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)
The voices grew louder. Shit! I had to move. But as I crept away from them, I saw someone moving through the trees ahead of me. They were coming from both sides!
I stood there looking around wildly. Think! What would Gabriel do? Something unexpected and tricksy. The voices came closer and I pressed myself protectively against the tree—
The tree! Growing up with three brothers, I’d learned to swarm up trees like they were ladders. The trees here in the rainforest didn’t have branches: they were smooth and skinny as telegraph poles. But the birch tree in our neighbor’s yard had been like that and we’d learned to climb that, too. I just had to hope I was still strong enough.
I hooked both hands around the trunk of the tree and leaned back, taking my weight on my arms. Then I gingerly lifted one foot onto the trunk.
The trees behind me rustled. They were coming.
I pulled with my arms and managed to get my other foot onto the tree. I bent my knees and took a little step up the trunk, keeping my arms taut. This was a lot easier when I was twelve.
I glimpsed the glow of a flashlight ahead of me, moving closer. Move!
I hitched my hands higher up the trunk and took another little step, then another, walking my feet up the tree. After just a few steps, I was panting and sweating but I kept grimly on because I didn’t have a choice. I forced myself into a rhythm. Hands step step. Hands step step. I had to get as high as I could before—
Voices below me. I looked down and saw two soldiers step out of the trees. I froze where I was, about ten feet up the tree.
The pair of soldiers walked beneath me and I started to relax. But just as they were about to disappear into the jungle, they stopped, hearing the other group coming towards them. A moment later, another two soldiers emerged from the trees and the four of them started talking…right at the base of my tree.
I was exhausted from climbing and my body wanted to heave in big lungfuls of air. I had to force myself to only take tiny, quiet breaths. I hung there motionless, terrified. How long until one of them looked up?
28
GABRIEL
Where is she?!
I crept through the darkness, staying low. The dark made it easier to hide from the soldiers but it made it harder to see, too. I didn’t dare call her name. What if I walked right past her?
In some ways, it reminded me of my old life as a thief. No team, no one giving me orders, just me on my own against the odds. It should have been a relief.
But it didn’t feel that way. I’d gotten used to the feeling of having good people around me. I wished I had Cal to lead the way: he’d have moved more silently than I ever could. I wished I had Danny or Colton to cover the sides. I wished I had Bradan or…hell, even JD to watch my back.
There was another reason this felt different. When I was a thief, I’d been after a thing: a painting, gold, jewels… I’d gone through hell for some of those scores, spending hours shivering on mountaintops or hiding in storm drains, waiting for the right moment, and I’d thought that meant I’d cared about them.
But I hadn’t. Not like I cared about her. The fear I felt now was like nothing I’d ever experienced: someone had my heart in their fist and was slowly crushing it. At any second, I expected to hear a gunshot, a shout of triumph from a soldier, and that would be it, she would be dead.
If I could have traded everything I’d ever stolen just to have her there beside me, I’d have done it in a heartbeat. And when that thought went through my head, I realized how stupid I’d been. If I could just get her back, I’d hold onto her forever…no matter the cost.
I crept deeper into the darkness. Olivia, where are you?!
29
OLIVIA
The soldiers weren’t moving on. But they hadn’t glanced up, either. My hopes rose: maybe I could wait them out.
The problem was, the trick I’d used to climb the tree was made for climbing: it wasn’t designed to let you just hang out halfway up a tree. Most of my weight was hanging from my arms and they were starting to weaken. Even as a kid, I’d have shimmied down the tree by now, or made it to a branch and sat on it. And I wasn’t a kid anymore.
I checked below me again. Muted laughter and chat: they were talking, but not so loudly that they’d fail to hear me if I made the tree creak by moving. I couldn’t adjust my position at all, couldn’t even shift my grip on the trunk to rest my fingers.