Page 23 of Final Approach

Wary gazes lowered to their bags, and slowly, one by one, they unzipped and unbuckled the contents of their bags.

Blowing out a breath, I forced another into my lungs, then another, refusing to collapse under the weight of this day.

Get comfortable, everyone, because this is going to be a long night.

Present day – Day 1

The air smelled of frosted sugar, singed metal, and liberty.

The jungle surroundings welcomed me, the open arms of a mother I never knew. Birds chirped high above the trees, the air sweet with rot and life underneath the scorched earth and ozone. Rolling my neck and shoulders, I shook out my arms, enjoying the free-flow of blood and unbound bone.

Euphoria was a taste just beyond my tongue. Not the manufactured kind, the oily feel of relief from heroin, or the taser of adrenaline from cocaine. This lightness bled to every part of my body, despite the pain from hours trapped in shackles.

After decades of nothing but bearded convicts with rough skin and sweaty assholes, the woman of my wettest dreams—her likeness to Ana Patricia so close I thought I’d hallucinated when first seeing her—had just set me free.

She could have left me to die—should have left me to die—but those soft green eyes and the bleeding heart on her sleeve saved a weapon of destruction without even asking for a trade. I didn’t have scruples. Hesitation was a quick path to death, and crises of conscience were a waste of time. But every man had a code of some kind, even the savages.

Marley West. Captain Marley West had defended my honor, unarmed, against a detective two times her size. I owed the woman, my ángel, a life debt. So now, I would be a weapon for her while I remained in her presence.

The violently quiet American who’d tackled Diaz and removed his gun also qualified for my protection. So had the flight attendant who casually threatened the cabrón, immediately believing the declarations of a criminal, when he could have sided with the fictional badge of law.

Prison life honed the skill of judging a book by its cover. Convicts fell into gang life quickly. Recruiting poorly—loose-lipped slime or violent men without a code—resulted in the deaths of loyal men.

I knew how to judge instantly and judge well. The three did not know they were now included in Clube de Morte—my gang. If anyone fucked with them, they would have to answer to me. I would keep watch over them until I found my best exit.

I stood on the rocky edge of the riverbed several hundred meters away from the original crash. My captain had led us here after she’d bandaged up the Venezuelan man and checked everyone for concussions. My pain was a paper cut. My neck and shoulders ached as they had when Silva hung me from a metal bar for three days, but my skin failed to bleed and my skull was unshaken.

Daylight from behind the trees was dimming, the coming darkness threatening us with its monsters. I did not feel fear like the others. Wild animals only sought to kill to eat. There were far worse ways to die.

The remaining passengers stood in a wide circle, dumping the contents of their bags on the cracked ground. I had nothing to contribute. Instead, I stood, watching, waiting for any threats that would harm the members of my gang—my life’s work.

I would not need rescuing, like the others. Santos had promised me a better life in Mexico, and he’d been right. I wouldn’t choose between a new prison and the wilds of the jungle. I would choose the beasts of prey over the beasts of man.

Ambrose sat on his heels, body coiled like taut ribbon as if waiting to be attacked. He’d protected his laptop—a device I’d never seen until entering the plane—with the manic resolve of a junkie protecting pills. My defender had his own vices, a slave to his technology. This jungle trip would be a painful detox.

Nikki and my captain directed the survivors in the middle of the riverbed. They would be safe awaiting rescue. By then, I will have long retreated into my own sanctuary. Indigenous tribes moved on these lands, and cartels free from the threat of man’s law.

I would be safe here.

“We need enough rations for five days,” Marley explained. “Five days is the maximum for a lost plane protocol. Nikki salvaged some of the food supplies from the plane, but we should combine resources for food to make sure everyone is taken care of in the meantime. Does anyone have any allergies?”

Tuning them out, I turned my attention to the detective who’d stolen me away from my crumbling palace. He hovered, but at a safe enough distance I couldn’t lean over and snap his neck. An unabashed sneer molded my cheekbones into knives. The man reeked of incompetence masking as arrogance, a tiny dick hiding behind the power of his gun.

The effects of the drug he’d injected me with had long worn off, but mild cravings had already started. I couldn’t count how many times he’d filled me with poison, but it had kept me sedated for three days. Enough to force a desire for it, not enough to force a need.

Should I kill him now or later? The others could already see he was a liability. Snapping his neck would require very little effort if I leaped quickly. We could use his body as bait.

Changing tactics to draw closer to the man I would kill, I browsed the pile of rations, inspecting their contents. I was used to having nothing, needing nothing. The excess of everyday living beyond my walls was as foreign as this riverbed.

Gazing at the pile in front of me, I weighed their chances of survival. Miniature water bottles and tiny muffins in plastic packaging, protein bars in brands I’d never heard of, batatas and nuts, basic pharmaceuticals like ibuprofen dangerous men would slice a person’s spleen for. If help arrived as soon as my captain expected, they would border on dehydration and minor starvation, but they’d live.

I’d live. My survival was not in question.

One of the Canadian women, the brunette who spoke while her friend remained mute, tossed a full package of pirulitos on top of the mound—a brand of lollipops in English writing I did not recognize. My belly fluttered at the sweet treat, a privilege I had only enjoyed by bribing an official. Ignoring the others, I scooped them up and tore open the bag, inhaling the sweet vapor before unwrapping the plastic and shoving a single treat into my mouth.

The fruity, chalky texture coated my tongue, the delicious sweet zing the icing on my cake of freedom.

She hastily moved away from me to retrieve a stack of battery packs and tripods and camera gear I’d never seen—a ring that lit up into a bright halo at the flick of a button, and carefully laid them on the ground next to the other rations.