“It’s fine.”
“Not getting worse?”
“I said it’s fine.”
Pause.
“What are we going to do?”
“Isaiah?”
“Yeah?”
“Shut it.”
I shut it and stared up into the blackness. Sounds of the forest—animals and insects rumbling and chirping—the murmurs of men outside, the occasional rustle of leaves. I focused on Henry’s breathing. I tried to match the regular inhales and exhales. In. Out. In. Out. I fell asleep with images of Henry illuminated in the neon glow of city lights, do-si-do’ing with a dozen faceless strangers.
I WOKE
up with my face plastered to Henry’s shirt. My head rested on his cotton-covered shoulder, and one of my hands lay on his abs, right below his bandage-wrapped hand. His other arm stretched out, giving me full access to my human-shaped pillow. I held still, hoping not to wake him. For a moment, at least, the real world could wait.
The sounds of the rain forest outside seemed happier, less ominous than the night before. I needed a bit of happy to offset the anxiety and fear of our situation. Pretty soon, Chuck would figure out we were missing. He’d do whatever needed to be done, and Henry and I would get out of here. Then, when Mom found out what happened, I’d be on the next flight back to Wisconsin. Wishful thinking, maybe, but it was a better scenario than the others I’d been imagining.
Speaking of wishful thinking, God, Henry was pretty. I reached up to brush a strand of hair back off his face. I ran my fingers down the side of his face, smiling at the prickly beard stubble. He needed to shave, but I kind of liked the scruffy look on him. It made him look a little less pretty and a little more sexy. I put my hand back on his abs; I enjoyed the contact too much to stop until I had to.
I liked him. I mean
really
liked him. Was I fooling myself that he might like me too? Maybe I was caught up in the intensity of our experiences.
The muscles under my hand tensed. Henry opened his eyes. I sat up and tried to act as if I’d only just woken up.
He blinked at me and smiled. It wasn’t fair that he had a smile like that. How was I supposed to play it cool when his mouth made me want to jump him?
“You look like you’re on fire.”
I whipped my hand up to touch my cheek. Was I blushing?
“In that light your hair is very, very red.”
Of course. The patch of sunlight from the window slit shone like a spotlight on my head. My reddish-brown hair was mostly brown these days, but when I was little it was practically orange. As I’d gotten older, my hair darkened, which thrilled me. Red hair was not hot, and I seriously wanted Henry to think of me as hot. I shifted out of the beam of light, edging closer to Henry.
“I like it,” Henry said.
Maybe red wasn’t so bad after all.
Henry rolled to his side, resting his head on his good arm. I settled in, facing him, using my own arm for a pillow. It wasn’t nearly as comfortable as his chest had been. Our eyes met and held, like some sort of staring contest. Only it wasn’t challenging or aggressive. Our eyes were having a whole conversation using emotion instead of words. I didn’t know exactly what was being said, but I understood we shared the same anxiety, the same impotent rage. The inherent desire to call Mommy. Unlike the slumber party when I was eight, Mom couldn’t come and pick me up when I woke up afraid of the dark.
“Didn’t you say you needed to take the wrap off your arm?”
He peered down at his bandaged arm and wiggled his exposed finger tips. He pulled the edge of the beige elastic bandage and unwrapped his wrist. The gauze I’d covered the snakebite with was stained with blood, but it didn’t look like it had bled through very far. The rest of his hand looked scary. From his wrist to his knuckles, the skin was slightly swollen and sported some pretty severe bruising. Maroon and pink and purple splotches vied for room on his tan skin. He pulled the gauze off, and the actual bite seemed okay. It was scabbed over, and I didn’t see any kind of weird seepages or anything that looked suspicious or gross.
“I think it’s okay,” Henry said, rolling the bandage up and shoving it and the bloody gauze into one of his many cargo pockets.
The front of the hut burst open. Three men, two with those evil-looking assault rifles, walked in, silhouetted in the streaming morning sunlight. Henry and I rolled away from each other and sat up. One of the men with the guns twisted his mouth, his cold, olive-green eyes—they reminded me of that snake, the green bush viper that bit Henry—skimmed over me before pausing and making a more thorough study of Henry. His tongue flicked out, snakelike, and I wanted to hurl. My instincts screamed at me that this guy was dangerous. Or at least a creep. He had to be at least forty, and he was lean and rangy. His shirt lacked the sharp edges and military precision of the others’.
