Do-Gooder (17 page)

My chest seizes. Henry.

The passenger-side window rolls down, and Henry leans in. A few moments later, Henry nods, opens the door, and slides into the car.

I shout at him to stop, to turn away. To come with me.

I WRAPPED
my arms around my middle to soothe the stabbing pain in my stomach.

“Damn it, let me talk to the scientist guy. I know there’s one here.” Henry’s angry voice pulled me out of sleep, though the dregs of the dream tried to pull me back.

A low, indistinct voice answered him.

“Look, let’s be real here. He’s dying. Dead hostages bring no ransom.”

The door slamming ushered me back into dreams.

“It’s not
like he cheated on you.” Elbow planted, chin in hand, Wendy looks at me from across the small table. Twangy country music plays from a beat-up jukebox across the room. She uses a little stir straw to circulate the ice cubes in her glass of Coke. “It’s not like you two were dating.”

“That’s not the point. Not. The. Point,” I emphasize, stabbing my own stir straw at her with each word.

“It is the point. Besides, even if you were going out, how can you be mad at him for doing what it took to save you?”

“I don’t want him to have to save me. He needs to stop saving me.”

Loud laughter booms from the other side of the room. I slink in my chair. Chuck and Shorty are having some kind of bonding moment at another small table. Chuck has on some kind of cheesy, green poker visor, and Shorty deals cards. The pot in the middle holds pictures in frames. Mrs. Okono. Henry. Wendy. Me.

“He’s kind of hot.” Wendy points at Henry’s picture.

I nod. So hot. “Yeah, but he’s just like Chuck. Another do-gooder, out to save the world.”

“It doesn’t mean he would ignore you just because your dad did.” Wendy takes a sip of her Coke. Looking at me over the rim, she says, “Besides, you like that about him.”

“Do not.” I cross my arms over my chest and slouch in the chair.

A bartender sets up at the bar next to us. He’s a slight, pale man with stringy blond hair and a ratlike face. He has the look of an absentminded professor or scientist, especially when he starts to pull out bottles and glasses, adding liquid to glasses in a seemingly random pattern.

“A little of this, a splash of that. Just what you need to feel yourself again.” He plops a glass full of a noxious blue liquid in front of me. It hisses and fizzes.

I look from Wendy to the bartender. “Um… what is this?”

“It’s good for you.”

That’s the same thing Mom says about prune juice. The argument doesn’t work for her, and it certainly isn’t going to convince me to drink this concoction.

“Just a sip or two, mind. You don’t want too much. This cocktail has quite a kick.”

“JUST A
sip or two. After about twenty minutes give him some of the juice. Then, twenty minutes later, another hit of the insulin. Alternate the water with the juice and the insulin. Electrolytes would be better, but we don’t have anything like that.”

“That doesn’t seem very scientific,” Henry said. He sat next to me, holding my hand. I always liked it when our hands touched. The connection. The warmth.

“I’ll be honest, we may already be too late.” The heavily accented German voice rang a bell. His words barely registered, but the voice….

I struggled away from Henry. Away from Rat Man. I wanted to demand he get his mass-murdering, weapons-of-mass-destruction-creating hands away from me. But the internal mechanism that translates thoughts into words seemed to be malfunctioning.

“Shh…. You’re going to be fine.” Henry tried to soothe me, but I refused to be soothed. Henry didn’t understand. It was already too late, so his sacrifice was for nothing.

I DIDN’T
remember much beyond that. Not my dreams. Not what went on around me. Maybe I’d actually been in a coma. Did people dream in comas? I had flashes of memory.

Henry waking me up and making me drink some obnoxiously sweet fruit juice.

Henry waking me up and making me drink a cup full of water.

Henry waking me up and injecting me with my emergency insulin.

Henry waking me up and making me drink some obnoxiously sweet fruit juice.

Henry waking me up and making me drink a cup full of water.

I wished he’d leave me alone. Just let me sleep.

THE GUARDS
swept in, guns at the ready. Shorty strode in behind them. He pointed at me and barked, “Let’s go.”

