Her smile beamed.
“How did we not see this before?” Rafa asked.
“I guess we were so focused on what was on the ground that we didn’t think about what might be up higher.”
“So now what?” he asked, looking around as if waiting for something to happen.
It wasn’t like placing the medallion into the rock opened up some secret passageway or illuminated a path. It fit in place, but nothing else made sense.
Miri’s wide smile fell. “I…don’t know exactly.” She turned back to the wall and stared at the necklace with one hand on her hip and the other massaging her chin. “I need to think.”
They stood there for what seemed like hours, pacing, inspecting the medallion, trying to insert it in another orientation, attempting to turn it, but only one positioning worked. They hypothesized about the missing piece of the medallion and whether it may have included an inscription or some other clue. But seeing as they didn’t have that piece, it didn’t really matter.
As she stared at it over and over, however, the carving came into focus in her mind.
It wasn’t a temple with a moon. It was an arrow.
“I think I’ve got it!” she called out. Without hesitation, she grabbed the necklace and took off jogging into the jungle.
“Pringles! Wait!” he called out, scurrying to pack up his things and follow her.
But she didn’t wait. She ran. Ran as fast as she could, eager to determine whether she was right. She pulled out a compass, following it in the exact direction pointing from the stone table, climbing and ducking, weaving and swinging. With a boat coming to get them in the morning, they had no time to waste.
She turned to check on where Rafa was behind her. Thankfully, he’d caught up and was only a few feet back. “Come on!” she said, smiling at him.
She reached out for his hand, giddy and high on life, when a voice called out to them in the distance, stopping them in their tracks.
“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” the voice said, startling Miri and Rafa.
They spun in all directions to find the source of the voice, when a figure emerged from behind the trees.
Hunter.
Her heart went haywire, like a pinball about to break a record.
“I was wondering when we’d see each other again,” Hunter said, ambling toward them like he was entering a saloon.
“Stay the fuck back,” Rafa said, putting himself in front of Miri.
“You owe me a boat, and one of these,” Hunter said, pointing toward his crotch at a knife poking out from the waistband of his pants.
“Sorry, Hunter, we’re fresh out of dicks,” Miri said from behind the safety of Rafa’s frame.
Hunter laughed. “Feisty. Now I know what you see in her. Hey, boss,” he called out over his shoulder, “we’ve got visitors.”
Hunter turned back to face Miri and Rafa, tossing them a smarmy smile that sickened Miri to her core. “Byboss, I assume you’re referring to Pierre Vautour?” she asked.
“Bin-go,” he said, pointing the knife at her for emphasis on thego. “He was really hoping you would have gotten the message by now and given up on your quest, but guess we weren’t persuasive enough when we last saw you.”
“Yeah, that’s because we kicked your asses,” Miri said.
Rafa turned slightly and whispered, “You probably shouldn’t piss him off.”
“Whatever. If I’m going down, I’m at least going down not having taken his shit,” she said quietly, mustering a smile with every ounce of courage left in her body.
“Real-life badass, Pringles,” he said, smiling back and planting a soft kiss on her forehead.
“How sweet,” another voice called out. “Looks like I’m not the only one to have found love out in the Amazon.”
