Full Throttle (Black Knights Inc. #7)(50)
Shaking away her tumultuous thoughts—there’d be plenty of time for them later—she glanced to her right where Yonus, a young Orang Asli man, was sitting on a third stool. The moment they had pushed out of the jungle, the old guy who found them—an elder she’d come to understand was named Mamat—walked them straight up to Yonus. And after a flurry of words in that oddly staccato-sounding dialect, Yonus had shocked the ever-lovin’ shitpickle out of them by welcoming them to the village in the most pristine English she’d ever heard. We’re talking Queen Elizabeth couldn’t have done any better. Then again, maybe she shouldn’t have been all that surprised. You know, considering Yonus was wearing a Polo shirt, Levi’s, and Clarks flip-flops, as opposed to the brightly printed tunics and trousers sported proudly by the other male villagers.
Long story short, apparently Yonus, orphaned at a young age and sponsored by a missionary group, had received an education outside the tribe. He’d gone to college in Johor, learning English and Malay, and was now working as an advocate for the Orang Asli people all over the country. And luckily—the good Lord knew they were due some luck—he was visiting this particular village on this particular day.
A couple of bowls of sticky rice and a fat bunch of rambutans later, and Abby figured she might survive long enough to make it to Thailand.
“I am so glad you like them.” Yonus motioned toward the rambutans.
“Like them? I’d like to be alone with them,” she enthused.
Yonus grinned down at his flip-flops. “There is a joke amongst the Orang Asli when it comes these fruits.”
“What’s that?” she asked, noshing on another juicy morsel, willing her body to absorb the calories and give her a welcome boost. As soon as they left here, it was going to be ten more grueling miles of monkey calls and tiger roars and big, slithering snakes. Ten more torturous miles of clinging vines and tripping roots and air so thick it made her feel like she was drowning anytime she sucked in an exhausted yawn.
“They say they resemble a grown man’s…” he gestured vaguely toward the fly of his Levi’s…“nether bits.”
Carlos chuckled, using his fingernail to split the skin on another rambutan, revealing the glistening white meat inside. “Sort of gives credence to that whole twig and berries euphemism, eh?”
Abby glanced down at the two fuzzy balls in her palm and realized they did sort of resemble a man’s testicles. Except for the green hairs, of course. Maybe the Hulk’s testicles? But those would be bigger, right? She frowned and shook her head, wondering at her own sanity that she should be sitting here in the middle of the jungle contemplating the size of the Hulk’s balls. Then again, the heat was known to do strange things to people. “But what they lack in visual appeal on the outside,” she told the men, pushing away all notions of irradiated superheroes and their nether bits, “they more than make up for with sweet deliciousness on the inside.”
Yonus and Carlos exchanged a look.
“Oh, for the love of—” she harrumphed. “Why is the male brain always in the gutter?”
Yonus’s grin widened, his face splitting around a mouthful of gleaming teeth. “Brain in the gutter.” He pronounced the words very precisely in that strange English/Malay/Orang Asli accent of his. “I like that phrase very well, indeed. It is very illustrative, yes?”
Abby rolled her eyes at him before turning to smile at the little girl, no more than four or five years old, who lifted a lock of blond hair from her shoulder. Since their arrival in the village, Abby had been the center of attention. The adults, more hesitant, had remained some distance away, simply standing and staring. But the children had been circling her, occasionally touching her, and keeping up a constant stream of excited chatter.
“They have never seen green eyes or yellow hair before,” Yonus told her. “Having you here is like having a unicorn in the village.”
“Oooh.” She grinned. “I like that. A unicorn, huh?”
“So what am I?” Carlos feigned a frown. “Chump change?”
Yonus laughed. “I do not know this phrase. Chump change. But I can gather its meaning.” He tilted his head as if to study Carlos. “And I would say you are not exactly chump change, but neither are you exactly a unicorn. Black hair and black eyes they have seen plenty.”
“Hmph,” Carlos grunted, popping the white ball of fruit into his mouth.
“So tell me, my new friends,” Yonus said, “how it is you came to be so lost in the jungle?”
And, just like that, all the sweet simplicity of the moment was shattered. The nearby stream no longer babbled quite so happily. The children’s laughter didn’t seem quite so gay. And the rays of the hot sun beaming down on them didn’t feel quite so benevolent. With that one simple question, Abby was reminded that out there, somewhere, a group of terrorists stalked her. It was time for her and Carlos to be on their way.
“We were riding our motorcycle to Thailand when we ran out of gas,” Carlos was quick to explain. “We had decided to get off the highway and onto an old logging trail, not realizing there would be no villages or towns around where we could fill our tank. We would’ve called for help, but…” He lifted his iPhone from his hip pocket, punching the button and showing Yonus the screen with the glowing empty battery symbol and the little Harry Potter-esque lightning bolt. Then he shrugged and feigned a sheepish grin. “I guess we weren’t all that prepared when we left our hotel this morning.”