Karina Halle - Bold Tricks

I made it about three minutes before I heard a bunch of macaw parrots squawk above me and fly across the canopy. Then the jungle went eerily silent.

Soon, I was running before I even knew what was happening.

I kept going, leaping over tree roots, maneuvering around rocks, keeping my legs and arms pumping as fast as I could. Breathe in, breathe out, keep going.

I ran until I collided into what I thought was a tree.

It wasn’t.

Hands dug into my upper arms.

I screamed.

“Ellie!” Camden exclaimed.

I stopped trying to fight him, to get away and looked up at the man who held me there, in the middle of the forest floor. It was Camden. His head was bleeding from a gash in the middle of his forehead, running red into his eyes, but it was him.

“Oh thank god!” I cried out and immediately wrapped my arms around his middle, holding him to me. “Camden, Camden, what happened?”

“I don’t know,” he said. I could feel him shake his head against me. He held me for a minute, our breath slowing down together until we were breathing as one. Then he pulled away, holding me at arm’s length and peered at me. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine!” I cried out. “Except for waking up alone and thinking you were dead! I found the tarp, it’s all ripped and there’s blood, Camden, oh what the fuck happened? Why was I left behind?”

“I don’t know,” he said, his forehead scrunching, which then brought out a wince of pain from him. “I don’t know what … they came in the morning. Maybe an hour ago? It wasn’t light out yet but birds, birds were singing. I heard someone yell something. You were sleeping … I got up and I could see these men walking around but without my glasses and in the dark I couldn’t make them out. Next thing I know I was hit over the head with something and dragged into the jungle. I wasn’t unconscious but I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t move. I don’t know if I was drugged or what. Then, they started yelling at each other.”

“Did you recognize the voices?”

“I think so. I thought I heard Derek. He was pleading something, arguing. In Spanish. Like he was begging for his life. Or my life. I don’t know. Then they dropped me and I guess I passed out until I heard your voice.” He put his hand to my cheek and rubbed his thumb along my cheekbone.

“What do we do now?”

“What else can we do?”

“We don’t even know where Gus is.”

He stepped back and lightly touched his fingers to the gash on his forehead, wincing at the touch. He pulled his hand away and admired the shiny smear of blood. “We have the compasses that Este gave us. Last night, as we were falling asleep, as I pretended to be asleep, I heard Esteban tell Javier that it was less than a day’s walk from where we camped. That it was roughly northeast where we needed to go and that we would know it once we started seeing signs warning about poachers. Apparently Travis’s compound is in the middle of a reserve. Course you wouldn’t know it because I assume he bribes the hell out of the government. Fucking fingers in every fucking pie.”

“So we just go for it then?” I asked.

He nodded sharply. “I think we have to. I don’t know which way we came in but I know which way we’re going.”

“And if Javier …”

“Is dead?”

I shook my head. “Worse. If he’s out there. If this is a set up.”

“You wouldn’t put it past him, would you?”

“No,” I said though it hurt to say it. “I wouldn’t.”

His lips twitched up into a smile. “Good.” He brought his compass out. “I don’t have any guns. They took them.”

I took mine out of my boot and then brought the extra one out of the backpack and handed it to him, placing its solid and deadly weight in his palm. “Now we both have one.”

His fingers curled over it and he slid back the clip to check it like an old pro. I had to admit, as wrong as it was, there was something so god damn sexy about seeing Camden handle a gun, the shiny metal against his big arms and wide chest, muscle against muscle. With the blood smeared on his face, dripping down onto the tats that teased at his neck, he was 100% man. I just wished he was 100% mine.

“Ready?” he asked.

I adjusted my pack, brought out my compass and said, “let’s go.”

Roughly northeast wasn’t exactly the most detailed directions to go by. Our compasses worked fine but as Camden and I traversed the depths of the jungle, sticking to a straight line wasn’t as easy as we had hoped. The elevation was proving to be more difficult the further along we went, mother nature putting rocky outcrops, fallen trees and ravines in our path. We were both tired, sweaty and irritable and I was letting my fear get the better of me. The fear of who might be lying out there in the dense foliage, watching me, springing a trap. The fear that Gus and my mother were already dead and that this was all for nothing. The fear that the man who was walking in front of me might keep walking one day and never look back.

