Heart of a Hero (25 page)

For an instant she thought he was going to touch her, and she braced herself. But he didn’t. Her heart swooped even lower with hurt, rejection. When was Josh going to stop haunting her? She burrowed her face into her arms.

“Sarah?”

She gritted her teeth, refused to look at him.

“Sarah,
look at me.”

“I know what you’re doing, McBride,” she mumbled into her arms. “You
wanted
to make me angry.” A dry sob shuddered through her body. “You’re doing what Josh used to do to me.”

“Josh?” Hunter’s brain spun. The Aid Africa file had indicated she was recently divorced. “Is he your ex?”

“Just forget about it!” she muttered.

Hunter frowned. What had her ex-husband done to her to make her feel like this so many thousands of miles away?

But he didn’t have time to ask, to coddle. Not if he wanted to save her life. Those soldiers couldn’t be far behind. He placed his hand on her shoulder. “Sarah, honey, listen to me, I’m just trying to help get you moving. I want to get you out of here, alive—”

She jerked her head up, brown eyes glistening. “Don’t you
honey
me. I’m just a job. You said so yourself. That’s it, so quit messing with my head.”

“Sarah, that’s not—”

“Not what? Tell me it’s not true. Tell me you weren’t manipulating me.”

“Jesus.” He dragged his hand through his damp hair. He was at a complete loss for words. “Of course I’m trying to give you motivation. Your mind is the most important survival tool you’ve got out here. But you’re misinterpreting things. You’re fatigued.” He grasped both her shoulders, forced her to look up into his eyes. “Listen, Sarah, the militia picked up our tracks
last night. Six men are coming after us, and you can bet your life they’re moving much faster than we are right now.”

Her eyes widened in shock. “How…how do you know?”

“I saw them on the river last night, and there’s a good chance they picked up our tracks on the beach.”

Her eyes flicked wildly around. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you can’t afford to panic, like you’re doing now. It drains physical resources. You use too many calories, need too much water, can’t focus, you make mistakes. Panic is a deadly emotion out here.” He paused. “This is not about mind games, Sarah. This is not about you or me or your ex. This is about pure survival.”

She stared at him, visibly trying to tamp down her fear. She was struggling both emotionally and physically—and it ate at him. But he
had
to get her moving. He reached for her arm, helped her up.

She hesitated, then looked deep into his eyes. “Tell me one thing, Hunter,” she said, very, very softly. “If you are forced to choose between me and that container, which will you pick?”

“Sarah, that’s not fair, and you know it.”

“Tell me.”

His mouth tightened with bitterness. He would have no alternative but to choose the container. That was his job. Those were his orders. “Sarah, you’re tired—”

“See? I’m right.” She shoved her damp tangle of curls off her forehead. “At least I know where I stand, what I’m worth in this game.”

“Sarah…” He reached for her.

She jerked away from him, held up both hands. “Please don’t touch me. Don’t mess with my head anymore.”

His jaw clenched. There was no time for this. And even if there was, there was zip he could do about it. She was twisting
everything, making him feel about as lost and confused as a water buffalo in New York City. “Fine,” he said. “Whatever. You win, now let’s go.” He turned and swung viciously at a liana with his machete, dislodging a bunch of epiphytic orchids as he did so. His boots stomped over them as he pushed his way into the forest.

Sarah stared at the crushed blooms in his wake. Oh God, what had she just done? Because of her obsession with her past, with Josh, with her own failures, she’d pushed away the one man who
could
give her the strength to get through this.

She put her fingers to her temples, trying to gather herself. She’d made the mistake of thinking she could put her past behind her by just packing up her life and getting on a plane. But instead, she’d dragged her baggage all the way over the ocean to Africa, into the very heart of the Congo. And it was chasing her down right now, just like those soldiers coming after her.

Sarah could see now that no amount of running was going to help distance her from the effects of Josh’s emotional abuse, her past mistakes. They were going to haunt her right into the Blacklands and beyond, unless she found a way to tackle her own ghosts.

