17-Back Together

 The jungle was quieter than it should have been.

Not silent—never silent—but uneasy. The kind of quiet that crawled under your skin and refused to leave. Wind rustled the canopy, but it moved strangely, like it wasn’t sure it was allowed. Cicadas still buzzed overhead, and somewhere deeper in the green, a pair of toucans traded brief, harsh cries. But something fundamental was missing. No monkeys in the branches. No lizards skittering through the leaf litter. No undercurrent of life.

Something had moved through here. Something big enough, dangerous enough, to make the rest of the ecosystem hold its breath.

And now six people were walking straight through it.

Adán led the column, taking point with no resistance. Not even Franz protested, though the older man had tried to insist earlier that he rest his shoulder. But Adán moved like someone running on borrowed time, quiet, deliberate, his bruised shoulder hunched tight as if he could pretend the pain wasn’t there. The cut across his brow was crusted in brown-red, and he’d ditched the makeshift bandage hours ago, too stubborn for his own good.

Behind him, Ren walked like her nerves were strung with piano wire. A few paces back, far enough to react, close enough to back Adán if something lunged out of the treeline. Her jaw was tight, her eyes scanning constantly. The earlier freeze-ups hadn’t left her. Not really. Her hands flexed by her sides, restless. She hadn’t touched her water bottle in over an hour. Didn’t even seem to notice.

Adán glanced at her, voice low. “You good?”

A pause. Then, too fast: “Fine.”

He didn’t buy it for a second. But he nodded like he did. Let her hold onto the illusion.

A few moments passed, just the crunch of boots and the drone of bugs, then Adán spoke again—softer this time, more to her than anyone else.

“You know, the carnivores in the Americas? They’re different. Bigger. You’re used to the ones in Europe, right? Smaller-scale stuff. You freeze now and then—makes sense.”

 

 

Ren’s eyes flicked toward him, surprised, maybe even defensive.

He continued before she could fire back. “Happened to me too, multiple times even. I’ll never forget my fifth mission. I was partnered with this guy, real veteran type. Acted like he’d seen it all. Maybe he had. We were tracking an allosaurus—small one, supposedly. It wasn’t.”

His mouth twitched like he meant to smile, but didn’t. “Things went south. Fast. We weren’t ready. I made it out. He didn’t. Still feel like it was my fault.”

Ren’s posture shifted—just a bit.

Adán looked ahead as he talked, not needing to see her face to say it. “After that, I stopped playing it safe—not that I was ever cautious. Started running toward things. People say I’m reckless—and they’re not wrong. But I’d rather that than sit back and regret every moment I didn’t act.”

His voice dropped, thoughtful. “Never thought I’d make it to thirty anyway. So if I go down, I want it to matter.”

He shrugged, brushing a branch aside. “Anyway. You’re doing better than you think.”

Ren didn’t answer right away. But her shoulders eased, if only a little. Her grip on the rifle stayed firm, but something in her expression softened. She didn’t say thank you. Didn’t have to.

Sophia and Emma moved in the middle of the line—the safest spot, theoretically. But there wasn’t much safety to be found here. Sophia’s hair stuck to her cheeks, frizzed from humidity and sweat. She wasn’t whining anymore, though. That part of her had gone quiet hours ago. Now, she muttered softly to herself, in a mix of English and Italian—just fragments. Code. Anchors. Anything to keep her feet moving and her head from spinning out.

Emma matched her pace with precision. Calm, composed, as if she were back in a lab. Every few minutes she’d stop, crouch, swipe a sample from a vine or snap a photo of an unusual footprint. She didn’t comment on it, didn’t break stride—she just catalogued the chaos. She had her notebook open in one hand, and her pen moved as steadily as if they weren’t trudging through a hellscape.

Sophia kept close to her now, mimicking her rhythm like it gave her structure. Maybe it did.

Helena and Franz brought up the rear. Helena was quiet, but not from fear. Her eyes were wide, alert, drinking in everything. She had one hand resting on her backpack’s strap, the other hovering awkwardly near the pistol clipped at her side—an afterthought, more comfort object than weapon. But she watched the trees like someone expecting them to open up and swallow her whole. She hadn’t asked any questions in hours. That curious spark had dimmed.

Franz stayed close behind her, back straight, every footfall measured. He wasn’t winded. He wasn’t rattled. At least not outwardly. One hand held the tattered map he kept in his breast pocket, the other free and ready, hovering over his rifle’s grip. He’d taken it upon himself to adjust their course periodically, compensating for the ever-changing terrain. He didn’t speak unless necessary. And when he did, it was short, clear, and without emotion.

