Page 30 of Final Approach

It didn’t make sense, but the disorientation he’d have experienced wouldn’t have made anything make sense. I knew what it was like to be desperate, afraid, and alone.

Numb and dumb—even Jamie wasn’t immune. But if he was thinking clearly enough to think of that …

I allowed the spark of hope to grow, the heat of it warming my icy sense of panic. We needed to see inside.

Nikki wordlessly handed me the torch and reached beneath the jarred opening to lift the metal higher. The hydraulic hinges groaned against the pressure, but released another few inches, giving us better access to the inside. The torch was hard to maneuver around the opening to get a visual of the luggage. We’d spiraled through the sky at top speeds—I could only imagine how destroyed every piece was.

I leaned in closer with our only source of light while Nikki pulled himself about four feet up into the compartment. He cursed under his breath when he hit his head against something hard.

Another sound caught my attention: a dull thud against metal.

Fuck. I waved the torch to the left and right, a primal fear forcing every hair on my body to stand on end. My shadow danced along the silver hull, but I saw nothing else besides the plane and the outline of swaying palm fronds behind it. The moon continued to light up the riverbed beyond us, no living creatures beyond the spiny skeletons of millipedes crawling across the deserted ground.

Old wounds bled into my mind, the taste of fear on my tongue far too familiar. I held the torch over my head to light up the space between Nikki and the door.

“Hurry, Nik,” I begged, my love for my missing friend locked in a bloody battle with my desperation to escape the terror crawling up my body. When he didn’t answer, my panic morphed into mania. “Nik?”

Another thump, this time from within the plane. Fuck, there were zombies, real zombies, fuck, fuck, fuck. Rationality went out the window as the terror lit up my hindbrain. Fuck, fuck, fu—

His feet came first, before his lean body slid out of the bottom crack of the door to the ground below, with two paperback-sized white brick bundles in his hands.

Nikki.

A live human man, not a zombie. My visceral panic eased, only to make way for the electric zing of shock. Was that –

He held up the packages, a rare frown folding his features into hard lines against the firelight.

“Marley, did you know we were transporting cocaine?”

My brows hit my hairline, and my heart plummeted to the bottom of my well-worn heels.

“What the fuck?” Another thump and a snarl—human – growled from behind us.

I whirled around to see Ambrose Park’s signature glare, the swords in his eyes sharp enough to slice. With clenched fists at his sides, the rage in his body practically vibrated like a charged weapon.

“What the fuck,” a dark, raspier tone murmured, a statement of agreement, not a question. Maddox Torres stepped out from behind the tail three feet beyond Ambrose’s frozen form. Apparently, they hadn’t come together, judging by the surprise that dulled the daggers in Ambrose’s gaze.

The four of us stood in a standoff, the hum of the jungle our solo serenade as we stared at each other’s shadows thrown against the wall.

The cloak of dread became a suffocating blanket of disoriented horror.

Jamie was still missing, we’d been transporting illegal drugs, and apparently, we had two stalkers in the night.

I hoped to hell Nikki’s charm could work us out of this one.

Present Day – Night 1

Thirst was a bitter maiden.

She clawed my throat with her nails, holding me hostage with the urge to drown my sorrows in a vat of whiskey.

The tiny bottle of vodka in the pocket of my trousers called to me, but I ignored their siren song. I’d just taken a nip an hour ago. At this rate, I’d have nothing left by morning.

Our two stalkers underscored the fog of need. Had they followed out of concern for our safety, or was something else amiss?

My broken lenses and the flickering torchlight muddled their expressions, but I was close enough to see Ambrose stared through me, his brows and lips pursed into thin, judgmental lines.

Madman was a silhouette of muscle and bone in my periphery, his body language relaxed. Nothing seemed to faze this man.