Savage Hearts

“That’s not the future,” I say. “That’s here and now. You’re mine and I’m yours. We just need to make it official.”

“I am yours,” she says with a happy sigh. “That was…so perfect. I love making love to you. I want to do it every day for the rest of my life.” She sighs again. “Except on the first day of my period, when I’m not in the mood.”

I laugh, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Is that a yes?”

“Yes.” She hugs me closer. “But I don’t want a big deal. I just want it to be you and me in some place pretty. Maybe on a portaledge on a cliff somewhere and then the person who marries us can climb back down and we’ll spend the night just like this.”

“Sounds perfect.”

We talk a little longer, daydreaming out loud the way we used to when we were younger, imagining all the things we’d do when we were grown up and could finally be together all the time. I never imagined our lives would end up the way they have, but I can’t regret any of it right now, with Sam in my arms and her “yes” still ringing in my ears.

I don’t remember falling asleep, but when I wake up the stars are fading from the sky and the pale pink dawn is creeping up from the other side of the world.

I lie watching the light consume the last of the night sky, holding Sam in my arms, hoping that, by this time tomorrow, all the darkness will be gone.

Chapter Nineteen

Sam

“There is strong shadow

where there is much light.”

-Goethe

* * *

When you’ve been waiting on something for a long, long time, and then the moment you’ve been anticipating is suddenly at hand, it can be hard to know what to feel. It’s like the anticipation of the event has become its own separate entity, a thing that’s hard to let go of.

I have a hard time letting go.

I wake up in a daze and stay there as we pack up camp and make our way back down the cliff.

Today is the day. Today is the day that I will have my revenge.

Today is the day that two men will suffer and one man will die and then I will get on a plane and fly away with nothing to anticipate but how nice it will be to live in a world without Todd Winslow in it.

All the way through the jungle, my thoughts are a record stuck in a single groove, repeating the same things over and over again. But it isn’t until Danny and I have hugged everyone goodbye and are back in the cabin, packing up our things, that reality finally settles in.

The fear hits a moment later.

A moment after that, I’m on the floor with my head between my legs, hyperventilating, trying my best not to pass out.

“It’s okay.” Danny rubs my back in soothing circles. “It hit me about an hour ago. It will pass. Just give it a second. Think about right now and nothing else and you’ll be okay.”

I bring my thoughts to this moment, to the worn wooden floor beneath my feet and the lizard who slithered under the bed when I plunked down a little too close to him. I think about drawing breath into my body and letting it out and the faint smell of wood smoke and mildew that lingers in the cabin. I think about the crick in my neck from sleeping on the tiny camping pillow and the more pleasant ache between my legs from making love.

After a few more breaths, I lift my head and look at my half-filled backpack.

I need to finish packing. That’s what I’m doing right now. I’m packing. I’m not drugging anyone or dumping them in a pit in the middle of the jungle. I’m not watching someone convulse as they die from a lethal dose of arsenic.

If I keep imagining what’s going to happen, I’m going to live through it a hundred times before nightfall and I won’t have any energy left for the actual event. When the time comes, I have to be strong, solid, and focused, not drained and freaking out. I’ve spent a year training my body to face the men who hurt me, but only now do I realize I should have been training my mind as well. I’m beginning to think that in order for a murder to go off without a hitch, the mind is the most important muscle involved.

Luckily, mine has Danny to help it stay on task.

After I’m finished packing, he hands me a dust rag and a broom and leaves me to start cleaning up the cabin while he runs out to the mess hall. By the time I’m finished dusting and sweeping, he’s back with a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, and a few oranges he’s liberated from the kitchen and puts me to work making sack lunches for our dinner while he cleans the bathroom.