Let the River Run
Copyright© 2026 by Jody Daniel
Chapter 18
Skukuza. Adrian’s bungalow.
The silence that followed settled over the patio like a suffocating fog, thick and heavy, pressing against my skin until even breathing felt too loud. No one moved. No one dared.
Ash’s words seemed to linger in the air long after he had spoken, and all eyes shifted to Kait.
For a moment, she said nothing.
She simply stared at him.
The light caught the sharpness in her expression—the way her jaw tightened, the faint crease between her brows, the storm of thoughts moving behind her eyes. I knew that look. Kait never wore fear openly, but I could see it in the way her fingers curled against the edge of the table, in the tension drawn through her shoulders.
She was afraid for me.
The realisation twisted something deep in my chest.
I knew she only had my best interests at heart. Kait had always been like that—fiercely protective, even when the danger circled too close for comfort. Beneath the table, where no one else could see, I reached for her hand and slipped my fingers through hers.
Her skin was cold.
I held on tighter.
“SVR might not even know about Adrian and Elsabe’s involvement,” Ash replied, his voice low and measured, almost too soft for the weight of what he was saying. The calmness in his tone did little to ease the tension coiled around the room. If anything, it made it worse. “I know that you care for Adrian, Miss Fourie, but I can assure you that Adrian will be safe at all times...”
Safe.
The word echoed bitterly in my mind.
Safe was a fragile promise in a room like this.
I watched Kait’s face as Ash spoke. Her gaze never left him, as if she were searching for the slightest crack in his composure, the smallest hint that he was lying—or worse, uncertain.
“I hope so,” Kait finally said.
Her voice was steady, but I felt the tremor that betrayed her when she squeezed my hand beneath the table.
Hard.
As though letting go, even for a second, might mean losing me.
I squeezed back, trying to offer reassurance I wasn’t sure I believed myself. My pulse hammered in my ears, loud against the oppressive hush that had swallowed the room. Every shadow seemed darker now, every face around the table more unreadable.
Because Ash’s promise should have comforted me.
Instead, it only made the danger feel more real.
“It’s okay, Kait,” I said calmly, forcing a steadiness into my voice that I didn’t entirely feel. Beneath the table, her fingers were still wrapped around mine, tense and cold, and I gave them a small reassuring squeeze. “I can handle it. Besides, I don’t think the Wolf will just pop up here and come knocking on the bungalow door.”
Even as I said it, the image flashed through my mind uninvited—boots on the wooden steps outside, a slow deliberate knock in the dead of night, the silhouette of a man standing against the frosted glass.
The Wolf.
Just the thought of him sent a chill crawling down my spine.
“And if he does?” Kait replied.
Her voice was quiet, but the fear in it cut through me sharper than anything else in the room. I turned to look at her properly. Her wide eyes searched my face as if trying to decide whether I truly believed my own words.
“Then...” I sighed, the breath leaving me slower than I intended, carrying more weight with it than I wanted anyone to hear. “Then I’ll give him an inter-cranium lead injection. Nine-millimetre diameter dosage...”
The words landed in the silence like a round chambering into place.
No one laughed.
For a second the room seemed to tighten around us, the air suddenly denser, heavier.
“Crap, you’re just as bad as Nadia...” Mai-Loan spoke up, breaking the tension, though there was an edge in her voice that told me she wasn’t entirely joking.
I turned my head toward her, arching a brow, while beside me Kait’s fingers tightened again.
“Why as bad as Nadia?” Kait asked, her eyes widening.
Mai-Loan leaned back slightly in her chair, crossing one leg over the other with an almost amused expression, though the glint in her eyes suggested something darker beneath it.
“Because sweet little redhead Nadia is our close-quarters problem solver,” she replied. “And she is the only girl I know that gets an orgasm from helping someone off to the underside of the green grass.”
The way she said it made it sound less like a nickname and more like a warning.
I had heard enough stories about Nadia to know exactly what that meant. If things went bad, Nadia was the one they sent into the room first—and often the only one who walked out smiling.
Ash fixed his eyes on Mai-Loan then, the two of them sharing one of those silent exchanges that made me feel like plans were being drawn around me without my permission.
“Are you thinking what I am thinking?” he asked.
Mai-Loan’s lips curved into a knowing smile.
“Yes,” she said. “We get Nadia over here, and she doesn’t let either of these two out of her sight.”
A knot formed in my stomach.
Protection. Supervision. Containment. Depending on how one chose to phrase it.
“A bit of a complex problem for her,” I observed, letting a faint smirk tug at my mouth despite the tension vibrating beneath my skin. “How is she going to keep her eyes on Kait and me with Kait in her bungalow and I in mine?”
That was when Dave Granger, who had been silent for most of the conversation, finally stirred.
He leaned back in his chair with the sort of smug expression that immediately made me suspicious.
“Well,” he said, a smirk spreading across his face, “if I read the scenario correctly ... Nadia will most probably recruit Darya to help her keep watch...”
He paused deliberately, his gaze flicking between Kait and me.
