Page 31 of Rough Choice

“It’s okay, it’s okay! Help me!” Grier called in a strangled voice. She looked up and saw him half in the doorway and half inside. With one arm he was clinging to the seat closest to him and with the other, he was tugging on something. Eliana scrambled to her feet and when she reached him, she saw he was holding onto Kye’s arm as he clung to the staircase railing.

Together, they hoisted him inside, and he collapsed onto Eliana. Grier quickly used the rope to pull the door shut and seal it before the plane got too high. “Are you okay?” Kye asked, looking down at her. They were both shaking, and she had her eyes closed tightly.

“I thought… I thought…”

“Shh…” he soothed and sat back to pull her into his arms. “I’m here. We’re okay. We made it. We’re safe.”

Though he spoke the words, his eyes looked up at Grier, and they both silently asked one another the same questions: Were they safe? Who were those men?

Alberto had straight up refused to take them on to San Pedro so it was another six hours of travel after they landed. Though still reeling from their shootout, Eliana was grateful to be on the ground. She felt helpless up in the air. Should the worse come to it, there wouldn’t be anywhere to run when you were a few thousand feet off the ground. At least driving they had options for places to run.

Finally, inside the boundaries of Belize, Kye was driving the rented BMW he’d acquired under his assumed identity. Still too jittery to sleep, the three of them alternated between pensive silence and restless discussion. They’d all hoped once they were in Mexico, whoever might be trailing them would back off, but clearly vehicles full of armed, masked men spoke otherwise.

“I didn’t think anything of it at the time,” Grier said as the topic came up on who may be pursuing them, “but when we were at the bus depot, I swore I saw someone…”

“Who?” Eliana asked from the backseat. She was fairly certain she’d been dozing for the last hour, but was wide awake now.

“I don’t know. I mean, there were a lot of people in and out. As I said, I didn’t think much of it, but they were a rider. All black riding leathers and helmet. It didn’t look like he was watching us, but… Shit, after what we just survived, I can’t get it out of my mind,” Grier said, raking his hands through his hair. He sounded more tired than ever before.

“Could be related, but there’s nothing we can do about it now,” Kye said, turning off the main road to a slower two-lane street. The area they were entering was residential, but they were well inside the Sibun Forest Reserve, and the scenery was quickly fading from populated to tropical scenery. Its beauty was evident, but it all seemed to pass as a blur outside the window. “Whoever was at the airport already knew we were in town if they’d tracked us from the bus depot. We just have to hope they don’t know where Alberto dropped us.”

“He sure didn’t stick around long. He might as well have pushed us out the door, he took off so fast after we landed,” Eliana said, stretching. She caught Kye looking at her in the rearview mirror, and she smiled at him.

“He probably carried on to Campeche or headed back west. A smaller plane like that wouldn’t be able to last much longer in the air without refueling,” Grier commented.

“I’m not convinced those men were specifically after us,” Eliana said, "Diego and Alberto were already acting nervous, they were running behind schedule, and were known to smuggle items in and out of the country. For all we know, they were local thugs looking to make a heist.”

“I won’t disagree with that theory,” Kye said, gripping the wheel a little tighter. “Better to be safe than sorry, for now. We’ll get to the safe house and lay low for a bit then discreetly put some feelers out and try to get some answers.” They all nodded their agreement.

The road they were on took a sharp turn after a fork, and Kye took the road that was unpaved. The red dirt kicked up around them, and the car slowed to a more manageable pace.

“How do you know where we’re going?” Eliana asked, leaning over the center console to look out through the windshield.

“I’ve driven this road once or twice,” he said, grinning at her. “Probably a thousand times in my mind. This has always been the endgame, baby, taking you here when things were safe, and we could be together.”

“Who’s the bigger third wheel, me or the thugs following us?” Grier asked, rolling his head to look over at them.

“Aww,” Eliana teased and wrapped an arm around his shoulders and planted a kiss on his cheek. “We like you, Grier. You’re not a third wheel.”

“Gee, thanks,” he said sarcastically and wiped his cheek where she’d kissed him. Kye felt a fleeting moment of jealousy, but when he squelched it, he came to a level of gratefulness that his girl and his best friend had formed such a fast bond.

“We’ll be there soon,” Kye said, and the three fell into silence again. Eliana sat back and watched the scenery pass by the window.

The tropical vibe was everything she remembered from her adventurous spring break trip. The towering palms and mangrove trees were flourishing, and the lower to the ground bushes were ornamented with red and yellow flowers. That was the extent of the similarities, though. When she’d gone with her friends, they’d stayed in the heart of Belize City. Now, they were farther south, and the landscape was much less touristy and populated.

They had been driving on the same red dirt road for nearly forty minutes when she saw the first signs of a structure. A twenty-foot wall of cream-colored cement topped with barbed wire opened only far enough for a wooden gate with metal plating. Kye left the car running as he hopped out and walked to the gate. Pulling a keychain from his pocket, he unlocked the chain and yanked the gate open wide enough for them to pass through. Once they drove through, he was sure to close it behind them before they continued on.

“Were those cameras?” Eliana asked, noticing the devices topping the wall.

“They won’t be on yet,” Kye answered. The road narrowed, tall trees on either side of the street that looked more like a footpath now. “Welcome home,” Kye said when the forest opened up into a circular driveway.

In the center of the roundabout was a three-tiered fountain, but it wasn’t currently running. The road turned to gray cobblestones that had three adjoining paths. Kye pulled the car to a stop in the center, and they all slowly climbed out. Eliana’s eyes devoured everything, trying to take it all in.

When Kye had said they were going to a safe house, she imagined something like the old barn that she and Grier had switched vehicles at. What she was looking at was hardly a debilitated barn. It was a mansion built directly into the forest. Straight ahead of them was a two-story building with an A-frame thatch roof with open rafters. The second story looked to be made entirely of windows and was surrounded by a wrap-around deck. The main floor had open archways for doors, and the building seemed to glow a vibrant yellow in the afternoon sun.

Kye and Grier were taking the path toward the main house, and she followed slowly behind them. The path to her left seemed to disappear in a downhill direction that she couldn’t see beyond, but the path to her far right led to a long one-story building that looked like a former stable.

Kye and Grier had already entered the house, and Eliana jogged to catch up. It was hot outside, probably mid-eighties, but inside seemed cooler with the open windows granting a constant breeze. The front foyer was small but opened to both a living room and casual dining room, and the far end was a kitchen partially walled off by an island and a bar. The hardwood floors were smooth and had a slightly red tinge to the wood. The walls and portions of ceiling that weren’t open to the rafters above were trimmed in white, and yellow paper lanterns hung like ornaments.