Last Hope

by Jessica Clare

  “Get a malaria shot before you came down to Lima?” One of the biggest dangers came from the mosquito bites.

  “No, but Rose did a shoot in Tahiti a couple of months ago and I went with her. We got a number of shots then.”

  “Here’s our plan. We need to find long-sleeve shirts and pants. That’ll help protect us from the bites. If we can’t find that, we’re going to cover our exposed parts in mud. The dried mud will protect us from bites. We also need a large tarp or poncho that we can use as our shelter.”

  “But if we find your pack, then everything will be okay, right?” She sounds so hopeful I don’t have the heart to tell her that the bag doesn’t have anything bigger than a paring knife disguised in the lining of a water bottle, which is fine for making fishing poles from bamboo but not great for fending off the predators of the jungle. The faint amount of sunlight that is breaking through the trees indicates it’s probably midafternoon. We have only a few hours before dusk sets in, and we need to be somewhere safe before then.

  “Right. Let’s go.” I pull off my belt and withdraw the knife hidden inside the buckle and attach it to the end of the leather. Handing the bottle to Ava to hold, I wrap the belt around my free hand. After I have the weapons secured, I pluck the bottle out of her hands and chuck it into the dense foliage to the south.

  “What are you doing?” she cries. “That was our only bottle of water.”

  “I’m trying to flush out any animals like sleeping snakes and other bugs. There are about two hundred things in the jungle that can kill you, and most of them you can’t see until you’re on top of them.”

  “What if we don’t find your bag?” Her tone is a little quavery.

  “Then we use what we do have.” I grab her hand and tuck it into the waistband of my pants. “Hang on. Step where I step and watch out for anything that moves.”

  She plasters herself to my back and like the sick man that I am, I enjoy the hell out of it.

  We move forward and find nothing but the water bottle. After about thirty minutes of searching, I’m drenched with sweat from the heat and the humidity. Ava is panting lightly from the exertion. I mark a rubber tree with my knife. If I have to, we can use the latex the tree produces for protection but at this point, I don’t have anything to collect the liquid in other than the water bottle, and we’ll need that to store water.

  “What do you think will happen to Rose when I don’t make it to Pucallpa?” she asks as we cut through another tangle of vines and dense underbrush.

  “At some point the plane will be reported missing and a search team will be sent out. The plane’s black box has enough battery to release a signal for about thirty days. We’ll be out of this place by then.” I answer confidently, although my belief in our successful evacuation from the jungle is diminishing. There is absolutely no evidence of the crash—at least not south. “Duval needs you and the buy will take place later. Rose will be freed then.” This is all a lie. I have no fucking clue what will happen to Rose. Most likely they’ll rape and kill her but I’m not telling Ava that. She somehow believes that Rose is still alive. “Let’s go east and then north and see if we can’t make a wide circle of where we landed. There’s got to be something.”

  “Like what?” She sounds tired. “There were only a few people on the plane, so there can’t be much luggage or food.”

  “You found a few things, so that means there are more.”

  “Do you think anyone made it out alive?”

  “Not really. I think we were damn lucky to have survived the fall.” I decide not to tell her that I think Afonso might have killed the pilot and flight attendant before the plane went down. Maybe one of the passengers in the back of the plane survived. “The likelihood that anyone else did is low.” Except Afonso, who had a parachute that was half attached to him as well as the purse with the stolen goods and my Boy Scout pack. If he made it out alive, I’ll have the pleasure of killing him. That makes me pretty happy, and I forge forward.

  CHAPTER NINE

  AVA

  My head is whirling with information as we trek through the jungle.

  This Mendoza guy has been watching me.

  He says he’s only after the information Duval has for sale, but I think there might be more to things. After all, I know how men treat a woman when she doesn’t matter. When she’s less than nothing to them. That’s exactly how Fouquet treated me, and so did Afonso. Like I was an object with tits. I’ve caught Mendoza staring, but not in a bad way. Just in an interested, appreciative sort of way.

  He remembers that Fouquet struck me. His touches have been gentle. Considerate.