“And you two, Miss Fourie and Mister Grobler, can share one bungalow ... not a situation you two would be opposed to.”
For one heartbeat, the room went utterly still.
Then Kait blushed.
Not the faint flush of embarrassment.
No—her cheeks went deep postbox red, spreading all the way to the tips of her ears. She looked as though the floor might open beneath her at any second.
“I ... I...” she stammered, her voice catching hopelessly. Her eyes darted toward me, then away just as quickly. “Never mind.”
The sight of her like that—so composed one moment and utterly undone the next—did something dangerous to my heartbeat.
“Come on, Kait!” Mai-Loan chuckled, clearly enjoying herself far too much. “We know you are not a Convent-cookie and neither is Adrian a Monastery-priest.”
This time I blushed. I felt the heat rush to my face, a sudden surge of temperature that would have triggered a warning light on the triple-two’s master caution panel.
Heat rushed straight into my face before I could stop it, and I cursed myself inwardly for reacting so visibly. The room erupted into low laughter, but beneath the teasing, beneath the awkwardness, the tension never truly left.
Because somewhere outside these walls, the Wolf still existed.
And all the joking in the world could not make me forget that.
Ash cleared his throat, and even that small sound seemed unnaturally loud against the restless murmur of the bush outside.
It was still only mid-afternoon, but the Lowveld was wide awake. Beyond the shaded veranda, the Kruger breathed and moved with its usual rhythm — the dry rasp of cicadas droning from the mopane trees, the distant bubbling call of a francolin somewhere down near the riverbed, and the occasional rustle in the grass that made every nerve in my body tighten before I reminded myself it was probably just a duiker or a troop of monkeys moving through the brush. The air itself felt heavy, thick with heat and dust and something else I couldn’t quite name. Anticipation, maybe. Dread.
“Okay, I have Darya and some of TC’s men en route to here,” Ash said at last, his voice low and measured. “Nadia and Mai-Loan will stay here while Don, Dave, and I go back to Northwest Province.”
I watched his face as he spoke, looking for some sign that this was all just precaution, that maybe we were all letting our imaginations run away with us. But Ash’s expression was unreadable, set in that calm, professional way of his that somehow made the situation feel even more serious.
He continued, “I’ll have Roxy get the ball rolling on that funds transfer...”
The words hung in the air.
I shifted in my chair, the wooden armrest creaking beneath my hand. Somewhere close by, a hornbill let out its hollow call, and it echoed across the camp like a warning.
“Okay...” I said slowly, though the word came out more like a reluctant exhale than agreement. “But doesn’t it seem like overkill? I mean having all those people come in?”
The moment I said it, I knew I sounded unconvinced — maybe even desperate for someone to tell me I was right.
Mai-Loan turned her gaze toward me, her eyes sharp, unblinking. There was no softness in her expression, only the kind of hard-earned caution that comes from seeing too much.
“You never know what the Wolf might come up with,” she said.
The way she said his name sent a chill through me despite the oppressive heat. The Wolf. Even thinking it made my stomach knot.
She folded her arms and leaned back slightly. “I will also sleep a little better knowing there is always an eye on you two.”
The cicadas outside seemed louder now, a constant electric scream underlining every word. I looked past them at the shimmering bushveld beyond. Sunlight flashed on the leaves, and a pair of glossy starlings hopped across the dusty path as if the world were perfectly normal.
But it wasn’t.
“You’re talking along the lines that the Wolf will assume it is I that stole his funds,” I said, and this time I couldn’t keep the weight out of my voice. It came out as a sigh, tired and bitter.
Because that was the heart of it, wasn’t it?
Someone had moved money.
Someone had vanished.
And if the Wolf started pulling on threads, sooner or later one of them would lead to me.
“If he knows about the connection between you and Elsabe,” Ash cut in, his tone firmer now, “then he will most probably try to find you, Adrian.”
My chest tightened at the mention of her name.
Elsabe.
For a moment the sounds of the bush seemed to fade behind the pounding in my ears.
Ash leaned forward slightly. “Else, just stay calm and go on as per usual.”
As per usual.
The phrase almost made me laugh.
There was nothing usual about any of this anymore. Every sound outside now felt loaded with meaning. A branch snapping in the distance. The dry whisper of wind through the thorn trees. The cough of something unseen far off in the bush. Under ordinary circumstances it would have been the familiar soundtrack of the Kruger, the wild music I had grown used to.
Now it all sounded like approach. Like footsteps. Like danger moving closer.
“I’m not convinced,” I admitted, forcing myself to meet Ash’s eyes. “But if the Wolf comes knocking ... I’ll be ready.”
The words were braver than I felt.
Truth be told, my pulse was hammering. My palms were damp. Every instinct told me we were standing on the edge of something ugly.
“That’s the spirit, Adrian,” Mai-Loan said, though her voice carried no triumph, only grim acceptance. “It’s at least going to take him a day or two to catch the scent of you.”
Catch the scent. Again with the animal imagery.
Somehow that made it worse. Out here, in the heart of the bush, where predators stalked and prey vanished in silence, the metaphor felt too close to reality. I could almost picture it — the Wolf somewhere out there, patient, methodical, following the faintest trace until he found what he was hunting.
