The only part of me that’s warm? My eyes. My tears stream across my nose and down my left temple, hot trails that cool all too soon. I’m not shivering as much anymore. That’s bad. My core temperature’s dropping too low.
I won’t last much longer, and maybe…the wind and the rain and the cold will be a blessing. Maybe I’ll just fade away. Fall asleep and never wake up.
Austin
It’s after eight, and I haven’t heard from Mik. I’ve been pacing for an hour, even put a note on my door and went down to the bar, poked my head into the restaurant, and scanned all the tables. If she got bad news today, would she hide in her room? She was so worried about losing credibility, not being able to continue her research…maybe she needs to be alone.
But if the worst happened, she’ll be leaving tomorrow, and I can’t just let her go without seeing her one more time. Determined to knock on her door and beg her to talk to me—if she’s in there—I climb the stairs, and as I reach the landing, I hear a woman’s panicked voice.
“Isaiah! Open the door! Dr. Mik went out to Site Three and never came back! She’s out there somewhere in the jungle. I need help!”
Racing down the hall as the door on the other side of Mik’s room opens, I call out, “Wait!”
The young woman—she can’t be older than mid-twenties—turns, and tears glisten on her cheeks. “You were with Dr. Mik last night,” she says, pointing at me. A man stumbles through the open door, not much older, looking like death itself.
“Yeah, I was. Where is she? What happened?”
“You could be the one who…who…did somethingto her!” She darts behind the guy, and he stands up a little straighter, though the look on his face is nothing but complete and total confusion.
I glare at them for having the gall to thinkI’ddo anything to Mikayla. But they don’t know me and can’t have any clue about the code I live by, so I snap to full attention. “I’m retired Air Force Major General Austin J. Pritchard. Former head of Joint Special Operations Command. JSOC. You ever hear of it?”
They both shake their heads.
“We’re the ones who catch the bad guys. We oversee SEAL Team Six, Delta Force, and a whole lot more. You don’t get much higher as one of the good guys. I haven’t seen Mikayla since very early this morning. Tell me what happened.”
The woman peeks out from behind her cohort, and her voice is so soft, I have to strain to hear her words. “Isaiah and Corey were sick today, so it was just me and Dr. Mik. After we went out to Site Four and took all of our samples for the day, we went back to the lab, but Dr. Mik was so worried about Site One, she decided to go by herself.”
Shit. Hiking in the mountains alone?
The guy, Isaiah from the girl’s gesturing, takes her by the shoulders. “When did she leave?”
“A little after two. She promised me she’d be back by five. I waited until six-thirty before I came back here. I wanted to go after her, but the backup GPS unit wasn’t working, and the storm was too bad. We have to call the police.”
“The police aren’t going to send a search party deep into the mountains in the middle of a storm,” I say sharply, and both of them flinch. “If she’s lost—or hurt—I can find her.”
“How?” the woman asks. “You don’t know where any of the sites are, or the lab, or—"
“Presumably, you can tell me. I’m trained for this. Or was. It’s been a while since I’ve deployed on a search and rescue op, but I’m a hell of a lot more qualified than some city police officer.”
The two of them stare at me. Ten seconds. Twenty. Thirty. I’m about to bark orders at them when Isaiah clears his throat. “Li, where’s Corey?”
She shakes her head. “In his room, I guess. I came to see you first.”
“That’s your third?” I ask. “Where?”
Li points to the room across from Mik’s, and I pound on the door. “Open up. Now!”
There’s no answer, and I spin back around and level my gaze at Isaiah. “You two were sick?”
“Food poisoning,” he says, his voice rough. “We went to this dive bar...”
“Then where is he?”
The door opens, and Corey leans against the frame. Dark circles brace his eyes, and his hair is wet. The rumpled t-shirt and pajama pants cling to his frame, like he just got out of the shower. “Who the fuck are you?”
I repeat my introduction, and the kid’s bloodshot eyes widen when I give him my full title.
“Corey,” Li says, “Dr. Mik went out to Site One on her own and didn’t come back. General? Major? Pritchard says he can find her.”