  He stares at me when he thinks I’m not looking.

  All of this makes me wonder how much of his story is surface and if I’m reading more into his behavior than I should. I’ve dated guys in the past, of course. I’m not dating anyone right now, but I know the signals. It’s obvious that Mendoza’s into me.

  Which is . . . not the worst. If he’s into me, he’ll keep me safe. I wouldn’t be the first woman in the world to trade attention to a man for safety. I’ve just got to take this one day at a time. Right now, I need to focus on getting out of the jungle alive. I can worry about Rose when I’m back in the city and the deal is back on. They can’t carry forward on the deal without Afonso and without me.

  At least, I hope they can’t.

  One thing at a time, Ava, I tell myself.

  Mendoza pauses and looks around the jungle thoughtfully.

  I brush a wet lock of hair off my forehead and peer at the ferns and trees myself. I don’t see anything other than more jungle. “Why are we stopping?”

  “I’m thinking.”

  “Okay. Well, what do we do now?” I’m not a camper in the slightest, so I’ll follow his lead. Right now I’m just grateful I have someone with me. I try not to think about what this would have been like if I was alone. If he wants to stop in the middle of nowhere, I trust him.

  He squints up at the sky with his one good eye. “I think we’ve got about an hour before we lose daylight. We should finish checking the area to make sure there’s no predators and set up camp.” He turns and points at a large tree nearby. “Maybe at the base of that tree there.”

  “Shelter is good,” I agree. I’m tired of wandering through the jungle. It’s hot, muggy, rains on us every hour, and bugs are crawling all over the place. I hate it. If this is what camping involves, I don’t want it. I will happily be a city girl for the rest of my days.

  He turns and looks back at me. “How are you?”

  I give him a thin smile. “I’m pretty miserable at the moment but I’m standing. How about you?”

  “Not nearly so miserable as you,” he says, and the man almost sounds cheerful. He takes the lead again, and we approach our chosen tree that will be the shelter for the evening.

  A closer inspection of it is disappointing. It’s . . . well, it’s a tree. I’m disappointed that it doesn’t have a ton of low-hanging branches or anything that looks shelter-like. The roots are enormous and widespread, and there’s a cradle-like spot between two on the far side that Mendoza points out. “We can get some leaves and make a blanket of some kind to cover the ground so we’re not rolling in the mud. Maybe we can cut a few more to make a canopy. And we need to find some dry wood for a fire.”

  I stare at him blankly. “Dry wood? It’s been raining constantly.”

  “I didn’t say that we would find it, just that we need it for a fire.” He gives me another crooked smile. “We might be without one tonight.”

  My heart sinks at the thought. “Let’s not think about that for now. Tell me what to do to get started.”

  We divide up chores. Since Mendoza has our only knife, he’s going to cut fronds and make our tiny shelter. I carry a lightweight stick as a club, and I have the water bottle with me. My job is to search the immediate area for wood, debris, and anything we might be able to use.

  I head off to work, making sure to keep the sound
of Mendoza’s whistling near as he cuts branches and palm fronds. I move slowly, tossing the water bottle into the brush each time to flush out anything. Whenever my bruised hand brushes a leaf, I get a throbbing pain.

  Occasionally I hear something slither away, but all I find is mud and bugs and leaves. As for firewood, I find a few sticks here and there, but everything is soaked. I keep my bad arm pressed against my chest and cradle the pitiful amount of wood against it there, along with my club. It might be firewood tonight if this keeps up.

  I’m nearing the edge of how far out I dare go; Mendoza is barely audible in the distance. The brush is thicker here, but there’s a break in the tree canopy overhead, which is a good sign. I toss my water bottle—and it thunks against something.

  I freeze in place, waiting for a pissed-off jaguar to come roaring out of the ferns. When nothing does, I step forward, my curiosity getting the better of me. A hint of navy blue appears, and then it becomes a square, boxy form of some kind that is out of place in the wild jungle. I see a brown loafer sticking into the air, and I stare at the entire thing for a moment before I realize that I’ve found one of the missing passengers, still strapped into his chair. He’s not facing me, but the portion of him I can see is entirely too short, which means a lot of him . . . compacted when it hit the ground. The bit of skin I can see between ankle and sock is swelling, bloated, and purple. As I watch, a fly lands on it.

