Page 59 of No Questions Asked

Mortified, I ran the rest of the way to the hut. When I got there, hair dripping and out of breath, I tried to explain to the girls that the children had ran off with my clothes. While I was madly gesturing, one of the girls disappeared. When she returned, it wasn’t with my clothes, but with a partially made loincloth and a collection of shells.

“Oh, no. I can’t wear that,” I said alarmed. “Please, bring me my clothes.”

After some time of trying frustratedly to persuade them to retrieve my clothes, I sat down on the floor, dejected.

The tallest girl gently handed me the loincloth and started to arrange the snail shells on it, encouraging me to help. I really wanted my clothes back, but my choices at the moment were either a loincloth or nothing. I voted, reluctantly, for the loincloth.

While we were working, another girl shyly brought me a bowl of oil, indicating I should rub it over my body. I sniffed and it smelled like herbs. It occurred to me this was likely some kind of insect repellent, because the mosquitos weren’t bugging any of them. Quickly, I rubbed the oil all over myself including the eyelids, behind the ears and even the soles of my feet.

While doing so, I tried to ask the girls why they’d swum away from me when we were in the water. After several minutes of gesturing, the girls finally understood what I was trying to ask.

The tall girl disappeared for a moment and came back with a stick. Carefully, she drew a stick figure holding a snake above its head. Then she pointed at me and said, “A-muh-suh-ne.”

Chapter Thirty-Six

Lexi

The next day I discovered my stolen clothes had been distributed among the kids in the village. A girl who looked to be about eight years old had taken my bra and fashioned it into a hip-slung quiver for make-believe arrows. She walked around the village shooting at anything that moved, including me. Two boys were sharing my pants, wearing the legs as double hats on their heads. I tried a couple of times to creep up on them and get them back, but they were on to me. They darted away any time I tried. One of the older women was using my shirt as a sack. I was afraid to discover for what purpose they were using my underwear. It might have been humorous if I weren’t walking around half naked because of it.

I’d finished the loincloth and the girls had helped me sew on the shells. When I put it on, it hung low on my hips and a good two inches beneath my belly button. The backside barely covered my butt. I would have to bend over very carefully. I supposed in some ways it was like wearing a bikini. But since I’d never worn a bikini in my life, I was completely self-conscious. When no one was looking, I stole a small fish net and wound it around my breasts. The girls looked at me completely mystified, but I felt one hundred percent better having all my private areas covered, so everyone was just going to have to live with it.

I felt like I’d made a connection with some of the girls, so I tried to figure out what was going on with my situation. I drew pictures in the dirt, tried gesturing, but we couldn’t communicate. I still had no idea why I’d been kidnapped. Did it have anything to do with the vaccines or was it something else?

I’d also been looking to see if I could find the chief’s wife—the one with the satellite phone—but I hadn’t seen her. Frustration filled me. I was no closer to getting out of here than when I first arrived. I was surprised I hadn’t been sick yet. I’d been drinking unfiltered water, which should have caused my intestines to cramp or hurt. But so far, I was okay on the stomach front. They’d been feeding me well. A wide variety of delicious fruits, unknown meats on a stick, different vegetables and fish. It was all quite tasty. But I was getting restless and worried. I’d been taken for some reason and until I knew what that was, I had to consider myself in danger.

It was late morning when I spotted one of the children running around with the satellite phone around his neck. I headed toward him, smiling and trying to look as unthreatening as possible. The second he saw me, he darted away. Blowing out a breath of frustration, I tried to come up with a strategy to attract him to me willingly.

It didn’t take me long to come up with a plan. I found a flat spot in the village where the ground was mostly dirt, and not rock. Taking a stick, I drew a hopscotch pattern. Then I found a flat rock and began to play hopscotch. It took me less than five minutes to gain an audience. That audience included both adults and children, but it was obvious the children were the most interested and wanted to try, as well.

Perfect.

I began to show them how to play and had everyone line up. The girl holding my bra like a quiver was first. I indicated she had to put the bra down before she could play. She didn’t want to, so I had the girl behind her go. After I taught her how to play, I noticed that the lure of playing the game had been too much to resist. The girl set the bra down and watched to see if I snatched it away.

I didn’t.

Instead, I taught her to play and when we were done, I gestured for her to pick up the bra and get back in line. Delighted, she did just that. It went like this for about an hour until I noticed the little boy with the satellite phone on the periphery. When he finally got in line, my heart started beating faster. When it was his turn, I held out a hand for the phone. He slowly drew it over his head and handed it to me. While putting it on the ground, I switched it on, covering the screen with my hand until it went dark into battery mode. I prayed it still had enough battery life to get a signal to Slash.

When I finished teaching the boy how to play, I handed him back the phone. He happily darted away, the phone thumping against his chest. Thankfully, he didn’t notice the light was still on.

I’d done what I could. It was in Slash’s hands now.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Slash

He was on his way to the laboratory from grabbing coffee to stay awake when the satellite phone in his pocket unexpectedly beeped. Not daring to breathe, he pulled it out carefully and brought the screen to life. After a couple of quick swipes, he stared at a set of coordinates. Not taking his eyes off the screen until he memorized them, he dug into his backpack to get a pen and paper to copy the coordinates down, not trusting his memory with something so important, and not knowing how long the signal would last.

After he jotted them down, he dashed into the lab. He needed a map and a large one of the rainforest was hanging the wall. Without saying a word, he burst into the lab and immediately started plotting out the coordinates’ location. He’d been working for at least three minutes when he heard a voice.

“Slash, are you okay?”

Slash tore his gaze away from the map for a fraction of a second to see who was speaking. It was Lilith. But Lilith wasn’t alone. Natelli, Gwen, Melinda, Martim, Gabriel and Vicente had all come into the lab, or maybe they were already there when he arrived. He hadn’t paid any attention to who had been there, as his focus had been on the coordinates. Now they stood in a semicircle watching him scribble on the map. Good, because he’d only have to outline his plan once.

“I received a signal from the satellite phone. I don’t know if it’s Lexi or not, but I’m going to find out.”

“Oh my God.” Lilith gasped and covered her mouth. “Does this mean she’s alive? Where’s the signal coming from?”

Slash finished his calculation and then drew a circle on the map. “I don’t know if it was Lexi who flipped the GPS on, but the signal came from here.” He tapped on the circle. “It’s a long way from the village where she went missing, and quite a distance from the river as well. It looks like the area is part of theParque Nacional Do Jau. According to the map, there are no true navigable roads in the region.”

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