And hanging from a branch like ordinary tools, a line of wire snares.
Ricardo’s stomach turned.
Marta tapped the top corner of the image.
“One of the patrol teams found the camp abandoned in a hurry. They left before we got there.” She exhaled slowly. “But they didn’t leave empty-handed.”
He looked up.
“What do you mean?”
She slid a second photo across the table.
This one hit harder.
An old wooden box, half-open in the mud.
Inside: reserve maps, patrol frequencies, handwritten shift changes.
Internal information.
Not something random hunters could have guessed.
Someone had been feeding them routes.
For a long moment, Ricardo could only stare.
The jungle buzzed around them.
A cicada started up somewhere near the roofline.
Far off, a howler monkey called once and then went silent.
Marta lowered her voice.
“This didn’t come from outside.”
He knew.
He had known the second he saw the notes.
He thought of all the times patrols arrived minutes too late.
All the snare sites found freshly emptied.
All the rumors that something bigger was moving through the reserve and always seemed one step ahead.
Marta leaned back, exhausted.
“We’ve called state environmental enforcement, but until they arrive, we trust almost no one.”
Ricardo looked at the forest line beyond the outpost.
Green. Dense. Beautiful. Full of life and secrecy in equal measure.
Then he thought of the jaguar again.
Of the scarred leg.
Of the breath against his face.
Of the impossible, silent hours beside that tree.
“There’s one more thing,” he said.
Marta waited.
He hesitated.
Not because he wanted to keep it from her forever.
Because once he said it, the whole shape of the story would change.
Still, he owed the jungle honesty, if not the world yet.
“When you found me,” he said slowly, “I wasn’t alone.”
Marta frowned.
“The hunters?”
He shook his head.
Her eyes sharpened.
“What was with you, Ricardo?”
He looked down at his bandaged wrists, then at the evidence bag with the snare wire inside, then beyond both of them to the great wall of jungle breathing under the afternoon heat.
And before he answered, something moved at the very edge of the trees.
Continued on the next page
