Full Throttle

by Julie Ann Walker

  Carlos chuckled, using his fingernail to split the skin on another rambutan, revealing the glistening white meat inside. “Sort of gives credence to that whole twig and berries euphemism, eh?”

  Abby glanced down at the two fuzzy balls in her palm and realized they did sort of resemble a man’s testicles. Except for the green hairs, of course. Maybe the Hulk’s testicles? But those would be bigger, right? She frowned and shook her head, wondering at her own sanity that she should be sitting here in the middle of the jungle contemplating the size of the Hulk’s balls. Then again, the heat was known to do strange things to people. “But what they lack in visual appeal on the outside,” she told the men, pushing away all notions of irradiated superheroes and their nether bits, “they more than make up for with sweet deliciousness on the inside.”

  Yonus and Carlos exchanged a look.

  “Oh, for the love of—” she harrumphed. “Why is the male brain always in the gutter?”

  Yonus’s grin widened, his face splitting around a mouthful of gleaming teeth. “Brain in the gutter.” He pronounced the words very precisely in that strange English/Malay/Orang Asli accent of his. “I like that phrase very well, indeed. It is very illustrative, yes?”

  Abby rolled her eyes at him before turning to smile at the little girl, no more than four or five years old, who lifted a lock of blond hair from her shoulder. Since their arrival in the village, Abby had been the center of attention. The adults, more hesitant, had remained some distance away, simply standing and staring. But the children had been circling her, occasionally touching her, and keeping up a constant stream of excited chatter.

  “They have never seen green eyes or yellow hair before,” Yonus told her. “Having you here is like having a unicorn in the village.”

  “Oooh.” She grinned. “I like that. A unicorn, huh?”

  “So what am I?” Carlos feigned a frown. “Chump change?”

  Yonus laughed. “I do not know this phrase. Chump change. But I can gather its meaning.” He tilted his head as if to study Carlos. “And I would say you are not exactly chump change, but neither are you exactly a unicorn. Black hair and black eyes they have seen plenty.”

  “Hmph,” Carlos grunted, popping the white ball of fruit into his mouth.

  “So tell me, my new friends,” Yonus said, “how it is you came to be so lost in the jungle?”

  And, just like that, all the sweet simplicity of the moment was shattered. The nearby stream no longer babbled quite so happily. The children’s laughter didn’t seem quite so gay. And the rays of the hot sun beaming down on them didn’t feel quite so benevolent. With that one simple question, Abby was reminded that out there, somewhere, a group of terrorists stalked her. It was time for her and Carlos to be on their way.

  “We were riding our motorcycle to Thailand when we ran out of gas,” Carlos was quick to explain. “We had decided to get off the highway and onto an old logging trail, not realizing there would be no villages or towns around where we could fill our tank. We would’ve called for help, but…” He lifted his iPhone from his hip pocket, punching the button and showing Yonus the screen with the glowing empty battery symbol and the little Harry Potter-esque lightning bolt. Then he shrugged and feigned a sheepish grin. “I guess we weren’t all that prepared when we left our hotel this morning.”

  Wow. And will you look at that? The man obviously missed his calling. With that gorgeous face and those acting chops, he should’ve graced the silver screen.

  Yonus pursed his lips, glancing at the weapon strapped to Carlos’s thigh, then over at Abby. “You look familiar to me. Why is that?”

  Well, hmm, perhaps because she was the youngest daughter of the president of the frickin’ United States. Although, in accordance with her father’s wishes and her own, she had remained mostly out of the limelight, only allowing the press to film or photograph her on the very rarest of occasions. Still, her face did get the occasional airplay.

  Having no idea what she was going to say, but deciding that taking a page from Carlos’s book and winging it was better, and far less suspicious, than sitting there like a mute, she cleared her throat. “I suppose I have one of those faces, you know? All-American. You’ve probably seen a hundred girls who look just like me on Coca-Cola commercials.” And, huh. That didn’t sound half bad, did it? Booyah!

