Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

Marlowe’s skin crawled. And not just because of the tropical bugs she was constantly brushing off her arms. The feeling of being hunted wasn’t a comfortable one, and she had no doubt she and Kendric were merely steps ahead of the authorities.

They’d made it into the jungle without drawing anyone’s attention, as far as she knew, but getting through the trees was much harder than either of them had expected. The thick vegetation and thorny bushes were relentless. There were pockets of wet, swampy ground that tried to suck her shoes off at least twice. They’d lost time as Kendric had fished her shower shoes out of the muck. She’d wanted to leave them, but he’d refused, saying there was no way she could walk through the thorns and foliage without something protecting her feet.

Marlowe knew he was right, but she hated that she was slowing them down. The closer they got to the border, the farther away it seemed. Fate wouldn’t be so cruel as to let them get so close, only to have them captured now, would it?

They finally made it to the edge of the road beyond the jungle, a one-lane strip of asphalt in the middle of the trees. Kendric had told her that to their left, about eight miles or so down the road, was one of the many official checkpoints leading into Cambodia. In front of them were fifty yards of more trees, more pricker bushes, shoe-sucking mud holes . . . and a fence topped with barbed wire.

“Ready?” Kendric asked in a low, urgent tone.

Marlowe nodded, even though she wasn’t remotely ready. She desperately wanted out of Thailand, but for some reason, she had a sudden feeling they weren’t going to make it. She wanted to hide out in the trees for another day. Wait until those damn sirens that had been going nonstop faded into silence.

“Here we go,” Kendric said in an upbeat tone as he stood and held out his hand. Marlowe grabbed it, and he hauled her to her feet.

They weren’t even halfway across the road when they heard shouts to their left.

“Shit! Go, go, go!” Kendric ordered as he shoved her ahead of him toward the trees.

Five seconds. That’s all it would’ve taken to get across that road unseen. But of course, a roving patrol had to come along at exactly the wrong time.

Her heart beating out of her chest, Marlowe ran. Her shoes flew off, but she didn’t even notice. Their only goal was getting to the fence, then up and over it.

Kendric stayed at her back, his hand touching her as they ran. She had no doubt he could’ve gone a lot faster, but he refused to leave her side. He had her back, and nothing she could say or do would make him go on ahead of her. She knew that better than she knew her own name.

Determination welled up inside her. She wouldn’t do anything to get this man caught. She owed him her freedom. Her life.

She loved him.

The thought should’ve been outrageous, even scary, but instead it centered her. She loved him already, despite just knowing him for days, and there was no way they’d made it through everything they had, only to be caught now.

Pressing her lips together, she did her best to block out the sounds of someone crashing through the trees behind them and yelling something in Thai.

“There it is,” Kendric panted.

Looking up, Marlowe saw the fence. It looked huge and foreboding. The curls of barbed wire at the top made her wince; they were almost as tall as she was. How the hell were they going to get across that?

She hit the fence hard—and was surprised when she felt it give under her weight.

“Up, Marlowe. Start climbing!” Kendric said.

Instead of heeding his order, something made her look down. When she’d run into the fence, it swayed more than she thought it should’ve. She fell to her knees and started digging the dirt and leaves away from the chain-link.

“Marlowe! What are you doing? We need to get over this. Now!”

But she knew she’d never get over that barbed wire. Not without shoes. Not at her height. She frantically dug faster.

She heard a noise behind her, and glanced over her shoulder to see two men coming at them from the trees.

Their time was up.

Kendric didn’t even hesitate: he charged the men, meeting them head on.

It was an eerie fight. No one said anything. All Marlowe heard were grunts and groans as the three men did their best to subdue each other.

Torn between continuing to free the bottom of the fence—she was getting close, she could feel it—and helping Kendric, she ultimately stood. Shrugging off the backpack, she looked around for something she could use to help him fight.

“Go, Mar!” he yelled as he struggled with the men. “Damn it, go!”

She continued to search her surroundings. She wasn’t leaving without him.

The two men were some sort of security. From what she could see, neither had a gun, which was a huge relief. The last thing she wanted was either her or Kendric being shot when they were so close to freedom.

Just when she was feeling utterly frantic, she finally spied a large tree limb. Running toward it, she blanked her mind from anything but what she needed to do.

By the time she turned back to the fight, Kendric had incapacitated one of the men, who was lying on the ground, moaning. But it looked like he was losing the battle with the other one.

The security officer had pulled a knife and was doing his best to slice Kendric to ribbons as they fought. Marlowe hovered as close as she dared, waiting for an opportunity to strike.

Her chance came when Kendric grabbed the man’s knife arm, and they seemed to come to a brief stalemate, each trying to force the other’s hand.

Rushing up behind the officer, Marlowe swung the branch as hard as she could. She was smaller than the man, but more determined than ever to end this.

The branch hit him on the side of his head and immediately shattered into hundreds of splinters as it made contact.

