The Heat

by Alice Ward

  I stopped fighting immediately as fear turned my blood to ice.

  This was my fault, I knew.

  We were in this position because of my temper and recklessness. We were in danger.

  Because of me.

  Taking a deep breath to calm myself, I tried to take everything in. Three men had arrived in a large, beat-up pickup, and from all the camo they had on, it looked like they were preparing for war. Tension hung in the air, thicker than the humidity pressing down on us. One of the men was speaking loudly and authoritatively in what must have been Malay, gesturing toward our truck.

  Wyatt said very slowly, enunciating each word, “We’re Americans. Help is on the way. It should be here at any moment.” He looked at them like he wanted to murder them. I’d never seen him look that way. Fire mixed with fear.

  I nodded, as if it would help our case. I just wanted to get back inside of the truck.

  The man with the pistol was stout and wore a tactical vest and a black bandanna wrapped around his bald head. He studied Wyatt as if trying to comprehend. Then his dark eyes shifted to me. He backed away from Wyatt and pointed to his own truck. “Get in. We take.”

  Slowly, Wyatt rose to his feet, his hands in the air. “Tidak. No. No need. We have a tow on the way. But I can pay you for your generosity. Big pay. As thank you. Many ringgit. Many.”

  Gun still trained on Wyatt, the man just opened the rear door of the truck. “No. You come.”

  Wyatt shook his head emphatically. “No—”

  It happened so fast, the bald man tossed the gun to one of the men beside me, who caught it easily and turned the black barrel on me. I didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Didn’t blink. I was frozen to the spot, unable to believe what was actually happening.

  The man at the truck reached inside and pulled out a long assault rifle. He looked at Wyatt again, his face a blank mask. “I insist,” the man said more slowly now, motioning with his gun for us to move toward the truck. “You come. Now.”

  Oh, god. We’d walked right into a war zone. Or worse.

  This wasn’t happening.

  This couldn’t be happening.

  As the man beside me pushed me in the direction of the truck, Wyatt met my eyes, giving me an it’ll be okay smile, but I knew our situation was anything but. “All right. All right.”

  “Wyatt,” I whimpered, my knees almost giving out when I was beside him. My mouth went dry as terror replaced all my bodily fluids. We weren’t actually going to go with them, were we? “What do we do now?”

  “We don’t panic,” he said, but I noticed the faintest tremor in his voice as he stopped at the back of the vehicle and held out his hand to me.

  “We should run,” I hissed, nearly tripping in the mud, “it could be our only—”

  “No.” He grabbed on to my wrist. “We don’t run. They’ll shoot us. We do what they say. Got it?”

  He was right. Running would be the impulsive thing. Being impulsive seemed to always get me in trouble. Now, as much as I didn’t want to, I had to listen to Wyatt. Doing my own thing wouldn’t just get me fired or screwed. This was big-time. It could get me killed.

  “But… who are they? What do they want?”

  His voice was tense, and he was breathing hard, his bare chest rising and falling. “I don’t—” he began, but the men were now shouting at us in Malay. I wasn’t sure what they were saying. I started to climb into the truck but was pulled back to the mud. I didn’t understand and almost screamed at them to explain. I didn’t know what to do.

  “I’ll offer them money,” Wyatt said as the men manhandled me into what I soon understood was a frisking position. “That’s what most of these guys want, anyway.”

  Right. Money. It wasn’t much of a plan, but at least it was a plan, which was more than the half-formed, desperate thoughts that my mind had been spitting out. Run. Get away. Lunge for the gun.

  I’d probably be dead by now if I’d given into those thoughts.

  I swallowed hard even though my throat was dry. I had a feeling that if we got in the truck with those men, it was all over. We’d never see the light of day again.

  Beside me, the men slammed Wyatt into the truck, and I screamed as the pistol was jammed against the back of his head. The men laughed at my terror, but then I understood what they were doing. Frisking, searching for weapons or valuables. Both, probably. When they were done, they pulled his hands down and used three zip ties to tie them behind his back.

