"The storm is coming. We have to take shelter fast. If we're caught on the river, we could all drown." Kim Pang delivered the ominous warning, startling her. She'd been so absorbed in the forest she hadn't been paying attention to the darkening sky and spinning clouds.

A collective gasp of alarm went up from the small group and instinctively they huddled closer together in the power launch, hoping Kim could get them upriver before the storm broke.

A surge of adrenaline rushed through Rachael's bloodstream, triggering a rush of hope. This was the chance she'd been waiting for. She lifted her face to the sky, smelled the storm in the wild wind and felt droplets on her skin.

"Be careful, Rachael," Simon advised, tugging at her arm, wanting her to hang on to the edges of the boat as they whipped through the choppy water toward the encampment upriver. He had to shout the words to be heard above the roar of the water.

Rachael smiled at him and obediently caught at the boat, not wanting to appear different in any way. Someone was trying to kill her. Maybe even Simon. She wasn't about to trust anyone. She'd learned that lesson the hard way, more than once before it sank in, and she wasn't about to make the same mistakes again. A smile and a word of warning didn't mean friendship.

"I wish we'd waited. I don't know why we listened to that old man saying today was the best day for travel," Simon continued, yelling the words in her ear. "First we wait through two nearly clear days because the omens were bad and then on the word of some man with no teeth we just all climb in the launch like sheep."

Rachael remembered the old man with shifty eyes and great gaps where his teeth should have been.