Kim smiled up at her. “All of us have things we are responsible for. There is little value in taking on what you can’t control. Let it go.”

Rachael wished it was that easy. She looked away from him to stare out the window into the wild green foliage. The leaves appeared feathery, the creepers wild and twisted green ropes while orchids vied with brilliantly colored fungi for space among the other flowers growing on the thick tree trunks and branches. It was beautiful and primitive and called to something inside of her. She longed to disappear into the deepest forest, simply become something else, something untouchable and wild and free.

She felt it first in her chest, a tightness making it nearly impossible to breathe. Then it was a fire in her stomach, muscles contracting and stretching. Heat seared her flesh, her bones, sizzled in every organ. She itched, a wave of it rushing over her so that she looked down and saw something move beneath her skin as if alive. Her hands curled involuntarily, fingers curving, and her fingertips ached and stung. She gasped and drew back from the edge of a great precipice, her heart pounding in her chest and her lungs fighting for air.

“I can’t breathe, Rio.” It took forever to get the words out. “I need to be outside where I can breathe.”

Rio didn’t ask questions or waste time on arguing, but lifted her immediately against his chest, rising with her as if she were a mere child instead of a fully grown woman in his arms. He stepped carefully around Kim and Tama and the pot of brown-green paste. Rachael caught a glimpse of Drake’s face, his eyes wide and shocked with a knowledge she didn’t possess before he managed to wipe the expression from his face.

Rachael buried her face in Rio’s neck, inhaling his comforting scent, giving herself up to the strength in his arms.

“You’re all right, Rachael,” Rio soothed, one hand stroking her hair as he sat on the small sofa on the verandah. “Listen to the forest, to the monkeys and birds. They make life seem in balance again. Listen to the rain. It has a soothing harmony.”

“What’s happening to me? Do you know what happened? I swear I saw something moving beneath my skin, like a parasite or something.” The humidity created the illusion of a sauna. The sound of the rain was dulled and muted by the heavy canopy overhead. Her breath was coming in ragged gasps, as if she’d run a long race. Her wounded leg was throbbing and burning, her pulse pounding there in a frantic rhythm. “I don’t have panic attacks, I don’t. I’m not hysterical, Rio.”