Page 54 of Chasing Paradise

“He could be. But people who are legit likely don’t have assassins on speed dial.”

That made him pause. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“To prove this, you’re going to need to learn more about that new partner. Which we can’t do… here,” I said, waving around the forest. “How deep do you think we’ve gone now?”

“Deep,” he said, the tightness in his jaw not giving me a lot of confidence.

“Do you have any idea how we get out?”

“I don’t want to give you false confidence. But maybe. If we’re not being chased, I can use a compass to get us back in the direction we came from. We will probably be far from the Jeep. If Marco didn’t already take off with it. But we can just follow the road to civilization from there.”

“Okay. Well, that’s better than I can do, so I will give you a little bit of confidence. What?” I asked when he shot me a wince.

“I think there’s probably a good chance, given how long we ran and how much ground we covered, that we might need to spend the night here.”

“The night.”

“Yeah.”

“In here. With the giant beetles and the bird-eating spiders and God-knows what else.”

“Afraid so.”

“Do you happen to have insect netting in that handy-dandy bag of yours?”

“I can do us one better.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Wick

“A hammock is better than an insect net?” Violet asked a few hours later after we steadily made progress toward—I hoped—the road.

But the sun was going down.

We had to set up for the night.

I was suddenly really thankful I’d opted for the plain green travel hammock rather than the much more appealing-looking multicolored one. If I set us up in a thick enough little alcove, we would be all but invisible all night.

Neither of us had heard trackers since whenever we’d lost them on that first initial run. But I didn’t exactly want to take chances either. Especially if we would both be sleeping.

“How about here?” I asked, ignoring her question because she would see soon enough.

“By that giant old tree? Full of wood? And, likely, a whole army of giant beetles? No.”

She’d been walking clutching my bottle of bug spray to her chest since I’d sprayed her in anticipation of the mosquitoes coming out.

“We should go… hey, do you hear that?” she asked, stiffening.

“The men?” I asked.

But she crept forward, toward the sound, leaving me to gather up the hammock and follow.

“Water!” she said, shoulders sagging in relief. “Running water is safe, right?” she asked, gesturing toward the small stream trickling gently by.

“Safe for what?” I asked.

“Washing off?”

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