The light shifted. Afternoon slipped quietly into evening. The canopy broke in places, casting shafts of golden sunlight that made the leaves glow and the shadows stretch long and slow across the jungle floor. They still had kilometers to go. Five. Six. The trail twisted sharply, then vanished entirely in places. They climbed ridges slick with moss. Doubled back more than once. There were no markers. Only instincts and the sinking knowledge that they were being funneled, step by step, toward something.

They kept walking until the trail gave way to a clearing—just a patch of flattened underbrush, sunlight spilling in. The light here was warm and gold, flickering through the leaves like lazy fire. It wasn't safe, not really, but it felt like a place to pause. Somewhere to catch their breath before the jungle swallowed them again.

Adán stopped first.

"Water break," he said, voice low. No one argued.

One by one, they slowed to a halt. The six of them dropped their packs or crouched in whatever patch of shade they could find. There wasn’t much talking at first—just water bottles uncapped, boots shifting against leaves, shallow breaths being evened out.

Ren leaned back against a thick root, arms across her knees. “I still can’t believe this is what we signed up for,” she muttered.

Franz gave a quiet grunt. “You read the contract. You knew the risk.”

“Yeah, but did we?” Sophia asked, wiping sweat from her neck. Her voice was soft, not quite sarcasm, not quite serious. “I thought I was joining to make tracking software for raptors, not… surviving the jungle with dinosaurs and hammocks.”

Helena sat cross-legged nearby, silent but listening, eyes on the light between the leaves. Her expression was thoughtful. Distant.

Emma was writing again, pen moving steadily through her waterproof notebook. But she paused, glancing up. “Why did you join then?” she asked Sophia, not unkindly.

Sophia hesitated. “…I guess I thought it mattered. The DPW, I mean. Not just studying extinction events or trying to put things back in boxes. But… understanding them. Keeping people safe.” A pause. Then, quieter: “I wanted to feel useful.”

Helena stared.

Ren huffed. “I just wanted out,” she said. “Spain was suffocating. Too many rules. Too many people telling me what to do. I figured if I joined the DPW, I could do something that mattered, something no one else could say they’d done. Guess I got that wish.”

“You wanted to be special,” Franz said, flat but not judgmental.

Ren tilted her head, smirking. “Still do.”

Emma clicked her pen closed. “My reasons were more academic,” she said. “I wanted to see if behavioral patterns in dinosaurs could be mapped in real time. It's… complicated work, but vital, especially for species that have integrated near human populations.”

Franz let out a low breath. “Of course it was,” he said dryly.

Emma allowed a faint smile, then turned her gaze to him. “And you, Franz?”

The older man didn’t answer right away. He was sitting on a fallen log, carefully folding the map back into his pocket. When he did speak, it was without embellishment.

“I retired once,” he said. “But I didn’t like the quiet. Thought maybe I could put my years of bureaucracy to better use. People think admin work is boring. But in a crisis, it’s the only thing that keeps the walls from falling.”

Ren raised an eyebrow. “So you came back. To this?”

“To this,” Franz echoed, deadpan.

Adán sat off to the side, resting on one knee, eyes half-lidded but always moving. He hadn’t spoken yet.

“You?” Ren asked him, jerking her chin in his direction. “Why’d you join?”

Adán scratched at the side of his neck, thoughtful. “Dinos,” he said simply.

Ren blinked. “Seriously?”

He grinned, crooked and boyish despite the sweat and the blood and the heat. “You ever seen a Giganotosaurus skeleton up close? First time I did, I was nine. I was obsessed. Spent all my free time reading about ‘em. Thought I’d be a paleontologist. Then life… took a detour.” He shrugged. “But when I heard they were real—really back—I couldn’t not be part of it. I figured, if I’m going to die someday, might as well do everything I want.”

Helena tilted her head, quietly amused. “That explains a lot.”

“Right?” Ren chimed in. “He’s got that look. The ‘I wanna get eaten by a dinosaur’ look.”

Adán chuckled and tossed a twig at her. It bounced off her boot.

Emma’s gaze shifted back to Helena. “And you?”

Helena was quiet again. The golden light caught in her hair, making it look almost bronze. She didn’t answer right away.

“I didn’t want to just study the world,” she said eventually. “I wanted to protect it. The ecosystems. The balance. The dinosaurs didn’t ask to be brought back—but now that they’re here, it’s our responsibility. I wanted to be part of that. Not behind glass. In it.”

It was the most she’d said in one go since they’d entered the jungle.

Adán gave her a slow nod, something serious in his expression. “Good reason.”

