“I’mnotleaving you.”
I spread my arms. “This is the safest place in the jungle. Everyone here is dead or unconscious. We’ll find the phones and be right behind you, and weneedthe boats ready to go.”
Luke gives Maddie a kiss on the forehead. “If I don’t see you in five minutes, I’m coming back for you. Got it?”
Indiana pulls me close, and Ireallywish we had time to linger.
“We’re almost out of this,” I promise him. Then I tug him down, so I can whisper in his ear. “And when we are, I expect to be able to moan yourreal name.”
Indiana groans into my hair. “Hell of a sendoff, G.” He grins as Luke tugs him into the jungle, on the footpath toward the beach.
MADDIE
“Are you sure this is where you dropped the phone?” Genesis asks, sweeping torn straw mats aside with both hands.
“I don’t know. Everything went crazy after the explosion. But it has to be around here somewhere. I wasright there...”
“We don’t have time for this, Maddie!” My dad’s ship could already be out of range. “People are going todie.”
“I know! I can’t—” My hand brushes something hard, and I grab it. “Found it!” I sweep dirt from Holden’s phone and press a button to wake it up. The screen is dim. “There’s only five percent power.”
“Then don’t waste it.” Genesis pulls me up by one arm. “Call your phone. They’ve turned it into one of the detonators.”
My hands shake as I dial my number and press send, but ... “There’s no signal.”
A twig crunches behind me, and Genesis and I spin toward the sound. Silvana stands with one hand pressed to her bloody forehead. The other aiming a pistol at us.
Fear spikes my pulse. Genesis should have let me kill her.
“Give me the phone,” Silvana orders.
“Dial,” Genesis says, her voice low and calm. “She got her ship, but she’s in this for the money, and we’re all she has left.”
“You think yourpapihasn’t already paid? Give me the phone!” Silvana shouts, her accent thick, her words slurred from the concussion.
Genesis backs toward me, waving me toward the trees. I glance over my shoulder and aim for the footpath. We’re just feet away. “Keep dialing,” she whispers.
“Don’t!” Silvana snaps. “If you want to live, give me the phone.”
I press redial, but there’s still no signal. “There’s only three percent power!”
“Maddie?” Genesis whispers.
“Yeah?” My heart hammers against my sternum. My ears still echo from the explosion.
“Run.”
NOW
GENESIS
Gunshots echo behind me.
I race through the jungle, swatting aside branches and jumping over exposed roots. Moonlight flashes through the canopy, glinting off the sweat on my skin and the blood splattered across my shirt, but the narrow trail is still shrouded in shadow.
I can’t even see my boots as they beat the path.
“She’s getting closer!” Maddie pants behind me.
