“Please be alive.”
Tears blur the jungle. My boot catches on something and I slam into the ground. I push myself up again, and now I am running.
Branches slap my face. Thorns catch my clothes.
I keep running.
GENESIS
“With Moisés gone, there are six of us, and six of them.” Holden tears open a package of salted almonds as he walks, and several of them fall onto the trail. “The odds are even.”
“Guns tip the scale in their favor,” Indiana points out as he steps over a mud puddle.
Holden shrugs. “So we take a couple of them.”
“Brilliant.” I have to fight not to roll my eyes. “I mean, surely they’ll just hand over their weapons if we ask nicely.”
Holden’s gaze hardens. “I’ve seen you talk your way past club security with nothing more than a low-cut blouse. Hell, you got us a private tour of the park by making out with Nico.” He shoots a glance at Indiana, clearly hoping for a reaction, but Indiana is immune to drama, and that only makes Holden angrier. “Surely you could use your superpowers for good this time. Distract a couple of the guards long enough for us to get their guns.”
My face flushes, then my embarrassment flares into white-hot anger over his hypocrisy. I glance pointedly from Holden to Penelope, then back, and Pen flinches. But I don’t call them out on their betrayal, because unlike myhot-tempered boyfriend, I don’t need to throw a fit to make a point.
Instead, I call his bullshit.
“Let me get this straight. You want me to take not one, buttwoof those gunmen into the brush and get naked with them so you can try to take their guns?”
Holden’s gaze takes on a cruel glint. “You’d do it eventually, so why not now?” He’s trying to make me lash out at him, to prove that my temper’s as volatile as his. That I have no more self-control than he has. “You kind of owe it to me.”
“Hey, man.” Indiana tries to step between us on the trail. “That’s not—”
“Ioweit to you?” I cut Indiana off, because I don’t want him drawn into the muck that is me and Holden.
“To all of us.” Words fall out of Holden’s mouth so fast I can hardly follow them. “You’re the reason we’re here. Genesis says jump, and we all launch ourselves at the sky. Genesis says hike into the jungle, and we all stock up on bug spray.” He jumps down a small incline, where water has washed earth from beneath a large tree root, then turns to glare at me. “If it were up to me, we’d be partying on the beach in Cartagena right now.” His whispered tirade takes on a fiercer, colder tone, and spittle flies from his mouth with each syllable. “This isyourfault, so you’re going to take off whatever you have to take off to keep those jungle savages occupied!”
Domenica flinches.
Penelope lays one hand on his arm. As if just touching him could calm him down.
“Okay, that’smorethan enough out of you.” Indiana swings himself over the exposed root and lands in the mud in front of Holden, fists clenched.
Silvana notices the conflict, and pulls a huge knife from a sheath at her waist. “Shut up and get moving,” she says, pointing the knife at each of them in turn. “Or one of you will lose a finger.”
Indiana turns and offers me a hand over the root, but the tension still feels thicker than the oppressive jungle air.
“Okay, offensive slut-shaming and pimping aside, this isn’t a cartoon, Holden,” I snap softly, determined to bring his reckless plan to a screeching halt. “I’m not wearing my Kevlar lingerie.”
Holden only rolls his eyes. “It’s not like I’m asking everyone to do something I’m not willing to do. I’ll take Natalia. But there are only three of you girls and five men with guns, so ...” He shrugs. “You do the math.”
“Yeah, my calculation looks a little different.” I step into Holden’s personal space and look up at him as if I were towering over him—a skill I learned from my father. “Penelope was strike one. This is strike two. One more, andyou’re out.”
MADDIE
No matter how hard I push, I can’t get there fast enough.
Ryan is dying.
Vines slap my face. Mud sucks at my boots. Perspiration drips into my eyes. I wipe my forehead, but my sweaty arm and damp sleeve are no help.
My leg itches, and when I scratch it, blood streaks across my skin. The red smear seems to float in front of me, and when I squint, I see tiny bits of mosquito scattered through it.
