“Maddie!”
I open my eyes and find a man’s silhouette hunched over me, two shades darker than the night itself, and my screaming intensifies.
“Maddie!” He shakes me by both shoulders. “Shhh!Pleasewake up and be quiet. You’re going to draw every predator in the jungle!”
I recognize Luke’s voice and realize the shadowy silhouette makes him look much bigger and more threatening than he actually is.
“You’re okay,” he says as I sit up. “It’s just a dream.”
“Yeah. I ...” I don’t realize I’ve been crying until I wipe my face with both hands and find it wet. “I dreamed my brother got shot, and I dug a grave for him, but my dad was already buried there.”
“That’s messed up,” Luke whispers, and in reply, I fall back onto the shirt-pillow. He lies next to me with his hands folded beneath his head and stares up at the sky through the top of the tent. “It’s still early. We can get more sleep.”
But I’m not sure I want any more sleep, after dreaming about my brother’s murder. “Sorry I woke you up,” I whisper.
“You didn’t. I had my own nightmare.”
I roll onto my side, facing him, and Luke tenses beside me. “What happened in yours?”
“It’s stupid. You don’t want to hear it.”
“I told you mine.”
“Yeah, but your subconscious fears have merit. Mine are just ... dumb,” he insists, and though I can’t see much more than his outline in the dark, I’m pretty sure he’s blushing again.
“No fear is dumb. What happened in your nightmare, Luke?”
He takes a deep breath, still staring up at the trees. “I dreamed I woke up and you were gone. But you weren’t missing. You just left me here and took all the supplies.”
My hand goes to my heart. I feel like someone just kicked me in the chest.
I think for a minute, trying to figure out how to respond. I’ve never been the subject of someone else’s abandonment issues. “Luke, I can’t even carry all the supplies on my own. I need you as a pack animal, if for no other reason.”
Finally he rolls over to face me, and my eyes have adjusted to the dark well enough to see his scowl. “I’m starting to think you and your cousin are cut from the same—”
I laugh, and his eyes widen.
“Oh. You’re kidding.”
“Of course I’m kidding. I’m not going to leave you alone in the jungle. Though you may actually be better off without me.”
Luke smiles as he rolls onto his back again. “Neither of us is better off alone.”
22 HOURS EARLIER
GENESIS
It’s hardly even light yet when a boot digs into my side hard enough that I wake up gasping. The pain is disorienting, and at first I can’t remember where I am. Then Silvana’s outline comes into focus.
“Get up,princesa.” Her sneer turns my father’s nickname for me into an insult, yet makes me ache with homesickness. “It’s time to boil water.”
“¡Arriba! ¡Es hora de levantarse!”She wakes the other hostages with a shouted order to rise and shine. No one else gets a boot to the ribs.
I sit up and groan at the soreness in my arms and legs. No amount of jogging down suburban streets or working with my personal trainer could have prepared me for a twelve-hour hike through the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. In the rain.
“Morning,” Indiana says, and I turn to see him looking up at me from his sleeping bag with both hands foldedbeneath his head. As if he were stretched out on a towel at the beach.
How the hell does he make being taken hostage look sexy?
