Page 45 of A Very Happy Thanksgiving
Now the bush had…a face? What the hell was in those malaria tablets? Back in Abundance, teenage Marc had tried magic mushrooms, and the walls had begun talking to him, weird faces floating above?—
“All right, mate?”
Marc scrambled off the chair.
“Easy, easy,” the bush said. “Don’t attract attention.”
That voice… Marc recognised it. “Heath?”
“You okay? Physically, I mean. And where’s Serena?”
“She’s inside. They haven’t hurt us. Are you…” Marc glanced around. “…on your own?”
“Nope. I’m just the advance party. How many hostiles are here?”
“Four or five? There were more in the beginning. You’re not going to hurt them, are you? They’re not that hostile.”
Desperate people did desperate things, and as kidnappings went, this one hadn’t been terrible. Not that Marc had any other abductions to compare it to, but when the only damage was a couple of bruises and a case of mild sunburn, he had to count it as a win. The food was okay, and Katie seemed reasonably personable.
“They didn’t abduct you at gunpoint?” Heath asked.
“Okay, they did do that, but nothing else they tried worked.”
“Huh? How else did they try kidnapping you?”
“No, I mean nothing else worked to save the tarsiers.”
Chain jingled, followed by a gasp. “Freaking heck, Heath?”
“If you two don’t act more subtle, I might as well strap a neon sign to my forehead.”
“Just sit,” Marc suggested, shuffling to the side so Serena could perch on the edge of the chair. “Keep your voice down.”
“Shit! Sorry. But what happens now? How do we get home?” She gulped back a sob as she tried not to look at her brother. “I can’t believe you’re here in the freaking jungle.”
Yeah, that part was insane. Heath disguising himself as a bush was top-level James Bond shizzle.
“Who has the key for your chain?”
“Probably Havana. He had it earlier.”
“Havana?”
“The older guy who seems to be in charge,” Marc supplied. “He was wearing a blue shirt when I last saw him.”
“Does he have a weapon?”
“I doubt it. They only had those in the?—”
“Shhh.”
Heath made like undergrowth again, and just in time. Katie ran down the steps, stumbling at the bottom and nearly face-planting before she sprinted across the clearing.
“We did it! Ohmigosh, we did it!”
“Did what?”
She looked happy rather than furious, so presumably she didn’t mean “attracted the landscaping team from Blackwood Security.” Heath was nothing but a shadow on the breeze again, but undoubtedly listening to every word.
