“Tayrona’s a day’s hike to the east, right?”
“I don’t know.” Luke shrugs. “I lost track of our direction during the detour to the bunkhouse. If we start on the wrong heading, we could be lost in the jungle for days.”
“Okay.” I can’t afford to get lost. My insulin is almostgone. “And that helicopter that brings supplies for the soldiers comes every other day, right? So it won’t be back for at least twenty-three hours.”
“I think so.”
I brush dirt from my hands onto my pants, struggling to think now that the adrenaline boost is starting to wear off. “No one knows they’re missing, and there’s no one left to help them.”
“Who?” Luke shakes his head when my intention sinks in. “Maddie, we can’t go after them.”
I watch Moisés thrash on the ground like an angry caterpillar. Silvana and Sebastián and their men killed my brother and kidnapped my cousin. Sebastiánusedme in Cartagena. Theyhaveto pay for that. But I can’t drag Luke into any more danger. He wouldn’t even be out here, if not for me.
“You’re right. You should find somewhere to camp nearby until the next supply shipment comes. You can’t wait here. This is the first place they’ll look when Moisés doesn’t come back.” I duck into my brother’s tent in search of supplies. “Keep trying to get ahold of your parents. With any luck, I’ll be back before the helicopter gets here.”
“Maddie—”
I grab my brother’s spare clean shirt, and when Luke realizes I’m changing, his face flushes and he turns around.
Dressed, I say a silent apology to my brother, then I dump his pack on the floor of the tent to take inventory. My hand closes around a familiar shape in one of his backpackpockets, and I hold my breath as I pull out an insulin reservoir and clutch it like the life raft it is. Ryan saved the leftover insulin I usually throw out when I change my pump injection site. Just in case.
The cartridge is one-third full, and I still have a little left in my pump. That’s around thirty hours’ worth of insulin, at the rate my body typically uses it.
But my body doesn’t typically hike through the jungle three days in a row.
“You can’t take off into the jungle by yourself!” Luke plants himself in the tent opening, blocking my path. “And you can’t go up against armed kidnappers!”
So I slide the vial into my pocket before he can see it and borrow the partial-truth move from my cousin’s playbook. “Genesis has the rest of my insulin.”
Luke’s mouth snaps shut, and I can practically see the gears turning behind his eyes “Fine. I’m coming with you.”
I don’t have time to argue with him. Silvana is getting farther away with every second we waste. “Then grab what you can carry and let’s go.”
We only find two other backpacks left in the camp: Luke’s and Moisés’s. And there’s no blood where the campers were lined up on the ground. “Does this mean the other hostages were marched out alive?” I ask. Were the gunshots just for show, or were they shot somewhere else?
“I don’t know.” Luke stuffs several PowerBars and a flashlight taken from the bunkhouse into his bag. “I hid too far away to hear much more than gunfire, and when I cameback, I only found your brother.”
The reminder of Ryan’s death makes my chest feel tight.
Luke kneels to pick up Moisés’s rifle. “Ready?”
I swing Ryan’s bag over my shoulder. “Do you even know how to use that?”
“In theory.” The gun makes a metallic clicking sound. “I have a rifle badge, but I’ve never shot an automatic.”
A Boy Scout with a gun. I’m not sure whether to be impressed or worried.
As Luke and I leave the bunkhouse with our backpacks loaded, I stop at my brother’s grave and kneel in the dirt. “Ryan, I swear that when this is over, Iwilltake you home.”
36 HOURS EARLIER
GENESIS
Holden sits next to me on the damp log. Before he even opens his mouth, I know I’ll hear his “reasonable” voice—the one he saves for authority figures and people he wants to impress.
The one he never uses with me because he knows I see through it. But Domenica and Rog are sharing a sleeve of cookies a few feet away, and they can hear everything he says.
“Hey, Gen. You and I have always made a good team.” He glances at the terrorists gathered around a radio blaring static across the clearing. “We should really try to get on the same page.”
