He chuckles under his breath. “I could walk two days without rest and not feel it. I could walk three and be fine. You’re human. Your body is not built the way mine is. You need to stop measuring my limits by yours.”
I look up at his jaw. He’s scanning the tree line again, head moving in that slow sweep. Even now. Even holding me, he hasn’t dropped his attention for a single second.
I think about arguing again. I decide against it.
“Fine,” I say. “But only for a little while. And then I’m walking again.”
He doesn’t respond, which I’m choosing to interpret as agreement and not, as it probably is, absolute indifference to my protest.
My feet are already grateful. The throbbing in my cut heel quiets to something more background once the weight is fully off it. He’s very warm. He moves so smoothly that there’s almost no jolt to it, just this steady, quiet rhythm that makes it easy to let my shoulders come down from around my ears.
I keep my arm around the back of his neck. His skin is warm under my forearm. I look at the ink on his shoulder, the dark lines of it curving around the muscle.
I like being in his arms far more than I should.
19
Magma
I hear the water first. Then I smell it.
It cuts through the green-rot smell of the jungle. We’ve found a river. A good stretch of it, I think. I hold up one hand, and Carla stops behind me.
“I’m fine to keep walking,” she whispers. “You only just put me down not so long ago.”
“It’s water.”
Her eyes light up, and she smiles, looking quite beautiful despite the dirt caked on her face.
I pull my attention back to our surroundings and scan the tree line as we continue to walk. The river is maybe thirty feet wide from bank to bank, not enormous but not nothing either. The current is visible even from here, a steady dark pull at the surface. The water is a brownish-green, murky enough that I can’t see more than a few inches below the surface.
“Stay back,” I say, keeping my voice low. “And do not come to the water’s edge until I tell you.”
“Why? What is it?” she whispers.
“Alligators. Anacondas. There are also caimans out here, which are smaller but no less dangerous. Even bull sharks have been found this far upriver before.”
I hear her swallow behind me.
“Sharks…really?”
I smile at her. “I doubt very much that there will be one. They’re very rare, and the current is a bit on the heavy side for caimans and anacondas, but I’m not taking any chances.”
“What about ’gaters?”
“They love waters like this. Don’t worry, I have good senses. Let me confirm we don’t have any unwanted friends anywhere near before we drink.”
“That would be fantastic,” she says. “I’m not moving an inch.”
I move forward alone, crouching as I approach the bank. The ground gets softer underfoot, the mud thickening between my toes. I stop at the edge and stay still, watching. The surface of the water moves in a smooth, dark ribbon. I watch the far bank, the tangles of root and vine that reach into the shallows. I watch the water itself, the way the current breaks around the submerged rocks.
There is no slow roll of a body beneath the surface. No wide flat snout parting the water near the bank. No loop of something heavy and muscled coiled in the shallows. I listen for a heartbeat.
I watch for a long two minutes. Long enough to be sure.
Then I wave Carla forward.
She picks her way down to me, moving carefully on her wrapped feet. She reaches the edge and looks at the water and then at me. I keep my eyes on the far bank, the upriver stretch, and the shallows to my left.
