Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 98561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
My brain was working frantically now. His English wasn’t bad—he was definitely educated. And he had a calmness, an authority, that I wouldn’t have expected of a cartel thug. I decided to keep playing it as stupid drunk tourist. Hopefully, he was just taking the initiative to impress his bosses and he wouldn’t risk killing me.
“Jack Miller,” I slurred. “Look, I’m sorry, pal, I didn’t mean to wander into anything, I just got lost—”
The world suddenly warped: I could still see but everything looked distorted. There was a tightness all around my face and my mouth wouldn’t work. I sucked in air but nothing happened. My whole body jerked in the chair in instinctive panic, my wrists pulling at the zip tie, but I couldn’t get free. I sucked harder and felt something sticking to my tongue.
A bag. They’d put a clear plastic bag over my head. They were going to suffocate me.
“Stamp your foot when you want to talk,” the guy with the bandana told me from the shadows.
I huffed and huffed, but the plastic just tightened against the red O of my lips. I could feel the bag being twisted tight at the back of my head and then tied off with something.
I’d been wrong: this guy was absolutely prepared to kill me.
Not being able to breathe is one of the most frightening things imaginable. My body went into animal panic, every instinct screaming at me to give in, to talk.
But if I told them about the team, they’d go out there and hunt them down.
You’re not part of the team, a little voice reminded me. You’re just playing them.
My lungs strained, desperately trying to expand, but the life-giving air I needed was on the other side of that invisible, impenetrable barrier. My leg tensed, ready to stamp my foot.
But there was something inside me that wouldn’t let me do it. I told myself it was because if I died but protected the team, maybe they could still save Olivia. But it wasn’t just that. There was some part of me that didn’t want to betray them.
The world darkened around the edges. The plastic turned cloudy with my desperate breaths, sticking to my cheeks. I felt my head go heavy. This is it.
I heard the man behind me jump backwards and crash to the floor. What the hell? A half-second later, the sound of a gunshot echoed through the room. He hadn’t jumped: he’d been shot.
A second guard fell. The one remaining guard and the guy with the bandana dived for the floor. Someone was shooting through the window with a rifle: I was being rescued. But the bag was tied off: I was still going to asphyxiate. The world went gray and swimmy.
There was a third shot and the bag tugged and then went a little loose against my face. I breathed in and it worked, air whistled through the bag and filled my lungs like sweet nectar. I took another breath and another, and the world bloomed with light and color.
The guy with the bandana ran for the door and slipped out. A moment later, the guard did the same and got there just in time to meet Colton coming the other way. Colton threw him to the ground and clubbed him in the head with the butt of his shotgun.
JD was close behind him. He cut the zip tie on my wrists and I clawed the plastic bag off my head and looked at it.
There was a bullet hole in the bag at the top. Someone had shot an airhole to save my life.
JD passed me a radio and I slipped the earpiece into my ear. “Cal?” I asked cautiously. I walked to the window and stared out into the darkened jungle. I couldn’t see him, but he was out there, somewhere, lying full-length in the undergrowth with his rifle, watching over all of us. “That was you?”
“Mm-hmm,” came the reply.
I poked a finger through the hole. An inch lower and the bullet would have gone through my head. He might be a man of few words, but he was an incredible shot. “Thanks,” I said, with feeling. Then I turned to JD. “How did you know to come in? I never gave the signal.”
“She did,” said JD. “Helluva girl you’ve got there.”
I looked down at my shorts. The little flashlight was gone. I thought of Olivia, plucking at my clothes as the guards dragged me away. Damn, she thought fast.
Then I heard gunshots outside and my insides went cold with fear. She was still out there, in the cage. I looked at JD in panic. He threw me a gun.
And we ran to get my woman.
13
OLIVIA
In the cage, Dr. Guzman, Marcos, and I were lying flat on our faces as the camp erupted in chaos around us. We could hear screams and shouted orders in Spanish, the sharp crack of gunfire and sometimes the whistle of bullets as they passed close to us: already, one had hit the bars of the cage. Something was burning down at the other end of the camp, silhouetting people as they ran in front of the flames. Flashing the flashlight had worked: Gabriel’s team had clearly arrived. But where was Gabriel? Did they find him? Did they get to him in time?