Page 6 of Outcast

Not fucking likely.

I bowed my head and walked toward the entrance. When I was almost to the door he called my name.

"Matías..."

I turned to face him.

"If you're lying to me, the girl will die. I'll send her to Randall first, just to make sure you learn your lesson." Then he grinned wide. "Not that you care about such things."

One side of my mouth lifted even as my stomach rolled. "I'm my father's son."

"That you are, my boy. That you are."

I walked out of there with one thought.

I would not be the reason Rita was sent to the chambers. She would not die because of me.

1

MATÍAS

Present Day

The seagulls cawed overhead, circling the edge of the cliff.

Fuck, there was a bird there caught in a fishing line about halfway down the wall.

"Oh my God. Someone has to get that bird," one of the tourists on my tour whispered to her tandem buddy.

My kayak rocked as I shielded my eyes and glanced up. The seagull flapped its free wing tirelessly before giving up and falling back against the rock face, only to start trying to escape all over again.

It was trapped in a way that it would only get free if someone saved it.

That person couldn’t be me. Not right then. I was in the middle of a kayak tour.

The seagull hung a good thirty feet above us, calling out in distress. The easiest way to free it would be to cut the string from the top.

"Don't worry," I smiled at the tourist. “When our tour is over, I'll go cut the string if someone doesn't get to it first."

"You will?" An older woman with ridiculously oversized sunglasses and a sun hat frowned at me. She didn't believe a word that came out of my mouth. I didn't blame her. Why would you trust a kayak guide in a tourist destination? She didn’t know me from shit.

"I will." I nodded. Other kayaks from my group were making their way to my meeting spot out of the way of the boats that traveled by.

There were two ways to reach the inside of the Benagil caves. By kayak or by boat. Paddle boards were also an option but I classified those in the same category as kayaks. You still had to paddle yourself there.

The tourists started whispering and pointing to the bird. A boat passed by and when they saw my group pointing, they glanced up and started pointing and shouting too.

Rio, the driver of the boat, glanced at me and shook his head.

Yeah, we were on the same page. We needed to get these people out of here or the tours would be ruined.

Sticking two fingers in my mouth, I gave a sharp whistle. "Let's go! The path is clear!" I pointed to the cave.

The southern coast of sunny Portugal was made of beautiful beaches, high cliffs, and a network of caves you could paddle into or through.

This place was gloriously disconnected from the rest of the world.

They had WIFI, but the Portuguese people were different. Their values were different. And the tourists were mostly elderly people and young families from Europe. Sometimes the States.

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