  I watched all this in horror, shaking the whole time.

  Then, the men turned their attention to me. One of the men came up close to me, so close that I could feel the heat of his body. He turned me around until I faced him. It was the first man, the broad smile still there, surging my terror up another notch.

  Only a few inches taller than me, he was dirty and smelled sour, his chin covered with dark, uneven stubble. His cold, dark eyes searched my face.

  Without warning, he reached up, ripping the hood from my head. He gazed above me, then reached up and tore the tie out of my hair, causing my scalp to scream in complaint to the rough handling. Shaking, I let out a loud gasp as my hair spilled onto my shoulders. Smile still in place, he put both hands on the arms of my glasses, and lifted them from my face. He muttered something that sounded like chikaro but I wasn’t sure.

  Behind him, one of the men laughed. My fear was funny to them.

  The other man whirled me around, forcing me against the side of the truck. I leaned my palms against it, and one roughly took hold of my ankle, thrusting my legs apart. Then, there were hands all over me, reaching between my thighs, up under my jacket, skirting my sides. I whimpered when his fingers brushed up my skirt to my panties.

  “Stop!” I heard Wyatt shout but all three laughed again, their hands slowly playing over my body.

  After several long minutes, they finished the inspection and started to bind my hands behind my back, so tight it ripped into the skin of my wrists. But they hadn’t hurt me, hadn’t raped me. That was good, I reminded myself, refusing to listen to the little voice in my head that said… yet.

  My teeth were chattering so hard that I was surprised they didn’t crack as the men talked among themselves. I had expected them to toss us into the back of the truck, but instead, they led us to the passenger doors. Wyatt climbed into the back seat while the lead man motioned me into the front, and I ended up wedged in the between the driver, a man with a gap of at least four missing teeth in the front of his mouth, and the leader, with his gun rested on his lap, pointed at me.

  The stick shift was between my legs. My arms were pulled back unnaturally, caught between the backrest and my body, and they’d already begun to fall asleep. The air inside the cabin was tortuously hot and rancid with body odor. My stomach roiled. The bump on my forehead suddenly hurt. Without my glasses, everything was blurry. I felt dizzy, like I might pass out.

  The driver started up the truck and reached between my legs to shift, not making any apologies when he touched the inside of my thigh. His hand lingered there, and he only removed it when the car bumped down the road, and he needed to hold on to the steering wheel with both meaty fists.

  As the adrenaline drained and exhaustion set in, my head lolled, almost too heavy for me to hold up as I was jostled between the two men. I’d never been religious, but I closed my eyes and said a little prayer to whoever might be listening.

  “Listen,” Wyatt said from the back seat. His voice was more hard than desperate, and I admired his control. “I have money. If you take me to a bank, I can get you what you want.”

  The men didn’t respond, except the driver’s hand moved back to my thigh. My breath quickened. I pulled uselessly on my restraints until I swore I could hear the bones of my wrists popping. Sweat trickled down my ribcage.

  “Money. Ringgits,” Wyatt persisted.

  The man in the driver’s seat looked in the rearview mirror. “Ringgits?” He looked at the leader. “Ringgits.”

  The leader
turned around in his seat and looked at Wyatt. “You got?”

  “Yes. I’ve got them. In the bank,” Wyatt said. “Take me to the bank right now, and I’ll withdraw ten thousand if you’ll let us go.”

  One of the men in the back said something in Malay, to which the driver began to argue, spittle flying over his steering wheel. The leader waved his hand at them restlessly. “Tak, tak, tak,” he kept blaring right in my ear, over and over again.

  No. Hope popped in me like a balloon.

  We were flying over the rocky hills, not slowing for obstacles, barreling deep into the jungle. Somewhere, they’d veered onto an even narrower road, where the jungle was impossibly dark and dense. We might not have even been on plantation land anymore.

  Finally, the leader said to Wyatt, “More. Twenty.”

  Wyatt nodded. “Fine. Twenty.”

  “Thirty,” the man said, smiling.