Hunter was right. It had to be
her
choice. She had to want to survive. She had to find a way to do this. She had to look into herself, figure out how to sever the past and move forward with only the good memories, not the bad ones. She needed to envision a future for herself, just as he’d said back on the beach—a future beyond the jungle, beyond Josh. She had to try and picture it. Trouble was, she couldn’t.

“Sarah!”

She forced her exhausted limbs to move. “Coming…coming.” She stepped around the bruised petals and followed him deeper into the jungle.

They broke through the tangle of foliage so suddenly Sarah thought they were going to pitch straight over the cliff and tumble down into it. She groped instinctively for a branch—anything to help hold her back from the hungry, churning maw below.

The Eikona River.

The ground literally fell away at her toes, where a rocky chasm yawned. Tens of feet below, to her right, a torrent of white water raged through a tight gorge and boiled angrily out the other side, rising in violent waves several feet high that fell back on themselves with a booming sound. The explosive action sent a plume of white mist right up the cliff face on which they stood. It formed tiny droplets on her eyelashes that flashed with rainbows of color when she blinked.

To her left, about five hundred yards downriver, the raging froth calmed and settled into a startling glasslike sheen of emerald-green, broken only by rocks that sliced through the surface.

The water then disappeared into space, under another cloud of white mist churned up by what sounded like a thundering waterfall.

The sight was so awesome, so spectacular, that if she wasn’t so exhausted and sore, and her brain so numb, Sarah knew she’d find it heavenly. But right now she had a sick feeling that this was going to be just one more terrifying obstacle she’d have to overcome.

Her eyes cut to Hunter. He was surveying the cliffs as if looking for a way across.
Please, God, no! Don’t tell me we have to cross this.

“That’s the Blacklands on the other side,” he said. “Once we get across, we’ll be safer. And closer to Cameroon—maybe only two days from the border if we keep moving.”

Sarah gulped. “How do we cross
that?”

“See that ledge down there?”

The blood drained from her face as she saw where he was pointing—to a rocky outcrop that hung above the point where the river narrowed into an angry, frothing mass and licked at a monstrous fallen log balanced precariously across the gorge.

“We need to work our way down there, to where that old Bombax has fallen over the gorge. We can use it as a bridge. I’ll go first, test it, draw a rope across, secure it, and then you can edge over, using the rope for support.”

Her mouth went bone-dry. She didn’t think she could do it. But she wasn’t going to whine. Not now. Never again. She’d come to Africa to prove she could be strong once more. And she was going to. Exhaustion and fear had almost gotten the better of her, but she wasn’t going to let it happen again. She was going tackle her fears head-on—even if it killed her. Because what did she have left? She reached for her crucifix before remembering that even that wasn’t there. Then she heard something else, a pulsing sound rising faintly over the hollow boom and thunder of the Eikona River.

It was a thudding so vague and strangely omnipresent she thought at first it might be the beat of her own heart or the blood in her ears. But it swelled around her, grew louder, faster, rising to a panicked rhythm that seemed to grip her heart and make it race along with the sound.

Her eyes flashed nervously to Hunter’s. “What’s that?”

“War drums.”

She listened, trying to identify the direction of the noise. Was she imagining it, or was one set of beats being answered by others? The drumming seemed to be coming from all around her, from everywhere, emanating from the booming river, echoing through the core of every tree. It was the heartbeat of the very Congo itself.

Goose bumps crawled over her skin. She could feel the primeval beat right through her core, talking to the rhythm of her pulse.

“Sarah…” A cool edginess sparked in Hunter’s eyes. “We need to get into the Blacklands now. Those drums—the dissention is everywhere.”

She looked at him, then the river. The sound of the drums swelled, echoed. She shivered. “You’re sure we won’t…won’t be followed?”

“Not by anyone local.” He unslung his pack, removed a length of bound black rope. Talons of fear ripped through Sarah’s heart as she stared at the rope. He meant it. She had to cross the Eikona. Her resolve wavered.

She glanced in desperation at the jungle, then back at the river, then at him. He was unraveling the rope. “I’m going to fashion a crude harness to help you down to that ledge,” he said as he worked. “You go down first, I’ll belay you from above. Once you get to the ledge, wait and I’ll follow.” He looked up. “Got it?”

