by Dana Marton
Sweet heavens but he stunk.
The higher he climbed, the tighter she gripped, until he growled again, and she remembered herself and loosened her arms. If she cut off his air, they’d both fall to their death.
They reached a limb at last, and he waited until she climbed on, guiding her with one hand. Then he leaped after her, with considerably more speed and grace than she had moved. He clamped onto her wrist again—not as tight this time—and pulled her behind him as they made their way from branch to slippery branch, tree to tree. Then they stopped, and she could hear men running through the jungle below.
Her knees shook. At least it was too dark to see the ground so she could pretend they weren’t all that high up. The tree canopy was one solid mass beneath them, with a fifteen-to-twenty foot gap above, then another layer of canopy that blocked out most of the sky. After a few minutes, the man next to her grabbed her and pulled her forward again.
“Where are we going?”
He ignored her and she didn’t have the where-withal to demand an answer, needing to keep her full concentration on her feet so she wouldn’t fall.
A good hour must have passed before they began to descend. He waited and listened before lowering her to the ground and jumping after her.
The first thing she saw was the mouth of a cave in front of them. Their flight from the guerillas apparently had a destination.
It would have been nice if that destination was a village from where she could have contacted the authorities for help, instead of a cave in the middle of the wilderness, but still, at least they would be out of the rain for a while. And maybe in the morning she could convince the wildman to lead her out of the jungle.
“Come on.” He pulled her forward.
She followed him into the pitch-black cave with some misgivings. Was he a hermit? Was he even sane? Her eyes adjusted to the darkness slowly. The place was about the size of her living room back home. He led her to the back and helped her climb the rock face.
“Is this where you live?”
“Hurry.” He pointed with his head, and she spotted the ledge a good fifteen feet above. She slipped, but before she had the chance to fall, he propped her up and came after her.
The rock was covered with something soft and slippery that stunk bad enough to make her gag, the space she reached no more than a three-feet gap between the ledge and the ceiling. But it would keep them sheltered from view.
What little moonlight lit the cave didn’t reach the back of the crevice where they lay side-by-side, their arms touching. When he moved away, she wanted to move after him until they touched again, needing that human contact, the knowledge that she wasn’t alone in the darkness—but she didn’t dare. She had no idea what to expect of him.
“Who are you?” she whispered, risking getting him mad at her for talking.
“Brian.”
A normal, ordinary name, familiar. And he did speak English. She relaxed a little. “Are you American?”
“Montana.”
Her lungs expanded. She tried to picture a cowboy inside the wildman but she failed. “I’m from New York. Audrey Benedict. What are you doing here?”
“The guerillas caught me a couple of years ago.”
And then she remembered the large cage and something in it she hadn’t been able to see because it had been too far from the fire. She’d had enough to worry about at the time to pay much attention to it. Had that been him? The horror of being kept in a cage like an animal, year in, year out, constricted her throat. God, what had they done to him? No wonder he looked barely human.
Was that what would have awaited her if he hadn’t broken them out? Her insides trembled, slightly at first, then more violently. Then he found her hand in the darkness and squeezed it. In warning. She heard voices below. There were people in the cave.
She shook harder, saw light flicker above. The guerillas had a flashlight. Panic gripped her, pushing her muscles to bolt, but there was nowhere to go. An arm slid over her middle as Brian pulled her to him and held her tight in the darkness, probably only to restrain her from doing something stupid, but she didn’t care. She burrowed into the comfort of the contact, curling against him like a child.
The night thundered outside, the rain coming in a downpour now, drowning out the sounds of the jungle. After a while, the men talked less and less, eventually falling silent, the flashlight no longer searching the walls. Had they decided to wait out the night?
She lay absolutely still, barely daring to breathe. Her limbs were going numb, but she didn’t dare move. Passage of time was impossible to judge.
After what she thought might have been a couple of hours, the rain let up. A strange noise was filling the air. The men were talking again. She was pretty sure they were swearing. Had they found something? The odd din grew. Birds. The flapping of wings. But not quite chirping. The alien sound came closer. Something brushed against her leg. Brian cradled her head, his lips close enough to her ear to touch it.
His voice was barely a whisper when he spoke. “Bats.”
She jerked against him, but he held her tight. Something swooshed so close she could feel the wind of the wings on her skin. A claw scraped against her scalp.
Her mouth was muffled against Brian’s chest before she had a chance to scream.
They were in a bat cave!
And guerillas hunted them below with machine guns.
Things were about as bad as they could get. Then she felt something soft splash on her forehead, and finally figured out what the spongy, rank dirt was below them. They were lying in bat droppings.
She gagged, but pressed her lips together, not daring to make a sound. She buried her face against the chest of the man next to her, who smelled only marginally better than their surroundings, and held on for dear life.
Don’t move. The bats won’t kill you, but the men below will. Don’t panic. She repeated the thought over and over, hypnotizing herself to remain still and silent.
A good hour passed before all the bats were in and settled, and the cave was quiet once again.
“Are the men gone?” she whispered, her nerves as shaky as her limbs.
