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trips with school, she had
traversed rainforest gullies full of tree ferns and giant gum trees
with white trunks like graceful nymphs, where the sound of
whipbirds and the laughter of kookaburras rang in the forest. Here,
there were none of those familiar things. Just where had they
landed?
    “You have a
sleep,” Brian said after a while. “I’ll keep watch and wake you
when I hear something.”
    Jessica was
not tired in the least, but she lay down anyway. Her thoughts went
around in circles. Maybe she was silly, but she didn’t trust him.
He was weird and made her nervous.
    She couldn’t
stop scratching herself, checking her skin for the horrid black
creatures. Every now and then, she held her breath for as long as
she could, listening for the sounds of the forest, as if the slugs
made a hungry sucking noise. Then she would remember the crash, the
frightening sensation of falling, and she would try to piece
together how it could be that the day had passed so quickly.
Nothing made sense. Then she would drift off, only to be jolted by
a grunt or a snort from Martin. And remember that she wanted to
stay awake. And find herself covered in sweat. She would look up to
see Brian’s silhouette sitting there, staring into the dark. But
somehow, sleep managed to claim her.

Chapter
4
     
    “G IRL, WAKE UP!”
Someone shook Jessica’s leg.
    “Huh—what?”
    She pushed
herself up, seeing nothing but pitch darkness. The scent of musty
air. Her hands clawed in leaf litter.
    What the
hell . . .
    Then it came
back to her. The crash, the forest.
    “Someone’s
coming,” Brian said. Leaves rustled as he jumped to his feet. He
whistled so loudly her ears hurt. “We’re here!”
    Footsteps came
closer. Male voices rang out. Jessica peered into the darkness,
expecting to see the glare of torches and hear the barking of dogs,
but all remained dark.
    Strange.
    The footsteps
stopped quite close. From somewhere ahead came the sound of panting
breaths. A musty scent wafted through the air, reminiscent of
something that had been in stale water for days, mixed with a smell
of fish.
    “Who are you?”
Brian asked, his voice laced with the same apprehension Jessica
felt.
    A man spoke in
a foreign language, full of harsh and guttural sounds.
    Brian mumbled,
“What the hell’s going on here?” He took a step back, stumbling
into Jessica. “We need help. Our plane crashed. There are four of
us and one’s been injured real bad—”
    The rest of
the sentence drowned in a blue flash. By its brief burst of light,
Jessica could make out five figures on the slope below. Small and
lithe, with wild mops of hair in dreadlocks. The closest one held
out a fist, pointing at Brian.
    “What the
fuck, they’re shooting—”
    That was
Martin’s voice.
    Holy shit!
They must have stumbled on a group of poachers, or a drug
syndicate’s hide-out, or some set-up like that. Her father often
talked about those and how dangerous those men were. As a police
officer, he would know.
    Jessica
shouted, “Brian, get out of here, hide yourself!”
    She scrambled
up the slope, slipping on boulders, stumbling over branches and
fallen tree trunks. Shadows followed her, quick and silent.
Something gripped her arm. She screamed and kicked. There were
shouts, rough voices, more footsteps; hands on her arms, holding
her, pulling a rag around her wrists. She wriggled. One of her arms
shot free and hit what felt like somebody’s face.
    “Let me, go,
let me go! I know nothing. I won’t say anything.”
    A wave of heat
welled up from within her, rising to the skin in swirls of sparks.
It flowed into her arms, up her shoulders, burning like boiling
water.
    Oh damn it,
that was the tension still inside her coming out.
    Blue-white
light flowed out through her skin, engulfed her hands and crackled
up her arms in a net of sparkling threads. Shapes formed in the air
while the sounds of the forest dulled.
    *     *     *
    She was on the
front steps to the main