For a moment, the man stood stock still, his eyes wide with shock. Then he crumpled to the ground in a heap.

Marlowe stared, equally shocked. Crap! Had she killed him? That hadn’t been her plan. It was bad enough she was thrown in jail for having drugs; murdering someone would surely get her the death penalty.

“Come on,” Kendric said, grabbing her hand and twirling her around, back toward the fence.

Snapping out of her stupor, Marlowe once again went to her knees. “Help me, Kendric!” she cried. “It’ll be easier to go under than over!”

For a moment, he hesitated, but then he was next to her on his knees, frantically digging as best he could with his bare hands. With his help, it wasn’t long before there was a small space under the fence.

“Go!” Kendric exclaimed, pushing her to the ground. He wedged the backpack so it was holding up the part of the fence they’d pried from the dirt. It was going to be a tight fit for her, and Marlowe wasn’t sure Kendric would be able to fit at all. But he didn’t give her a chance to protest. He grabbed her calves and pushed her forward.

She slithered and squirmed on her stomach, and with Kendric’s help, she was suddenly on the other side.

Not pausing to kiss the ground or rejoice that she was actually in Cambodia, Marlowe twisted toward him. “Your turn.”

He looked at her, then up at the top of the fence, then behind him at the two men, who’d begun to stir. She had a moment to be glad that she hadn’t killed the man with the tree branch, but then panic set in.

“Kendric! Come on!”

“I’m not going to fit,” he said with a small shake of his head.

“Yes, you will!” Marlowe cried, truly panicking now. “You have to try!”

She was more relieved than she could say when he lowered to his belly.

“Give me your hands!” she ordered. “I’ll pull.”

He ignored her and did his best to squeeze under the fence.

He was right. He wasn’t going to fit.

“No, no, no!” Marlowe chanted under her breath as she fell to her knees next to his head and began digging once more. She flung dirt behind her as she frantically tried to deepen the hole. Tears fell from her eyes, unnoticed as she worked.

The security officer Kendric had knocked out was now on his feet, stumbling toward him.

Sobbing, Marlowe grabbed Kendric’s shirt and pulled as hard as she could. But all she managed to do was pull the material up to his armpits and practically strangle him.

He grunted as he kicked out at the man, who was trying to grab hold of his legs to pull him backward.

Screaming in rage and terror and frustration, Marlowe wrapped her arms under Kendric’s armpits and used all her strength to hold on to him, to pull him onto the Cambodian side of the border.

One second, she and the security guard were having a tug-of-war contest, and the next, she landed on her ass in the dirt—with Kendric half in her lap.

For a moment, she and the security officer were both frozen. Staring at each other. Then he let out a series of what Marlowe could only assume were swear words.

She looked down and saw that Kendric had rolled to his back. He was lying there motionless, a grimace on his face.

“Kendric?” she asked, putting a hand on his shoulder.

He took a deep breath, and when he opened his eyes and met her gaze, she couldn’t read the emotions she saw there.

“You did it,” he whispered.

For some reason, Marlowe shook her head in denial.

“No, you did,” he insisted. “I wasn’t getting under that. No way in hell. I didn’t fit. I shouldn’t have made it through, but with your refusal to give up . . . here I am.” He sat up, pulling his shirt back down to cover his torso, and yanked her against him.

Marlowe snuggled into him, not caring that they were sitting in the dirt. That the security officers were both yelling at them now, threatening them with all sorts of awful things, no doubt, if they didn’t come back to the other side of the fence.

Marlowe and Kendric ignored them. She buried her face in his neck and straddled his waist. He held her so tightly, it almost hurt. But she wasn’t going to complain. In fact, she never wanted to let him go again.

They didn’t sit there for long. It was inevitable that the security officers would call for backup and soon the area would be crawling with more cops. Probably some with guns. And Marlowe wasn’t willing to take the chance that they’d be shot through the fence.

They got to their feet and took their first steps away from the border, their arms around each other, the other men shouting in their wake.

“The backpack!” she said, looking behind them.

“It’s not important,” Kendric said. “We can find new clothes and food. We don’t need it.”

Marlowe nodded and turned her back on Thailand. She couldn’t ever go back, she knew that, but it wasn’t as if she’d want to go back. In fact, all she wanted to do was get home and never leave the States again. She’d had enough of traveling.

They stumbled along together, her without shoes and Kendric hurting from the slashes he’d received from the knife fight and the punches he’d taken. They went into a line of trees, and it was a huge relief not to be able to see that damn fence. They were leaving Thailand behind once and for all.

They could still hear the security guards shouting, but they kept putting one foot in front of the other.

“Shit,” Kendric said as they exited the trees.

Marlowe stared at the canal in front of them. It was about ten feet wide, which wasn’t too bad, but the banks on either side were steep, and there was no way to go around it that she could see.

