Escape from Eden (17 page)

Gabriel slammed on the brakes and twisted the steering wheel. The tires squealed, the acrid scent of burning rubber wafting into the car. I clutched the dashboard as I bashed into the door again. My shoulder ached. The car bounced violently as he drove onto the dirt road. I clutched the door handle and heard the helicopter whizzing off behind us. Leaves slammed across the windshield and branches scraped along the sides of the car causing ominous high-pitched screeches. I looked up to see only a small break in the trees above us.

“They’re going to follow us,” Juanita said matter-of-factly and sat back in her seat, crossing her arms over her chest.

“But we’ll be harder to see from the air,” Gabriel said. “The trees will shield us.” Even in the dim light, I could see the approving expression on his face as he glanced at me. I couldn’t fight the little thrill that ran through me. “Let’s make it even harder,” he said and flipped off the headlights.

The jungle around us plunged into darkness. Only small lights near the ground at the front of the car illuminated our way. We bounced along the dirt road, mud kicking up and splattering the windows. Parts of the car rattled under the onslaught of the bumps and jolts. My stomach and head ached.

“Does that GPS thing know where we’re going?” I asked.

Gabriel glanced at the screen. “No. This road isn’t on the map.”

“Great,” I said.

“Don’t worry,” Gabriel said, maneuvering the car through a particularly rough patch of road. “Yet.”

“I want to go back,” Juanita said. “Let me out, I’ll walk back to the road.”

“No,” Gabriel said sharply and shook his head. “Look, Juanita, I’m sorry about this but I can’t let you out here in the middle of the jungle.” His voice softened. “Please trust me.” The car slowed as Gabriel held her gaze in the rearview mirror. There was an intimacy to it that embarrassed me, like I was intruding. I turned away and stared ahead.

“Okay,” Juanita said, and I heard the shy smile in her voice.

“Okay,” Gabriel agreed.

My eyes found the battered road ahead and I focused on every rut and bump I could see. The deeper we drove into the jungle, the more deteriorated the road became. Gaping furrows ran along either side; the car’s tires dipped into puddles and thick mud.

Above us, the trees opened up into a wide circle, light from the slivered moon peeking through the night. Gabriel flipped on the bright lights and brought the car to a stop.

“Is that supposed to be a bridge?” he asked.

“I hope not,” I said.

We both opened our doors and got out to have a closer look.

Slabs of battered wood stretched across a gaping hollow in the road, some pieces splintered with wear and age. Twisted roots shot up through the mud like arms reaching skyward. I couldn’t see the bottom of the ditch; it was either too dark, or too deep.

Gabriel bent down to adjust a few slabs of wood.

“We’re not driving over that, are we?” I asked.

“You want to go back that way?” he said, hitching a thumb over his shoulder.

“Not really,” I said. “No.”

Juanita got out of the car and came toward us. She stared at the ditch. “This is a sign from God, you know.”

Gabriel slowly turned to her. “Really?”

“That we should turn back,” she continued. “We aren’t meant to go forward.”

I shook my head. “What if it’s a sign that we are meant to go forward? It’s a bridge.”

“You know, Gabriel,” Juanita said, “the word bridge isn’t used in the Bible.”

“It’s not?” Gabriel asked and I couldn’t help feeling he was humoring us. “And why is that?”

Juanita’s face fell as she remembered one of the Reverend’s sermons.

“Because,” I said, reciting what I could recall, “God’s people must pass through the dangerous currents of suffering and death, not simply ride over them.”

“Suffering and death for God’s people, huh?” Gabriel peered down into the ditch. “I guess if I was going to fly my atheist flag, now would be the time.”

I laughed, and Juanita couldn’t fight a smile.

That’s when I saw the flicker of light through the trees and my stomach plummeted. It was a car, following us.

“Someone’s coming,” I said.

We scrambled back into the car, nervously watching the lights bob in and out of view between the trees.

Gabriel flung the car into reverse and draped his arm over the seat back. “Running start,” he said.

He backed up a good distance from the ditch, then shifted into drive and jammed the accelerator to the floor. The force threw us back against the seats. Ahead, the rickety, makeshift bridge appeared even more fragile, as if it could barely hold a person, let alone a sports car. I snapped my seatbelt on as quickly as I could.

