Risen To The Top

CHAPTER 13

Joanne was going to kill him. They were on hour five of their ‘small trek’, as he’d called it, and not only were her feet killing her, she was sure she’d sweat more fluids than she had taken in, or weighed, for that matter. He’d never told her they were going to be hiking through the jungle at top speeds. If he had, she would have told him where to go and how to get there.

“Arg… Alex.” She corrected herself. “I have to stop.”

“Shhh!” He’d been acting strange for the last half a mile. She had a few rocks in her boots and needed a moment to use the nearest tree.

Her shirt was sticking to her skin, and she wanted nothing more than to remove it and toss it aside. But the bugs were so bad under the canopy of the trees, she didn’t want any new bites on exposed skin. Looking at the back of his head, she realized he wasn’t fighting any bugs off.

“Alex, I need to stop.” She thought this name suited him better than Argon. He turned and looked at her, his eyes burrowing into hers. She tried very hard not to look away. She knew when to stand her ground and this was one of those times. They’d been walking for hours without so much as a complaint from her. Normally she would be spewing them, but in light of her being at fault for their predicament, she bit her tongue.

He nodded and she relaxed, letting out the breath she’d been holding. She turned and started walking towards the nearest large tree.

“Where are you going?” he growled out.

She turned quickly and put her hands on her hips. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to go behind that tree and use the facilities. I’m sure I will be perfectly safe seeing as it’s only ten feet away.” She turned and stomped the rest of the way.

Once behind the tree, she dropped her pack from her shoulders and almost fell over without the extra weight holding her down. Her shoulders were killing her. She leaned against the tree and closed her eyes as she rolled her head, using her hands to massage the sore muscles.

She bent over and stretched her back muscles and was about to stand up again when she heard a loud thud. She jumped and turned to see Alex standing there with his machete in one hand and a large snake the thickness of his thigh in the other. Its large head was on the ground, and she watched in horror as he slowly untwisted its body from around his arm then dropped its limp body to the ground at her feet.

“Always check the tree before you stand under it for too long.” He turned and walked away, leaving her staring at the large boa constrictor. She shivered then grabbed her pack up and followed him back to the small clearing.

“I thought you had to use the facilities?”

She could see him laughing at her, but didn’t care. Images of snakes, leopards, and all the other creepy or crawling things that lived in this jungle flashed in her mind. Things that wanted to eat her. She shivered again and didn’t even mind that his eyes were laughing at her.

“You forgot to put on your bug repellent.” He walked over to her, took out a small tub from his pack, and handed it to her.

“I am not wearing that stinky stuff.” She crossed her arms and looked at the repellent she’d smelled earlier.

“You think that snake was bad? Try malaria or yellow fever. Put it on, Princess. The only person who can smell you is me, and I don’t care what you smell like.”

She took the tube and he turned to walk behind a large bush, no doubt to relieve himself. She slathered the thick cream on her exposed skin. She had over three dozen bites on her arms already and was trying very hard not to scratch them so they didn’t scar up. The thick cream stank, but when she rubbed it over her bites she could actually feel the itching dissipate.

She still had to go to the bathroom, so after rubbing the cream into her arms, she went behind a small tree, and after spending several seconds looking up into the branches above her head, quickly dropped her pants.

When she walked back to where her pack was, she was happy to see Alex leaning against a tree, looking bored.

“How much farther are we going to go tonight? How can you tell you’re going in the right direction?”

She sat on her pack and removed her left boot to empty it of the dirt and pebbles that had been bothering her for the last hour.

“I want to go another two hours before we make camp.” He handed her a small pouch of the beef jerky as he popped a piece into his mouth.

She didn’t know if she would make it two more hours, but when she wanted to voice her complaints, an image of her father popped into her head and she closed her eyes.

“There was nothing you could have done,” he said softly. She looked at him and realized he must have guessed where her thoughts had turned. She looked down at her boot and played with the laces.

“If I had taken the chance he would still be alive.” She didn’t realize the tears were coming, but knew she’d held them at bay for over a day and that they had to come at some point.

“Joanne.” She saw his boots by her feet, but kept her eyes fixed on her own boot and hands. “I know you think that you were foolish for not following up his plans, but what you were trying to do was a very noble thing. The world should know about the injustice going on down here. Do you see those people working for the Connery Family?” He knelt down and put his finger under her chin, bringing her eyes up to meet his. “Those people live in fear every day that they’re going to be killed for talking to the wrong person or for crossing the wrong street. The Connery family have complete control there and it just pisses me off to think that what your father said might be true. That government officials may know about the control they have it. The people need to know.”

His face was so close to her, she could see his hazel eyes. So close that, even though she was coated in bug repellent, she could no longer smell the stinky stuff. Instead, all she could smell was him. He had a musky, sexy scent and she wondered if he tasted as good as he looked. What would it be like to run her hands and mouth all over him? To play her fingers over the ripples in his arms and chest she’d seen the night before.