But he didn’t say more. He rarely spoke directly to Helena, and never for long. Not because of anything she’d done, but because her name—so close to Elena—stirred something raw in his gut. He kept his distance without realizing it, like a wound he hadn’t let close.

The air hung with it for a moment—an unspoken weight. Not solemn, not grim. Just honest. Six people. Six stories. All of them strangers, stitched together by something bigger than themselves.

The water break stretched longer than it probably should have. No one said it aloud, but no one stood up either. Even Ren had stopped bouncing her leg.

Adán leaned back on his elbows, chewing the end of a protein bar without much interest. “You know,” he said, voice casual, “I didn’t expect to be sitting in the jungle talking about feelings with a bunch of strangers. Kinda nice.”

Franz snorted. “You’d better enjoy it. It’s probably the only quiet moment we’ll get.”

Adán tilted his head toward him, grinning. “That a promise?”

Franz gave him a look that said he wasn’t amused, but the corners of his mouth tugged anyway—barely.

“You always like this?” he asked, eyeing Adán with practiced skepticism.

Adán didn’t miss a beat. “Charming? Yeah.”

“Annoying.”

“Same thing, really.”

A small laugh escaped Helena, quickly smothered behind her hand. Even Emma gave the ghost of a smile.

Franz shook his head, muttering something in German too low to catch. But he didn’t move away. Instead, he reached into his pack and handed Adán a second bar—different brand, more calories. “Eat that instead. Yours is garbage.”

Adán blinked at it. “Thanks… Dad.”

“Don’t push your luck.”

But he took the bar, and they sat there side by side in companionable silence for a beat. Franz, all squared lines and calm calculation; Adán, messy and sun-warmed, a barely-contained engine of movement at rest. It shouldn’t have worked—but somehow, it did.

Adán glanced sideways at him, tone dropping just slightly. “Y’know, I never thought I’d live this long. Not even as a teenager, and we didn’t have dinosaurs around back then.”

Franz looked over. Said nothing, but he didn’t look away.

Adán exhaled, steady. “There was a job in Oaxaca, three years ago. Small town, lots of jungle on the outskirts. We were tracking a lone Baryonyx that kept wandering too close to the reservoir—big male, old, probably displaced. I had a partner, Elena. Local agent, sharp, tough as nails. We were supposed to herd it away, keep it from the civilian zone.”

He paused, teeth working the inside of his cheek. The jungle breathed around them. The cicadas had returned in full force. Somewhere up in the canopy, a monkey called out once, sharp and distant.

“But we got turned around. Radio went dead, terrain was a mess. That thing didn’t stalk us—it just charged. I fired, she fired, didn’t matter. It grabbed her and dragged her straight into the undergrowth before I could even get a clean shot.”

Franz stayed quiet, face unreadable.

“I chased it. For a good kilometer. Screaming her name the whole way. Found what was left an hour later.” Adán’s voice was low now, careful. “She had two kids. I visited them after. Told them she fought like hell. Which was true.”

He looked down at the bar in his hands, turning it over without unwrapping it.

“Since then, I’ve had this thing in my head—if someone dies on my watch, it’s on me. Doesn’t matter if it’s fair. That’s just how it feels. So yeah, I don’t sit still. I can’t. Sitting still means someone else might not make it.”

Franz didn’t respond right away, but his eyes had shifted—something softer behind them, something restrained. He let the moment breathe.

Then, quiet: “You remind me of my son.”

Adán glanced up, surprised. “You’ve got a son?”

“Had.” Franz corrected, voice flat. “He didn’t survive the first wave. Near Leipzig. A containment breach at a private facility—illegal. Unregulated. He was working as a systems analyst. Thought the fences would hold.”

A beat. The wind shifted the trees, rustling like breath through teeth.

“I’m sorry,” Adán said, quieter now.

Franz’s jaw worked, but he nodded once. “You don’t need to be. That’s why I came back to the field. To make sure no one else ends up like him.”

The silence that followed was heavy, but not uncomfortable. It settled around them like the heat—present, undeniable, but survivable.

Across the clearing, Ren had started talking softly with Helena, teasing her about something that involved boots and mud and a very exaggerated pantomime of tripping. Emma was sketching something with a stick in the dirt—dinosaur track shapes, maybe. Sophia was checking her tablet again.

Adán eventually spoke again, voice softer, teasing just enough to lift the mood. “You ever think maybe you’re the reckless one? Coming back out here at your age?”

Franz side-eyed him. “You say that like I had anything left to lose.”

Adán cracked a tired grin. “You’ve got us.”

Franz raised an eyebrow. “Then maybe I do have something to lose.”

They sat like that for a moment longer. Jungle alive around them. One too young to give up, the other too old to stop trying.