No, of course not.

Yes.

Heat flushed his face at the thought and he veered from the path into the jungle. The men behind weren’t pursuing, but there was no telling what else might show up on a marked path.

He mounted a large log bordering the trail and dropped beyond it. The woman’s boots scuffed the log’s bark. They were following without protesting. Fingers of panic raked his mind.

Casius spun around. The black canopy masked the moon high above. Sherry froze ten feet behind as if she were his shadow, staring at him with white eyes in the dark. Petrus stopped beside her. For a few long moments neither moved.

His options spun through his mind, calculated for the first time. On one hand he was tempted to leave them. Just bolt now while they stood like mummies, leaving them to crawl back to the path and survive on their own. Back to the mission perhaps. The men might have left.

On the other hand, she was a woman. And he was a priest.

Then again, that was why he should leave them. He could hardly make the plantation, much less penetrate it with them stumbling behind.

They still hadn’t moved, a fact that now dawned on him with a glimmer of hope. Maybe the woman wasn’t some soft-souled talker, but one of those athletic types. She’d kept up with him easily enough, it seemed. And she had just witnessed him shoot a man in the throat while the blood from two others flowed under her boots. Yes, she’d cried, but she hadn’t screamed or wailed as some would.

In reality, leaving her would be killing her. His shoulders settled and he closed his eyes briefly.

When he opened them, he saw that the woman had taken a step toward him. The priest followed.

“Sherry and Petrus, right?” His voice sounded as though he’d just swallowed a handful of tacks.

“Yes,” the priest said, voice steady.

He exhaled and squeezed his hands into fists. “Okay. Sherry and Petrus. Here’s the way it is. You want to live? You do exactly as I say. No talking, no questions. Out here it could mean life or death. You take all those feelings in your chest and you stuff them. When we get to safety, you can do what you want. I’m sorry if that sounds harsh, but we’re just trying to survive here. Not save souls.”

“I’m not a nun,” she said.

“Fine. Follow me as close as possible. Watch where I place my feet; it’ll help. Father, you follow her. If you become too tired, tell me quietly.” He turned from them and waded into the brush. Sherry followed immediately.

He slid over another waist-high log, thinking she might need help over. But from his sideways glance he saw that she mounted the log quickly and followed in step with Petrus right behind.