She felt his finger on her chin and enjoyed when he moved his hand and pushed a strand of her hair behind her ear. Then he ran his hand into her hair and pulled her closer so that he was a breath away.

“This is probably a mistake,” he whispered right before he laid his lips gently on hers.

Yes, this was definitely a mistake, she thought as his mouth moved over hers and she felt a shiver run down her spine. Her hands went into his dark hair, holding him closer as she tilted her head and took the kiss deeper.

She was probably still in shock from everything that had happened to her in the last day. After all, it was just yesterday she’d sworn she’d get him fired because he was an incompetent fool who didn’t know how to do his job. But now she realized he was doing his job and she was alive today because he’d been good at it.

She felt him pull away and held off opening her eyes for a few seconds. She could taste his lips and wanted more. Hell, if she could, she’d probably jump him right here and now. Then she opened her eyes and looked at him and realized things with him weren’t going to be as easy as a quick fling.

They had a long trip ahead of them and their lives were in his hands. They didn’t have time to stop and romp in the forest. Remember the snake? she asked herself and felt a shiver of disgust flow through her.

“I hope that wasn’t because of my kiss.” He smiled.

“Oh, no! That was for the snake.” When he smiled and made a point to looked down at his crotch, she laughed. “Not that snake, the one who’s head is lying a few feet from its body over there.”

He laughed. “I know. I just love messing with you. Come on.” He stood and held out his hand to help her back up, but then realized she’d yet to put her boot back on. “We’d better get moving again.”

She dusted off her sock and slid on her boot, hating the feeling of the wetness from her sweaty sock, but knowing it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

An hour later she could have kicked herself for jinxing it. The rain wasn’t just coming down, it was pouring down on them like someone was hovering overhead with an unlimited number of full buckets.

She tried to look up past her rain hat to see why the canopy of leaves above them wasn’t sheltering a little of the water, but every time she tried, she got a face full of water. It was worse than standing under a broken shower-head.

Alex continued to march along at the same pace like he was unfazed by all the water. Their rain ponchos sheltered them from most of the damp, however her boots and the legs of her pants were muddy and soaked. She didn’t know how much longer she could tolerate hiking at this pace. Every time she stepped down, she slid a little in the mud and had to make sure she didn’t end up on her butt.

“Alex?” She had to shout over the sound of the rain hitting the leaves. He continued to march without looking back. “Alex!” She pulled on his sleeve. “Can we stop?”

He looked down at her and she hoped he saw the desperation in her eyes. She was tired, more tired than she’d been in years. The lack of a good night’s sleep and the stress of everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours had been slowly catching up with her. But what had finally caused the weariness to sink in was the downpour of the steady, cold rain.

“Can you walk five more minutes? There’s a safe place up here we can stop. The rocks will shelter us from the rain and we may even have a dry place to sleep for the night.”

It sounded wonderful, so she nodded her head and they continued on. Thoughts of a soft bed ran through her head, but she knew she’d be sleeping on the hard ground instead. She was glad she’d packed an extra blanket in her bag. Even though it was in the upper eighties, she felt chilled and knew the second they stopped her blood would cool and she’d be cold.

They took a rocky path that shot off the main pathway. It climbed high above a tall ridge-line. The steepness was a little hard to maneuver with the slick mud underfoot and it took them twice as long as he’d hinted at to finally reach the top.

They had to hold onto tree branches and rocks to help them climb the last few steep feet. Once they made it, she almost felt like crying with relief.

But when they reached the top she understood why he’d pushed so hard to get here. The large moss-covered rocks crossed in a pattern and underneath was a perfect teepee-shaped cave with a small waterfall to the right. The water rushed into a small pool that she assumed was normally very calm. Today, however, all the rain had caused the little lake to look like the ocean during a storm. There were even little waves that lapped at the pebbled shoreline.

They walked around the water’s edge and made it into the stone archway, and she breathed a sigh of relief. It was hard to explain, but the steady pelting of the rain on her skin was almost annoying. She actually felt like it had sandblasted the top layer off.

Her feet hurt, her head hurt, and she knew she had a few new blisters. Setting her pack down, she moved to sit when Alex grabbed her arm.

“Better wait until I check it out. Other animals like to take shelter from the rain.” She jumped up. How could she have forgotten they were in the jungle? She picked her pack up and hugged it to her chest as pictures of spiders, snakes, and bats danced in her mind again. Alex took out his flashlight and checked every corner of the small space.

“We’re clear.” He smiled when he saw the nervous look on her face.

“I don’t like creepy-crawling things. Are you sure?”

He smiled and then ran his light around again. “Yes, we’re clear.”

She relaxed a little and set her bag down, then sat in the dry dirt, happy to be off her feet.