  A strangled cry escapes my throat.

  Two seconds later, Mendoza is there, his hand on my shoulder. “Ava? What is it?”

  I turn and bury my face against his chest.

  I don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t want to process this. I know I’m being childish, but I don’t want to be strong right now. So I push my head against his neck and let him wrap his arms around me, stroking my back.

  Soothing me.

  I close my eyes and breathe deeply of Mendoza’s scent. He smells like sweat and mud and rain. It’s a good scent, though, and I take deep lungfuls of it.

  He makes a soft noise in his throat, comforting me, and his hand slides down my back again, even as rain starts to pour down once more. A normal guy would probably want to get out of the rain, or tease me for being a baby at finding a dead guy.

  Mendoza just holds me like there’s no place he’d rather be.

  And as I’m pressed against him, ignoring the throb in my bad arm, I feel something pressing against my lower belly that’s not a hand. Mendoza’s aroused at my wet body pushing against his. Okay, that’s probably my fault. I’m fine with that.

  But it reminds me just how freaking big his equipment is. It’s not something I should be noticing in a life-or-death situation. It’s not. But when a guy’s got something like a Maglite stuffed down his pants?

  You sort of freaking notice, no matter the situation.

  Actually, Maglite might not be big enough. More like wine bottle. Jesus.

  A guy with an inappropriate boner? It happens. I can get past it. A guy with an inappropriate boner that’s bigger than any log I’ve been able to find in the rainforest? A lot less okay. Actually a little frightening.

  Mendoza trails his hand down my back again. “You all right, Ava?”

  I must be tensing up. I pull away. “Yeah, I’m good. It . . . just startled me.” And I’m not talking about the dead body.

  “Is it the pilot?”

  I make a choked sound, focusing on the dead body again. “The pilot? Um, I didn’t check.”

  He pats my shoulder and releases me. “I’ll check. Don’t look.”

  As he moves away, I busy myself with picking up the wood I discarded as I pushed my body against his. My puffy wrist is sending a distress signal all the way up my arm, and it’s going to have to be looked at soon, but there’s time for that later. Right now fire—and okay, getting away from the dead guy—is a priority.

  “Pilot,” Mendoza says after a minute. “If it makes you feel better, he was dead before he hit the ground. Head’s cracked open. He probably lost consciousness and never woke up.”

  Strangely enough, that does make me feel a bit better. I swallow hard. “Does he have anything on him we can use?”

  “You want his jacket?”

  “Oh God. I really don’t.” Just the thought makes me nauseous again.

  “You might get cold tonight.”

  “Then we’ll just snuggle,” I say desperately. I really, really don’t want to take a jacket off a dead guy and wear it. That’s inviting all sorts of horrible karma, and I can’t even handle all the bad karma I’ve got already. “All right?”

  “All right,” he says in a curiously blank voice. “Give me a few minutes and I’m going to drag this away from camp so no predators come this direction. Why don’t you head back to the tree?”

  I nod and head back to our makeshift camp. It feels cowardly to run away, but I don’t care. I go to our nest in the trees and I’m not entirely surprised to see that Mendoza’s been super busy while I’ve been in the bushes, exploring the area. There’s a nest of leaves as a makeshift bed, and he’s started a lean-to that’s lashed with a few leaves and more vines. For a guy with one eye, he’s pretty handy. So what if the dick in his pants is bigger than the snakes in the jungle? I set the wood down on the leafy bed and work on the A-frame for a bit. I may be pretty helpless, but I know how to tie a knot or two, and I’m left handed, so that means I can just use my right arm as support.

  I work on this for a bit to take my mind off the dead guy . . . and the very-much-alive guy. By the time Mendoza comes back, twilight is arriving, I’ve slapped a hundred mosquitos off my skin, and the lean-to is mostly done. I had to guess at how things worked, but Mendoza gives me an impressed look when he returns. “Good job,” he says.