“You, Mr. Martin, will come with us.” The unarmed man, older than the others, pointed at me. The blood in my body instantly cooled and drained to my toes, leaving me clammy and shivering. The guns in the mercenaries’ hands swelled, the barrels obscenely huge. I tried to tear my eyes away from them, but I couldn’t. Going off somewhere with these guys was a bad idea. A very bad idea. Horrifying images—everything from torture to execution—spun through my mind, holding my muscles hostage.
“Where he goes, I go.” Henry threw his arm out, the same soccer-mom move from the day before, as if to hold me back. The sharp edge of his voice cut through my paralyzing terror, allowing me to breathe deeply and collect myself. I swallowed, my tongue making dry clicking sounds against the roof of my mouth.
The snake-eyed man gestured with his gun and leered, apparently pleased when Henry cringed away. His tongue darted out again, this time lingering as it licked along his thin lips. Gross. And seriously creepy.
“Not your business.” The older man had a Slavic accent, cold enough to freeze the humid air in the hut. When I didn’t move forward—seriously, I couldn’t have made my legs work for anything—he reached down and dragged me up by my elbow, causing my bruised shoulder to scream. My head swam with the sudden movement, and I didn’t fully gain my equilibrium until after we’d moved two stumbling steps closer to the door.
I’d hoped that I’d somehow become immune to fear. I mean, how many times could terror seize my body before I got used to it and didn’t react? Somehow I managed to push away the anxiety long enough to sleep last night. That I slept at all was surprising. And for a moment this morning I’d forgotten how
dire
the situation was. The guns, the snake, the manhandling all mixed into a potent brew of chemicals that eroded my guts, burned my throat, and turned my muscles into rubber bands.
“I can walk,” I growled, determined to show these assholes I wasn’t afraid, even though I had to swallow back the bile that pitched in my stomach and climbed my esophagus. He ignored my words and tightened his grip.
He led me forward like a misbehaving puppy on a leash as we left the smaller cabins behind. A short stump of wood propped open a man-sized door to the big warehouse building. A small office, what had probably been a clerk or secretary’s office back when the lumber plant had been functioning, was tucked away in the corner of the building. Inside, a rickety folding table held thousands of dollars’ worth of technology. Computers and gadgets I didn’t recognize littered the surface. Three big monitors created 180 degrees of screen visibility. Shorty manned the station, his hotdog-like fingers pounding on a high-tech keyboard, his eyes glued to the monitor in front of him.
“Sarge.” The Slav came to attention in the doorway. “I brought the kid.”
Shorty glanced up from the screen, sparing me the briefest look. “Next door.”
The Slav dragged me along to another room, this one almost as bare as the cabin Henry and I had been dumped in. Another large stump sat in the center of the room. “Sit.” He shoved me forward.
Even if I hadn’t wanted to sit, I wouldn’t have been able to stay upright on my weak knees. The torture scenes from every scary movie I’d ever seen flashed through my head. It was all I could do not to look for the hose, pincers, and towels. I sat, my hands gripping the rough edges of the stump. The Slav left me there. He turned and walked away without another word. What the hell was going on? This was some fucked-up shit.
The constant surges of adrenaline were going to wreak havoc on my insulin levels.
Fuck.
Insulin.
Christ.
As if I weren’t dealing with enough other crap, I only just remembered I no longer had my insulin pump, which meant I didn’t have insulin. How I could have forgotten about it, about something that important to my survival, was beyond me. Just goes to show how the trauma and stress of the kidnapping warped my mind.
I was in so much trouble.
Was there any chance they still had my backpack and hadn’t gotten rid of my emergency and spare meds?
Thump
. A hollow sound, a hollow feeling, echoed in my chest. Shaking nerves and nausea pumped through my body with every disproportionately loud beat of my heart.
Thump
.
Thump
.
Thump
-
thump
.
