by Anna del Mar
The parking lot lit up like D.C. on the fourth of July. Fueled by the gasoline trail I’d left earlier, the flames spread into a raging inferno. I braved the fire and stole over to where I’d last seen Kumbuyo. I found him, hastily loading Lamba and his guests into one of the surviving Suburbans.
Got you.
I lifted my trusty M4 and aimed. He must’ve sensed my presence. He whirled to face me. His eyes widened as he recognized me, standing against a background of roaring flames. He lifted a hand in front of his face, as if it could shield him from the bullet I was gonna put into his head. I smirked and flexed my finger on the trigger.
Boom. The explosion that lifted me off my feet and hurled me at least a hundred feet also hit Kumbuyo. The Suburban blew up, taking Lamba and his friends in a ride straight to hell. I caught a glimpse of Kumbuyo’s body flying through the air before my head hit against something hard. I lost my grip on my gun and reeled. My drive to live spiked, pulling at my stunned senses. Get up. Get going. The roar of several helicopters buzzed over the camp. What the hell was going on?
It hit me as the next wave of bullets chased down and killed the rebels running away from the Black Hawks. Rem’s coalition forces had arrived. They came down on the camp with all the firepower he’d been able to assemble. Another explosion rocked the compound, this one even bigger than the others and much too close for comfort. Holy hell. Kumbuyo and his thugs hadn’t managed to kill me, but friendly fire could very well do the job.
I grabbed my weapon and scrambled for life, stepping over the dead and the dying, stumbling among the fires, and dodging bullets from friends and foes alike. I’d made a promise to Jade and I intended to keep it.
The smoke choked my lungs and obscured my progress. I was almost to the gates when the next attack wave hit. The earth roared beneath my feet before it spat me into the air. Pain hit me in a blinding jolt. And then nothing.
Jade
I dreamed of lions calling in the darkness, of rumbling echoing on the plains and red eyes that glinted in the darkness, measuring my primate’s puny defenses. When I opened my eyes, it was the dead of night and yet the world was alive with all sorts of intriguing sounds. The wind rustled through the grass, whispering the Serengeti’s secret: You have always been wild and to the wilderness you will always belong.
Not far from where I lay, only a few million years ago, the first hominids rose on their back legs and began to carve stones into tools. In evolutionary leaps, these creatures developed to walk out of Africa, populate the world and become us. Perhaps that’s why laying on the cold ground, sharing the same views of the Milky Way that beamed down on our distant ancestor, I felt, for the first time ever, intimately connected to the land, to my own species, to the human race.
I felt it then, the primal rhythms of existence, the urge to survive even as the pulse sputters, the pleasures of breathing even when it hurts, the miracle of life even though it springs from recycled death. It was strange. Sitting under the tree under the intermittent light of an unreliable moon, the feral creature in me—the one who’d been trapped just a few hours ago—unlocked her closet, ejected the darkness within, embraced her wild self, and freed her soul.
I thought of Matthias, who just had to be alive. I thought of the terrible truths he’d shared with me, of the pain he’d endured and the hope he’d brought to my life. And suddenly, I wanted to live, like the creatures of the Serengeti. I wanted to run wild and free, to thrive, to bring life to the world. I wanted to advance my genes, to have Matthias’s babies and to exist even after I was gone. Above all, I wanted to survive to love Matthias with the enormous force of my wild heart’s passion.
A low rumble startled me out of my thoughts. My hand tightened around the handle of the rusted machete. The night was not overly cold, but I shivered to the point that my teeth were clattering. My thigh had become swollen and tender to the touch. I’d always fashioned myself a predator, but tonight I was the perfect prey.
I caught a flicker of movement to my right. I could sense the hunt taking place around me. My little slice of the world had gone suddenly quiet, nature’s not-so-subtle warning. For an instant, the face of a lioness materialized from the shadows, a blur of tawny fur. Then she was gone. She’d be the decoy, I remembered from Matthias’s lesson, trying to distract me from the real attack.