  Wyatt hesitated. I knew what he was thinking. This was no-win. He’d agree, and the man would ask for forty. Maybe it wouldn’t end. “Now, come on—”

  “Your woman… very sweet,” he said, his eyes scraping over me. He lifted a lock of my hair, then raised a dirty finger and ran it over my cheek, grinning back at Wyatt. I tried hard not to flinch, not give them the pleasure of a response. But his next words turned me cold. “She priceless here.”

  For the first time, I could swear I heard the crack in the timbre of Wyatt’s voice. “One hundred, then. And that’s it. It ends here.”

  The leader dropped his finger from my face and tightened his grip on the gun. He looked out the window and muttered something. The men started to argue again around us, spitting and gesturing, but the man in the front passenger seat spoke over them, calmly quieting them down. One by one, they fell into silence.

  I wasn’t sure what happened, but as the silent minutes dragged by, one thing became clear.

  They’d turned Wyatt’s offer down.

  They weren’t going to let us go.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Wyatt

  Well, Ryan, I think I got my adventure.

  As I thought it to myself, I wondered if I’d ever be able to say it to my best friend’s face.

  For the thousandth time, I wished that I’d prepared for this trip the way I’d prepared for the Australian Outback adventure. I wished I’d better studied the culture of this country. I wished I’d researched the dangers of the jungle more thoroughly. I wished I’d learned how to say more than “Please,” “Thank you,” and “How much is this?” in Malay.

  Because as I sat in the back of that vehicle, feeling completely impotent, I had a feeling I’d fucked us both.

  Why had I even suggested this trip into the wilds I knew so little about? So I could impress her? Coax her into bed with me? Have a little roll in the hay so that I’d have something other than business to talk to Ryan about when I got home?

  Pretty much.

  How fucking disgraceful. I probably deserved to die for thinking with my dick. But Atlee? She was innocent.

  Hotheaded and impulsive, true. But that came from her passion and inner goodness. Her belief in the best of people. Her desire for a better world.

  Me? I was just a scumbag with lots of money in the bank.

  Atlee rode in the front seat of the truck, barely moving her head. If being lost in the jungle had frightened her to tears, she had to be nearly catatonic by now.

  And behind her, a mere arm’s length away… I could do nothing to comfort her.

  I wondered if she had any idea of what was waiting for her when this car stopped.

  I wondered if she expected me to save her and if she knew I was out of ideas.

  I wondered if she was thinking what I was thinking about these men. I’d read about it, of course, but had never anticipated running across it. But I knew that human traffickers existed all over the world, and often, the victims were never found again.

  If that was the case, what could I do? They’d already turned down my offer of money. I got the feeling that these men were only agents for another man, and that the head honcho would need to make the decision. My only chance was that their leader was more willing to bargain.

  “Atlee,” I murmured to her quietly as the sun began to set. The man beside me had begun to doze off. “You okay?”

  She didn’t answer. Either she didn’t hear, or she was too scared to answer. Behind her, I could see her jaw moving, forming words. She might have been praying to herself.

  “Atlee,” I said again. “I’m here. Okay? I’m not going to—”

  “Diam!” the man next to me snapped, jabbing me with the butt of his gun. He continued to go off in Malay about something, which made the rest of the words die in my throat.

  What I’d planned to say was a lie, anyway. I didn’t know if I could possibly protect her now. But I thought it would give her something to hold on to.

  We drove for another hour, passing more and more jungle interspersed with small, darkened villages. This wasn’t in the direction of our home base. We were heading west. Gone were the hopes of ever getting back to our resort in Shah Alam at a reasonable hour. Now, I just wanted to get us back there, anyhow we could manage it. As wired up as I was, the exhaustion hit me hard, my eyes drooping closed until the truck abruptly came to a stop. Bright spotlights shone into my eyes, casting everything else in darkness.

  When men shoved their guns in my ribs, I stumbled out of the car and onto the road, into that circle of light, and the first thing I noticed was how much cooler it was. Still hot, but there was a breeze. Then I heard something that brought back memories of when I was a kid, and my parents had owned a house in Stone Harbor, New Jersey. Waves. I inhaled sharply and smelled it.