The sound, the echoing, increasingly loud sound, overwhelmed the noises of Shorty’s and The Slav’s arrival. One of them cleared their throat and finally brought my attention to them instead of my aching heart.
“What is your name?”
I blinked at Shorty. He knew my name, didn’t he? He’d seen my passport, right?
“Your name.” Not a question this time, a demand.
“Isaiah Martin.”
“What is your father’s name?”
“My father?” I repeated dumbly. Hadn’t we gone through this last night?
Shorty nodded at The Slav. Before I could blink, pain exploded in my face, and I fell back off the stump. The Slav
punched
me?
Thump
.
Thump
.
Thump
-
thump
-
thump
-
thump
.
I cringed back, hands covering my burning face, while The Slav loomed over the stump. He didn’t hit me again. He grabbed my arm and hauled me back onto the makeshift chair.
“What is your father’s name?” Shorty didn’t act like someone who’d just ordered a kid to be punched. He asked his question in exactly the same cold tone he’d used the first time.
I cleared my throat. “Charles. Charles Martin.”
“Who does he work for?”
“What? Wait!” I threw my hands up to protect my face when Shorty turned to The Slav. “I don’t understand the question!” The words burst out as fast as my panicked voice could utter them.
Shorty lifted a single finger, and The Slav stepped back. “It is a simple question. For whom does your father work?” He spoke each word deliberately, pausing between each one.
“I… I don’t know. The UN?” I’d never thought about it before. Of course he had to work for someone, but who ran the camps? The different humanitarian organizations? Churches?
“Don’t be a fool.”
“I don’t—I don’t know.” My voice cracked. I was totally freaking out and completely lost. This was nothing like the fear when I was caught with the gun. Maybe then I knew Mom would be able to get me out of the worst of the trouble. Mom could fix anything. Or almost anything. I wasn’t quite so sure that even Mom could get me out of this mess. Not from Milwaukee anyway.
“He’s a doctor. A missionary. That’s all I know, I swear.” I tried to project honesty and sincerity. It wasn’t as though I had anything to hide. I
didn’t
know any more than that about what Chuck did.
“Why are you in Cameroon?”
Did the change in topic mean he believed me? “I was sent here to spend the summer with him. Help out at the camp.”
“Doing what?”
“I don’t know. Whatever I was told to, I guess.” Something else I hadn’t thought about. If I got out of this, I was going to have to start thinking about things a little more.
“When did you arrive?”
“In Cameroon?” Jesus, I had to stop asking stupid questions. “Two days ago.”
“When did you meet your companion?”
“Henry? He picked me up at the airport.”
“The cargo. Was it there when he picked you up, or did you and he go somewhere to get it?”
Cargo? “Oh, the bandages and stuff? Um, we picked them up at the university.”
“Where at the university?”
“I don’t know. It was just a building. I didn’t pay attention. I was tired.”
“Who did you meet there?”
“Some guy.”
“What guy?” He bit the words out.
“I don’t know. Just some guy.” Not only could I hear the nauseating
thump
,
thump
of my heartbeat, I could feel it. My swelling cheek throbbed with every
thump
, the pain merging with the duller throb from the blow to the head yesterday.
I had barely enough time to brace myself before The Slav hit me again. I didn’t know whether to be grateful or not that the blow landed at the same place. It hurt like hell, but it was only the one spot. That had to be better than multiple bruises, right? Maybe it would be easier if I knew what he was looking for, but I didn’t have the answers he wanted. The not knowing notched everything up in intensity.
“I swear, I don’t know anything. I was tired and didn’t pay any attention.”
“Tell me something about the guy.”
I stared at Shorty. I wracked my brain searching for something, anything, to share. Most of that part of the trip was a fuzzy haze. Images from the city, Henry speaking French. “Claude!” I burst out. “His name is Claude. That’s all I know. God, please, I swear that’s all I know.”
Shorty held my gaze, his black eyes weighing my words. Finally he nodded. “After you picked up the cargo, then what did you do?”
I tried to even out my breathing. “We had lunch at a little diner in the university district. Then we drove to… Doumé?”
“Are you guessing?”
“No! I… I’m just not very good with the geography of the area. But, yeah, we stayed in Doumé overnight.”