Two of the guards slung their rifles behind their backs by the strap. Each grabbed one of my arms and hauled me to my feet. I was mostly lucid at this point—whatever formula of fluids and insulin The Scientist and Henry had pushed on me seemed to have helped. I hadn’t fallen into a coma at least. But my body was not happy or healthy. The pain in my stomach reminded me in no uncertain terms just how pissed my body was.

Even in the short time we’d been here—had it really been just a week?—my muscles had visibly shrunk. That’s what happens when your fucked-up metabolism didn’t have enough calories to burn. Damn, it happened fast. I trembled with cold, even in the heat of the rain forest.

The combination of pissed-off stomach, atrophied muscles, and fuzzy-headedness meant that even if the guards were able to get me to my feet, it didn’t mean I was able to stay up. My knees buckled, and the guards were forced to take a firmer grip.

“Hurry up,” Shorty snapped. “Your father is waiting.”

Henry stood up. He’d kept himself to a far corner whenever he wasn’t pouring liquids down my throat. Maybe because I refused to acknowledge him when he tried to talk to me.

I didn’t have anything to say to him. Not anymore.

“No!” Shorty’s hand shot out. “You stay.”

Shorty might as well have shot Henry. All color drained from Henry’s already pale face, and he hunched over as though he’d taken a bullet to the stomach. The tortured look in his wide eyes said it all.

Betrayed.

Again.

“What about Henry?” I pulled against the arms that restrained me. “What’s going to happen to him?”

No answer. I might as well have not been there for all the notice Shorty gave me. The other guards ignored me too.

I dug in my feet. “Henry!”

“Move it!” Shorty barked.

“What about Henry?” I let my body sag, hoping the dead weight would slow things down.

“The deal was for you. The other,” Shorty said, pointing to Henry’s dazed form, “he is insurance.”

I stared at Henry, a horrified ache settling in my chest. I couldn’t leave him behind. But what could I do? Nothing. I was absolutely useless. I swallowed hard, searching for something—anything—to say to make this easier. I had no words.

Henry stepped forward, scooping up the red backpack. “You’ll need this.” He didn’t look at me as he handed it over.

I grabbed his hand instead of the bag. “We’ll figure something out. I promise.”

It was an empty promise and Henry knew it. “I know,” he said. Bleak eyes told me he had no hope of a rescue or a happy ending.

Pain rung in my head, making nausea surge in my belly. I touched my head where someone—probably the evil-eyed Snake Eyes—had hit me with the butt of his assault rifle. My vision swam and nausea churned.

I let myself be dragged forward because I didn’t have anything else I could do.

THEY SHOVED
me in the back of one of their old-school jeeps. The olive green with rust patches blended in with the surrounding forest, which was probably why they wanted to use it. As soon as my ass hit the hard-as-a-rock seat, one of the guards wrapped a dark cloth over my eyes. He tied it tight enough that I hissed at the pressure on my bruised temple. On top of that, I almost gagged at the scent of motor oil and body odor. Before I could object, rough hands grabbed my wrists, and, after the distinctive ripping noise of duct tape, secured them together in front of me.

A few minutes later, the jeep started with a grumble and shake that did nothing to ease my nausea. Another vehicle revved behind us, and then we moved.

Whatever path or road we took was clearly not used much. The jeep shifted along the edges of deep ruts and bounced from potholes. Even though I couldn’t see, I
felt
the forest pressing in on us. I flinched every time a bush or a leafy branch swept along the jeep’s sides. An oppressive hush hung over us. I couldn’t hear a single bird chirp or bug buzz.

We hit another pothole, making the jeep rock. The extra rocking motion was too much for me. “I’m going to be sick.” I doubted whether either of the guards in the front of the jeep heard or cared. We continued driving at the same pace, so I assumed they hadn’t. My mouth flooded with moisture, and I had to swallow back bile. I leaned forward in the cramped backseat and tried to lower my head between my knees. There wasn’t enough room, and all I managed to do was hit my forehead against the low seatback in front of me. I blinked at the unexpected pain.

I’d kept my eyes closed behind the blindfold. It seemed less scary that way. But when I blinked them open I noticed a tiny sliver of light along the lower edge of the smelly cloth. Maybe I could shift the blindfold enough to see something? Between the DKA and the blows to my head, I might have been acting under some kind of weird delusion of cleverness, but I felt surprisingly clearheaded. And I had a plan. It was a long shot, but it was better than sitting there in a daze.

