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“This is incredible,” Brock said, studying the pages spread across the table. “Elena, this level of detail—it’s exactly what the team needs.”
“It’s impossible for me not to remember every detail.” She looked at the maps, seeing her nightmares transformed into something with purpose.
He kissed her temple, soft and lingering. “Atticus was right. You’re remarkable.”
By the time they needed to leave for the Jeep excursion, they had twenty pages of intelligence. Everything organized, labeled, ready to send.
“I’ll upload this while we’re out,” Brock said, photographing each page with his phone. “Atticus can review it on the flight, start planning.”
The Jeep excursion left at four o’clock—six vehicles carrying twelve people, all of them giddy with vacation romance and afternoon cocktails. Their guide was a young man named Miguel who looked barely twenty, but was enthusiastic about showing them the jungle.
Elena and Brock took a vehicle in the middle of the convoy. Nate and Eden were two vehicles ahead.
The paved road gave way almost immediately, asphalt crumbling into packed dirt that wound through vegetation so dense it felt like the jungle was swallowing them whole. Elena had expected green—everyone expected green when they thought of jungle—but this was green beyond comprehension, green in shades she’d never known existed. Emerald and jade and hunter, lime and olive and moss, sage and seafoam and the acid-bright green of new growth that hurt to look at in the slanting afternoon light.
The trees rose like cathedral pillars on either side of the narrow track, their trunks thick as houses, bark rough as alligator hide. Vines draped from branches in swooping curtains—some thin as thread, others thick as a man’s arm—creating a canopy so dense the sky disappeared. Sunlight filtered through in golden shafts, solid-looking as pillars, catching on dust motes and insects that danced in the heat.
It was beautiful. It was suffocating.
Elena felt her chest tighten as the jungle closed in around them, the Jeep’s open sides offering no barrier against the press of green. The air was thick enough to chew—heavy with moisture and rot and growing things, carrying the sweet-sick smell of flowers blooming and falling, of fruit ripening and rotting, of life feeding on death feeding on life in an endless cycle. She could taste it on her tongue, could feel it coating her skin like oil.
Miguel kept up cheerful commentary about Mayan history and local wildlife while the other couples oohed and aahed at every bird and butterfly.
Elena pulled out her phone, opening the GPS app with fingers that wanted to shake. The screen’s bright blue glow seemed obscene against all that green, technology intruding on something ancient and wild. She marked their position, saved the waypoint, began tracking their route with a focus that kept panic at bay.
Because she needed to know. Needed to be able to find her way back here alone if everything went wrong, if the team failed, if Marguerite needed her and she was the only one left to come.
His hand left the wheel, found hers on the seat between them, closed around her fingers with a warmth that felt like both promise and plea.
“Elena.”
Something in his voice made her look up. His eyes were on the road ahead, but she could see the vein in his temple throbbing.
“What?”
“You’re building a backup plan. To come here alone if the rescue fails.”
It wasn’t a question. She didn’t insult him by denying it.
“She’s my niece.”
“I know.” His hand tightened on hers. “And that’s exactly why I can’t let you do it.”
“Can’t let me?” Despite everything—the fear, the desperation, the bone-deep terror for Marguerite—she felt a spark of irritation.
“Hear me out. Please.” He glanced at her, and what she saw in his eyes wasn’t anger. It was fear. Raw and honest and completely unguarded. “If the rescue fails—if something goes wrong and Marguerite isn’t safe—my first instinct is going to be to get you out. To make sure you’re alive, you’re safe, you’re not captured again.”
“But—”
“And I know that’s not what you want to hear. I know you’d rather die than leave her behind. But Elena—” His voice cracked slightly. “I can’t lose you. I can’t watch you walk into that temple knowing you might not come back. The thought of it—” He stopped, swallowing hard. “It terrifies me.”
The raw vulnerability in his voice made her chest ache.
“I’m not asking you to stop caring about Marguerite,” he continued. “I’m asking you to trust that we have a good team and a solid plan. That we can get her out without you having to sacrifice yourself.”
“And if we can’t?”
“Then we regroup and try again. Not you alone on some mission you might not survive.” He pulled the Jeep slightly to the side, putting more distance between them and the vehicle ahead so he could look at her properly. “You matter, Elena. Not just as a tool to get Marguerite out. Not just as someone with intelligence about the temple. You matter. Your life has value beyond what you can do for other people.”