“Seen anything yet?” he asked, glancing at me over his broad shoulders.

“No, nothing,” I told him. The whole time I’d been looking for some sort of sign that the men had come through here but my tracking skills weren’t up to snuff in a place like this. It was too wild and unpredictable, much like the men we were looking for.

At that, thunder rumbled ominously. We both paused and looked up. Through the tall tops of the overgrown trees dark clouds had moved in, blocking the sun. It felt like we were being closed in. The air around us shifted and changed and when we started walking again it wasn’t long until I was completely coated in a new layer of sweat.

“Do you think this whole thing was a set up?” Camden asked me after a few moments. He was breathing heavier now, the rising elevation and intense humidity breaking him down as well.

“I don’t know how it could be,” I said honestly. My lungs were burning, my feet aching in my boots. I stopped wiping the sweat off my face a long time ago. “What would be the point of bringing us out here?”

“Maybe we’re supposed to be a diversion. Maybe Javier is setting you up to distract them while he swoops in and takes over. Maybe that’s why you were left behind.”

I shook my head, droplets of sweat flying. “I don’t think so. Why were you left?”

“I’m a diversion too.”

“But if we’re a diversion, then it means we are being set up to fail. They’d want Travis to take us … worse, kill us. Javier wouldn’t do that.”

He stopped and turned to look at me. “You just said that you wouldn’t put it past him to set you up.” His voice was ragged and unmistakable anger burned deep in his eyes.

I threw up my hands and sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to think. I …” I remembered what Violetta had said about Javier throwing me under a bus if he had to. I swallowed hard. “I think he’d use me, use us, to get what he wants. But I don’t think he’d ever put my life in danger.”

He raised his brows then laughed wickedly, looking up at the sky. “Wow. You have got to be kidding me.”

“What?” I asked, my heart began to thud loudly in my ears.

“What? Ellie, from the start he has been pulling all the puppet strings and you’ve been pulled willingly. You say he wouldn’t put you in any danger but he sent you to Travis’s house to kill him. He made you cozy up to the sick bastard. If that’s not putting you at risk, I don’t know what is. I would never do that to you.”

“And then he saved us. He also saved you again. On the roof. He didn’t have to do that.”

“Didn’t have to save a human being’s life? Who would?” he scoffed.

“Why are we even arguing about this?” I said. My pack was feeling too heavy so I put it on the ground. I hated fighting with him though I knew where it was all coming from. There was a lot of truth in Camden’s words and still a lot of resentment. Toward me.

“Because …” He sighed and turned away. “Because I can’t help it. I can’t stop thinking about … what we did.”

My lungs were definitely working overtime now, my heart feeling as if it were being squeezed by icy fingers. I didn’t like where this was going. Why couldn’t we get over this? Why couldn’t my heart stay intact for a fucking minute?

“What we did?” I asked carefully. “You mean when I fucked you in the bathroom? Or was it what I said?”

He gave me a dirty look. “Was that what it was to you? Just a fuck?”

“Oh my god,” I exclaimed. “What is wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with me?” he repeated. His smiled coldly. “Excuse me if I have problems taking your words at face value.”

That fucking hurt. No, that fucking killed me, knife to heart.

Another hit of thunder slammed through the sky and in seconds the clouds broke open. Heavy rain pounded down on us, soaking us in seconds. The forest roared with the sound of raindrops hitting the leaves. Just perfect.

I didn’t even know what to say to that. My mouth fumbled for words, the rain streaming down my face. If I started crying he wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

“Why can’t you just forgive me?” I pleaded. “I’m not lying, Camden. I’m being more honest than I’ve ever been.”

“How could you sleep with him so easily and then do the same to me?”

I put my face in my hands, trying to contain myself. I took in a shaky breath and looked at him. He was barely visible through the sheets of rain.

“I can’t take back what I did,” I told him, my voice raw, threatening to crack. “I have my reasons and you know what they are. I can only control what I do from now on in. I slept with you because I love you. I told you the truth in that bathroom. You can decide to forgive me or not, but it’s not my problem anymore if you don’t. I gave you my heart. You have it. You should know you have it. If you can’t find it in yourself to give me another chance then that’s your problem. Stop punishing me for the past when the only thing we have is right now!”