NOW
“She’s getting closer!”
I glance over my shoulder, and the movement throws me off balance. My cousin grabs my arm before I can fall, then she’s in the lead, clutching the cell phone in one hand.
Footsteps pound behind us. Silvana huffs, as if each step drives more air from her lungs. But her pace is steady. She’s strong and fast.
She’s almost caught us.
“There it is!” My cousin points at a break in the jungle trail, and ahead, I see moonlight gleaming on dark water.
The beach. The boats.
We’re almost free.
100 HOURS EARLIER
GENESIS
“You really came here on a private jet?”
Samuel’s mouth is so close to Neda’s that they’re practically kissing, and that obviously makes her happy. No one in this tiny Cartagena dive bar knows she’s five pounds too heavy and four inches too short to ever have anything more than her face appear inTeen Vogue, even if her father did design the latest Hermès handbag. In Cartagena, she’s just another hot American tourist. Where everyone else sees anonymity, Neda thinks she’s projecting mystery.
Neda only sees what she wants to see. Cheerful delusion is part of her charm.
The rest of her charm is money.
“There’s no other way to travel.” Her lips brush Samuel’s cheek, and he’s so into it he’s breathing hard. His hand is on her thigh. She’s high on the power she has over him—I can see it in her eyes. “Commercial is so ... common.”
In the chair to my right, Nico stiffens. He grew up in a five-hundred-square-foot bungalow just outside mygrandmother’s neighborhood with his mother and three younger sisters.
As usual, Neda has no clue, but Samuel doesn’t care what she’s saying. He’s probably not even listening. He tugs her into the middle of the bar to join three other couples dancing to the strong, fast beat and brass notes of the cumbia-reggae fusion video playing on a small television mounted over the bar. She stumbles, but steadies herself without his help. She’s okay, for now. But just in case, I finish off her margarita. I’m doing her a favor. She can’t afford the calories and she can’t handle her liquor.
“That’s a tourist drink. Try this.” Nico pushes his bottle across the table toward me. Most of the locals are drinking rum, but he likesaguardiente, an anise-flavored liquor. He thinks I’ve never had it because my dress is expensive, my nails are perfect, and I call my grandmother Nana instead ofabuela. But Nico has only seen what I’ve let him see.
He was surprised when I asked him to show my friends and me something outside the touristy Cartagena party scene. But that was the point. People can’t assume they know you if you keep them guessing.
I grab Nico’s bottle and pour an inch ofaguardienteinto my empty glass, then throw it back in one gulp.
His brows rise. “Not your first time?”
I sweep my long, dark hair over my shoulder, and I know he can’t look away. “Nana sends my dad a case every Christmas. He doesn’t count the bottles.” My dad only sees what I let him see too.
We drink half the bottle while Nico tells me about the hike he’s leading next week, to the ruins of an ancient city in Colombia’s Sierra Nevada. He moonlights as a tour guide because helping my grandmother around the house pays the bills, but it doesn’t pay for college.
“Come on.” Nico leans closer, and his eyes shine in the glow of colored lights strung over the bar. “You wanted to see therealColombia. Let me take you to Ciudad Perdida.”
“We’re not going to be here that long.” And I amnottaking a generic tour with a dozen budget-traveling tourists, even if Nico is the guide. “But maybe I’ll let you show me something special tomorrow. Something ... secluded.”
He leans back in his chair and gives me a slow smile. Now he gets it.
I take another sip ofaguardienteand glance around the bar. The local guys in the corner booth are still watching us, but that’s no surprise. People watch my friends and me everywhere we go.
Whatisstrange is that they’re watching Maddie, in her eco-friendly dress and “vintage” sandals that actually came from Goodwill.
“Your cousin is having fun,” Nico says.
She’s dancing with one of the local guys. The pretty one with bright hazel eyes and a scruffy, square jaw.
