directly above us and watches us with an expression much like a landlord's during a final inspection.
For the first time since the bridge went, there is nothing to do.
No terrain to read. No threat to assess.
No decision tree branching every ninety seconds.
Just fire, rain, and Nora Valdez sitting two feet away from me with her knees drawn up and her hair drying into a style wilder than her usual neat braid, looking, for once, like she has absolutely nothing to organize.
It unsettles her more than the storm does.
"We're about two hours from where we started, if Mateo's estimates were accurate," she says.
"No signal until we get higher. We know he passed here—" her hand twitches toward the torn strip of his vest fabric she'd stuffed into a side pocket "—and was no doubt taken off the main route.
We know someone knew he was documenting Cumbre Verde and wanted him stopped. "
"And we know," I say, "that following the monkey was the best option we had at the time."
She glares up at Copérnico, who has twisted sideways to groom his shoulder, completely unconcerned that his navigational responsibilities are under review.
"Don't look so proud," she mutters.
A hoarse bark rings down at us—his version of commentary, apparently.
"He sounds offended," I say.
"He sounds like my cousin Diego when someone else gets control of the aux cord."
"And how does your cousin Diego handle being offended?"
She snorts. "Passive-aggressive Spotify queues."
"Tell me more about your family," I say, unable to stop myself. "Where did you grow up?"
Her brows knit for an instant, and then she smiles, settling back against the rock slightly.
"Caracas until I was eleven, then Bogotá.
My mother's family is there, and my father took a job that made more sense on paper than it ever did in practice.
" She says it simply. "Dual citizenship.
Dual accents, if you know what you're listening for.
I lost most of the Bogotá one by the time I hit university, but it comes back if I'm tired or angry. "
"What was your father's job?"
"Actuarial." Her mouth curves, not quite a smile.
"He used to say numbers were the only thing in any room that wasn't lying to you.
People lie. Markets lie, technically, but in patterns you can model.
A number just sits there being exactly what it is.
" She looks into the fire. "I think that's why I do what I do.
Somebody hands me a wildly optimistic five-year growth projection, and I get to be the person in the room who says, politely, that number is lying to you, and here's the math that proves it. "
"That's not a small thing to learn from a parent."
"No," she agrees. "It's also why I'm insufferable at parties."
I scoff, almost offended. "You're not insufferable."
She offers me a grateful smile, still curious and uncertain, as if she can't quite believe I'm real or what we did was real. Or what I feel is real.
"One of my favorite Nora moments," I say softly. "You told the Singapore investor their projected yield looked like it had been calculated 'by someone who wanted this very much to be profitable.'"
Heat flushes her cheeks. "You remember that?"
"I remember all of them."
The firelight throws a shadow up her cheekbone, across her jaw. She's still considering me, trying to figure me out. I feel exposed, but in a good way. An honest way. For the first time.
"Okay," she says. "Your turn. Family."
"Caracas, like you," I say. "But my mother's family is from Mérida. Summers in the mountains. Grandparents with no patience for city habits."
"Let me guess," she says. "If you wanted a snack, you had to catch it or pick it yourself."
"That was my grandfather's rule. He thought city boys were fragile. I tried very hard not to be."
"You succeeded."
My gaze flicks to hers. "You think I'm not fragile?"
"I think," she says slowly, "that you're the only person on this trip besides Ryan who looked like the jungle didn’t surprise you."
I can't help but ask, "And what did I look like to you before this trip?"
She falters, but only slightly. She nibbles on her lower lip while she considers, and my cock stirs in my shorts, remembering those lips on mine, suddenly wondering where else I might like to feel them on my body.
"Competent," she says at last. "Prepared. Controlled. The person the board trusts to say 'no' in a way that doesn’t make them feel foolish."
"Why Adler?" she asks when I don't reply. "You could have gone to three other firms at your level. Maybe five."
I shrug. "Adler made an offer that didn't insult my intelligence. And Derrick didn't pretend he wanted me for my charm."
She snorts. "You have charm."
"You think so?" I sit back, interest sharpening.
"Yes," she says simply, her cheeks pinking. "You charmed me."
My nostrils flare. There it is again, that change in the air—like the second a storm is about to hit, charged and anticipatory. "How about you?" I say, more to distract myself and my rising cock from wanting her again. "What do you make of the corporate culture?"
She considers it. "Managed," she says eventually.
"Mostly. With occasional excellent exceptions.
" A small, private smile. "Riley actually listens when someone tells her she's wrong, which should not be as rare a quality as it is.
Aubrey runs comms like she's defusing a bomb with a ticking clock at all times, which she usually is.
And then there's Ryan, who I am ninety percent sure is going to either save this entire company someday or accidentally start a war with a vending machine. "
"He brought three separate documents onto a leadership retreat."
"He brought three separate documents onto a leadership retreat in a rainforest. I respect it enormously."
"What about the other ten percent? Of managed."
Her smile fades slightly, replaced by something more careful.
"The other ten percent is the part where I've watched good ideas die in a room when the wrong person was uncomfortable, and watched mediocre ideas survive because the right person liked the font on the slide.
" She shrugs. "It's not unique to Adler.
It's every company I've ever worked for.
Three firms, two cities, prior to this one.
I got good at noticing the pattern. I got less good at deciding what to do about it. "
"What did you do about it?"
"I wrote a risk assessment nobody wanted.
" She says it lightly, but there's an edge underneath.
"Landed on the wrong desk first. Got buried for six months.
Then it landed on the right desk, and suddenly I was the woman who'd seen the thing everyone else missed, and got headhunted twice in a quarter as a result.
" She tilts her head. "Adler made the best offer.
Riley made the best argument. I took it for the argument. "
"What was the argument?"
"That she'd rather have someone in the room telling her the number is lying than someone telling her what she wants to hear." Nora looks at me, a flicker of vulnerability crossing her face. "I don't think she knows how rare that is, either. To actually mean it."
The fire shifts and throws a spray of orange light across her face, and for a moment neither of us says anything, we just sit quiet, which is what happens when two people have run out of safe questions and are deciding, separately and at the same time, what to do about it.
"You know what I keep thinking about," I say, as the silence has gotten dangerous and I'd rather steer into it than away. "Your notebook."
Her whole body goes very still, and her brows creep up. "What about it?"
I keep my voice even, careful not to spook the moment. "You write in it constantly. You guard it like it's evidence in a federal case."
She smirks. "Maybe it is."
"What do you write about?"