I tried strengthening my grip on the machete. Instead, my fingers fumbled. For all I knew, the weapon weighed a ton. The rusted blade fell on my lap. Darkness whirled around me. Stay awake. Stay conscious. All I had to do was survive the night. But it didn’t seem so easy when the fever spiked and my bones ached as if they were crumbling, bursting in localized explosions, tearing me up from the inside out.
Pain. I was exhausted. So tired. But I couldn’t go to sleep. I had to fight. I had to keep fighting. That’s how I’d dealt with life. That’s how I’d deal with the spectrum of death. Besides, I’d promised Matthias that I would never, ever quit on him. He’d be so pissed if I broke my promise.
I must have drifted off. I woke up to a commotion. Roaring. Growling. Trumpeting. Trumpeting?
I forced my eyelids to lift. At first, I didn’t recognize the angle. I must have fallen over, because my cheek lay against the dirt. An enormous tubular foot stood next to my face. An expanse of cracked, gray canvas loomed above me. A tentacle groped over my face, taking in my scent with quivering nostrils.
I felt a gentle tug on my earlobe. The familiar weight of my remaining earring lifted for a moment, then dropped on the side of my face. I looked up. An elephant. A notch in her ear. A slash on her forehead. Bibi? Okay, now I was really delirious.
More feet. A forest of giant legs. A palisade of elephants encircled me. I wasn’t alone. I had a tribe around me. And it wasn’t just Bibi and her herd. When I closed my eyes, I saw Mom and Dad, Hannah, Sarah and Lara, all huddled around me, lending me strength and support even though they were far, far away. I saw Matthias too and my heart soared with the recognition that he was fundamental to my herd.
“You’re strong, Jade,” he murmured in my dreams. “You’re fierce. Hang on. Wherever you are, that’s where I’d want to be. I’m gonna love you forever.”
“Matthias.” I released his name to the wind and gave him to the Serengeti’s care. Then I surrendered my wild self back to the land that had unleashed the likes of me upon the earth.
32
Matthias
“Wake up.” Rem’s voice came from far away, along with a hard shake that jolted me alert. I opened my eyes and found Rem’s blue eyes piercing through me like the painful light of the flames burning around us. I lifted my hands to my forehead and kneaded my temples. After a moment I sat up with a grunt, fighting to get my bearings. It was dark as hell beyond the fires, but a shy sliver of light at the horizon announced the end of the longest night of my life.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Rem harped, his voice painfully shrill to my ears. “We could’ve killed you, you damn fool. If it hadn’t been because of Mei, Sarah, and Lara, we would’ve leveled this place and you with it!”
So, Rem had received my messages and at the last moment, those efforts had saved my life. His mouth was moving, but I interrupted him.
“Jade?” I croaked. “Where the hell is she? Did you find her?”
Rem shook his head. The lines of his mouth settled into a grim line. “Zeke contacted me. Three girls flagged down his rangers near the reserve’s north boundaries. They’d gotten there fast by catching a ride on a fisherman’s boat. They said they’d fled the poacher’s compound with Jade. They had this as proof.” Rem held a jade elephant earring.
I snatched the earring from him and inspected it closely. “How did you get this?”
“I had it flown out here by helicopter,” Rem said. “Matthias? The girls said Jade was wounded and bleeding a lot.”
My body shrunk around my gut. My knees went liquid. I dropped the jade earring in my front pocket and pushed myself off the ground. Fighting a wave of nausea
and dizziness, I groped over my holster, verifying that my gun was still there.
“I’ve got people looking for her,” Rem babbled on. “Zeke and the rangers are on it too, but it’s a lot of terrain to cover…”
I retrieved my M4 from the ground and checked it for damage. The magazine clicked in place. The weapon was solid. Like Jade. She was out there.
I turned to face Rem. “I need a helicopter.”
“Oh, no, you don’t,” Rem said. “The area is not secured. There’s tangos running every-fucking-where. What you need is to be checked out by a doc, make sure you are all there, before you go half-cocked into a goose chase that’s likely to get you killed.”
“Rem?” I said. “I’m not gonna ask you again. You took Lamba out because of Jade. Get me a goddamn helicopter or I swear, you’re never gonna see me again.”