I leaned forward again, slower this time. When my head rested against the seatback, I pressed down and pulled back. The cloth shifted. Not much, but enough that the sliver of golden light grew. I adjusted my head again and repeated the action.

“What are you doing?”

I recognized The Slav’s voice.

“I feel like I’m going to be sick,” I said. Since he didn’t reply, I assumed he bought my excuse.

The jeep lurched and the weight of the forest seemed to ease back. I breathed in deeply and noticed a subtle change in the humidity and scent of vegetation. If I were to guess, we’d driven out of the rain forest and into a clearing of some kind.

I sat upright in my seat and tilted my head back. If I angled my head just right and raised my eyebrows, the blindfold lifted enough I could catch images out the corner of my eyes. The first thing I caught was blazing yellow. Yes, clearly we’d escaped the dense canopy of rain forest. The second thing I caught was… a hippopotamus in a tutu? Maybe I was more delusional than I thought. I blinked and tried to focus, but the jeep bounced and the movement increased my nausea. The tendons in my neck, which were stretched at an awkward angle, twinged. I lowered my chin to relieve the pressure. So my clever plan didn’t work so well. All I got was sunlight and a hippopotamus ballerina, and I was pretty sure I couldn’t trust what I think I saw. Seriously. Dancing hippos? There weren’t even any signs or buildings that could be used as identification.

My brain grew foggy and my head heavy as the stress of the morning caught up with me. The road smoothed out a bit and, with the gentler ride, I fell into a fitful doze.

I DIDN’T
know how long I was out of it. When I came to, my body ached, both from the illness and the nap in the cramped backseat of an antique jeep. I rolled my shoulders, trying to loosen tight muscles. My lips were rough and cracked from the heat and thirst.

I cleared my throat. “Can I have some water?”

The guards ignored my question.

Awake and uncomfortable, my foggy brain arrowed in on the one thing I’d hoped to ignore: Henry. It wasn’t that I didn’t care about what happened to him, but if I let myself dwell on him, abandoned and alone, at the mercy of mercenaries, I’d lose it. Completely. Unfortunately, my desire to hold off a major freak-out by ignoring the problem couldn’t stand against the panicked images my brain provided. Everything from bruises and bleeding to rape and murder flickered through my imagination. My breathing became shallow and rapid, matching the frantic beating of my heart.

I bit my lip and forced myself to breathe slowly. It didn’t help. Not only was I terrified about what would happen to Henry, the thought that I’d been so cold to him the last couple of days tortured me. He’d saved me. He’d gone way above and beyond to get my insulin and work with Rat Man to keep me alive. And what did I do? I resented him. I ignored him. More than anything else, maybe even more than I wanted to get away from the mercenaries, I wanted to talk to Henry. To reassure him that I didn’t hate him. That I appreciated what he did, even if I hated that he’d had to do it.

By the time the jeep slowed, I’d wound myself up so much the change in speed brought me to attention with a surge of adrenaline that left me jittery. I swallowed back a panicked gasp. “Are we there?” I asked.

Again the guards ignored my question. They started talking to each other, though. In Russian. They sounded a bit like Shorty. There was a crackling sound, like from a walkie-talkie, and more indecipherable muttering.

The jeep came to a halt, and I strained my senses trying to get any information I could. My eyes were useless, obviously, behind the grungy blindfold. I inhaled, detecting a scent kind of like sagebrush. Sagebrush and dirt. Not green and rot. So we really had left the rain forest behind. The air felt a little dryer too, so it seemed likely.

Doors slammed from the jeep behind us, and the two mercenaries in the vehicle with me got out too. A heavy hand landed on my shoulder in a painful grip that kept me in place.

“You brought our product?” Shorty’s voice was unnaturally loud in the quiet space.

My chest tightened. Was Chuck there? Was I really going to get to go home?

“It’s here.”

I almost cried at the sound of Chuck’s voice. So close. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going to go wrong at the last second. I’d find out it was all some kind of trick or someone would shoot Chuck. Or me. Or an earthquake would strike. Something was going to happen. This was too… easy.