“I … I don’t know,” I say, my voice trembling.
“We have at least a few hours. He won’t come back in without full protection. I can guarantee that. He won’t be back tonight.”
I climb off the bike and Noah does the same, jerking the key out and tucking it into his pocket.
“This bike might just be our only escape.”
He’s right about that. It’s an advantage—a small one, but one all the same.
“Are you okay?” I whisper, studying him. He has a fair amount of blood on him, and that worries me.
“I don’t know,” he murmurs, slumping down to the ground, legs out in front of him, big body exhausted. His already torn shirt is covered in blood and has a few extra gashes.
I swallow, trying not to panic at the sight of all his blood. He needs me. He needs me to be strong. I have to get over this. It’s just blood. I kneel down beside him and gently start raising his shirt.
“What’re you doing?” he says, voice so broken it pains my heart.
“I’m helping. Be quiet and let me work.”
He doesn’t fight me. He has no fight left. I take his shirt off and recoil at the gash on his chest. It takes me a few minutes to gather myself enough to closer inspect the wound. It’s not deep so much as it is long. Thank God. If he needed stitches I honestly don’t know what we would have done. I look down at the remains of his shirt, useless to him.
“What happened?” I whisper.
“He got me. Fucker is smart.”
I need water. We don’t have our coconuts anymore.
I stare down at my still-damp clothes. They’ll do.
I remove my shirt. It’s still quite heavy with water after my swim. I use it to wipe his body, removing as much blood as I can, then press it over his wound. He doesn’t even flinch, he just sits there, staring straight ahead. He’s starting to scare me. I keep moving, keeping quiet and working. I wipe his back and move up to his neck, then I stop dead.
“Noah,” I whisper, leaning in closer. “What’s this?”
He turns slightly. “What?”
“There is something under your skin.”
“What?” he demands, reaching up and feeling the small lump sitting just under his skin at his hairline. It’s barely noticeable, but now that I’m so close, I can see it quite clearly.
Noah curses and leaps up. “Fucker. Motherfucker.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a goddamned tracker!”
My heart feels like it stutters to a complete stop. “Pardon?” I croak.
“That’s how the piece of fucking shit has been finding us. Goddammit.”
I reach up and with trembling fingers feel around my own hairline. Sure enough, I can feel a similar lump. Of course he’d track us. It makes perfect sense.
“How did we not feel this?” I whisper, massaging the tiny device with my fingers.
“They’re easily injected. He would have done it when we were drugged.”
God.
“What do we do?”
“We get them out.”
I know I have a horrified look on my face. Noah walks closer and grabs my shoulders. “Lara, if we don’t do this, we’re going to keep fighting. We have a solid chance of escaping if the fucker can’t find us so easily. He has little tracks and hiding places all through this forest. We’ve got no hope with these in; without them, we might actually have a chance.”
“H-h-h-how are you going to get it out?”
He gives me a pained look. “It’s going to hurt, baby.”
Tears well in my eyes, but I take a shaky breath and say, “What he’s got planned will hurt more. Let’s do it.”
Noah steps forward and cups my face, running his thumb over my cheek. “Brave, beautiful girl.”
My bottom lip trembles.
He leans down and kisses me, long, deep, and full of emotion. I tangle my hands in his hair and kiss him back. I’m done holding back. The harsh reality is that we could die at any minute, and I’m not going to waste any more time pretending I’m not head over heels in love with this man.
“Noah,” I murmur against his mouth. “I love you.”
He jerks and pulls back, looking down at me. His eyes flash and he says in a low, husky tone, “Don’t tell me that now. Tell me when we get out of here.”
I give him a wobbly smile.
He just gives me intensity.
I’m okay with that.
FIFTEEN
“This is going to hurt. I’m sorry, baby.”
I close my eyes, gritting my teeth and waiting for the pain to come. I know it’s coming, I know because I spent the last hour with Noah finding a tool sharp enough to break skin. We found a jagged rock and used another rock to make it even sharper. The very idea of something like that piercing my skin is enough to make my stomach turn.
We found the stream and cleaned it as best we could.
I still don’t know if that’s enough.
Noah feels around on my neck and I panic, lunging forward. “I don’t think … I don’t think I can.”
“Lara, look at me.”
He spins me around and his eyes find mine. “If I don’t get this out, he’s going to keep finding us and we’re going to die. Do you want that?”
“Of course I don’t,” I snap, then close my eyes. “Sorry.”
“Turn around, on three I’ll remove it.”
My body trembles as I turn and he feels around on my neck again.
“One,” he says, voice low.
I clench my eyes closed.
“Two.”
He doesn’t get to three. A sharp pain pierces the back of my neck and I scream, back arching. A big arm goes around my waist and he hauls me against him, other hand still on my neck. The rock drops to the ground and he squeezes. I try to remain quiet, teeth gritted against the pain. This needs to be done.
“Got it. Hey, it’s over. I got it.”
He holds me to him, arm still wrapped around me. He presses the shirt I used to clean him up against my neck. It’s fresh and cool from the stream. It soothes the throbbing pain. He leans his head on my shoulder and presses a kiss to my cheek. “You’re okay. It’s all over.”
My trembling subsides and I spin around, pressing my head to his chest. He holds me like that for a good long time, big arms closing me in, big body giving me comfort. His hand is still on the back of my neck, and after a while he removes it and gently turns me back and checks the wound. “It’s already stopped bleeding.”
“Can I … can I see it?”
He opens his hand: A tiny, blood-covered device is in his palm. It’s no bigger than a grain of rice, and it’s gray. Well, I think it’s gray. It’s hard to tell. Noah’s hands are covered in blood.
“Your hands…” I squeak.
He wipes them on his jeans. “You’ve got to get mine out. That prick will figure out we’ve removed these when he gets back, and it could cause a frenzy. He may head back sooner than expected, so we need to hurry.”