“Okay, fine.” Rem let out a deep sigh and called one of his birds on the radio for a landing. “But it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack—”
“I’ve got this.” I pulled the tracking device out my pocket and held it up. “So I’m gonna find Jade. And when I do, she’s gonna be alive.”
“How the hell do you know that?” Rem said over the roar of a helicopter, touching down nearby.
“Because she promised me,” I shouted, before I leaped onboard.
Jade
Matthias’s anguished voice came from some distant place. “Babe, wake up, talk to me.”
I opened my eyes, but the light hurt, like every bone and muscle in my body. The sun was high on the horizon, casing Matthias’s dark outline in a blinding circle of light. He was a terrifying sight, half his head caked with blood, his chin dark with stubble, his clothes filthy, wearing his M4 slung on his back, looming over me like a vengeful angel come to collect my soul. Well, fat chance, guardian angel. I was set on keeping my soul.
I figured it was just another delusion like the ones I’d been having throughout the night. Like the one about me springing the closet door open, and my bio-mother, telling me she was sorry. But then a hand cradled my head, a hard surface pressed against my lips, and water moistened my lips and trickled onto the desert of my mouth and down my parched throat.
“Drink, babe.” More blessedly soothing water. “That’s good. Are you with me, marine?”
“I’m with you,” I mumbled.
“That’s my girl.”
Matthias lifted his weapon over his head and settled it on the ground next to him. With an equal but opposite motion, he unslung a red duffel from his shoulder, unzipped it, and took out a pair of shears from the bag. Working carefully, he cut off the fabric around my wound. He cursed under his breath when he exposed the bloody flesh.
“Don’t look so worried.” I forced a cocky smirk. “It’s just a bullet. I’m going to be fine.”
“You bet your fine ass you’re gonna be fine,” he said, examining the wound. “But Jesus, Jade, why the hell did you have to go get shot?”
Laughter bubbled in my throat. Even if giggling hurt, I couldn’t stop myself.
He gave me a curious look. “What’s so funny?”
“You said the same thing in my hallucinations.” I laughed and flinched at the same time. It was hilarious. Apparently, laughing was how I dealt with shock and blood loss.
“Easy now.” He rummaged through his med kit. “You’re still losing blood. I’m gonna take care of business.”
“Go for it.”
He pulled out a sterile bag from the bag, ripped it open, and pulled out a XSTAT device.
“How did you get here?” I asked. “And where did you get that thing?”
“I hitched a ride on a Black Hawk,” he said, cleaning the wound. “Been flying all goddamn morning, looking for your signal. Damn helo couldn’t land here. Ground’s too soft. So, I jumped out. The med kit I borrowed from the helo. Sorry, babe, but this is gonna hurt like hell.”
“You’re not…fucking…kidding.” I hissed, gritting my teeth and digging my nails into my palms as Matthias pressed the XSTAT to my leg. Crap, crap, crap. I had a hard time holding still. I saw red and added a few colorful cuss words to my repertoire. At last, the pressure eased.
“All right, that should hold us over.” Matthias exhaled with the same relief I felt and met my eyes. “You okay?”
“I’ll live.” But I never, ever wanted to do that again.
Working quickly, Matthias wrapped a bandage around my thigh. He fished out a thermal blanket from the duffel and tucked it around me, before he clicked on his radio. “Rottweiler, this is Hawk, ready for pickup. Over.”
“ETA, five minutes,” Rem’s voice announced over the radio.
“Roger that,” Matthias tucked his radio in his belt. “You’re going to feel better in a sec here.” He grabbed a syringe from the med kit and injected the painkiller in my arm. “It’s just to take off the edge. I need you conscious, okay?”
“Okay,” I said, feeling supremely weak but also elated when Matthias gathered me very gently and propped me against his chest.
“How are we doing, marine?”
“Cold,” I mumbled between chattering teeth. “Really cold.”
“Hang on.” He rubbed my arms. “Next thing you know, we’ll be having pina coladas on the beach.”
“Can’t wait,” I said. “The girls?”