  Her celebration didn’t last long when Yonus’s frowned deepened. Okay, maybe not such a slam dunk after all. She opened her mouth to elaborate, but Yonus beat her to the punch by shrugging and waving a hand through the air. She suspected he wasn’t really buying their explanations, but neither did it look like he was going to press them further. She wondered if he assumed they were part of the heroin trade that was so lucrative in this part of the world and, as such, had decided it was better not to ask too many more questions. Considering drug offenses were punishable by death, the locals tended to avoid the illegal enterprise at all costs.

  And on that note, she started to thank him for the hospitality and to tell him they were going to continue on their journey when the little girl tugged on her hair again, leaning in to jabber something in her ear. She glanced at the wild-haired cherub, then frowned when she noticed the girl rubbing her eyes. Upon closer inspection, the thin layer of fluid coating the conjunctiva surfaces looked milky.

  “What’s wrong with her eyes?” she asked.

  Yonus glanced at the little girl, making a face of regret. “It is an illness that runs in her family,” he explained. “In the elderly, like her grandmother, it sometimes causes blindness.”

  Abby may not have finished her premed degree, but she didn’t for one minute think this was some sort of genetic mutation. “Carlos,” she said, turning to him, “will you look at her eyes?”

  Carlos dropped a bunch of rambutans, dusted off his hands, and slid her a speaking glance. It said, it’s time for us to get the hell out of here.

  Her expression and the subtle little tilt of her head toward the girl replied, well, duh, but first…the girl.

  He sighed and turned to crook a finger at the child. The scamp immediately grabbed Abby’s arm in a death grip, adamantly shaking her head. Abby couldn’t really blame the little girl for her fear. Carlos pretty much looked the part he played. Big, mean, and threatening. Especially with those black tattoos running along the insides of his forearms and peeking from the back collar of his tank top.

  Taking the sweet bit of adorableness onto her lap, she nodded and leaned over to pat Carlos’s muscular shoulder, showing the girl without using words, see, he’s a super nice guy. “Will you explain to her that Carlos is a doctor?” she asked Yonus.

  “Are you?” Yonus turned to Carlos, his surprise evident both in his tone and his face.

  “Sí. In a manner of speaking,” Carlos admitted, leaning toward the girl who was wriggling on Abby’s lap. The minute he got close, the little cherub went as still as the large gray stones the villagers had used to line the stream’s edge.

  Yonus uttered a string of incomprehensible syllables to the little girl, and Abby twisted to the side to see if she understood what Yonus was telling her. Those big, black eyes blinked a couple of times before that cute chin tilted up and down in a jerky nod.

  Carefully, gently, Carlos pressed her eyelids wide. Abby could feel the girl stop breathing, every muscle in her tiny body quivering like a jungle leaf during the height of monsoon season.

  “Quickly, Carlos,” she whispered. “She’s about to bolt.”

  “Just a second more.”

  “And it would probably help matters if you weren’t wearing a frown that says you munch on little girls for an afternoon snack.”

  He looked at her, pulling a face, so she flattened her expression. One corner of his mouth twitched. This time he smiled at the girl before bending close to peer into her eyes.

  Slowly, hesitantly, the girl raised her arm and pressed a timid finger into his dimple, proving the damned thing was irresistible to anything with ovaries. She squirmed and giggled
with delight when Carlos winked at her before quickly turning his head to kiss the tip of her little digit.

  Right on, sister, Abby thought, I know just how you feel.

  “Bacterial infection,” he murmured, sitting back. “Not river blindness.”

  She waited for him to go on, but it quickly became apparent he had no intention to.

  “Carlos,” she admonished him, “would you care to elaborate?”

  He grumbled something under his breath.

  She raised an eyebrow.

  He pursed his lips.

  She lifted her remaining eyebrow.

  Sighing, he said in a harried rush, “I don’t see the telltale nodules on her upper lids. And considering it runs in her family and isn’t present throughout the entire village, I’d say it’s spread through repeated contact with infected persons and their belongings, or perhaps it is some sort of genetic predisposition to that specific type of infection. But it is definitely not caused by the bite of the black fly, which is how river blindness is contracted. Besides, river blindness is rare in this part of the world.”

  “See,” she chided him. “Now was that so hard?”

  “Not hard,” he insisted. “And not necessary. I’d already summed it up with five words. Bacterial infection. Not river blindness.”