She stared at him, unable to move.

He reached out, cupped her face. “Sarah, it’s not a tough climb. You can do this.” His eyes drilled into hers.

“I know,” she whispered. “I know.” This was her test. This was where she made her ultimate choice. If she lost her willpower now, she would die. She knew that. And she wanted to live, even if she couldn’t yet picture a life for herself beyond this jungle.

Hunter studied her face for a moment, then nodded as if in approval. “Hold out your arms for me.”

She did, and he looped the rope under them and around her back. She watched as he knotted the rope carefully above her breastbone.

“Ready?”

She slid her eyes up to meet his. This man was the most solid thing in her world right now. “Yes,” she said quietly. “Yes, I’m ready.”
In more ways than one.

Hunter could see that something profound had changed in Sarah. The jungle hadn’t broken her yet. She’d tapped into some well of inner strength, and she was doing her damnedest to hold on to that. It made him ridiculously proud of her.

He helped her edge over the first rocky outcrop, and began to feed the rope out gradually as she worked her way down to the ledge, bits of rock and sand kicking out from under her feet as she moved. She slipped suddenly, and the rope jerked taut. Hunter’s heart stalled. But she found her footing again, dislodging a small shower of stones as she did. They tumbled down to the river and she turned her head to watch them go.

Don’t look at the water, Sarah.

But she stared at the raging torrent below, unable to get going again. His throat went tight. “You’re doing great, Sarah,” he yelled over the roar of water. “Keep going. You can do it.” He willed her to get moving.

Relief washed through his chest as she began once again to inch her way down. She finally found her footing on the ledge, and looked up.

Hunter blew out the breath he’d been holding, gave a thumbs-up and quickly climbed down after her. He reached the ledge and couldn’t help what he did next. He yanked her into his arms and held her tightly, too tightly, for just a moment. He told himself it was to feed her resolve, but deep down he knew it was more.
He
needed to hold her. In more ways than one. And that meant he was in serious trouble. “You did great, sweetheart,” he whispered into her hair. “Just one more leg and we’re over.”

She said nothing, just nodded, but he could see that her face was porcelain with fear.

He quickly untied the harness and secured his polypropylene rope to a solid piece of rock jutting from the cliff face. He looped the other end around himself, then glanced up at the jungle fringe along the top of the cliff. Still no sign of the militia. The quicker he and Sarah got over the river and into deep cover on the other side, the better.

“Okay, Sarah, hang ten here. I’m going to draw the rope across the log, secure it at the other end and come back for you. Got it?”

She nodded. Her lips had gone thin and white and she was trembling. He had to move fast, before she lost it.

He edged out onto the thick log and his boot slipped almost immediately. He caught himself, hesitated. The wood was rotting under the constant spume of mist, and covered with a slick layer of black detritus. He steadied himself, bounced lightly, testing his weight. The fallen log was solid enough to hold them both and seemed securely planted against the opposite rock face. He edged sideways along it, feeding the rope out as he went, testing resistance with small bounces. The awkward cylindrical shape of the biohazard container tied to his belt threw his balance off. The thing weighed maybe eighteen pounds, and he had to concentrate on compensating.

River mist saturated his hair and droplets began to drip into his eyes. The rope was also wet now. But Hunter made it to the narrow ledge on the opposite side, and again looked up at the rock face. It wasn’t that steep on this end. It would be a fairly easy scramble up into the forest cover. He just had to get Sarah across. He drew the rope taut and secured it to the trunk of a sapling that grew out the rock face. Grasping the rope, he made his way quickly back over the log to Sarah.

He held his hand out to her. “Your turn.”

She stared at his hand, unable to move.

“Sarah, you
want
to survive. Make it happen.”

She clasped his fingers, a little too tightly, a little too desperately. Worry pinged through him. He told himself he had to exude calm. He had to show that he had confidence in her. He guided her hand toward the rope as she edged her feet onto the log.

“It’s slippery, but solid. Just work your way along slowly. Hold the rope with both hands, but don’t lean into it. Don’t think about the water. Don’t even look at it.”