“Outside.” There’s no point in pretending I don’t have it. His eyes flicker toward the opening and I use that minute distraction to leap forward. My momentum drives us backward. He slices down with the blade and I feel it cut into my skin but I don’t stop. I keep moving until his back slams into the rock wall of the cavern. If I die in here, Ava won’t make it. Afonso will find her. He’ll rape her and then he’ll leave her broken body to the animals.
I fall back and drive him forward again. The blade cuts deeper. I feel the warm river of blood spilling down the valley of my spine.
I have little time. If the blade hits a spinal nerve, I’m done for. I power forward, driving my shoulder under his blade hand.
He cries out and with my free hand, I bring up my belt knife and stab it forward and twist. The scream of pain he releases could be heard at the basin of the Amazon. I pull out the knife and drive it again, just to get him to shut the hell up.
His body goes limp beneath mine. Taking two steps back, I fall on my knees. My vision is blurred but his face is a macabre mask. Where his eye once sat, there is only a bloody hole. Beneath it is another stab mark, jagged and round where I turned the knife as hard as I could. I shove his face into the dirt and yell for Ava.
My back feels like it’s on fire but I ignore it as I pat Afonso’s pockets. He’s got a ton of shit in them. Energy packs that look suspiciously like they came from my Boy Scout bag.
Ava stumbles in.
“Check his pack.”
“Your back,” she protests.
“No, supply check first. Any medical supplies?”
I try to stand but when I see black spots instead of Ava and the cave, I drop back to my knees. Blood loss is making me dizzy.
I stagger over to the fire and flick the blade into the coals. Then I grab the gun and check it. No more bullets. Figures. I toss it aside again.
“There’s a tinfoily blanket thing, a prescription bottle full of something. Pain pills?” She sounded hopeful.
“Water purifying tablets.” She sighs in disappointment and I can’t help agreeing with that sentiment. I could use an oxycodone or ten. “A flat plastic thingy. There’s also about ten energy supplements.”
No rope. No MREs. No lighters. Apparently he found the Boy Scout bag but some stuff had fallen out. The blanket, energy bars, and water purifying tablets were good, though. Very good.
“The plastic thing is a bladder to hold the water and the purification tablets. Are there still embers in the fire?”
“Yes.”
I think I see her stab at it. “I want you to go out to the mouth of the cave. There’s some kindling there. Throw it on the fire. Go over to Afonso’s body. Don’t look at his face but pull off his pants. Wipe down my wound and when it’s clean you’re going to put the hot knife to my skin.”
She sucks in a horrified breath. “I’m not doing that.”
I grab her hand. “You do that or I’ll die.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
AVA
Every time I turn around, it seems like things are migrating from bad to worse. A girl can’t even take a pee without someone hijacking her cave. Now, Mendoza’s been stabbed and I feel as if we’ve hit rock bottom on the shit-scale of “things that could go wrong.”
Of course, I shouldn’t say that. Another plane could always crash into the jungle, this time on top of us.
“Then again, that might be a lucky break,” I mutter to myself. Then I shake the thought away. I don’t want to die. I want to live, and it seems like every time we catch a break, something else screws us over.
“More . . . wood on the fire,” Mendoza tells me, stopping my frantic train of thoughts. The wound looks as clean as I’m going to get it. “Make it good and hot.”
“All right,” I say faintly. I push the blade into the coals a little deeper, and add more wood and more leafy debris. I blow on the fire, and the flames leap up. “You tell me when it’s hot enough, okay?”
“When it’s red hot,” he says, unwinding the belt from around his wrist. He bites down on it, and a shiver goes up my spine. Oh God, oh God, this is going to suck.
Moments pass, and Mendoza groans quietly. I know he’s got to be in a lot of pain. I want to wring my hands, but my mangled pinky and swollen wrist make me settle for squeezing my index finger, over and over again.
“Good enough,” Mendoza says. “Just hurry up . . . do it. Losing too much blood.” His words are slurred through the belt, and there’s a sleepy droop to his eyes that tells me he’s going to pass out soon. I need to get my shit together.
I nod and grab the knife out of the fire. Immediately, I realize that’s a mistake—the handle is red hot and I hiss back a yelp of pain and drop it back into the coals. I can feel my fingers immediately blistering up, but there’s no time to think about that. Dumb, Ava. Dumb. Blinking back tears of pain, I wrap my hand in my shirt and grab the knife again.