“Made it. The sharp cookies hightailed downriver by boat and rushed to deliver this.” He pulled my elephant earring out of his shirt pocket and kept talking as he hung it back on my lobe and clicked it in place. “They were able to give us a general idea of your location, which allowed us to narrow the search and detect the ring signal about twenty minutes ago.”
I lifted my hand and stared at the jade band. “I’m never taking it off.”
“Jesus, Jade,” He kissed the top of my head. “I was so afraid when Rem told me you were hurt.”
“You told me to hang on,” I said. “You told me not to quit on you.”
“And you didn’t.” His lips brushed against mine, soft, warm, and firm, the most efficient painkiller in the planet. “For that, I’m gonna be eternally thankful.”
I kissed him back, my sweet, sweet man.
“She came, you know,” I mumbled against his lips.
He pulled back and questioned me with a frown. “Who?”
“Bibi,” I said, “and her herd.”
Matthias’s eyes widened. “Are you shitting me?”
“They were here. There was something hunting me. They defended me.”
“There’s a lot of fresh evidence of elephants around,” Matthias admitted, scanning the area. “We even tracked lions from the air, a large pride. But I’ve never heard of elephants guarding humans against predators.”
“Dr. Valdez is going to have a field day with this one.” I smiled and winced at the same time.
“Fuck this.” Matthias got on his radio again. “Rottweiler, this is Hawk, over. My girl’s in pain. Where the hell is that bus?”
Rem’s answer crackled over the radio. I heard something about taking fire and refueling, but movement caught my attention, a rustle among the grassland and a quick, passing shade.
“Matthias?” I murmured between stiff lips.
He hadn’t moved, but his body tensed and his eyes took me in, bright and alert. “I know.”
Matthias
The back of my neck prickled. My hackles went up. We were being watched. I looked down on Jade. She was pale and weak, hanging on by pure grit, but her eyes sparked with awareness and her senses were as sharp as mine. My gaze shifted to my M4, laying on the ground next to me. There was no way to get Jade out of the line of fire. One careless move on my part and she’d be dead.
She surged up, brushed her lips against my mouth and murmured. “You’ve got a plan?”
“Of course I’ve got a plan.” I hugged her close to me and glided my right hand beneath the thermal blanket, concealing my movements as I slid my Sig Sauer out of my holster and pressed it against her shaking hands. “Do you
remember how the pride hunts?”
“I do.” Her fingers closed over my gun, but her eyes were fast on a specific place behind me.
I turned my head as Kumbuyo stepped out of the grasses, lithe and silent like a deadly leopard. He stood before us, skin gleaming with sweat and blood, aiming his AK-47 at us.
“Did you think you’d won, game warden?” He flashed his chilling grin. “Did you think I was going to get routed with the rest so easily?”
“I had my hopes.” I eyed my M4, calculating my snatching speed versus Kumbuyo’s bullet velocity.
“You touch that thing and you’re both dead.” Kumbuyo edged around us and kicked the gun out of my reach, before backtracking and resuming his position some six feet away from us.
“How did you find us?” I asked.
“First I tracked her blood and believe me, there was a lot of it.” Kumbuyo smirked. “Then I tracked the helicopter.”
“I’ve been meaning to tell you,” I said casually. “The moment you touched Jade, on that first night? You were dead.”
“Fancy big words.” Kumbuyo laughed, a nauseating, cocky sound. “I’m shaking with fear.” His eyes steeled as he motioned with his weapon. “Step away from the woman. I’ve got plans for her future, and they don’t include you.”
How wrong he was. But I wasn’t gonna tell him that. I was gonna show him instead.
“What do you think, Jade?” I kept my eyes on Kumbuyo. “Should we do what he says?”
“I don’t think we have another choice,” she said. “He’s the one with the gun.”
Slowly, I straightened on my legs and took a step away from Jade, my gaze shifting between her and Kumbuyo. It killed me to move away from her, but I forced myself to take another step back, and then another. She’d been through so much. She was wounded and tired and yet her eyes gleamed with love and trust.
I love you, babe, I said without words, before I raised my hands in the air and turned to confront Kumbuyo. “We’ll do it your way.”