Bummer that the knock on his head hadn’t done a number on his personality.
But Miri didn’t back down from assessing Quinn. “How many fingers?” she asked, again raising two.
Quinn squinted, then his upper body started to sway. “Three.”
Miri turned to Anissa. “I think he’s got a concussion.”
“I don’t have a commotion. I need an aid first kit, s’all.” Quinn went to stand but immediately faltered. Rafa hurried to catch him before he fell. “Oh…’m not feel s’good.”
With a swift turn, Quinn leaned over and vomited onto the ground, barely missing Rafa’s shoes.
“We need to get him out of here,” Anissa said.
An eerie stillness settled over the group as their eyes shifted to one another and their surroundings. The gravity of the situation finally sank in. Twelve people. One ten-passenger van. Hours from their intended destination. They couldmaybesqueeze into the one van if they left their equipment. If Rafa had to put a quick estimate on it, he’d say the equipment alonewas worth a couple hundred grand. Not something to leave unattended in the rainforest, even if they hadn’t seen a single other vehicle in the last two hours they’d been traveling. And to have Quinn prone on a full bench, taking up at least three seats, thatreallydidn’t leave much room for the rest of the team.
New rule—choose non-injury-inducing sabotages.
Nothing was going to Rafa’s plan. They were supposed to have had a nice, long detour. Get to the end of the road. Realize they’d made a wrong turn (whoopsies, my bad). Tack on another several hours of travel. The first in a series of delays. Delays that would ultimately tire out the crew. Frustrate Quinn and Miri. And soon they’d be on their way back to the States, empty-handed, like every other explorer who’d traveled to this damn jungle searching for a happily ever after to the fairy tale of a lifetime.
Unfortunately, Rafa hadn’t considered the driver catching on so soon. When he’d asked to take a quick look at the GPS, Rafa had only sought to distract him momentarily by calling out for him to avoid a nonexistent warthog. How was he supposed to anticipate that the driver would run them off the road? Or that there weren’t any warthogs in the Amazon.
Nous sommes baisée.
Yes, they certainly were fucked. No one was supposed to get hurt, evenifQuinn deserved a swift kick in the ass. The way Quinn kept belittling Miri was pissing Rafa off. The fact that he refused to call her “Dr. Jacobs,” treating her like she hadn’t earned her title just as he’d earned his, showed a complete lack of respect. Rafa had noticed it last night with the way he dismissed Miri at the bar, but the insults were even more pronounced today. Call it karma, but Quinn had it coming.
He didn’t deserve more than a minor injury, though. Karmaor not, Rafa didn’t want Quinn to get seriously injured because of his little detour.
Rafa held Quinn safely in his arms while Miri and the rest of the group were going over their options.
“I can see why she likes you,” Quinn said with a hum and a singsong voice.
“What are you talking about?” Rafa pulled Quinn up to keep him from slipping.
“Mari-um,” he slurred. “You’re strong. And hamsom. Vautour knew she’d like you.”
Vautour? Who the hell was Vautour?
“I don’t know who that is or what you’re talking about,” Rafa said.
“Well, he knows you. And I’m sure he knows your secrets.”
Rafa tensed. “My secrets?”
“Mm-hmm. About who youreallyare.”
No. It wasn’t possible.
“Okay, relax, Quinn. You’ve got a concussion. In fact, you should probably stop talking,” Rafa whispered in Quinn’s ear, hoping no one else could hear his gibberish.
But Quinn didn’t stop talking. “He’s coming. You’ll see.”
“Who are you? Who do you work for?”
Quinn chuckled like a drunkard. “Do we ever really know who we work for? Like truly, really?Glogal Geograbic.Brown Unibersary. Just words on a résumé. But deep down, s’all same. He owns me. Who knows. He probby owns you, too.”
What the hell?
Rafa opened his mouth to ask another question, when Quinn started to cry.
