Gael settled beside him as he shrugged off his pack and pulled his phone from somewhere in his ruck. “There’s a Starlink connection,” he muttered, tapping his screen. “I’m gonna talk to Joel for a bit.”
Rowan scowled. “We’re in the middle of the freaking Amazon, and you have an internet connection. While at home, I spend way more time than I should have to, leaning out windows trying to get a better signal.”
“That’s what happens when we live in the sticks, boss.” Dawsyn offered him a wired earpiece. “We’ll even let you pick the soap opera.”
“Fuck, asshole.” Being in public places like this with a stash of weapons and going where they had no permission to go gave him hives. Rowan scratched at the phantom itches. It was unlikely anyone on this boat would try anything stupid, but if they did, his guys could handle it.
“Food’s starch and sugar.” Jericho lowered his hand to show him the plate he’d gotten from the kiosk with something that might’ve been breakfast. “Bun, mystery tea, and some kinda fish, I’m not sure I want to know the name of.”
“It’s gotta be better than MREs.” Colson popped the tab on a can of Monster and took a swig.
The boat shifted under them as it shoved away from the bank. The motor whined, caught, and started grinding them upriver. Rowan leaned back in his hammock and pulled his hat low. “Wake me if we hit something that shoots back.”
“Sure thing,” Gael replied.
He had no idea how long he’d been snoozing when Gael touched his elbow, “We’ll be at drop off in an hour.”
Rowan shook himself awake. “Did you sleep?” He could guess the answer. The last thing Gael would want to do when they were so close to where he’d nearly died was let his guard down and sleep.
“I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”
“That’s what I thought you’d say.” Rowan swung his legs off the hammock. “How bad are the latrines?”
“Wait until we get off,” Titan advised, “I was in there ten minutes ago, and some asshole musta dropped a nuclear shit just before I went in. My nostrils are still burning.”
Yeah, no, I’ll piss in the jungle.
He stood up and stretched. “I’m gonna need coffee.”
“It’s not bad.” Fuse held up a paper cup. “Don’t get the milk, it’s got a weird aftertaste.”
Edge, smacked Fuse on the back of the head. “It’s goat’s milk. You don’t know what’s good for you.”
The guys teasing the crap out of each other told him everything was moving as they wanted it to. The river had narrowed, and the boat moved a lot slower, its engine coughing now and then like it was clearing its throat before dying altogether. The jungle canopy pressed tighter to the banks, branches clawing out over the water as if they were the Kraken rising from the water to snag a careless victim into the murky depths of its lair.
By the time he’d bought a black coffee and some food from the kiosk, Gael stood near the edge of the deck. “Do you think they know we’re coming?”
Rowan sipped his coffee. Maybe bringing Gael back here was a mistake. “I think,” he took a bite of the bread roll and spoke around it, “they have no fucking clue what’s gonna hit them.”
“If we see that motherfucker,” Gael pinned him with a steady glare, “his balls are mine.”
“Hell, I’ll hold him down for you, little brother.”
“I’m older than you.”
“By ten minutes.” If his twin was throwing him snark, then he was dealing a hell of a lot better than Rowan had expected him to be. “I’m taller than you.”
“No, you ain’t. Spiking your hair up doesn’t count.”
“It does.”
All around them, the hammocks were being taken down, coiled, and stuffed into compression bags. But for these five minutes in the quiet before the storm to come, it was almost as if they had gone back in time, and the brother standing at his shoulder was the one from three years ago and not the broken shell he’d been trying to pull from the black hole of despair since he’d rescued him.
“You know, it’s not going to be easy for her.” Gael’s voice was barely loud enough to be heard over the growl of the engine, and the boat made a slow turn toward the bank. “If she’s alive, she probably wishes she wasn’t.”
“I know.” He’d been refusing to think of it. Which was a hell of a lot easier to do when he was awake. His nightmares were filled with what Enya Moore had been suffering. But he had an inkling Gael wasn’t exactly talking about Enya Moore. “But where there is life, there is hope, and sometimes hope is all a family has to hold on to.”
“Yeah. I suppose.”