“They left when the bats started to come home.” His chest rose and fell against her cheek. “Damn.”
“What?” God, don’t let it be more bad news.
“I wanted to get out before the bats got in. If we disturb them now, they’ll start swarming and alert everyone around.”
“We’ll have to stay until they go hunting again?” She didn’t have it in her. She couldn’t handle it.
“We’ll wait a while then see what we can do.”
He must have known she was at the end of her rope, because he didn’t make her wait long. “Move little by little, a fraction of an inch at a time,” he said, and showed her what he meant.
She slid across the slippery rockface in increments, trying not to think of what she was sliding in. A bat screeched and flapped its wings above. Her heart pounded in her throat, sweat beading on her forehead as she waited.
Brian held still, too. Neither of them dared as much as breathe too hard. The night hunters settled back to sleep above.
More and more light filled the cave now, the sun coming up. Brian tugged on her arm. She kept her gaze on her feet, away from the bats, as she crept after him.
A half an hour passed before they made it off the ledge, but after that the going was easier and faster. Brian signaled her to stay back as he went to check out the cave’s entrance.
He limped. She hadn’t noticed that last night in the dark. He had seemed to move through the jungle with skill and confidence.
He was gone only a few minutes then stuck his head back in and motioned for her to follow. Thank God, it had been dark when he’d broken her out. He was even scarier in the daylight. If she’d seen him like this she might not have gone with him.
Filthy clothes hung on a surprisingly muscular body, his hair and beard matted like the fur of a wild animal—with plenty
of gray in it. She figured him around fifty. There was a hardness to him, an uncivilized ferocity around his silvery blue eyes that startled her with their intensity. Under any other circumstance, she would have run screaming from the man.
As it was, she followed him deeper into the jungle, brushing bat droppings from her clothes. Who was she to turn up her nose at his appearance? In all likelihood, she didn’t look much better.
He moved at a steady pace until they found the creek again. The rain stopped, a small comfort she appreciated. It’d been days since she’d been dry. Her wet clothes chafed her skin with every step she took; her feet felt like they were boiling inside the high-top leather.
He set down the rifle and took off his boots before wading into the water. “You should clean up,” he said, fumbling with his mismatched shirt buttons.
“Is it safe?”
“We have a few minutes.”
She shook her head and pointed at the creek.
“Fast-moving water is all right. The leeches and the other stuff that’ll get you in trouble like stagnant pools. Stand on a stone. Don’t drink.”
The man didn’t have a slow bone in his body. His clothes dropped with much greater speed than she’d been prepared for. He turned from her, but gave no other concession to privacy.
He was all bone and muscle under the dark skin that was a living memorial to the most deprived abuse—a horrifying array of scars visible through the dirt. His hair covered his wide shoulders. He reached for the rag tied around his waist and loosened it.
She looked away.
He probably was used to lack of privacy.
She set her sweaty feet free from the tyranny of the leather boots, and waded downstream. Lord, the cool stream felt good. She bent to wash her hands, then scooped up a handful of water and threw it on her face. If she found a deeper spot somewhere, she could attempt a quick full-body dip. No such luck. A quick scan proved the creek to be evenly shallow.
“Don’t go far,” Brian called after her. “There are some large predators out there, a bunch of poisonous stuff, too.”
He was right. Her guide had been good about pointing out the hazards of the jungle—tigers and snakes on the top of his list. But her brain had been shook up since, her world turned upside down. She relieved herself, watching the bushes, then moved back closer to him.
They were in the middle of the Malaysian jungle, hunted by bloodthirsty guerillas—among other animals. And her sister was— No, she couldn’t afford to think about Nicky now—couldn’t, or she would fall apart.
She could do this. One step at a time. To save Nicky, she had to keep herself alive. Right now, all she had to focus on was cleaning up. It would help if predators didn’t smell her from a mile.
“We can’t stay long,” he said without turning around. “We’re too close to camp.”
Audrey pulled her shirt over her head. Undressing in front of a stranger was the least of her worries.
Chapter Two
Brian squeezed the water out of his “underwear,” the back piece of an old shirt that had replaced his fallen-apart boxers two years back. He tied the patch of fabric in place before moving on to the rest of his laundry—didn’t want the woman to think he was completely uncivilized.
He didn’t dare wash his clothes too hard. The pants and shirt were threadbare enough already. The humid air of the jungle was hard on fabric. He sloshed the two pitiful pieces in the clear water and watched for fish, but gave that up after a few minutes. The creek was too shallow and rapid.
Audrey was splashing behind him.
“Try to keep your clothes and body clean. The smallest injury can get infected in the jungle, even bug bites.” He was speaking from experience.
He put his wet pants and shirt back on and sat on a flat rock that got some dappled sunlight from above. There were a few spots over the middle of the creek where the treetops didn’t touch.
Then he turned his head and forgot the trees and the sunshine.
