Page 5 of Last Destination

The three of us stared into the cloudy depths, but I saw nothing but the small whirling pools from before and a few large ripples in the water downstream. For several moments, we stood still and stared, Madman and I naked and dripping, while Ambrose gripped my hand as if he didn’t trust I wouldn’t fall back in.

Every hair on my body stood on end, thousands of years of evolution somehow sensing danger. The drumbeat in my chest roared over the surrounding silence, but still, nothing came.

Eventually, Madman broke the sound barrier. “I thought I felt something, but I was mistaken.” His brusque tone belied the fact he was still suspicious of the water below, but I didn’t need any other validation to stay the fuck away. If our Madman was nervous, then …

“I’ll just get my —” I spun to grab my clothes just beyond Ambrose’s reach, catching his gaze feasting on my naked flesh. The dark fan of his thick eyelashes barely hid hunger as he ogled my breasts, my hips, and the apex of my thighs, before coming back up to meet my amused stare.

“Fuck me, Jagiya,” he groaned, clamping two soft hands along my hip bones. He leaned in slowly, as if giving me a chance to move away, then brushed his lips just over the shell of my ear while his chest barely brushed my nipples. “Please use me. If we never get out of here, I need to know what you feel like.”

The hairs on the back of my neck still stood on end, but this time they crackled with want instead of fear.

“We are going to get out of here,” I whispered into the soft skin of his neck, even if the words felt hollow on my tongue. “And we need shelter for the night. Priorities, meathead.”

“Yes, priorities,” Madman confirmed, standing at my back, though he also sounded amused. “Clothes on, ángel. We need to move. I do not trust this spot.”

Ambrose gave me a little room to pull on my shorts and shirt over still-wet skin, while Maddox dressed impressively fast considering he was pulling on wet jeans. We quickly darted up the incline toward the scene of the crime, my belly clenching at the scene before us.

“Stop,” Madman commanded when we reached the small plateau about twenty feet on the other side of the dense foliage. “We are not returning. Wait here.”

He stalked forward before making an abrupt turn toward the direction Jamie had been. Within moments, he was hauling a reluctant Jamie out of the trees and back to the bloody aftermath.

“Do not follow,” he called behind him as the two men disappeared into the jungle ferns.

“Nikki?” I called instead, anxious we’d been separated for more than a few minutes. After losing him in the flood, I didn’t want that man out of my sight ever again.

“We’re here, baby girl.” Nikki’s croon smoothed out the jagged pieces of my soul, even if it was a temporary balm. His hand rested on my shoulder, and Tessa came into view just beyond his left side.

“Madman is gathering our supplies so we don’t have to go back there,” Ambrose explained. “We need a better place for shelter tonight, anyway.”

Dread took up space in my gut again. We needed shelter — and water — immediately. And with the way my stomach kept cramping, we needed a proper source of protein soon. Monkey meat was dangerous to eat, but maybe we’d get lucky and find a wayward capybara or a peccarie. None of it would matter if we couldn’t build a fire.

I checked my watch, 5:07 pm, São Paulo time — 3:07 in the afternoon here. We had little time until sundown.

The two men showed up again about three minutes later, our meager possessions on their backs. Madman had taken Tessa’s backpack, and it rested on one shoulder along with Nikki’s carry-on, now only filled with empty bottles and what was left of our first aid kit, and the fire extinguisher. It was almost comical to see, but it was currently our best weapon, other than a handful of bullets.

Survival required a delicate balance of ingenuity and practicality. Too much of either meant death. Managing that balance was the sole reason we were still here.

Jamie carried two bags: Ambrose’s, filled with all our dead electronics, and Brooks’ satchel. The sight of the denim backpack, and their pronouns pin, forced a guttural swallow and I clamped down on the only remaining tears my body had left to shed.

“Come,” Madman beckoned, turning northward, back the direction he’d come when he’d returned with Jamie. “I know a place we can stay for the night.”

Tessa marched forward first, sliding past us on shuffling feet toward the retreating men. Ambrose reached for my hand, and Nikki’s warm palm fell to my back, guiding me forward.

Silently and blindly, we followed a madman into the woods.

I’d been called “sweet” by many ladies and gentlemen in my lifetime, from sycophants wanting access to my family, to horny clubbers wanting access to my underwear. The mosquitoes apparently agreed, because the prickly suckers had consumed half my blood in the last hour. Thankfully, we’d all gotten our shots for mosquito-borne viruses like zika and dengue, but that preparation did nothing to deter them from tasting my body like an all-you-can-eat buffet.

I hadn’t realized how protected we were on the dry riverbed, but the jungle’s interior was an infestation of insects. The stabbing sensation of a tiny pinprick on my cheek forced a hard slap on instinct.

“Shit!” I cursed when I nearly knocked my own glasses off my face. Marley was no better, swatting at flies left and right as they swarmed her body. Tessa, just in front of her, seemed immune, with barely a bite. Whatever her secret, it was working.

My basketball shorts, a comfortable choice at the time, were now an Egyptian curse, each fern leaf and thorny stick a jagged crusader against my exposed skin. My vibrant orange trainers, once prized possessions, had absorbed so much clay with each step into thick mud, I’d never get them clean. Clean shoes were most certainly not the priority, but the loss still stabbed my heart.

Marley was so eager to take the blame for our misgivings, but perhaps it was my turn to beg for forgiveness. If I’d had the stomach to leave Diaz to die, Brooks might still be alive. The burning sensation of guilt swam laps in my gut. Unlike Marley, I had borne witness to Madman’s mutilation of Brooks' body, and the imagery — straight out of an apocalyprtic movie — would stay with me as long as I lived.

We’d been slogging through the dense underbrush for the better part of an hour. My skin was sticky with sweat, the residue of Marley, and the dirty river before her. I hadn’t wanted to wash the evidence of her orgasm at the time. Now, I prayed for a brief monsoon to wash the rest of this day off my body.

How could our lovemaking have only been a few hours ago? When she’d melted under my touch in the most beautiful manner, and admitted with her words and her body I meant something to her, too?