  “You’re impossible,” she told him, unable to contain her affectionate smile.

  “Sí,” he admitted, giving her a wink. “Which is one of the many reasons you love me.”

  Everything inside Abby went perfectly still. Luckily, Carlos didn’t notice the effect that one simple phrase had on her because he turned to Yonus. “Can I see someone else in her family who has it?”

  Yonus nodded and called something over his shoulder to the group of adults standing beside the thick bamboo stilts supporting the village’s central structure. When he turned back to them, his expression was contemplative. Obviously, he was having a difficult time figuring them out. Possible drug runners who also practiced medicine?

  Offering Yonus what she hoped was an innocent smile, she turned her attention to the group of adults, watching as heads swiveled toward a woman in an orange and pink printed dress that resembled some sort of elaborate sarong. With hesitant steps and pie-plate eyes, the woman slowly emerged from the center of the group. The first thing Abby noticed about her, besides the lovely tilt to her dark eyebrows, was that she had a beautiful orchid in her charming riot of frizzy black hair. An Arundina graminifolia by the looks of it. And Abby should know. She’d been trying to breed one with exactly those deep, rich colors for nearly two years now.

  Just goes to show, Mother Nature is a better horticulturist than me. Not that she’d ever imagined otherwise.

  The woman dragged her feet, making the journey over to them in record-breaking time. Seriously, Abby was considering submitting her name to Guinness under the category of Slowest Snail-like Pace Ever! But eventually she completed the journey, smiling hesitantly when Carlos stood from the stool.

  “Will you ask her if it’s okay for me to touch her face?” Carlos asked Yonus.

  Yonus translated Carlos’s request. The woman nodded shyly, causing the petals on that glorious orchid to quiver. Abby watched Carlos hold the woman’s top lids wide and couldn’t help but admire the gentle way he tilted her face toward the beam of yellow sun slicing through the gathering clouds overhead. Rain was coming. Abby could smell it in the air, feel it in the uptick of the sticky, oppressive heat.

  “Definitely bacterial.” He clasped his hands together, nodding his thanks to the woman for allowing him to examine her.

  Orchid Lady repeated the gesture before turning, lifting her skirts, and running back to the group of adults. Now she hurries? “She needs antibiotic eye drops,” Abby told Yonus, bouncing the little girl on her knee until she giggled. “They both do. The whole family probably does.”

  Yonus was already shaking his head. “They will not venture into town to visit a doctor. And even if they would, I doubt they would willingly put something that comes out of a plastic bottle into their eyes. They distrust things that are not natural to the jungle.”

  Natural to the jungle…

  And just like that, inspiration struck Abby. “Okay, so say I could show them a plant that if they pound the leaves into a poultice and put it over their eyes while they sleep at night, it could cure them of this infection? It will take longer than the eye drops, of course. Perhaps a few weeks to a few months depending on how bad their case is. But, if used consistently, I’d say it has a pretty good chance of keeping them from going blind.”

  “What’re you talking about, Abby?” Carlos asked, his black brows pulled low. The little girl took one look at his scowling face and made a squeaking sound like she’d spotted the boogeyman. She hopped from Abby’s lap to run over to the group of children who’d grown bored with Abby’s appearance and were now playing some sort of game down by the stream.

  I guess even unicorns lose their luster after a while…

  “I saw a patch of Sida rhombifolia somewhere back there in the jungle.” She hooked a thumb over her shoulder. When Carlos continued to frown at her, she shook her head, reminding herself that even though he was schooled in medicine, he wasn’t aware of the names of the plants that provided the extracts for so many of today’s modern cures. “It’s sometimes referred to as Queensland hemp or Indian hemp, though it’s not really in the hemp family at all.”

  “Is there a point to this lesson in botany?” he asked.

  This is the part where, had he been sitting beside her, she would lean over and smack him on the shoulder, telling him to stop it. Then he would take a swipe at her and say, no, you stop it. Which would then have them grinning at each other.

  “Yes, there’s a point to it,” she told him, making a face. “Sida rhombifolia has incredibly high antimicrobial and antibacterial properties. It can be used to treat any number of infections including, I would suspect, whatever type of infection that little girl and her family are suffering from.”