Me.
A sudden burst of alarm calls shattered the air outside — sharp, frantic chirps from a flock of starlings exploding out of a nearby tree.
All of us fell silent.
I turned instinctively toward the sound, every muscle in my body tightening. Probably a snake. Or a monkey. Or a passing raptor. Still, for a few seconds no one moved.
Then Kait’s voice broke through the tension, thin and strained.
“This is too much for me...” she said, her words trembling. She wrapped her arms around herself as if trying to hold herself together. “My nerves aren’t going to hold out.”
I looked at her then, really looked, and saw what I had been too wrapped up in my own fear to notice before. Her face had gone pale, her eyes glassy with panic, shoulders rigid as drawn wire.
And suddenly the patio felt smaller. The heat pressed in harder.
Outside, the bush carried on as if none of this mattered — birds calling, insects singing, the wind stirring dust along the path.
But inside, the tension had become something alive, coiled tightly between us, waiting for the moment it would strike.
Then Kait broke the silence.
“Adrian,” she said quietly, her voice steadier than it had been a moment ago, “your biltong thief is back...”
I turned to her, frowning. “What?”
She pointed toward the bush beyond the patio. “The noise with the birds just now? Just look towards the tree line.”
I followed the line of her arm, narrowing my eyes against the glare.
“Where?”
“Straight ahead on your eleven o’clock,” she whispered. “In the shadow of the acacia tree.”
At once, everyone on the patio turned to look.
The sudden stillness among us was almost comical — five adults frozen in place, staring out into the bush as if expecting the Wolf himself to emerge from the shadows.
I leaned forward, my gaze sweeping over the dry grass, the pale trunks, the shifting leaves.
“I see nothing,” Ash whispered after a moment.
I couldn’t help the faint smile that tugged at the corner of my mouth.
“You don’t know how to look,” I murmured back. “Not on the ground.”
I lifted a finger and pointed higher.
“In the tree,” I said softly. “Watching us.”
Ash squinted harder.
“What? A monkey?”
Before I could answer, Dave leaned forward, his eyes catching the shape almost immediately.
“A cat...” he said, his tone thoughtful. “A serval cat, I presume...”
That made me chuckle under my breath.
“Oh, Percy is back,” I said, and beside me Kait let out a small giggle that sounded almost like relief.
The tension that had been wrapped around all of us since Ash’s warning loosened, just a little.
“Oh, I see him now...” Mai-Loan said, leaning slightly to get a better look. Her expression shifted from guarded seriousness to surprise. “You name the wild animals?”
Kait answered before I could.
“We name all the animals in the park,” she said, and just like that the heaviness in the air cracked. Her voice carried warmth now, almost playfulness. “But Adrian rescued this one and named him.”
I sighed, already knowing where this was going.
She folded her arms and gave me a pointed look. “Fed him biltong to earn his trust. Now he can’t stay away.”
A faint smile played on her lips.
“I warned Adrian. Feed a stray — and they move in.”
That earned a few low chuckles from around the table.
“Yeah,” I admitted, lifting my hands in surrender, “but he is sort of security.”
I glanced back toward the tree line.
Now that everyone’s eyes had adjusted, Percy was easier to make out: a lean, elegant shape draped across a thick branch in the shade of the acacia. His spotted coat blended so perfectly with the broken light and shadow that he seemed almost part of the tree itself. Only the slow flick of his tail and the gleam of his eyes gave him away.
“Nothing moves around here that he does not see,” I said, “and scare off.”
Almost as if on cue, Percy’s ears twitched toward something deeper in the brush.
“Damn,” Dave muttered, shaking his head. “You are lucky. My Duma became lazy.”
Kait turned to him, one eyebrow arching. “Your Duma?”
Dave grinned.
“An AWC,” he said. “African wild cat.”
He leaned back in his chair, clearly warming to the story.
“He just walked in the back door of the farmhouse one evening and helped himself to some steaks I had taken out for a braai.”
That got a laugh from Ash.
Dave shrugged, unbothered. “Since then he was always around and I adopted him.”
He paused, then added with a shameless grin, “He now sleeps on the bed...”
Kait stared at him in disbelief.
Then she looked at me. Then back at Dave.
“What is it with you guys and wild animals?” she asked. “You are interfering with nature.”
Her tone was scandalised, but there was enough amusement in it to tell me she was no longer on the edge of panic.
I turned to her, folding my hands in mock solemnity.
“Kait,” I said, putting on my most serious voice, “the Good Book said to care for the animals, feed them, and nurture them.”
I gestured grandly toward the acacia tree.
“We are merely doing our duty. Adhering to the command of the Lord.”
Ash snorted.
Mai-Loan actually laughed.
Even Dave gave me an approving nod, as if I had just made a compelling theological argument.
Kait stared at me for a long second, her eyes narrowing.
Then she pointed a warning finger straight at me.
“Well,” she declared, “Sergeant Percy Skimbleshanks is not sleeping on the bed!”