by Alice Reeds
I blasted through a wall of branches and leaves—
Then practically stumbled out onto the beach, my feet slipping in the sand despite my best efforts not to lose my balance. Looking around, I tried to orientate myself, see if I was in the right spot, or if our half of the plane was anywhere close to me.
There, not too far off in the distance I spotted the plane and Miles still sitting on the steps like he had been when I left. The beast was nowhere to be seen, though that didn’t mean it wasn’t close.
Miles looked up and spotted me running, my expression enough to force him up. I never thought I’d feel such relief at seeing him, a realization so strange I could barely comprehend it. In ten out of ten cases at school, just seeing him annoyed me, yet here I was racing toward him as quickly as the sand allowed, and as soon as I could, I threw my arms around him and pulled him into a hug.
I shocked myself with that gesture, coming seemingly out of nowhere. It was a miracle he even managed to remain standing, considering the sheer force with which I’d run into him. I tried to suck more air into my burning lungs, my heart beating hard enough that even he could probably feel it, my legs shaking with exhaustion. He was alive, unharmed. I wasn’t alone.
“What happened? You okay?” Miles’s voice sounded equal parts confusion, surprise, and concern.
Was I okay? I was the girl who two weeks ago had written “asshole” on his locker with red lipstick, yet now stood here hugging him in relief. My vote went to losing my mind.
I pulled away, waited for him to laugh or make some snide remark. But he didn’t. He looked genuinely concerned…and maybe something else. Something I couldn’t quite identify. My cheeks turned warm, stupidly blushing, and as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t blame it on the run. Honestly, what had I been thinking?
Oh right, now I remembered. I’d been thinking he was about to die.
“There’s a beast in the jungle,” I managed to say through a wheeze, still trying to catch my breath. “It came after me, but I hid and lost it somehow. But then it changed direction and went this way instead, after you. I thought. And now it’s…I don’t know.”
“So you do care about me, after all,” Miles said, that stupid smirk on his face.
“Don’t get your hopes up,” I said, trying to sound as unimpressed and indifferent as I wished I felt. Why didn’t I just let the thing make a snack out of him?
He raised his brow a tiny bit, and that said more than enough. I did care. And he knew. Damn him.
“Where is this ‘beast’ now?” he finally asked.
“I don’t know, but we have to hurry before it comes back.” My body screamed in protest at the mere prospect of running again. Luckily, I was used to pushing myself, exhaustion a close acquaintance of mine.
“Fiona.”
“What?”
He looked down at me. “You can’t be serious.”
“About what?”
“Come on.” He shook his head. “A beast?”
Of all the… “You don’t believe me.”
He held up his hands in mock defeat. “I believe you saw something. But are you sure it wasn’t a wild boar or something?”
“It wasn’t a boar. It was—”
A thunderous lion, bear, elephant hybrid-like roar ripped through the jungle, close but not right by us. We still had some time. Or at least I hoped we did. I whipped my head around, scanning the branches and shrubs, trying to look as far into the jungle as I could, which wasn’t nearly far enough for my liking. Time was ticking.
I looked back at Miles, who had gone pale again but wasn’t backing away. He attempted to walk on his own, but he was still swaying, a little less than before but still noticeably. If the beast came for us, running wouldn’t be an option.
“Put your arm over me,” I said.
“I’m flattered, really, and I don’t dislike the idea, but is now the right time for that?” Same snark, but now his voice contained an edge of worry.
“Miles, stop joking and think for a second. If that thing comes back for us, we need to be ready to run. And I’m not leaving you again—”
The beast roared again in the distance. Except the sound wasn’t as loud anymore. Definitely much farther away. Had it changed direction? Lost interest in us?
We stood perfectly still, listening, waiting. Afraid to move. Part of me expected the beast to just burst out of the jungle right in front of us, all teeth and claws—did it even have any? Thinking back…I didn’t know, didn’t want to know. But nothing happened. The only things I heard were my labored breathing and the ocean.
Relief washed over me like a waterfall, my muscles relaxing. I was okay; we were okay. No one hurt. No one killed. I closed my eyes and took a deep, shaky breath, and let myself sink down onto the sand.
“I guess it must’ve gone back to wherever it came from,” I finally said. The adrenaline rush was over. My eyelids felt like lead. Like I’d just finished a fight.
“Maybe you went through its territory,” Miles suggested. “We can go around it to get to the plane.”
I didn’t want to admit out loud that he was probably right. Maybe I’d been close to its nest or something.
My hair was stuck to my neck and the sides of my face, and I regretted not putting it into a ponytail before our flight. The sleeves of my flannel were a series of rips and slashes from branches. The skin on my arms was scratched, angry red welts that were just shallow enough not to bleed. My jeans were stained with mud and grass, and I wished I had worn something different today. Something thinner, better suited for this kind of heat, though I supposed the thick material had been the only thing keeping my legs from matching my arms. Fine. I guess when you’re stranded, you may as well look the part.
