Her heart beat faster as she recalled that her last memory was of Jackson placing a damp cloth over her nose and mouth. What was on that cloth? She’d seen enough movies to suspect chloroform.
Did chloroform make you feel this horrible when it wore off? As if her skull had been cracked open and her brains blended with cotton and bleach?
Jackson would know.
Why would he do this to her?
Was it Jackson?
All of her fears and memories were scrambled together, making no sense at all. Jackson would never hurt her, but Jackson had drugged her.
She couldn’t think straight. Her head hurt. Every inch of her body hurt. It was so dark. Were her eyes even open? She couldn’t tell. She wasn’t sure of anything anymore. She was so confused.
She thought she was lying on her side, so she tried to sit up, but bumped her head.
Another wall? A low ceiling? No, her exploring hands discovered, it was too low. She was in a coffin!
Maybe it was a lingering effect of the drugs, but for a moment she thought she could hear worms chewing on the wood, burrowing closer and closer to her flesh. Her skin began to crawl.
Bugs. Worms. Nasty things feeding upon the dead all around her. Leaving nothing behind but horrible grinning skeletons in their coffins.
She panicked, pressing her hands out in each direction once again, to measure the size of her dark prison. It was roughly as wide and tall as her body. Terrifyingly coffin shaped.
Although she’d never felt claustrophobic in small spaces, terror welled up to grip at her throat and choke off her breath.
Had she been buried alive? If so, she’d be running low on air, that could be why her head was now splitting. She might not have much time left.
Clawing through the wood wasn’t really an option. She didn’t have any tools. There was nothing in the box with her.
Even if she managed to break out of her wooden prison, there might be a tremendous amount of dirt between her and freedom.
She tried to concentrate through the pain.
If she screamed, she might use up the remaining air faster, but someone might hear her.
Of course, that was gambling on whether her murderer had buried her in a public cemetery. Which he wouldn’t have, because they were in the middle of the rainforest.
Where did people get buried around here? That hadn’t been on Remi’s tour.
She felt sick, she needed a doctor. She didn’t know what all she might have been dosed with, but she knew that something was terribly wrong.
Her throat was parched, so the moan which escaped her sounded like sand whispering through an hourglass, ticking down the seconds until she ran out of air.
Something bumped against her box and Jenn’s entire body bucked up and to the side, away from the impact.
What in the hell was that?
Her drug muddled brain conjured up demons from hell, eager to feast upon fresh prey. This couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be happening. It had to be a hangover from whatever drugs she’d been given.
Then the box was bumped again, and Jenn registered the hollow, wet sound which accompanied. She was also becoming aware of a strange undulation of the earth surrounding her coffin. A slow, rocking motion. As if…
Water! She was on water! She hadn’t been buried alive after all. As she focused and listened carefully, she thought she could hear waves against wood, but not the wood of her box. It sounded as if her box were floating on a raft or a boat.
She remembered the trip from the airport down to the resort. Remi had told her the only way to or from the resort, was via a boat. So, she was being moved somewhere, away from the resort.
Hopefully back to the airport and the villages near the civilized edge of the rainforest.
She had no idea what might be in the opposite direction, but she suspected it was just more rainforest.
Miles and miles and miles of rainforest. The sort of deep wilderness that adventurers occasionally ventured into, and occasionally vanished from, without a trace, just as Peter had warned.
Something clawed against the wood of her coffin, sounding too much like boney fingers attempting to get in. Perhaps one of those horrible, grinning skeletons.
Fear seemed to make the hallucinations, or whatever they were, worse. Sweat covered her trembling body, although she was wearing almost nothing and the air trapped inside her box was cool.
There was nothing for her to fight with, nothing but her bare hands.
The lid of her coffin was opening, revealing something hideous and black, silhouetted by the moon.
She tried to scream, but her throat was so dry, her voice was nothing more than a dusty rasp.
Rough hands seized her, but she fought back. She clawed at her attacker, feeling her nails rake through flesh.
So, this was not a skeleton, but not human.
It was too dark for her to see, even if her eyes had been able to focus, but the drugs filling her veins made it impossible.
Everything appeared dark and blurry. It looked as if there were two moons and six devils, then three devils and six moons.
Everything looked blurry and distorted.
The creature attempting to grab her appeared to have one glowing eye in the center of what should have been a face.
The creature was snarling at her, but she couldn’t understand the words. Its voice was garbled by a loud, liquid ringing in her ears.
Were her ears filled with water, or something thicker, like mud? She was going to be sick again. It felt as if the blood had turned to cold slush in her veins. Her stomach lurched.
She tried to focus on the glowing eye of the creature who held her, but the spinning image made her head hurt even more.
She tried to scream again as she felt something sharp stab through the flesh of her arm.
Had the creature bitten her? She struggled to determine what was real and what was a hallucination.
The stars and moon swirled above her, expanding then shrinking, expanding then shrinking. Then they shrunk a final time, and went black.
