Page 5 of Fighting for Ella

It didn't make sense, and Miguel didn't like things that didn't make sense.

“We did wonder if perhaps there was more to it than that,” Fox replied. “Wondered if it was personal. If the mole had a grudge against Athena Team and wanted revenge of some sort and not just the money from helping Raul get his hands on the drug.”

If that was the case, Ella wasn’t just a traitor, she was an evil psycho who enjoyed inflicting pain and terror on the people who cared about her.

CHAPTER TWO

February 6th

8:36 A.M.

This was impossible.

Ella had followed the instructions, she was sure she had. Only she didn't have a written copy of them, all she had to go on was what she remembered. Unfortunately for her, following directions was not something she had ever been good at.

Still, how could she be this lost?

Everything else had gone so smoothly. She’d gotten the drug into the cab, to the airport, and onto her plane without incident. Throughout the short flight, she had been constantly on edge, wondering if there were going to be cops waiting for her on the other end, ready to take her into custody and then drag her right back home where she would have to face the music and pay the price for the choices she’d made.

But no one had been there.

Since this wasn’t a vacation, she hadn't packed a suitcase, just stuffed a change of clothes into her bag. Thankfully, she always used quite a large bag, so there was space for the clothesand a few toiletries without the need to bring along a larger bag which would have tipped someone off that she was at Prey to get the drug.

After making it through immigration without incident, she’d headed outside and to the parking lot where she’d found the vehicle Raul said would be waiting for her.

With hands shaking so badly it was a wonder she’d been able to drive at all, she’d made it through the city and out into the jungle, and that’s where things had fallen apart.

She was lost.

Completely and utterly lost.

The roads—well, what counted as a road but was really nothing more than tracks through the ever-thickening jungle—were almost impossible to make out now, and Ella was sure that sooner rather than later, they were going to disappear into nothingness.

What was she supposed to do then?

She’d ditched her cell phone at the airport, and there hadn't been one in the car, guess Raul hadn't wanted her to have second thoughts and call someone to confess everything. That meant she had no way to call him now, no way to bring up a map, although the chances of GPS working out here had to be slim.

Her bad day suddenly turned even worse when the car slowed to a stop and the engine died.

“No, no, no, no, no,” she wailed, turning the key over and over again in hopes that the engine would kick back on.

But it didn't.

Couldn’t.

Because the problem wasn’t the engine.

The car had run out of gas.

It didn't matter how many times she turned the key in the ignition, there was no juice to make the car go. Raul must have wanted a safeguard that she was going to drive to where she’dbeen told and nowhere else and limited the amount of gas in the car to just enough to get her there.

Obviously, he hadn't counted on her being directionally challenged.

What was she supposed to do now?

If she didn't get to Raul Castillo, bad things were going to happen, she had to get the drug to him like she’d promised she would. But how was she supposed to do that now?

The car wasn’t going anywhere, meaning she would have to walk.

---