Finally, I picked myself up off of the ground. This felt like when I’d first started to train for competitions. My training had gotten harder overnight. I’d felt like giving up then. But I’d made it. One fight at a time. I couldn’t let this be any different.
Miles tapped my shoulder with something. A bottle of water. “Found it in some cupboard in the plane,” he said. “Got one for you, thought you could use it.”
“I…” After a second, I took the bottle. “Thank you.”
For a short while we just stood there, my breathing returning to normal along with my heartbeat. Going back into the jungle still wasn’t something I was particularly looking forward to, but what had to be done, had to be done.
Looking at the sky, I saw the sun was still high, past its zenith, so we had maybe a few hours left until sunset. I wondered what time it was, but with my phone dead, I had no way of knowing.
“Will you even be able to go?” Miles didn’t look as awfully pale as he did before, and he also wasn’t swaying anymore.
He shrugged. “That break while you were gone helped. No more dizziness or anything. I’m fine, no need to worry.”
“If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure,” he said.
“Then let’s go.”
Chapter Six
Berlin
“This can’t be the right place,” I said.
“Of course it’s the right place. It’s just…not there.”
“But…” The road to the building, the building that should be Briola Bio Tech’s state-of-the-art headquarters, was cracked. Old. Overgrown with weeds sprouting through the fractured concrete. “This doesn’t make sense. It has to be the wrong address. You must have made a mistake.”
“My father always says that,” Miles said quietly, a flash of something rushing across his eyes. A shadow gone so quickly I barely caught it.
I guess we have something in common.
“We need to think about what we should do next,” he said.
“What we need to do next is confront whoever brought us here.”
He held up his hands in mock defeat. “Okay, but how? There isn’t exactly a receptionist here to tell us who to talk to at Briola.”
I looked back at the building and then
at Miles. His right hand was tangled in his hair. He seemed confused and determined at the same time; his brows pulled together, and his eyes closed for the briefest of moments before he let out a sigh. Was he just acting or was his reaction genuine? I still wasn’t sure if I could trust him—or anyone.
“Let’s go around the block,” I suggested. “Maybe you were right, and it was just the wrong number. Maybe it’s…down the road or something.”
I prayed that was the case. But I had a piece of information he didn’t have. One that, if true, meant I had to question everything.
Trust no one.
Joe…what the hell is going on?
Most of the buildings along the road looked similar. Old, kind of run down. Some of them were still in use. Trucks stood next to the buildings while workers carried their loads into them. Two men stood near the gate of a factory and looked our way. I could only imagine how out of place we seemed. They seemed familiar, or at least the one with the buzz cut did. But I couldn’t remember from where.
We took a right at the next intersection and another right into the parallel road. My hands turned clammy. We walked and walked but found nothing at all. No sign of this being the place where we needed to be. No trace of the company that flew us in.
“Well, that was a waste of time,” Miles noted with a hint of frustration in his voice. We arrived back where we’d started.
A rush of fury overcame me. I walked up to the brick pillar at the left of the gate and gave it a nice kick, imagining it was whoever was behind this. The pillar shook from the force. My shoe, and my now aching foot, didn’t appreciate this treatment, though.
“Well, I know not to piss you off too much,” Miles said, sounding impressed. “Wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of a kick like that.”
I shook my head, amused. “Listen, I just thought of something,” I said. “I saw an internet café on our way here. We could go there and check the address for Briola on their website.”
“Good idea.”
Within fifteen or twenty minutes of walking, we found the internet café. It was a small shop squeezed between two bigger ones selling used computers and junk.
We walked inside, where we were met with the rather uninviting smell of old air, a hint of sweat, and tea. The man behind the counter reminded me of our first cab driver visually, similar skin tone and curly black hair. He greeted us with a smile that faded the second he noticed my blue hair and wary gaze.
“Zwei Colas,” Miles said.
At hearing Miles speak German, the man behind the counter relaxed, but he still looked us up and down as he retrieved two glass bottles of Coke. In moments like this I was grateful that Miles spoke German.
“Americans?” the man asked.
Miles nodded. “Students.”
“We’d like to use one of your computers,” I said.
“Of course,” the man said.
Miles gave him money for the drinks and then handed me one.
“Thank you,” I murmured, then we looked for a place to sit.
“What did you say? Was that an actual thank you?”
“You heard me.”
And Miles had the nerve to smile. “Yeah. I did.”
The computers looked like they’d seen better days. The monitors weren’t even flat-screens. The keyboards were dusty, and the keys were loud and sticky in a few places.
When I logged on, a timer started in the top right corner and displayed the total price.
I pulled up my email inbox while Miles dragged a chair over. The email from Briola should have their address and everything in it. After clicking on it, it took another minute for everything to load. The connection speed here must be set at turtle.
The email finally opened fully, and I scrolled down to the address.
“Bloody…”
“Since when are you British?” Miles said, amused.
“Stop joking for a second and look at this.” I pointed at the screen.
