Amara stumbled back into the guest wing, the heavy mahogany door clicking shut behind her with the finality of a jail cell. She didn't bother turning on the lights. The day was waning, and the room was filled with the soft, blue-gray haze of a clear tropical twilight.
She stood in the center of the room, her body shaking not from cold, but from emotional shock. The silence of the abandoned space was deafening. Just forty-eight hours ago, she had slept in this room as a guest, full of nervous anticipation. Now, she was an unwelcome squatter, confined to the section of the lodge she had deemed fit for the enemy.
She crumpled onto the edge of the bed, burying her face in her hands. The tears she had held back in the jeep finally came, silent and scalding.
The pain wasn’t just the shock of
