Page 46 of All The Way Under
“You darted all the guards at the same time? How?”
Giving them a taste of their own medicine, which I learned how to concoct in my free time after noticing what herbs they pulled to make it.
I lift and lower one shoulder. “Like it’s hard?”
“Saylor, this wasn’t planned out. How can you be this careless? What happens when the fishing boat captain shoots us between the eyes?”
I wipe the sweat from my brow.
“My parents paid him off. Don’t ask me how, because the only words I have for you are Bianca Wyndham.”
There’s no sense hiding my last name at this point. It’s why we’re getting out of here.
“The captain was in the main building last night, taking orders for what he needed to bring back this morning, and he got me alone.” I exhale and inhale deeply, still tired from running. “He told me to meet him at the boat this morning, and he’d take me to Maputo, where my parents are waiting. Evidently, my mom got sick of trying to negotiate with the government. They were taking too long for some reason.”
Brody looks away, shaking his head. I must admit he seems far more flustered than I thought he’d be for getting the hell out of here.
“She found out this captain’s name, I don’t know how, then she paid him a lump sum at the dock, like a damn mobster or something, and he gets the other half when I’m delivered unharmed.”
“And us?” Brody asks, waving a big, lumbering arm to the brothers who seem to be fighting over something. “I didn’t hear anything about us in that story. What’s this captain going to do when he realizes you’re arriving there with a troop of us?”
I shake my head as I watch Brody move his thumb over his wrist, up and down like he has a cramp.
“The fact that this worked out up until this point is kind of crazy. The captain said he was going to leave me a key by the cage last night if I couldn’t get out.”
The brothers’ argument is heated now, their voices picking up in the wind.
Brody hushes them violently, and they shut up.
“What is this captain’s name?” Brody is asking weird questions about things I didn’t expect him to care about.
“It was something with a Z,” I say. “The names here are hard to remember because they’re so different from back home. You know that! We had a conversation about it.”
“Zafy?” Brody barks, both brows raised. “Captain Zafy?”
I nod, pressing my lips together.
“Like Daffy Duck. That’s right. Yes. That’s him. How did you know his name?”
Brody’s body stiffens. His shoulders are rigid with tension.
“Because he’s one of the leaders here, Saylor.”
He paces, only a few steps each way, putting a finger to my lips when I try to talk.
“I must figure out which angle to play. Maybe he wants the ransom all to himself, and he’s willing to part with you at the sake of his community suffering.”
He shakes his head. “No good leader would do that. It doesn’t make sense.”
He messes with his wrist again, and when he paces back toward me, I grab him, holding him to the spot with my gaze.
“You have the gun. Kill him if you must, but get us to Maputo.” I grab his shirt. “We all know how to drive a boat. We can get away from here and back into the real world and give this escape a real shot.”
His lips twitch as his lashes drop, and his gaze lingers on my lips. I shake my head. “It doesn’t have to be complicated.”
Brody kisses me, and it may be the worst time for the most perfect kiss the world has ever seen, but that’s what makes it memorable. There was defeat in his eyes as he leaned down to take possession of my mouth. He leans away from me.
“We’re going to have some help here in a minute or two, and I need you to know I didn’t tell you because I needed to keep you safe.”
