Crickets chirp. An owl hoots somewhere. I’m having a hard time focusing. I’m battling to decide what I should do.
“We should go inside,” one of the guards says.
“Yes.” I turn automatically to follow him.
They take up posts by the entrance. To guard me or to make sure I don’t run away? I can’t think straight. It doesn’t matter. I’m in a stunned kind of limbo, unable to focus on anything but Banga.
My autopilot function takes over. Going to the kitchen, I get a bucket of water, a brush, and bleach. I wash the blood from the sofa, but it’s soaked through the leather. I scrub the floor and get clean water to rinse it. Not knowing what else to do but needing to keep busy, I scrub it again.
I’m scrubbing furiously when Ian walks in with Leon and Ruben on his heels. I don’t stop. I scrub like my life depends on it, because then I don’t have to think. I don’t have to acknowledge the what-ifs.
A strong hand locks around my wrist, stilling my action.
I look up into Ian’s face. His tanned complexion is pale and his eyes tight with worry. His nostrils flare as he drags a gaze over me. “Are you hurt?”
I shake my head. “Will he be all right?”
Taking my elbows, he pulls me to my feet. “We’ll know later. They haven’t landed yet.”
“Where is it?” Leon asks, his body tense.
I point toward the river. “In the path.”
Ian takes the throw from the back of the sofa and drapes it around my shoulders before pulling me under his arm. “Let’s get you to the room and check you out.”
It’s only then I realize I’m only wearing a bra. I left my top with Banga. The paramedics must’ve taken it with him.
Each of the men takes a rifle. Leon goes in front and Ruben at the back while Ian and I walk in the middle.
At the sight of the baboon lying with a slack jaw, we stop.
Leon bends over it. “Looks like it was shot in the side.”
“What happened?” Ruben asks.
“It charged from the trees. Banga took a shot but only wounded it. It was on him before I could get hold of the rifle.”
“Then what?” Leon asks.
“I waited until I had a good shot and killed it.”
Ian’s fingers tighten around my shoulder, squeezing to the point of pain.
“Between the eyes,” Leon says. “Twice?”
“The second was just to be sure it was dead. I knew I only had one shot.”
Leon looks at me with something like respect.
“Enough,” Ian says. “She needs medical treatment.”
“We’ll get rid of this,” Ruben offers, motioning at the baboon.
“You do that.” Hugging me closer, Ian says to Leon, “Let the people in the village know we’ll send news about Banga as soon as we have an update. They’ll worry.”
“What about his family?” I ask as he leads me down the dark path and over the bridge. “Shouldn’t you fly them out to be with him?”
“We’re the only family he’s got.”
In the darkness, I can’t see his face, but I can hear the tension in his voice. “Why doesn’t he have five wives like everyone else?”
“Because he’s gay.”
The revelation comes as a surprise. I would never have guessed, but now that Ian mentions it, I start to put two and two together. Banga never flirts with the women like the other guys.
Ian doesn’t let me go for a second. At his bungalow, he hugs me close to him while he does the customary check for creepy crawlies before he ushers me to the bathroom and makes me sit on a wicker bench.
Kneeling at my feet, he stares at me with a pained expression as he removes my shoes. When he tugs at the throw, I realize how tightly I’m gripping the edges together. He gives another gentle tug, and I let go. His gaze tightens as he sweeps it over me.
“Does it hurt anywhere?” he asks.
“My knees,” I say through numb lips. I can’t expel the image of Banga on the ground with his chest torn to shreds.
He unbuttons my jeans, and when he squeezes my hip, I lift my ass for him to pull them over my legs.
“It’s my fault,” I whisper. “It wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t walked me here.”
“It’s not your fault,” he says through clenched teeth. “It could’ve happened anywhere and to anyone.”
“He only wanted to knock off early,” I mutter. “If I hadn’t stopped in the kitchen for food—”
He cups my cheek. “You can’t think that way.”
It’s not what I want to hear. I want to hear Banga is going to make it.
Pain lances into my knees when he drags the jeans all the way down and frees my feet. My knees are cut, pieces of glass from the wine bottle still lodged inside.
“Fuck.” He straightens. “Don’t move.”
He goes through the cabinet under the basin and returns with a first aid kit. “I’m going to remove the glass before we get you into the shower, okay?”