Audrey squatted by the edge of the water with her back to him, her wet blond hair streaming past her shoulder blades. She looked like one of the detailed fantasies he had used to pass time with while locked up in the cage. Pearls of water ran down her slim back—creamy skin, delicate curve of the spine—to her round bottom. A groan rumbled up his throat. She might not have looked real, but his body’s response certainly was.
He wanted her then and there, on the wet moss—rough and furious. He wanted to empty himself into her. Hot arousal washed through him as he watched her slight movements. He felt his eyes narrow and his nostrils flare, the animal-like need taking him over for a moment, urgent and uncivilized. Then he remembered her face as she had stood by the fire, surrounded by the guerillas.
He got up and strode out of the creek, ashamed that his reaction to her hadn’t been any better than theirs. Had they kept him in a cage long enough that he had turned into something that belonged there?
“What are you doing in Malaysia?” He scanned the surrounding trees for food to keep himself busy, and spotted a banana tree. He climbed it while waiting for her response, ignoring the hard-on that made shimmying up the tree more than uncomfortable.
She didn’t respond. Interesting.
There were plenty of Western tourists in Malaysia, as well as businesspeople. Then there were the crooks who came to the country to make money in the illegal gun trade or drug trafficking. She sure didn’t look like she belonged to that group. Of course, appearances could be misleading.
Still, no matter who she was, she didn’t deserve what Omar’s men would have done to her.
He reached the top but didn’t cut off the whole bunch of bananas. Instead, he broke off enough from here and there for them to eat and tucked them in to his shirt. He didn’t want to be slowed down by carrying a load, and he didn’t want to leave any telltale signs behind. He cut off a pair of leaves, too, and let them fall to the ground.
Audrey waited for him under the tree with her clothes safely back on, clean but soaking wet, hiding nothing. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. Damn, it was hot for this early in the morning.
“I’m on an adoption trip with my sister,” she said, folding her arms in front of her.
From the way her moss-green eyes glistened as she spoke, he figured the sister wasn’t back at the Kuala Lumpur Grand Hotel, soaking in a hot tub. Since she wasn’t here with Audrey, it was safe to assume she’d been killed when the guerillas had attacked them.
Unsure what to say, he offered her a banana and slung Ahmad’s AK-47 over his shoulder. It had to be hard to lose a sibling. He could only imagine the special closeness between two people who shared the same blood. He’d never had that with anyone.
“I was adopted,” he said.
She looked up from peeling, her eyes luminous in the sunshine.
Damn. Where the hell had that come from? It wasn’t something he shared. He looked down, embarrassed at having said something so personal.
His gaze settled on her footwear. And seeing a problem he could fix, the next second he was back in professional soldier mode again. “Give me your boots.”
She only hesitated a second before she sat to unlace them. When she handed him the first, he shoved his knife inside and made a couple of small holes in the leather, close to the sole, then repeated the procedure with the other one.
“What’s that for?”
“So that moisture can get out. Whether we make it or not will depend on how fast and how far we can walk. Always take care of your feet.”
She nodded and put the boots back on.
He picked up a banana leaf, cut and twisted it until it resembled a very primitive wide-brimmed hat, then put it on her head. “It’ll keep the creepy crawlers from falling into your shirt neck from above,” he said, and made one for himself.
“I used to have a hat. It fell off in the boat. Thank you.”
So she had come up the river. He’d pretty much figured that. Boat travel was the easiest way to
get around in these parts. Which was exactly why he couldn’t steal a canoe and paddle out. The river would be the first place where Omar’s men would look for them, and there would be no place to hide on the water. As hard as it was going to be, they had no choice but to walk out. And they better get to it. “Come on. We’ll eat as we go.”
She fell in step behind him as he moved forward, listening for anything unusual in the cacophony of birdcalls. He could make out the sound of a couple of monkeys arguing in the distance, but nothing suspicious caught his attention.
“Are we going to a village?”
“To the river.” Most villages in the vicinity were controlled by the guerillas. “It’s called the Baram.”
The night before, he had run off to the opposite direction, knowing he couldn’t cross it in the dark with the woman in tow. “We have to circle back to it, get over to the other side and follow it to Miri.”
“Can’t we cross later? Shouldn’t we be moving away from the guerillas?”
She was thinking and not following him blindly. Good. It showed presence of mind. They were going to need that. “We’ll come out above the camp. They’ll be watching the river below. That’s the way out. The sooner we cross, the better. The farther down we get, the wider the Baram becomes.”
She accepted that without argument. He liked that, too. She was independent enough to think for herself if needed, but smart enough to accept his authority. The strength of the team they forged would play a big part in their survival. So far, she was okay.
A fine mist started to drizzle from above, nothing that would slow them down, just enough to get them wet. There were more caves ahead, a good ten miles from here. If they reached them by noon, they could rest there, maybe light a fire to dry their clothes.
She finished eating and held out the peel. “What do I do with this?”
She knew now not to leave a trail. He grunted in approval as he took the peel from her, then handed her another banana. Maybe they stood a slim chance of making it out of here after all. He felt a twinge of guilt at having had considered leaving her behind with Omar. She hadn’t turned out as bad as he had expected. But she would have to get better still.