Page 21 (2/2)

"Did you recognize the voices?"

"I think so I thought I heard Derek He was pleading so for his life Or uess I passed out until I heard your voice" He put his hand tomy cheekbone

"What do we do now?"

"What else can we do?"

"We don’t even knohere Gus is"

He stepped back and lightly touched his fingers to the gash on his forehead, wincing at the touch He pulled his hand away and admired the shiny save us Last night, as ere falling asleep, as I pretended to be asleep, I heard Esteban tell Javier that it was less than a day’s walk frohly northeast where we needed to go and that ould know it once we started seeing signs warning about poachers Apparently Travis’s compound is in the middle of a reserve Course you wouldn’t know it because I assuers in every fucking pie"

"So we just go for it then?" I asked

He nodded sharply "I think we have to I don’t knohich e ca"

"And if Javier …"

"Is dead?"

I shook my head "Worse If he’s out there If this is a set up"

"You wouldn’t put it past hih it hurt to say it "I wouldn’t"

His lips twitched up into a suns They took theht the extra one out of the backpack and handed it to hiht in his palers curled over it and he slid back the clip to check it like an old pro I had to adod daainst his big arainstdown onto the tats that teased at his neck, he was 100 man I just wished he was 100 mine

"Ready?" he asked

I adjusted o"

CHAPTER TEN

Roughly northeast wasn’t exactly the o by Our compasses worked fine but as Ca to a straight line wasn’t as easy as we had hoped The elevation was proving to beent,rocky outcrops, fallen trees and ravines in our path We were both tired, sweaty and irritable and I was lettingout there in the dense foliage, watchinga trap The fear that Gus andThe fear that theone day and never look back

"Seen anything yet?" he asked, glancing at ," I told hin that theskills weren’t up to snuff in a place like this It was too wild and unpredictable,for

At that, thunder ruh the tall tops of the overgrown trees dark clouds hadclosed in The air around us shifted and changed and e started walking again it wasn’t long until I was completely coated in a new layer of sweat

"Do you think this whole thing was a set up?" Ca heavier now, the rising elevation and intense hu him down as well

"I don’t kno it could be," I said honestly My lungs were burning,the sweat offus out here?"

"Maybe we’re supposed to be a diversion Maybe Javier is setting you up to distract them while he swoops in and takes over Maybe that’s why you were left behind"

I shook"I don’t think so Why were you left?"

"I’m a diversion too"

"But if we’re a diversion, then itset up to fail They’d want Travis to take us … worse, kill us Javier wouldn’t do that"

He stopped and turned to look at me "You just said that you wouldn’t put it past hier burned deep in his eyes

I threw up hed "I don’t know I don’t knohat to think I …" I re me under a bus if he had to I sed hard "I think he’d use et what he wants But I don’t think he’d ever put hed wickedly, looking up at the sky "Wow You have got to be kidding an to thud loudly in my ears

"What? Ellie, fros and you’ve been pulled willingly You say he wouldn’t put you in any danger but he sent you to Travis’s house to kill him Heyou at risk, I don’t knohat is I would never do that to you"