“What did he say?” Indiana asks.
“He told her that they want coffee and they need to pee.”
“I’m with him on both counts,” Indiana says.
I haven’t had enough water in the two hours since our last rest to need a bathroom break.
Silvana curses in Spanish, but when Álvaro sits with Julian, she relents. “Don’t get comfortable,princesa,” she says when I set my bag on the ground. “We leave in twenty minutes.”
Penelope groans. “The sun is setting. I thought she was finally going to show us a little mercy.”
I sit on a patch of grass, and Pen takes my silence as an invitation to join me. “Holden and I didn’t mean to hurt you, Genesis.” She steels her spine and takes a deep breath. “It just happened.”
“Nothing ‘just happens’ with Holden.” I shrug and dig in my bag, as if this conversation means nothing to me. As if I’m not losing my best friend, when I’ve already lost everything else in theworldtoday. “If it hadn’t been you, it would have been someone else.”
“But itwasme.”
I look up and hold her gaze. “And you think that makes you special? That you’re different from his other hookups?”
The raw vulnerability in her eyes answers for her.
“I know you’re socially stunted, from spending most of your adolescence on the uneven bars, so let me give you the SparkNotes version ofHookups for Dummies: if you start out as someone’s dirty little secret, that’sall you will ever be.” I look right into her eyes and am pleased to see them watering. “You clearly have no respect for me, but you should at least try to respect yourself.”
“Genesis, you hook up with guys all the time!”
“But I don’t sleep with them!” I hiss, too low for anyone else to hear. “And I wouldneverhave hooked up with my best friend’s boyfriend.” I pause for a second, then drive the blade home. “I hope it was worth what it cost you.”
Penelope flinches.
I swallow my guilt, pick up my bag, and leave her staring after me, so she can’t see the moisture I blink from my eyes.
Most of our captors have gathered around a pot sitting over a fire someone has built in the pit. They hold camp mugs, and Óscar is distributing scoops of instant coffee from a canister.
Sebastián sits a few feet away, holding an empty cup and watching the flames. This feels like a good opportunity to make a personal connection. To convince him that the kidnappers can make their point without taking any more lives.
Suddenly I’m horrifyingly aware of how awful I must look, wearing almost as much sweat and mud as clothing. I haven’t even brushed my teeth yet today. But I’m not going to get a better shot, so I dig a breath mint from my pack and sit next to Sebastián.
He looks up, surprised, and I point at Óscar’s instant coffee. “If Colombia produces the best beans in the world, why is everyone drinking instant?”
Sebastián laughs, and heads turn our way. I can practically feel everyone watching us. “We export the best beans,” he says in his thick but comprehensible accent.
“All of them?” It doesn’t seem fair that those who produce the best coffee don’t get to drink it.
Rog chuckles as he passes behind us. “Colombian farmers are too smart to drink their own cash crop, when they can sell it to Americans foolish enough to pay more in a month for coffee than on their cell phone bills.”
Metal clinks, and I turn to see Óscar pouring hot water into cups held out by his fellow captors. He heads our way when Sebastián holds his mug up.
I’ve never needed coffee worse in my life.
When Óscar moves on, I make a show of sniffing the air and enjoying the aroma. “Smells good.”
Sebastián looks amused as he holds out his metal cupso I can see several small green leaves steeping in yellowish water. The scent of coffee is not coming from his mug. “Té de coca,” he says. “Want some?”
Do I want cocaine tea?
“There’s no actual cocaine in it,” Rog says, and I turn to see him sitting with his back to a tree, pulling his longish, frizzy hair into a low man bun. “A sip won’t hurt.”
So I accept the cup from Sebastián. He watches while I take a sip. I make a face. The tea is bitter and herbal-tasting.