No. Her eyes were closed, but she couldn’t open them anymore.
Drugged. She’d been drugged again.
She fought against the tidal wave of new chemicals racing through her body, but she eventually lost the battle and slipped once more into unconsciousness.
CHAPTER 13
J ackson’s gaze sliced up from the map to look at the four men surrounding the table with him. They were natives from nearby villages, extremely familiar with the surrounding terrain.
The men were all armed with machetes for cutting through underbrush, and two carried ancient pistols tucked into their belts. They’d been over the plan half a dozen times, assuring that every man knew exactly what was expected from them. He couldn’t risk any mistakes. Not with Jenn’s life hanging in the balance.
“Any questions?” Jackson snarled, his voice half strangled by rage, fully aware that every passing minute drew them closer and closer to the possibility of finding the woman he loved injured or dead.
Every second mattered.
The men nodded solemnly, cautiously. Their faces warning Jackson that his expression was murderous, but they understood the risks and the consequences of what they were planning.
He slapped a two-way radio into each of their hands and jerked his head towards the door.
“Then let’s get the hell out of here and go find her!”
The group exited his bungalow and men veered off in every direction.
Jackson started towards the river, before he caught sight of Remi coming down the path from the main lodge and altered his direction to meet her. His sister had her own role in this search. A very important one.
From the look on her face, he was not going to like what she had to say.
“One of the village men saw a boat passing by the resort late last night. I’ve talked to Renzo and his team. It wasn’t one of ours. We didn’t have any deliveries scheduled. There’s a chance it was
coming from one of the villages deeper in the rainforest, but it was too close to the shore, and moving quietly, not out in the center of the river where the current is strongest.”
“So, it was probably just beginning its journey,” Jackson ground out from between clenched teeth. “Possibly docked nearby.”
Remi gave a stiff nod. Her face was very pale and her eyes rimmed in red, due to the tears she was attempting to hold back.
“That’s what I thought too.” Her voice hitched. They both understood how incredibly difficult it would be to track a boat on a river the size of the Amazon.
Abruptly, the radio clipped to Jackson’s belt chirped to life.
“Boss, we found something.”
Jackson yanked the device free and raised it to his mouth.
“Where?”
“About a hundred yards up the beach from your hut.”
Jackson snarled a filthy curse and headed in that direction, with Remi running hard on his heels.
There were many narrow dirt paths that wove through the rainforest surrounding the resort, worn into the earth by the villagers who passed through to sell handmade goods or perform for the tourists.
Jackson knew where most of them went, but there were too many for him to search alone.
The path he ran now would eventually lead to a village much deeper in the rainforest, but he didn’t have far to go before he saw his man flagging him down. Freshly cut leaves and vines exposed where someone had broken away from the main trail and headed towards the river.
Jackson followed the newly formed path down to the beach, where he could clearly see that a boat had been driven up into the mud during the night. Something had been dragged across the mud and loaded into the boat, then the boat had been shoved back off the shore and into the water.
Jackson spun on Remi.
“This is where he loaded her.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. Which way did your villager say that boat was headed?”
“Towards the airport.”
Jackson swore again and started running back towards the resort with the radio in his hand.
“Everyone get to the dock, asap! They’re on the river.”
CHAPTER 14
J enn awoke with a start. For a moment, she only lay still, waiting for the pain to return.
How many times had she awakened, violently sick, dizzy, and in agony? She couldn’t remember. The last few days were a terrible, confusing jumble in her head. She wasn’t sure what was real and what had been a drug induced nightmare.
“Jenn? Can you hear me?”
She turned towards the sound. Peter was seated on the edge of the bed. He looked as if he hadn’t shaved or slept in days. He looked as tired as she felt. Completely exhausted. But there was a sharp urgency in his eyes, which were fixed on her with something akin to desperation.
She tried to push herself up off the bed, but she was too weak. She collapsed back onto the mattress, and as she did so, additional realizations struck her. This was not her bed. Where was she?
This was a house, a real house, not a bungalow. The walls were covered in cracked white plaster. The room was sterile of any decoration and so tiny there was barely room for a small bed and a side table. She must still be in South America, probably in some version of a hospital or medical clinic.
“Don’t try to move,” Peter instructed, every word laced with concern. “You’ve been delirious, sick for days. I was so worried. I thought maybe you caught something down in the rainforest. Yellow Fever, or something like that. There are so many parasites down there. So many dangers. Why didn’t you listen to me when I told you not to go on this horrible trip?”
She couldn’t speak, her tongue felt thick and swollen, her throat was as dry as a desert.
She shook her head and touched her throat.
Peter seemed to understand and fetched a glass of water from the side table. He used a straw to help her get some of the fluid into her mouth, and down her parched throat, but took the glass away before she was ready.
“Not too much or you’ll puke again,” he warned. “Just let that settle first, then I’ll give you some more.”
Jenn sighed. She wanted more water, but even that small amount of liquid brought some strength back into her limbs.
