It wasn't the noise so much as the lack of it that woke him. Aaron Cross knew this kind of silence well. It was the deep, heavy quiet that only comes from someone sneaking around. No birds, no bugs, no monkeys howling away. Just silence.
He slid a hand slowly under the jacket he'd bunched up for a pillow and gripped the handle of his gun. Marta's breathing came even and shallow next to him, a sound he'd become accustomed to in the past few weeks since they'd left the boat for this rickety shack. He mentally checked her off the list of possible suspects and strained to hear a clue to the location of their intruder.
For a while, he heard nothing. Even the silence seemed to melt back into the normal sounds of the jungle and he was just starting to wonder if he'd imagined it when something fell off the shelf the'yd been using as a sort of breakfast bar a few feet away.
Aaron was up in an instant, gun drawn and pointed directly at whomever had dared break into their "house." His feet had barely touched the ground when a fist slammed hard into his wrist and sent the gun flying. It thudded uselessly against one of the house's reed walls, but mercifully didn't go off. He grunted and lashed out with his other hand, making contact with something solid.
The yelp he heard was decidedly feminine and he hesitated. It wasn't that he didn't think girls could fight; he just sure as hell wasn't going to get caught beating a woman to death if she'd just snuck in for food.
The back end of a letter opener he'd left on the table whacked directly into his left temple and he staggered backwards into the bed.
"Aaron?!" Marta was awake and obviously terrified.
"Stay back," he hissed.
And in that split second of distraction he was aware of the girl making a run for the front door. He couldn't let her reach it. They needed to know who she worked for. She'd held her own a little too well against him. Not to pat himself on the back, but he doubted any starving local would have a chance against a trained assassin, much less a woman local.
Marta rolled out of bed and scraped frantically for the gun he'd strapped under her bedside table, but Aaron was already on the move.
He darted his hand out and grabbed the girl's arm, closing his fingers in a vice grip and using the sheer weight of his body to bring her to a halt just before the door. She snarled and turned on him. In what little light was available, he saw a flash of silver and reached out to stop her a little too late.
"Aaagh!"
"Aaron!"
Aaron's grip faltered and the girl yanked away. She practically barreled through the door to freedom.
"I'm fine." She'd stabbed him! The little bitch had stabbed him in the arm with his own letter opener!
He growled and charged out after her.
The sun was coming up and it gave him just enough light to catch sight of her disappearing into the jungle. He put on a burst of speed, using his long legs to their full advantage. Unfortunately, it was no use. She'd just disappeared. He ran in circles trying to find some trace of her, but the trail ran cold twenty feet from their shack.
Aaron quickly admitted defeat and sped back home...Well it wasn't going to be home anymore. Marta was going to be devastated. They'd just stopped running and now they'd have to start up all over again only this time with no boat and through miles of harsh jungle. The thought of having to tell her set a lead weight in his stomach, but something wasn't right here and they weren't sticking around to find out what.
