"Hiss!" Julie Master gasped softly at the irritation of clean water hitting her wound.
This girl was quite a ruthless person. Although she had scratched her arm while smashing the bathroom window to escape, she still gritted her teeth and picked up a large piece of broken glass to defend herself, leaving the wound on her right palm much deeper than the one on her arm.
Alcohol was too strong a stimulant, and Jack, worried that her screams would attract pursuers, could only clean the wound with purified water, then sprinkled it with Yunnan Baiyao, which he carried with him, and bandaged it with gauze.
"Take me to court! Alan Bryner must not be allowed to escape justice!" Julie clutched Jack's sleeve with her uninjured left hand.
The tension and fear of being hunted didn't seem to defeat this determined girl. Instead, it seemed to infuriate her, causing her to stare at Jack with wide eyes.
"Okay, but you'd better eat first." Jack checked his watch. It had been over an hour since he entered the jungle, and Cheng Hao's search team should have already set off.
He took out an energy bar and handed it to Julie, then contacted Cheng Hao and Danny via satellite phone. After confirming their respective positions using GPS, Jack conferred with them and hung up, telling Julie,
"We need to go up. Whether it's looking for a clearing for a helicopter to land or finding a road, we need to follow the ridgeline."
The search team's current position was less than three kilometers away from them, but the path in between was difficult to navigate. Not everyone could navigate the humus-filled jungle with Jack's ease.
Jack's search took an hour, while Julie's desperate escape took nearly three hours.
Furthermore, due to the presence of the two assassins impersonating police officers, Cheng Hao couldn't afford to spread his team too thin. The HPD reinforcements arrived in only four vehicles, plus the four officers who had previously arrived, and they also had to allocate personnel to retrieve the two bodies.
Including Cheng Hao and Danny, there were only twelve people in total, split into three groups of four, each with two search dogs.
Jack simply suggested they retreat, return to retrieve the car, and then split up to guard several nearby trails, hoping they could catch the police killers.
Perhaps his successful search for Julie in the jungle had given them confidence, and after some discussion, Danny and Cheng Hao finally adopted this suggestion.
While he was on the phone, Julie, while munching on an energy bar Jack had brought her, secretly observed the young FBI agent, her eyes glittering with curiosity.
She was about Jack's age, and despite her current grimy, disheveled appearance, she was a pretty white woman with an oval face and a touch of masculinity.
Perhaps due to her mixed ancestry, Julie's nose wasn't as sharp and prominent as most white girls, but rather a delicate, smaller one that suited Asian aesthetics. Her skin was closer to the creamy white of the so-called "yellow race" than the pale white of Northern Europe.
"We might have another mile to walk through the jungle. Can you hold on?" Jack sprayed himself with DEET and applied cooling oil to his exposed skin, then handed it to Julie, asking her to do the same.
To avoid being distracted by other scents, he hadn't used these items along the way, giving the jungle mosquitoes a good meal.
Mosquitoes are an invasive species in Hawaii, and have even caused the extinction of some native birds. Without treatment, Jack would have been in a state of panic by now.
Probably preparing for a court appearance, Julie had been dressed more formally, a shirt and a black blazer skirt that reached nearly the knees.
Her shirt had been ripped and tattered by branches, leaving only a tube-like sports bra underneath. Blood streaks shone across her shoulders and neck, clearly showing a lot of hardship along the way.
She had also torn a large section of her blazer skirt along the seams, and had discarded her high heels along the way to confuse the killer chasing her.
After hiding for some time in this damp "cave" formed by the tree roots, the girl's thighs and arms were covered in lumps of varying sizes. Compared to the wounds on her hands, the DEET and cooling oil Jack provided were truly lifesaving.
"It should be fine until these things wear off." Feeling the unbearable itching gradually subside, the girl breathed a sigh of relief, firmly grasped Jack's hand, and stood up.
"I went to college in Hawaii, and surfing and mountaineering have always been my hobbies."
Jack had already noticed it without her saying it. As she stood up, the girl's stunning figure perfectly demonstrated the concept of a slender tree bearing great fruit.
The body types of local Hawaiians are completely different. The indigenous people, especially the relatively poor, are extremely overweight.
The fat people here are not the kind of fat that Chinese people usually think of, but extremely overweight people weighing at least 300 pounds.
Another part of them are like Julie, usually wealthy and free white and Asian immigrants. They eat healthily, have fit bodies, and most even have a very healthy tan.
As they talked, the two had left their previous hiding place. Jack identified the direction and began to head up the mountain with the girl.
It was clear that Julie's ability to escape the two assassins wasn't without reason. Years of exercise had endowed her with abundant physical strength and agility.
Although Jack had deliberately slowed down his pace, he was still able to keep up with him and still have the energy to talk, proving she truly was an athletic girl.
"Of course, I have to thank Rick Cassel too. I learned how to make a makeshift flamethrower out of deodorant and a lighter from his novels," Julie said with lingering fear when Jack asked her how she'd escaped the two assassins.
"That guy stole my idea," Jack muttered to himself, thinking of the stack of novels he'd seen on the coffee table in the safe house.
"When you're safely back in New York, I'll give you a signed copy of Cassel's novel."
"Well, actually, Frick brought me Rick Cassel's detective novels. I prefer Joan Doe's bestsellers. If I weren't completely bored, I wouldn't bother reading his books."
Julie smiled sheepishly, but then her expression darkened as if she'd remembered something.
Jack naturally guessed the reason for her grim expression. Frick Moore was the old FBI agent who was in charge of protecting Julie. According to the girl's description, she happened to see Frick being shot down by the killer while standing in front of the window.
"Frick should be fine. We arrived in time to save him. He should be in the hospital for surgery now. If everything goes well, I can take you to the hospital to visit him after everything is over."
"God bless you, are you serious?" Although the question was asked, the girl's face showed a happy smile from the heart.
"Of course, but the two police officers who came to pick you up were not so lucky. We found their bodies in the trunk of that police car."
Jack paused here, feeling that it was not right to talk about such a heavy topic at this time. "Anyway, you are a very brave girl."
(End of this chapter)