“We’re going to have to go through it,” Kendric said. “Look, over there.” He pointed to a speck in the distance. “See that house? That’s our destination. It’s a farm. Our next stop.”

“But Kendric . . . the water . . . it’s gross,” Marlowe said. And it was. The water was brackish and a dark-green color. Flies and other insects were buzzing around the surface, and she swore she could see feces bobbing in the water as well.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “But we can clean up when we get to the farm.”

Marlowe wanted to protest. Insist there was no way she was getting anywhere near that water. But if she wanted to get home, she had to do what she had to do.

She took a deep breath, straightened her shoulders, and nodded.

“That’s my brave Punky,” Kendric said. He reached out and ran the backs of his fingers down her cheek.

That almost broke Marlowe. She wanted to fall to the ground in a heap and cry. She wasn’t brave in the least. Her face was probably red and her eyes swollen from the crying she’d already done when she thought Kendric wasn’t going to make it under the fence, her muscles hurt, she was shaky from the adrenaline dump, and her feet hurt from walking without shoes. But the last thing she wanted was to be a burden. She’d keep going because she had no choice.

To her surprise, he leaned over and picked her up, holding her against his chest with one arm under her knees and the other at her back.

“Kendric! What are you doing?”

“There’s no sense in both of us getting all gross in that water. I’ll carry you.”

“I can walk,” Marlowe protested, even as she tightened her hold around his neck.

“I know. Please, let me do this,” he said softly.

She studied him for a beat, wanting to argue. But something about his expression had her nodding.

“Hold on. I’m going to need one hand to brace as I go down the bank on this side,” he warned.

Marlowe nodded again and held on tightly as he slipped down the bank. She heard the slight splash as he entered the canal, but between Kendric’s height and the relatively shallow depth of the water—it stopped a few inches above his knees—she stayed well above the water line.

He began wading through the disgusting-smelling water. Looking around, she saw that it had been poop she’d seen from above. A fresh pile of cow manure floated past them as Kendric strode toward the bank on the other side, which was far steeper. It was obvious he wasn’t going to be able to climb out with her in his arms.

Just as Marlowe was preparing herself to stand up in the nasty water, Kendric surprised her by heaving her upward—and she landed precariously on the sloped bank on her hands and knees. His hand went to her ass, and he held her steady. “Climb up, Punky. I’ll brace and push from down here.”

She wasn’t sure it was going to work, but she didn’t hesitate to start crawling toward the flat ground several feet above her. In the end, it didn’t take long for her to make it to the top, especially with the final hard shove Kendric gave her. She flew upward and barely kept herself from face planting into the dirt.

Marlowe turned around in time to see Kendric attempting to heft himself up and over the bank—until the dirt crumbled under his weight and he fell backward into the nasty water.

He popped up and grimaced, wrinkling his nose in distaste. He was soaking wet but didn’t say a word. Just moved to his left about eight feet, to a section of the bank that hadn’t been disturbed, and within seconds, he was beside her.

Marlowe wanted to hug him. To thank him. To tell him how scared she’d been. How proud she was of him. How worried she was about how they were going to get out of Cambodia—but he held up a hand.

“No, don’t touch me, Punky. That water was disgusting. We need to hose off. Get clean. Then I’m going to hold on to you so tight, you’ll bitch that I’m making you claustrophobic.”

“Not a chance,” she told him with a small smile. “Feel like a hike? Through the hundred-degree heat and the bugs that want to eat us alive, to that farm where the owners may or may not greet us warmly?”

He chuckled, then got serious.

“What?” she asked when he didn’t say anything.

He shook his head. “You. I’ve admired my fair share of women because of their looks. Or because they made me laugh. Or because they were brave in situations that would’ve brought others to their knees. But you . . . you put them all to shame, Punky. I know we’ve done everything so far because it was necessary, but I’ve never been prouder of anyone in my life. Happier to have anyone by my side, to share my name with, than you.”

“Kendric,” Marlowe whispered, overwhelmed.

“Right. Not the time or place, because I’m covered in Cambodian cow shit and who the hell knows what else, and I can’t hold you or kiss you. But don’t think I’ve forgotten our conversation from earlier. About our plans for tonight.”

“I haven’t either.”

“Good. Come on. Let’s get this done.”

He held out his hand, and Marlowe didn’t hesitate to take it with her own. There was a film of gunk on his skin, but she ignored it. His strong, warm hand was her anchor. With him by her side, she could do anything. Survive anything. They were a team. She’d never felt that way about anyone in her life. Now she couldn’t imagine not waking up in this man’s arms every day. Not hearing his chuckle. Not seeing his smile. Not holding his hand.

She had no idea what the next few days would bring, but she prayed they were through the worst of their journey. That from here on out, things would be smooth sailing, and they’d soon be on a plane back to the United States. Kendric’s contact had gotten them this far—that last couple of traitors notwithstanding. She had to trust that things would continue to work out as planned.