  The ocean.

  Atlee landed on the ground next to me. Her face was pale as the moon, eyes wide, blinking furiously, pupils darting about. Somehow, she’d lost her glasses. She looked even younger like that, weaker. She probably couldn’t see.

  I bent to somehow pick her up, but I was pushed forward while one of the other men hauled her to her feet.

  Around us was utter blackness. I squinted away from the bright light and saw the lights of a small speedboat in the distance, at the end of a long, deserted pier. Beyond that, nothing but inky black.

  The men pushed us toward it with their guns. Atlee pitched forward, while I followed behind, and when we reached the edge of the pier, they tipped us in. Atlee toppled over with nothing to break her fall, landing on the boat’s fiberglass floor with a thud. When they shoved me, I did my best to land away from her, desperate not to crush her beneath my falling weight. Kicking away from the wall, I was able to fly over her, wrenching my shoulder badly when I landed on the hard surface.

  We lay in a tangled heap, unable to move as the men boarded the boat and started the motor. I rolled onto my back to find Atlee lying on her stomach, her face pressed into the floor, eyes closed. She was bleeding from some unseen cut near her hairline.

  “Hey,” I whispered to her over the hum of the engine. “Atlee.”

  The boat started to move, picking up speed. I wanted to grab for her, to help her to sit up, but my hands were still tied behind my back. I raised my head and managed to see the men at the controls. Two were in the front, but one of them was sitting behind them, facing me, his gun at the ready.

  As if things couldn’t possibly get more miserable, they did. When the boat picked up speed and started cutting over the waves, we went up and down, cool seawater spraying everywhere. The motion was even more jarring than that of the truck.

  Shivering, Atlee rolled to her side, using her elbow and upper arm to push herself up to sitting. She had a cut on her forehead, on the other side of the goose egg. Nothing life-threatening, but it was bleeding enough that it probably needed attention, maybe stitches.

  I looked at the guy who was watching us. He was young, possibly still a teenager, with an acne-pitted face and goatee. He wore a sleeveless t-shirt, cargo shorts, and flip-flops, and looked almost
American, except for the gun on his knees and the cautious expression. Of all the men, I thought he might be the most sympathetic.

  “Hey, can she get something for her head?” I called over the growl of the motor. When he gave me a blank look, I nodded toward it. “Her head? She’s bleeding.”

  He looked at her without much interest and then turned to look at the nothingness on the sea surrounding us.

  I did, too, one step closer to giving up. We might as well have been careening into outer space for how dark it was. The only light was a dim blue one from the inside of the boat. I had no idea where they were taking us.

  Just then, the speedboat rocked up and over another wave, sending Atlee reeling back against one of the hard fiberglass seats.

  She cried out. “Wyatt,” she said in a voice that was achingly fragile.

  “Yeah. I’m here.” Since I couldn’t reach for her, I shuffled closer, until I was right beside her, then managed to twist and turn us until she was between my legs, and I could give her some bit of support.

  “I’m going to be…” She leaned over and started to retch to the side of us.

  She had nothing in her stomach, so it was just bile. I leaned forward to press my lips to her shoulder. “Lean back on me. It’s all right. We’ll be there soon.”

  She looked at me, bile and seawater glistening on her face. Her eyes were tired, empty. I read the hopelessness in her expression. Wherever we were going, it wasn’t all right.

  And there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop it.

  A moment later, the driver cut the engine, and the boat drifted in to a dock. The young man tied the boat, and the others reached for us. They yanked us down a long pier and onto a sandy beach. Beyond the palm trees, a structure rose up against the dark sky. It was an enormous pale mansion, its windows lit up like Christmas.

  I had no fucking idea what we were in for. But whatever it was, I was determined not to leave her alone.

  We were led across a torch-lit courtyard, framed in palms, where two more men stood watch with their own guns outside an arched door. Over the door was some writing in looping Arabic.