By the time they reached the ridgeline, the valley with Ashley’s hideout was choked with thick fog. The haze curled like smoke through the moss hung branches and bled between the trunks with a slow and menacing grace. The full moon’s light descended into the valley and illuminated the landscape, silver and ethereal; it gave Sawyer the trickling feeling of grace, completely opposite of the now fading anger he felt after dealing with the demon Caligo.
By all appearances, the night was chilling and yet the tropical heat clung to Sawyer and Cormac’s skin and the humidity tasted sour.
Inside Ashley’s hideout, the air hung heavy. She was gone. The Black Ledger was gone with her. And all she left behind was a note. It was creased and damp, lying on the workbench.
The words she’d written weren’t long, just a quick scrawl.
“I’m sorry. I have to find a way to reverse this and the Black Ledger has the answers I seek. I can’t live like this. I hope you can understand. I hope you can forgive me. — A.
Sawyer read it three times. He crushed the paper and dropped it on the floor.
“We should’ve copied the book,” Sawyer muttered.
“Should’ve known she’d pull a disappearing act,” Cormac said. “She even took the M4. That was my M4.”
“If she’s stealing from us…well…what is she keeping around here?”
Sawyer moved with purpose where more of Ashley’s gear was stashed. He rifled through it. His hands moved methodically. Every action had a certain violence to it, snapping open clasps, yanking zippers, and jerking the lids off shoe boxes. He found ammo, cash, gauze, tourniquets, a suppressor, and three bags of blood in the cooler. He scoffed at how cocky she had been, leaving all of this stuff behind like she could come back later and freely claim it? After stealing from them? She really was insane. Or had she left it for them on purpose?
The blood bags sloshed softly as he stuffed them into a rucksack. He nestled it between some gauze and morphine. He zipped it tight.
Then he heard it, he turned to face the sound of grinding against gravel outside the door. Sawyer turned toward the door. He approached, cracking it open, and peered into the fogged valley.
“What’s out there?” Cormac asked.
I can’t see anything,” Sawyer said. “Wait—I see something. Blacked out trucks. There’s multiple. They’re at the top of the ridge.”
“How many are there?”
“Six or seven trucks. Could be six or seven men per vehicle.”
Cormac’s throat tightened. “We have to go.”
They fled from the hideout and climbed up the valley ridge. Cresting the top, they slipped into the underbrush. The terrain met them with teeth as twisted branches and thorns grabbed at them and poked them like stingers.
Vines coiled over their boots. Every step felt like wrestling with a giant who wanted to keep them there. The roots twisted beneath the damp earth and tripped them several times. Mosquitos swarmed like gnats around an unseen corpse and droned in their ears and eyes. Somewhere nearby, a troop of howler monkeys screamed in alarm.
They trudged through ankle-deep muck and thickets of wet bamboo that whipped their arms with every swing of their machete. Sweat poured down their faces. Leaves slapped their cheeks. Thorns dragged across their flesh. The canopy was thick and wet, stifling their senses. It turned the air into a soup of mold and damp heat.
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Their boots squelched in the black mud.
Cormac tripped and fell face first. “I can’t see anything!”
Sawyer turned, sweat streaming down his temples, chest heaving. “Keep moving.”
“I’m trying,” Cormac hissed. He swiped at a leech that latched to his neck. “This place is hell!”
A sudden hiss froze them in their tracks.
Something moved in the branches above them. Sawyer’s eyes shot upward just in time to see the thick and sinuous shape of a snake unravel from a branch.
Sawyer ducked.
The snake lunged and missed his head by inches. It coiled midair like a whip. Its body fell onto the damp earth at his feet with a wet slap. Its mouth opened, fangs bared, tongue flickering and hissing with fury.
Cormac yelled out, raw with panic and disgust. He swung his machete in a wild arc. The blade cleaved the snake in half with a wet snap.
Blood sprayed across the foliage.
Several men shouted in the distance, from the valley behind them. Their voices were loud and commanding, and definitely Spanish. Sawyer heard their radios squawk.
Gunfire ripped through the jungle.
Bullets shredded through the trees with a sound like tearing denim. Leaves erupted in bursts of green mist and the bark on the trees beside them exploded and sent woodchips hurling into their chest and face. Wood splinters sliced through the air.
“Down!” Sawyer shouted. He grabbed the back of Cormac’s neck and slammed him down into the mud beside him.
Bullets hissed over their heads.
Cormac cursed.
They crawled to some cover behind a large tree trunk, beneath a cluster of elephant ears. Their breath rasped. The jungle around them flared to life with muzzle flashes and vicious shouting.
A sharp whistling crack sounded and then something painful slammed into Sawyer’s back. He hissed. Another round struck just below his shoulder blade.
“Stay down,” he hissed to Cormac. He used his body to shield his brother, knowing that so long as they didn’t land a headshot then he would survive.
Sawyer rose to his feet and scanned his surroundings. Where were they? Where were they?
Another crack followed. Then another. One hit his side and flattened against his ribs. Another punched the center of his spine. His rucksack lurched with three impacts and jerked his frame like a marionette.
And then the jungle stilled.
Cormac laid there, wide eyed. “Sawyer? What’s the damage?”
Sawyer dropped to his knees. He held his arms out to steady himself. His breath came sharp and fast. He had felt the throbbing pain from the bullet’s impacts, but those would heal. What he felt, above all else, was a torrential storm of fury that made it impossible to concentrate on anything but blood.
Craving blood, he reached back and found that the canvas of his pack was torn open. Inside, he felt something slippery and rubbed it between his fingers. Blood.
He removed his pack and yanked the zipper open.
The blood bags had burst and spilled.
Acrid and warm fluid coated the inside of his ruck and mingled with shredded gauze, broken vials, and warped tourniquets. The padding of the bag was soaked in red.
All of it was ruined.
He pulled his hand free and stared at the mixture of blood and melted plastic and he felt something deep inside of him split open.
His hunger had been quiet. For a little while, it was manageable.
But the pain and the loss of those blood bags, and the incredibly annoying sounds of the gun shots, and the men shouting, it all stirred and ignited something primal inside Sawyer’s soul. He roared like a starved animal. His tongue swelled for something sweet, which he desperately needed. The walls of his throat pulsed and his teeth ached. His heart slammed against his ribs with a brutal force.
Cormac stayed low and breathed hard. “You look—are you alright?”
Sawyer turned toward him, eyes flashing with hatred.
“I’m going to kill them.”
“What?”
Sawyer stood. He straightened his posture, completely unafraid. The stings on his bruised skin smoked faintly where the bullets had flattened against him. His jaw clenched and his eyes were wild with hunger.
“Keep going,” Sawyer said, voice guttural. “Follow the ravine. You’ll hit the river by dawn. You know the place. Rally at fallback point alpha.”
“What are you—”
“I’ll catch up.”
“Sawyer—”
“Go!”
Cormac looked one more time up at his brother, then he nodded. He turned and vanished into the trees gripping his machete. He cleared his path with mechanical chops.
Sawyer stood alone.
The hunger inside of him wasn’t patient anymore. He stepped forward. Then he found a stretch of forest and he fleeted toward the closest unfortunate soul who would be the target of his rage.
