Mack took off in a quiet, crouching run and Marley stayed right at his heels.
She had seen the quick, lethal efficiency with which he had taken out attacker after attacker, using a single bullet each time. He didn’t waste his movements or his rounds. His men didn’t either. It seemed almost unreal, moving with that kind of grace in combat.
A limb slapped her in the face and she bit her lip to keep from gasping at the sharp sting. Mack picked up the pace as they put more and more distance between themselves and the sounds of the enemy soldiers. What about his team? His men?
Where were they? How the hell were they supposed to get out of this godforsaken jungle?
Vines seemed to spring up from everywhere. Hanging down from trees as tall as buildings, draped over their huge knotted roots. In so much abundance, it almost felt like she was surrounded by snakes.
She caught more than one pair of glowing eyes peering at her from the thick foliage and tucked up extra close to Mack. In this one instance, she had no problem acting girly—creepy crawly things freaked her out. She didn’t second-guess it, didn’t try to pretend like they didn’t—just accepted her fear as a rational feeling that any sane human being would have.
They moved like that for what seemed like hours, until the little bit of sunlight capable of piercing the canopy of leaves overhead faded into a dim, distant glow. Night crawlers and animals hummed and chirped and howled. Her legs screamed with fatigue.
She’d stopped thinking about how dry her mouth was hours ago, or the gnawing pain of hunger gripping her stomach. There was no way in hell she was going to plead with Mack to stop on her account.
And the man hadn’t even bothered to turn around and check on her once. What if one of those giant snakes had popped down and swallowed her whole?
He’d probably be glad he didn’t have to deal with her anymore . . .
Poor Maddie—the Air Force would’ve realized her plane was missing. Had someone called her father? Had they told anyone? Her throat closed off at the thought of the pain and suffering her family would endure from that kind of phone call. She knew from personal experience after having received a phone call like that herself. Her husband’s commanding officer had been the one to break the news that he was missing in action. And then the funeral officer had arrived at her front door to deliver the news of John’s death.
No. She would not do that to her daughter. She wouldn’t put Maddie through that kind of pain.
She’d crawl out of this place on her hands and knees if that’s what it required.
Mack came to an abrupt stop, and Marley didn’t have time to register it before slamming into his solid back. She caught her own body before falling and muttered out, “I’m sorry.” She’d have to get her head in the game if she was going to survive this place. Everything in this jungle wanted to kill her. Human and animal alike.
“Wait, we’ll sleep there.” Mack pointed up and moved toward a sheer solid gray rock face right in front of them. She had failed to notice it until this very moment because it was mostly covered in dark green vines and vegetation. There, where? All she could see was what looked like a thousand-foot wall jutting up into the treetops and disappearing into the sky beyond. He wanted her to climbthat?
“Yep.”
She shook her head and dropped her chin to meet the intent gaze. “What?”
“The answer to your question is yes, I do want you to climb that wall.”
“You heard me say that?” She hadn’t even realized she’d spoken out loud.
His expression took on a look of shrewd knowledge and Marley fought to keep her own face neutral. Why did she get the feeling she wasn’t going to like whatever he was about to say next?
“You are afraid of heights.”
Marley choked and then tried to play it off as a sort of laugh. She rolled her eyes, forcing her seriously thudding heart to slow the hell down before she had a coronary. “You’re crazy, I’m a pilot.”
He nodded slowly, in an irritating, knowing kind of way that made her want to cross her arms and let out a huff and stomp her foot.
“I’ve seen it a couple of times before. I think it has something to do with actually seeing the ground beneath you. When you fly, you only see the clouds, and besides, you’re in complete control of the airplane. But when you have to jump out and parachute or you’re dangling from a tree, you don’t have much control there, do you?”
“You’re psychoanalyzing me now? Well thanks for the diagnosis, Freud, but you couldn’t be more wrong.” Dear God, the man was astute. How had he figured out her little idiosyncrasies so quickly?
Mack shrugged in an offhanded manner. “Just a hunch.”
She let the floodgates of irritation open—anything to protect her from the vulnerable feeling of this man knowing her secrets. Marley planted her fist on her hip and glared. “Good thing you’re not a psychologist. Because you suck at it.”
Mack let out a long-suffering sigh and promptly gave her his back.
Had he really just dismissed her? Oh, Marley Mitchell did not get dismissed.
“What exactly is so interesting about this cliff you keep staring at? And how do you expect us to sleep up there? There’s nowhere to sleep.”
