Luzia scrambled off him, her chest heaving.
“What is the meaning of this, Zé?” Silva coughed, pushing himself up and clutching his throat. “Your timing is impeccable. Help me secure them!”
Zé took a slow step into the cave, his expression one of pure disgust. “You have been a noisy guest, Silva. Your men crash through the jungle like drunken tapirs. Your boats churn up my fishing spots. You bring the eyes of the Federales to this river. You are bad for business.”
Silva’s face, already mottled red, darkened with fury. “Your business? You work for me! You are a company asset!”
Zé laughed, a dry, humorless sound. “The ‘company’ is a fiction you tell your investors in São Paulo. This river has its own economy. My economy. And your little war over this… woman… is disrupting it. You have drawn too much attention.” He gestured with his shotgun, not at us but at Silva. “My associates and I are here to ask you to take your hunt somewhere else. Permanently.”
It was a turf war. We were caught in the middle of it. Silva stared at Zé, his mind clearly racing, weighing this new, unexpected threat. The standoff was absolute, the air thick with the promise of violence.
And in that moment of distraction, as the two predators faced off, I saw our chance. I met Luzia’s eyes and gave the slightest nod toward the back of the small cave.
She understood instantly. While Silva and Zé were locked in their power struggle, we faded back into the deepest shadows of the fissure. I grabbed theSussuron. There was a narrow opening I hadn’t seen before, barely wide enough to squeeze through, hidden behind a curtain of rock. It was our only way out.
“They’re getting away!” Silva roared, finally noticing our retreat.
Zé didn’t even flinch. “That is your problem,” he said, his shotgun still leveled at Silva’s chest. “My problem is you.”
I scrambled through the opening, pulling Luzia with me and tumbling out onto a different, lower ledge. The angry shouts of Silva and the cold commands of Zé echoed from the cave behind us. There was no looking back. I plunged back into the jungle, the sounds of the hunt replaced by a new, more complicated danger—freedom—followed by the crushing realization that I had never been more lost.
CHAPTER 28
Luzia
The mud of the riverbank was a cold, greedy hand on my ankles. I lay gasping, the world a dizzying smear of strobing searchlights and the relentless shriek of alarms from across the water. Each pulse of that siren was a nail being hammered into the door of my old life. I could never go back. Not now. The thought was a cold stone in my gut. I was an exile.
“We have to move.” Caio’s voice was a raw rasp beside me. He pushed himself to his knees, clutching the ornateSussuronhe’d thrust into my arms before we climbed from the water.
“Move where?” I whispered, the words tasting of river water and despair. “There is nowhere to go.”
“Anywhere but here.” He was right. The lights were getting closer. At least they weren’t coming for us. But I didn’t want to stay here and take the risk.
I followed Caio away from the river, plunging us into the oppressive darkness between the trees. Branches clawed at us as he forced a path, my lungs burning, the alarms behind us finally fading to a dull, hateful throb in the distance. His feet, actingon instinct, found the ghost of a path—an old, overgrown service road. And there, half swallowed by vines, was a Jeep, a forgotten relic of the company’s expansion.
“Keys,” Caio urged, his voice tight with adrenaline. “Check for keys.” While I stood guard, he fumbled inside the cabin, his hands searching the usual spots until they emerged with a small jingle. He slid behind the wheel. “Get in.”
The engine roared to life, a profane sound in the sacred quiet. He jammed the gears into drive, and the Jeep shot forward, its headlights slicing a frantic path through the jungle. He drove with a desperate focus, wrestling the wheel as we bounced violently over the rutted track. Trees blurred into a solid wall of green on either side.
After driving for what felt like hours, deeper and deeper into the jungle’s embrace, Caio finally eased his foot off the accelerator. “We should be far enough away now,” he said, his voice strained from tension, not pain. “I need a break.” He pulled the Jeep into a small, hidden clearing, shielded by the broad leaves of giant ferns, and killed the engine.
The sudden silence was terrifying, amplifying the frantic thumping of my heart. The adrenaline that had fueled our flight finally abandoned me, leaving a hollow, bone-deep exhaustion in its place. We were safe, for now. But for what? To continue a hopeless journey? My home was lost to me. My sister… I couldn’t even finish the thought.
I collapsed to the ground beside the Jeep. The silence that followed was terrifying. I looked down at theSussuronin my lap. It was all I had left. It was the reason for my exile, and the only hope for my sister. My hands were shaking so badly I couldn’t get a proper grip. The intricate carvings were slick with river water, mocking me with their secrets. Failure, cold and absolute, began to creep in.
A choked sound, half sob and half gasp, escaped my throat. TheSussuron, heavy with the weight of my failure, slipped from my nerveless fingers and thudded onto the damp earth. The small sound cut through the quiet, and I saw Caio flinch. He shifted from the driver’s seat and got out of the Jeep, his face tight with concern as he came around to my side.
“Let me,” Caio said softly. He kneeled in front of me, his face pale and strained in the faint moonlight filtering through the canopy. He didn’t try to take theSussuron. Instead, he placed his hands over mine, steadying them. His touch wasn’t intimate or romantic—it was grounding, a simple, solid presence in the spinning chaos. “We have it,” he said, his voice low and firm. “We just have to use it.”
His steadiness flowed into me. I took a deep, shuddering breath and focused. My fingers, now guided by his, traced the familiar lines of the pendant I wore. I pulled the wooden charm from beneath my wet shirt. It felt warm against my cold skin.
My eyes scanned the surface of theSussuron, searching for a lock, an indentation, anything. My thumb brushed against a small, almost invisible seam on the side. With trembling focus, I pressed the tip of my pendant into the tiny crack.
A soft click, impossibly loud in the stillness, broke the silence. A hidden panel, no larger than my palm, slid open. It didn’t reveal a keyhole, but a series of intricate carvings that began to glow with a soft, ethereal light, pulsing with a slow, rhythmic thrum that matched my racing heart.
The carvings were more than decorations—they were a map, a celestial chart woven with the river’s flowing lines. It was a language I knew in my bones, a story told in starlight and currents. My breath caught in my throat.The Flor da Lua. It wasn’t a place, but a moment in time when the river and the stars aligned.
“I know where it is,” I whispered, the words filled with a sudden, fierce awe. I held up the glowing panel, orienting it with the constellations I could see through the gaps in the trees. The glowing lines on the wood mirrored the stars in the sky.
