Now her desire to stay had more to do with her relationship with God than it did with a desire to lay some past emotional pain to rest. She had grown ever closer to Him while here. In this jungle, He had become real to her—no longer some mystical, unseen, and largely uncaring force occasionally referred to but never accessible. He had spoken to her, comforted her, and directed her in more ways than she could have ever imagined possible.

When that evil man had cocked his pistol, when she’d known with unshakable certainty she would die today, she had searched her heart and discovered that if God had planned it this way, then she felt prepared to follow His plan and meet Him.

The man’s death affected her more than she cared to admit. Despite his actions leading to the final conclusion, she couldn’t help but feel like maybe the only reason he’d died was that she’d been close enough to grab. Silly, she knew, to take the burden of blame from the murderer and put it on her own shoulders.

She thought of Captain Norton and his team. An armed detail did not bother her. She’d attended an exclusive girls’ boarding school from the age of twelve. Some of the girls there had personal security, and the school itself had armed security. As her father rose through the ranks in Congress, eventually her parents employed an armed personal protection security company. Cynthia didn’t object to the presence of the weapons themselves. She simply objected to the kind of violence that brought men to use those weapons to take lives. While she did mostly appreciate the saving of her own life, she abhorred the thought of the death of two men in exchange for it.

Just as she put toothpaste on her toothbrush, a rapping on her door startled her. She knew of no women close to their due dates. She crossed the room, still clutching the toothbrush, and opened the door, suspecting Ayo. Her eyes widened when she saw Captain Norton.

“Captain,” she said, a question in her voice.

“Doctor.”

When he said nothing more, she slipped out of the building and shut the door behind her, not wanting insects to fly into her room. “How may I help you?”

“I’m sorry to intrude, Doctor Myers. I just wanted to thank you for helping us today. I don’t think I remembered to thank you, what with everything that happened and all. I wanted to get that said before another day started. I know you resented helping us. Even so, I’m grateful. We all are.”

Her eyebrows drew together in a frown. “I don’t resent you or your men, Captain—simply the violence that brought you to me.”