  “If I did it wrong, I’m sorry. I just—”

  “No, you did great, Ava. Really.” He moves to my side and pats my shoulder, then awkwardly removes his hand again. “I left the body on the riverbank. Figured some predator will get it by morning and won’t come this way looking for it.”

  “Okay.”

  He squats near my pathetic bundle of firewood and I flinch, expecting him to give me shit for not finding more. He picks one piece up, squeezes it, and then shakes his head. “Too wet for a fire tonight. If we cover it and keep it in a safe spot, maybe it’ll be dry by morning.”

  I swallow hard and slap at another mosquito. “Will we be okay?”

  “As long as no big predators come looking for us, yes.”

  “That’s not very comforting.”

  Mendoza turns to look at me and reaches into his shirt. “I’m not a fan of making promises I can’t keep.” He pulls out a pair of small bags and smiles. “I did find this, though.”

  Pretzels. “You found the drink cart?” My stomach growls hungrily, and I want to rip both bags out of his hand and scarf the contents down.

  “Part of it. There were a lot of smashed cans and these two bags. I’m hoping we can scout for a bit longer tomorrow and find the rest of it.”

  “No more water, though?” I’m really thirsty and the sips we’ve been taking from our bottle haven’t been doing it.

  He shakes his head. “We’ll refill it when it rains again with a leaf, just like we did earlier.” As we’d walked, he’d taken a big leaf from a tree and held it, making a funnel while the rain poured, and I held the bottle. It had provided us some water, but I felt as if I could drink an entire jug.

  “And no sign of your Boy Scout bag?” I ask.

  Another grim shake of his head. “Or Afonso. If that bastard got away . . .”

  “It won’t do him any good. If we can’t get out of here, he can’t either, right?”

  He rubs a hand over his wet hair, careful not to touch the bandages on his face. A rueful smile crosses his face. “Right.”

  Rain starts to spatter once more, and I want to scream when the first droplets hit my skin. It has rained off and on all day, and just when I start to get dry, it starts again. I’m not looking forwa
rd to sleeping wet in the dark jungle, and Mendoza just shakes his head and moves to the firewood, bundling leaves around it and tucking it against the tree trunk. He then moves the lean-to over one side of the trunk and gestures that I should join him. “We’ll have pretzels for dinner, unless you object.”

  “And here I was hoping we’d dine on bugs,” I say lightly, and step in.

  “That’s breakfast,” he teases back.

  It’s so ridiculous that I laugh, and he smiles at me in the twilight.

  We scarf down a bag of pretzels each, wash it down with a few mouthfuls of water, and then try to get comfortable. There’s not a lot of room in our tiny, half-assed shelter. Water still drips down, but it’s protecting us from some of the worst of the rainfall, so there’s that. Mendoza moves to the outside, and I realize he’s doing that so I can be in the most sheltered part of the lean-to, where the least rain will hit.

  That’s . . . sweet.

  “There’s room for both of us,” I tell him as a fat raindrop plops on his head, right where his bandage is. I gesture at the covering over his eye. “You need to keep that dry.”

  He shifts uncomfortably and doesn’t move toward me. “I’m fine.”

  I roll my eyes and lie down, scrunching my body against the interior. “Get in here. I don’t bite.” I know why he’s reluctant. It’s that monster in his pants that I’ve pointed out like some sort of blushing virgin. Hell, I don’t blame him for that. “Monster in his pants” might be putting it mildly. Too mildly.

  I’ve dated guys of all shapes and sizes. I’m no stranger to sex, and I’ve seen my share of ugly penises. Circumcised, low hanging balls, I’ve seen it all. However, I’ve never seen a dick that’s quite as big as Mendoza’s. He’s gone past the whole “lucky guy” category and straight into the “what the ever-loving fuck” category. The “don’t get that thing near me” category. The one that makes my legs tighten and want to clamp together at the thought. I haven’t seen him naked, but if what is outlined in his pants is legit, he’s abnormally huge. To think I mistook it for a weapon earlier is laughable.