Total pages in book: 51
Estimated words: 49215 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 246(@200wpm)___ 197(@250wpm)___ 164(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 49215 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 246(@200wpm)___ 197(@250wpm)___ 164(@300wpm)
River cleared his throat. “Did he mention anything about what’s going on tonight? Is Shay fighting?”
I looked to Coach for an answer.
He shook his head. “Nothing yet. He’ll update us when he can. I propose we gear up and take another shift—then we’ll eat and rest. We’re gonna need all the energy we can get.”
He was right.
I checked my watch. “Let’s head out in fifteen. We’ll do four hours—I wanna cover another guard change and see if there’s a pattern in their schedule.” Earlier, Greer and Cullen had reported a guard change an hour before River and I had witnessed one in our sector.
“It’s a plan,” Greer agreed and stood up.
We all grabbed a quick cup of coffee as we got ready, and Danny grumbled and bitched to himself about being left behind.
“Calm yourself—you’ll be with us tomorrow,” I said.
“You calm yourself,” he snapped.
“You can both calm yourselves,” Emerson told us.
I was perfectly calm.
It was damn near perfect that we almost got lost on the way back to our campsite. The only thing missing, really. But then, about twenty yards before we got there, we spotted our cooking fire and smelled the smoke.
The vegetation was so thick that the risk of our being found here was slim to none.
Coach, Mathis, Emerson, and Danny had seen our heat signatures, so they were prepared when we stepped under the tarp and began throwing off combat gear. Fucking hell, I was drenched all the way through.
“Honey, we’re home,” Cullen yawned.
“Who needs to be checked for leeches?” Danny asked.
“All of us,” River grumbled.
I tossed my helmet onto a tarp, followed by my boots, my rifle, my vest…
The rain was pouring so hard that once I’d stripped down to boxer briefs, I walked barefoot to the edge of the canopy and showered in the runoff coming down from our ceiling.
Goddammit, I actually found a leech on my calf. That little fucker.
“Can someone toss me a knife?” I asked.
“Here you go.” Greer threw me his folder, and I bent down and scraped off the bloodsucking shit. After literally crawling around in the wet rainforest, this was to be expected. I nodded for River to join me so I could inspect him too, and he had a couple attached to his skin as well.
“Jesus Christ,” Greer muttered. It was his turn to shower off in the rainwater, and he stood on the other side of the tarp with Cullen.
“I guess I have tastier blood than you,” Cullen sighed. “One, two, three…four, five…”
In short, River and I were the lucky ones.
I glanced over at Elliott, finding him watching Joel as he flicked off a few leeches too.
Those two had fucking issues. They could barely look at each other without glaring, but they couldn’t look away from each other either.
I shook my head to myself and returned underneath the canopy. The food Emerson had on the fire smelled so damn good. I just had to get dry first.
Back in the day, when he and Danny had trained River and me, they’d drilled so many lessons into our skulls—and we hadn’t taken some of them seriously until we’d arrived in South America the first time. Getting dry was a real feat, and it was important. So were first aid and hygiene. I’d had my fair share of viruses and parasites.
Filter your water, stay clean, get dry, build your shelter on a hill so you don’t wake up in a lake, and keep your first aid kit stocked.
Colombia had so many climate zones that life looked completely different mere hours away. And trust a cartel to establish a safe haven that was close to impossible to get to.
I stepped out of my boxer briefs, too, and accepted a towel from Danny. He had prepared a makeshift medical station too. Not that I didn’t appreciate the natural blood thinners that leeches injected you with. Always fun to get a blood detox.
I fanned out another tarp outside the tent I’d share with River and added a blanket on top. “Nobody step on this with muddy boots or feet.”
“If you promise not to stick your lily-white ass in our faces when you dig through your bag for dry clothes,” Danny retorted.
I did exactly that. I didn’t know about lily-white, though. My fine ass had no tan lines.
I grabbed new underwear and tees for River and me, to the groaned chuckles from Emerson, Coach, and Greer.
Before long, everyone was dressed and semi-dry, and we sat on tarps and blankets outside our tents while Danny played nurse and Emerson loaded up food for us. There was a whole grilled chicken for each two-man team, two bowls of steaming soup, and all the grilled bread we could eat. In the meantime, we debriefed one another—no new update from Crew, we’d witnessed more guard changes, and we were in agreement that the second sector was our best way in, unless Crew and Mercier had a better idea.