He heard faint cries from the village in the distance.
The shaking continued as Dobby reached the shore and spaced his feet to better balance.The roar was disconcertingly loud and trees leaned and bent with the shaking.A couple of loud cracks further in the forest followed by crashes proved not all the trees had been able to withstand the force.
At this rate, it would be lucky if half the houses in the town remained standing.
“Abort?”Joker asked.
Dobby shook his head.His orders were clear.Don’t come back without the hostage.
But an earthquake of this magnitude meant people would be outside, assessing damage, looking for survivors, instead of being tucked up in bed asleep.
They would stand out when they went looking for Mila.
The FUBAR premonition in his stomach intensified.
For all they knew, the hostage could have been crushed by debris, or roads they’d identified to get them in and out of the village could be blocked.
This was going to be a clusterfuck.
The trembling subsided.“Let’s move,” he said.“We’ll reassess when we get to the village.”
He headed into the jungle, prepared for the worst.
***
Mila had given up trying to sleep sometime around midnight.She couldn’t stop worrying about how to get off the island.
After class, Ali had taken her laptop and though Mila had asked around, no one had a phone or computer she could use.
In desperation she’d packed her things and headed for the jetty to catch the evening barge to the neighbouring island which had a small airstrip.She hated leaving without saying goodbye, but her gut was screaming at her that it wasn’t safe to stay.
The apologetic captain had said there was no room, when the deck was clearly empty.
That’s when Ali had wandered towards her and reminded her she couldn’t leave until she’d thought about Vance’s proposal.
In other words, she wasn’t leaving until Agus said so.
Mila had returned to her long house to regroup and spotted one of Agus’s other men lounging across the market square watching her.
Which meant there was no point taking her moped and riding to the other coastal villages in the hope of finding someone who would take her to the neighbouring island.
Agus had loyal men in each village and radios with which to contact them since there weren’t reliable telecommunications on the island.
No one would let her leave.
Mila’s options boiled down to swimming to the nearest habitable island, which was about three kilometres away, and hoping Agus hadn’t told anyone to be on the lookout for her, or stealing a boat in the middle of the night and hoping she’d have enough fuel to get her to mainland Sumatra.
So drown, or get stranded in the middle of the ocean, while also stealing someone’s livelihood.
She’d considered packing the essentials and a lot of food and hiding in the jungle until Agus had forgotten about her, but she doubted he would forget.The moment she reappeared she’d be in exactly the same dilemma as she was now.
Unable to come up with another option she allowed herself time to fantasise about the dozen ways she would deal with Vance the next time she saw him, the most satisfying of which would be breaking his nose.
Sure, he’d pay for the best plastic surgeon to fix it, but his vanity would take a real kick and he’d lock himself indoors for the time it took to heal, not wanting anyone to see him as anything other than perfect.
In one conversation, Vance had destroyed her anonymity.Mila had stayed off Agus’s radar for three months.As far as he was concerned, she was a bleeding heart white woman who was finding herself by teaching English to the villagers.
Now, thanks to stupid Vance Bradley, she was in a real mess.