  Carlos glanced toward the jungle, a muscle ticking in the hard line of his jaw. Yep, she knew the smart thing to do would be to immediately resume their journey north. But she couldn’t stand the thought of that sweet little girl losing her eyesight when the solution was so easy and growing right in her own backyard.

  “Pardon me,” Yonus said. “But could you tell me what plant you are speaking of?”

  Eagerly, Abby turned to the young man. “Its leaves almost look like that of the mint plant, but it has these little yellow flowers. It grows to about this high,” she held her hand up to her chin.

  Yonus nodded, relaying her description to the group of adults. A flurry of discussion commenced within the crowd, then Mamat stepped forward, bowing.

  “Mamat says he knows of which plant you speak,” Yonus told her.

  Yep, this was a headline she liked much better: PRESIDENT’S DAUGHTER CURES MALAYSIAN VILLAGE OF BLINDNESS! And how wonderful would it be if something good were to come from her abduction? Something worthy of the sacrifices and risks Carlos had taken on her behalf? She needed, more than she was willing to admit, one thing, anything, that she could look back on and be proud of.

  “Right on!” She jumped from the stool, clapping her hands and stepping forward to slug Carlos on the arm. “How awesome is this? We’re like…frickin’ Doctors Without Borders here!”

  He nodded, his expression that of a man resigned to forgo the start of their journey. The soldier in him needed to make that Thai border with all haste. But the doctor in him couldn’t leave that little girl and her family behind to suffer when there was something they could do to help. “Have I ever told you how much you amaze me, neña? How proud I am of the woman you’ve become?” His deep voice reminded her of the rhythmic purr of a big jungle cat.

  “Oh, stop it,” she told him, dramatically fluttering her eyes and simpering. “My poor, swollen ego can only take so much.”

  He chuckled and caught her chin between his thumb
and forefinger, giving her head an affectionate shake. The key word here was affectionate.

  Damnit! It was obvious now that Carlos liked her. That he trusted her. And the good Lord knew he shouldn’t.

  The smile she bestowed on him was sunny. But inside, that familiar dark pain reared its ugly head…

  Chapter Fourteen

  “I wanted to h-hate her,” Penni cried against Dan’s shoulder. She knew she was covering him in tears, and probably some snot, too—gross—but she couldn’t stop the grief that poured from her in torrential, soul-sucking waves. “I w-wanted to—”

  “I know, baby,” Dan crooned, hugging her tight. So tight she could barely breath. And yet, it still wasn’t tight enough. She wanted to crawl inside his big, strong body and hide. Hide from the pain and guilt that had been eating her alive since she saw what had been done to her friends. Hide from the fear that she would ultimately fail in her duty to see Abby safe and sound once again. Hide from the awful truth of Irdina and Jaya and the desperate inequality that existed in this cruel world. Just hide, hide, hide!

  And it was so despicably cowardly of her. She was disgusted with herself, disgusted with her weakness. This was not the woman her father had raised, this woman who was having an emotional meltdown of Sicilian proportions. And if he could see her now, he’d be appalled. She was appalled. But the tears…

  The tears wouldn’t stop. Because there was too much shit, and she hadn’t come equipped with enough shovels.

  “I know,” Dan soothed again, running a hand over her ponytail to cup the back of her neck. His palm was warm and rough. And it served to remind her of why she was the only one of Abby’s security detail left alive. It served to remind her of where she’d been and what she’d been doing when her whole world was torn apart. “It’s okay to cry. It’s okay to grieve.”

  She pushed back from him, wiping a hand under her nose. “No.” She shook her head. “It’s not okay to cry. Not yet. There’s still so much left to do, and I have to keep—”

  She gasped when he lifted his hands to firmly grasp her head. Lowering his chin until he was looking out at her from under the heavy ridge of his scowling blond eyebrows, he gave her a little shake. “Stop it, Penni,” he commanded. “You stop it right now. In the last few hours you’ve been braver, stronger, than anyone I’ve ever known. So for chrissakes, it’s okay to just take a minute here. Besides, hasn’t anyone ever told you that control is just an illusion?”