She closed her eyes and struggled to put together the pieces of her shattered memories. She could remember falling asleep in Jackson’s bed, then floating in a coffin. She thought she remembered the rattle of a small airplane’s propellers, but it had quickly warped into the snarl and howl of demonic creatures.
She wasn’t sure how much of what she remembered was real.
Her eyes flashed open again, snapping up to study Peter. Was he really here? Or was she imagining him as well? She reached out one weak hand, letting it fall upon his knee. She could feel the warmth of a real person beneath those cotton slacks.
“You’re… real…” Her voice was thin and dusty, despite the water he’d given her, but Peter seemed to understand.
He offered a small smile and cupped her cheek with his palm.
“Yeah, sweetheart, I’m real. I’m here for you. I’ll never let you go again.”
She sighed and closed her eyes again. She was too tired to correct him. It wasn’t as if he’d had a choice in where she went, but it was nice to have someone watching over her while she was sick.
Her thoughts drifted to Remi. Was her best friend working today?
While Peter was the last person she would expect to find keeping vigil at her bedside, Remi should have been the first. So why wasn’t she here?
And where was Jackson?
She struggled to remember what had happened at his bungalow, but she couldn’t make sense of the images which flashed through her mind. She was too tired. She needed to rest, but Peter was still touching her, making sleep impossible. He kept stroking her hair and petting her cheeks as if she were a child.
Or a lover.
It made her uncomfortable.
She started to roll away from him, to face the wall, but shock brought her eyes open in a flash. Heat flushed her cheeks as she reached down to confirm what she’d felt. She was naked under the sheet. What had happened to her clothes? Did the hospitals in South America not issue gowns? They should have at least allowed her to keep her panties.
She glanced at Peter, hoping she hadn’t embarrassed herself while she’d been unconscious. She knew she tended to move around a lot in her sleep, often waking with her sheet tangled around her ankles.
“Do you know where they put my clothes?” The rush of adrenaline helped her speak through what felt like sawdust lining her throat.
“They?” Peter responded, sounding equally surprised. “Sweetheart, I’ve been taking care of you alone. There’s nobody else here. I had to wash your clothes, because you were throwing up the entire trip. You were completely covered in puke.”
“What trip? I… I can’t remember. It’s all a blur. What happened to me?” She was struggling to sit up again, while trying to shield her breasts with the sheet. Fear was spiking through her body, driving her to fight against Peter’s attempts to push her back down on the mattress.
One of his sleeves was pushed up in the scuffle and she saw the angry claw marks covering the lower half of his arm and wrist. A memory instantly flashed through her mind, of a monster and darkness. Of something piercing the skin on her arm after she had clawed its flesh, attempting to escape.
Her gaze jerked up to meet Peter’s.
He’d seen what she’d been staring at and his entire countenance changed.
His expression lost all of its warmth and friendliness. He offered a dramatic sigh and straightened, releasing her so that she was at last able to sit up and drag the sheet to her shoulders.
His creepy smile made the tiny hairs on the back of her neck prickle.
“I’ve already seen you naked, Jennifer, but you’re right, we don’t need any more secrets between us.” He touched the marks on his
arm. “You scratched me when you were sick, while I was trying to help you escape from that place.”
“Escape…?” She remembered the coffin, the water, the skeleton scratching against wood, the monster with one eye.
She was so confused. Her memory was scrambled by the drugs, but there was one thing she was sure of.
“You… drugged me.” Her fingertips sought for, and found, the bruises left on her arm from the needles he’d used.
Peter didn’t look sorry. Instead he gave a small shrug.
“I had to. It was the only way I could get you away from him.”
Him? Jackson? So, Jackson wasn’t involved in her abduction? Then why did she remember him using chloroform to knock her out in the bedroom? Was she mistaken? Who else could it have been?
Peter was watching her through narrowed eyes, clearly attempting to determine her thoughts. Could he have somehow snuck into Jackson’s bedroom? She recalled the photographs which she’d found in the drawer in Jackson’s kitchen.
The pieces slowly started falling into place, and as they did, terror began to claw at her chest.
“You were the one who put the photographs in Jackson’s kitchen?”
Peter frowned, but nodded.
“I was trying to remind you of what an incredible woman you are,” he replied, almost sadly.
“You were falling for that… that… jarhead,” Peter continued. “But you’re so much better than him, Jennifer. That guy has brought you nothing but heartache and trouble. You can’t deny the truth. You don’t belong with him.”
Jackson wasn’t exactly a charming prince, but she’d felt a lot safer with him than she felt right now.
It was clear that she’d horribly misjudged Peter. He wasn’t just an awkward computer geek with a questionable history. He was a fucking lunatic!
Was he the one who had taken the pictures of her in New York? If so, he was probably the one who’d made those disgusting phone calls and texts as well.
Her stomach gave a lurch as she thought of all the time they’d spent together, when she’d thought he was harmless. She’d even started to believe he might be gay, because he never showed any interest in the women she’d attempted to match him up with.
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