Juanita and I gasped as the car hit the boards of the bridge with bouncing force. The car listed forward. I grabbed the door and watched helplessly as the boards flipped backward, shooting into the sky above us.

I heard the crunch of metal as the car dove into the ditch.

“I’m guessing that string of words that just came out of your mouth were all bad,” I said to Gabriel as we hung in the ditch, the front bumper of the car wedged deep in the mud.

“Your guess is right,” Gabriel said.

“I’d never heard some of those before. ‘Dammit’ is about as adventurous as I get.”

“It’s the miracle of the modern English language, all the different ways to curse. I know other, more colorful combinations if you want to hear them.”

“That’s okay,” I said, adjusting the seatbelt as it dug into my shoulder. “Something tells me I’ll be hearing plenty in the near future.”

“Are we going to wait here for that car to show up?” Juanita asked hopefully. She was pressed forward against the back of my seat, strands of her hair ticking my cheek.

Gabriel slung open the driver’s side door. It hit the end of its hinge with a metallic creak. “No.” He peered over the edge of the door. “Now we hide.” Before either of us could protest, he climbed out onto the door and pushed himself up on the edge of the ditch with the grace of a big cat. He reached out his hand. “Come on,” he said.

“You go first,” I said to Juanita.

She shimmied over the seat and managed to fold her tall body behind the steering wheel. With the shift in weight, the car jerked and slid downward in the mud.

“Faster, Juanita,” Gabriel said as she made her way onto the door. “You too, Mia, move!”

I scrambled to the driver’s side after Juanita, feeling the car slip further into the ditch.

“Hurry up,” Gabriel hissed to Juanita. “Those headlights are getting closer.”

She clambered out of the ditch and Gabriel pulled her to safety.

I crawled to the door. As soon as I put my weight on it, it groaned under the pressure and began to bend back. Jerking away from the door, I twisted around and planted my foot on the back of the driver’s seat. With confidence I didn’t think I had, I scrabbled onto the roof, shoes slipping on the metal. I began sliding down the roof of the car and clawed my way up, trying to gain my footing. Blindly, I reached up toward the edge of the ditch and Juanita, then Gabriel, grabbed my hands. They hauled me up, my knees dragging through warm mud and twigs.

Breathing heavily, I asked, “Now what?”

“We go up.” Gabriel said.

“Up where?” Juanita asked.

He hustled us to our feet and motioned to the edge of the jungle where tall trees framed the edges of the road. “Pick a tree and climb it. Go!”

I stole a glance over my shoulder at the approaching headlights and dashed toward one of the trees. I caught a low branch and heaved myself onto the trunk, as I’d done hundreds of times before, trying not to think about the snakes that might be lurking in the branches. Except, it was dark. The ambient light thrown by the car’s interior light and headlights wasn’t enough to help me see beneath the thick leaves of the tree. When I reached for a higher branch, I misjudged the distance and fell back down, clutching the lower branch.

I felt a hand on my lower back pushing me.

“Get back up,” Gabriel said. “And pull me up behind you!”

For a second, I couldn’t move. No one had ever touched me there, on my lower back. To be honest, it was probably lower than my lower back.

“Mia!” Gabriel said.

I flung myself over the branch and reached down to pull him up. He was so heavy he almost dragged me off the branch. But I tightened my legs to gain balance and he hauled himself up behind me.

“Where’s Juanita?” I asked.

“In that tree over there,” he said, pointing to another tree a few yards away. “I don’t know how she climbed up so fast, but she was too far up to help me.”

“You can’t climb a tree, Gabriel?” I whispered.

He leaned over my shoulder, his breath hot on my neck. “Nope. Grew up in Manhattan. But I can do a lot of other things, Mia.”

I tried to hide the hitch in my breath, sneering back at him. “We’re hiding in a tree with people chasing us. Do you really think this is an appropriate time to make suggestive comments?”

He grinned at me, shadows trying to mask the wicked light in his eyes, but it was impossible.

We heard the car approach, then saw the headlights illuminate the trees ahead of us. I saw a quick flash of Juanita’s red dress between the leaves.

Car doors slammed shut and I got a glimpse of people below the branches. Heavy boots, dark pants, gun barrels swinging near their hips. Edenton security guards. They stopped at the edge of the ditch.

“They trashed a really nice car,” one said.

“Any sign of them?” said another.

