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)
I walked slowly over to him, moving until I could see his face. “JD…?”
I stopped in shock as I saw his face. His eyes were closed and he was silently quaking as if trying to hold back tears. There was so much rain running down his face that I couldn’t tell if he was succeeding. My chest contracted: I’d never seen someone in such agony. And this was JD, the stoic, craggy leader of our group. I’d thought he was made out of rock.
A hand brushed my arm, and I looked up as Danny padded silently past me. He nodded to me: I’ve got this. As I watched, he slipped an arm around JD’s shoulders and began to talk to him in a low voice. I couldn’t hear what he was saying but I got the tone: serious and heartfelt, words drawn from down deep. As rain streamed down his face, Danny touched foreheads with JD, then roughly squeezed his shoulder. JD nodded. Danny seemed to know the words that would work…because, I realized, this wasn’t the first time he’d done this for his friend.
I crept away, giving them some privacy. I’d picked up on the fact that the two of them were close, but I hadn’t realized how close. Whatever JD was going through, it seemed like hell and I was glad he had his best buddy there. Seeing them together made me a little sad, though: I’d never had a friend that close, not even back at the ER in Phoenix. I wondered if I ever would.
We marched on, and an hour later, we came to the river. At first, we couldn’t see anything: the storm clouds covered the moon and the stars, and there was barely any light at all. But when lightning split the sky, we caught a glimpse of what was in front of us.
The land dropped away in a sheer cliff until it met the water a hundred feet below. Swollen by the rain, the river was as wide as a football field and was flowing terrifyingly fast. Entire trees were being washed downstream and torn to matchwood as the current smashed them against jagged, dark rocks.
JD pointed downstream. “The landing point for the chopper is a few miles that way, on the far side.”
“How do we get across?” asked Gabriel. “There’s no way down on this side. Even if there was, no way can we swim across that.”
JD pointed in the other direction. On the next flash of lightning, we saw a rope bridge a little way upstream. “We use that. But not yet. There’s no cover on the far side of the river and when the sun rises, we’ll be sitting ducks until the chopper arrives. I don’t want to be there any earlier than we have to be. We’ll spend the night here and then cross at dawn, hike downstream and we’ll still be in good time for the chopper.”
We found a clearing a little way from the cliff edge and set up camp there. The moon broke through the clouds, lighting up the pounding rain so that it looked like thousands of glittering glass spikes stabbing down from heaven. I checked on Dr. Guzman and gave him another shot of morphine. When I’d finished, I looked up…and saw Gabriel standing there gazing down at me. Rain was trickling down his forehead and his hair was plastered into black knives on his forehead. His eyes were locked right on me and they were gleaming. I’d never seen someone with such singular purpose.
I swallowed and looked around. Cal was tying a tarp to some branches to make a shelter and Colton was helping him. Danny and JD were at opposite ends of our little camp, on guard duty. For the first time since we were reunited in the jungle, Gabriel could finally have some privacy.
Gabriel offered his hand. When I took it, he hauled me to my feet, then pulled me gently but firmly into the jungle.
My heart was thumping. This was it: whatever he’d been wanting to say, he was finally going to say it.
33
GABRIEL
I didn’t go far. I pushed through the trees until we were screened from the camp and then I led her a little way along the cliff, to where the gray rock rose above us and formed an overhang that would shelter us from the rain. That would do. I couldn’t hold onto what was bursting up inside me any longer.
I turned her to face me and took hold of her other hand. I took a deep breath.
What the fuck are you doing? Are you insane? You can’t do this! I was raging at myself, furious. Seriously, Gabriel, what the fuck?! Everything I was, all those layers of personality that had formed in prison, as a criminal, as a hustler in the Marines…all the way back to when I was stealing the candy my mom couldn’t afford to buy me, everything was telling me not to do this.