He leaned closer and then sucked in a sharp breath. The address we’d gone to was correct. A moment later, he gave me one of those “told you so” looks.
“Check their website,” Miles said, and leaned back in his chair.
I scrolled down until I found the link. A new window popped up and began to load. An information banner appeared.
The website you are trying to access isn’t currently in use.
The hairs on my neck stood up. It was impossible and crazy. It must have been some really mean prank or something, because it just couldn’t be real.
I jumped onto Google next. Maybe it could tell me where to find that stupid company. Google knew everything, didn’t it? But—
“Miles.”
“I see it.”
We both stared dumbfounded at the search results. Nothing. Even typing in Briola BIO TECH only brought up links to other bio tech companies. As far as Google was concerned, Briola didn’t exist.
Ludicrous. The website had existed. At least, it had before today. I’d literally looked at it with my father after they made me the offer. If it was going to take precious time away from my training, it had to meet his standards.
My father had talked to someone representing Briola over the phone a week or two ago to ask them about what they did, how this entire thing would go down, about the hotel, how much money we should bring along.
And what about the company itself? They’d offered this opportunity through our school. Hell, was my school in on this, too? Everyone?
Trust no one.
“I’m done with this bullshit,” Miles said, and stood up. “I’m calling my father.”
He walked to the counter and asked for a key to the phone booths. Making an international call that way was definitely cheaper than using a cell phone, though I didn’t understand why Miles, of all people, would care about the cost of anything.
Had he just wanted to be away from me? Or was he calling someone other than his father? Was he giving them a report on me?
I went back to the original email and inspected the address and link once more. Then I studied the email address itself. No obvious indication of it being fake. But of course, they wouldn’t make it obvious.
Except for bringing us all the way here and putting us in a hotel, only to let us then find an abandoned building instead of a bio tech facility, for their website to just disappear…
Yeah. Nothing obvious or suspicious about that at all.
Miles came back, cursing. “Of course his cell phone isn’t on. So typical,” he muttered as he sat back down in his chair, his arms crossed over his chest. “The idiot probably never plugged it back into the charger. Moron.” He seemed angry. Really angry. But there was something in his voice, in his eyes, that bordered on disappointment.
Lucky him. My dad wouldn’t disappear. Not even if I wanted him to.
Last year I heard a story of how Miles supposedly spent an hour with a freshman girl who was crying outside our school as she waited for her ride. Apparently, her father never showed up, so Miles offered to drive her home. The knight in shiny armor or whatever. Her father had simply forgotten to pick her up. He’d been in a very important business meeting, so of course had turned off his phone. Because a meeting like that is more important than your kid.
I’d always assumed the story was fake, the kind of rumor Miles probably started himself so everyone would think better of him. But now, going by his reaction? I wasn’t so sure.
Unless this was all part of an act.
I took the phone key from him and called my parents. Maybe they would be more helpful. The booth was pretty small and didn’t smell much better than the entire café itself.
After a couple beeps, our answering machine picked up, and my mother’s happy voice said, “Hello, this is the Wolf family. We are currently on a cruise through the Caribbean. If you leave a message and your number, we will call you back when we return. Thank you!”
A cruise?
My parents hadn’t gone on a vacation in years. V
acations were, according to my father, a waste of money and time. Besides, he had to be there to support me. My training.
But that wasn’t even the strangest thing about the message. No. What was far more astonishing was my parents, who were usually so private and careful, recording that message in the first place, letting anyone who’d call know that they weren’t home. It was the perfect way to just have someone break into our house, like an invitation between the lines or whatever. They’d never do something stupid like that. So why did they?
“No luck?” Miles asked upon my return.
“They said they’re on a cruise,” I said, sounding dazed.
“Yours are MIA, too? I guess that could be a coincidence…maybe.”
We both turned silent. The situation was insane and impossible, yet it was real. We were sitting here, thousands of miles away from home, in a foreign county and continent, all on our own. There was no one around to help us.
“Shit,” I said quietly, over and over.
“We should go back to the hotel and think this through, look at our options,” Miles suggested. “And we need to get as much cash off of our cards as we can. In case they get blocked for whatever reasons.”
I hadn’t even thought of that. “You really think that will happen?”
“At this point?” he said. “I think anything can happen.”
…
The hotel room looked the same way we’d left it, with our luggage and travel clothes lying around. The cart holding our breakfast was gone, though. I took off my jacket, which joined the rest of my clothes on the sofa, and then flopped onto the bed.
A moment later, Miles joined me with his laptop. A brand-new MacBook Pro, of course. I moved farther onto the bed and sat opposite to him.
“Okay, what we know is that supposedly, this pharmaceutical company, Briola Bio Tech, booked us a privet jet from the U.S. to Germany. They gave us their address and website link. Until today, that all seemed fine.”
“Right,” I said. “I checked their website a couple of minutes before I drove to the airport. It was there. Which means it disappeared over the last twenty-four hours.”