“No, car’s empty.”

“Sweep the area.” Thaddeus’s voice. He must have gotten out of the helicopter to chase us by car. “Grizz, stay here and watch the car.”

“Why?” Grizz asked. “It’s not going anywhere. It’s stuck in a ditch.”

“Grizz,” Thaddeus said in a warning tone. “Keep an eye on
our
car.”

“It’s not going anywhere either. You have the keys.”

“Grizz!”

“Staying here,
boss
.” Grizz emphasized the last word with a tone of contempt.

Along with the retreating footfalls of the guards, I heard the helicopter approaching. I looked up to see how much coverage we had above us from the leaves and could barely see the sky. I wondered if Juanita was as lucky to have picked a tree with thick foliage.

The helicopter swept overhead. Leaves flapped above us frantically, opening a hole in the canopy. Gabriel folded me beneath him as it passed us. My heart kicked up. I told myself it was only the intensity of our situation. We were being hunted. But I knew that was only a part of it. I was caged beneath Gabriel, and I felt safeguarded, and carnal.

I lifted my eyes and looked over at Juanita’s tree. I caught sight of a flash of red rippling beneath a large swathe of leaves. My heart rushed to my throat as the helicopter paused above. Through the fluttering leaves, a circle of light surrounded the car we’d left in the ditch. A walkie-talkie crackled, then the light swept off into another direction, deeper into the jungle.

The wind and noise died down as the helicopter flew off. Gabriel sat up, bringing me with him. Slowly, he ran his palm down my arm, as if he were watching the goose bumps form on my skin, but it was too dark to see. With the helicopter somewhere off in the distance, the sounds of the jungle flared to life around us. I wondered if snakes were slithering along the branches around us. But the way Gabriel was touching me, that simple skimming of his skin along mine, made me think he was more dangerous than any other creature in the tree.

As if I’d singed him, he pulled his hand away and tensed. I heard a single pair of footsteps crunching leaves somewhere under the tree branches. I saw Gabriel glaring down at Grizz as the guard wandered into view below us. Gingerly, Gabriel inched away from me and brought his leg back over the limb so both legs swung out beneath him. He moved to the edge of the branch, dislodging a few leaves. I watched with nervous fascination as one landed on the ground in front of Grizz. He didn’t look up.

Gabriel turned to me, a wide smile on his face, and I knew what he was planning to do. I shook my head in panicky agitation and reached for him. But he slipped from my grasp and dropped to the ground, landing on Grizz. Both tumbled to the ground in a heap of limbs. Fabric tangled around my thighs, and I cursed the dress I was wearing as I scrambled out of the tree. I landed on the ground in time to see Gabriel standing over an unconscious Grizz, punching his face.

“Hey!” I hissed, glancing around to make sure we were alone. “He’s already knocked out.”

Gabriel shook out his hand. “Yeah, but do you know how long I’ve wanted to do that?”

I raked my fingers though my hair. “You’re completely reckless.”

“Not completely.” He lifted the gun from Grizz’s shoulder and, with a brief moment of hesitation, hauled it over his own.

“Do you know how to use that thing?” I asked.

“Not really,” he said, but there was a peculiar darkness to his words.

He skated his fingers over the barrel and for a moment I wondered if the gun held a certain fascination. He dropped his hand, shaking his head slightly, and walked over to Juanita’s tree. He helped her down.

I bent down to see if Grizz was still breathing, if he had a steady pulse. He seemed okay, passed out cold with blood tricking from his nose, but okay. I untied the bandanna wrapped around his head and held it to his nose.

“Oh, Grizz.” Juanita knelt next to me. Seeing Grizz like that, laid out before us, unconscious and bloody, was unnerving–he’d always been around, protecting us with the fierce determination of a bulldog. Or so we’d thought. “Is he okay?”

“I think so,” I said.

“Grizz was chasing us,” she said, as if trying to convince herself.

I nodded.

“And he’s not alone,” Gabriel said, looking into the driver’s side of the car. He tested the door handle. It was locked. “Come on. We need to get out of here before they come back.”

“And go where?” Juanita asked.

“Back to the main road.”

I checked to see if Grizz’s nose was still bleeding, but it looked like it had stopped. I stood up, next to Juanita, and watched Gabriel glance around. Not nervously, though. It was almost as if—