Lightning Lingers

by Barbara Freethy

"Rodrigo fears the lightning," Sylvia had said. "That's his weakness."

  "Bring it, Mamich," he muttered.

  The next strike hit a tree close to the house. He heard a yell and saw the men duck back into the house.

  That was not the result he wanted.

  He lit the first match and ran ten yards down the hill. He set one branch on fire, then another and another.

  The next strike of lightning hit the rods he'd so carefully placed.

  He watched in amazement as the lightning literally jumped from rod to rod, each spike setting off fires that zipped up the trees and exploded the brush.

  More lightning came down from the sky, the next jagged spike hitting the roof of the barn. It burst into flames.

  Now the men came running out of both the house and the barn, yelling, panicked, cursing the sky. There were two vans that he could see, and one pulled out almost immediately, but he didn't see Katherine or TJ on board. Great! Any chance to decrease the number of people at the ranch was to his benefit.

  The next lightning flash lingered for what seemed like minutes but was probably seconds. It shone like a beacon coming down from the sky, and where it hit the ground, it rested on something metallic, shiny, beckoning.

  He took it as a sign.

  He ran through the bushes toward the back of the house and prayed that Katherine was somewhere inside.

  Because now he realized that he didn't just have Rodrigo and his men to worry about. The fires were already blazing out of control. He had to get Katherine and TJ out before the flames reached the house.

  The lightning flashed again, showing him that shiny piece of metal that had called to him. It was peeking out of the dirt. He took a quick second to pull it out, shocked and amazed at what it was. For the first time ever, he felt like a true descendant of the Maya, and he believed as they believed.

  Sixteen

  "It's happening," Katherine said, getting to her feet. Lightning flashed outside the windows. Thunder roared through the air. She could hear shouting. So far no one had come in to get them, but that wouldn't last long.

  TJ jumped up on the desk. She handed him the metal chair he'd been sitting on. He smashed the window, and she covered her face as the glass shattered and rained down around him. Then she climbed onto the desk and scrambled out the window with TJ's help.

  As TJ came out of the window behind her, she saw men running and fire blazing in the woods. Jake had come through big time.

  She ducked behind a bush as a man came toward them. When she realized it was Jake, she started to get up, but TJ dragged her down as another man with a gun came around the house from the opposite direction.

  Jake was right in the line of fire. Before she could shout a warning, the guard took a shot.

  Jake stumbled and fell face first to the ground. She had to bite down on her lip to stop the scream from coming out of her throat. To aid in that effort, TJ clapped a hand over her mouth.

  The guard prepared to take another shot. She had to stop him. She jerked out of TJ's grip, ready to rush forward and tackle the man when a huge explosion knocked her down and a shower of wood, rocks and dirt came down around her.

  Dazed, it took a moment for her to realize that the building behind her was blazing, flames leaping twenty to thirty feet into the air. The man with the gun was gone. She didn't know if he'd run or been knocked out, but she didn't care. TJ was slowly getting up. He was okay. But Jake still lay on the ground. She scrambled to her feet and ran over to him.

  She turned him over, seeing no blood on his face. "Jake, Jake," she said urgently. "Wake up. Please wake up." She put her head next to his ear and heard the soft whoosh of breath. He was still alive.

  TJ came to her side. "We have to get out of here."

  Jake groaned and blinked his eyes open, wincing at whatever pain he was in. It was hard to see where he'd been shot, but he reached toward his leg, and then she saw the blood soaking through his pants.

  "He's been shot," she said.

  "Let's get him up," TJ said decisively. "We may not have long."

  "Okay. We're going to help you up," she told Jake.

  He nodded, then grimaced as they somehow got him to his feet, although he immediately took the weight off his left leg and started to sag back down. "Can't," he muttered.

  "Yes, you can," she said forcefully. "We're going to help you. How did you get in here?"

  "Truck—trees—"Jake tipped his head to the right. "Up the hill."

  They followed his clipped directions and half walked, half ran toward the mountain, dragging Jake along with them. She had no idea how badly he was hurt, or if she was making it worse, but she didn't have a choice.

  Jake passed in and out of consciousness, sometimes finding the energy to take a step, sometimes not.

  "Where now?" she asked as they got up the hill and started down the other side. "Jake. Stay with us," she ordered. "We need you to find the truck."

  Her sharp tone brought his eyes back open. She wanted to nurture him not yell at him, but her doctor instincts were running high. This was no time for emotion. She had to fix the problem.

  He pointed toward some bushes, and she followed his lead, hoping they were going in the right direction. She didn't know how many minutes passed before she saw the dark truck parked behind some trees. She felt an overwhelming rush of relief. Any minute, she'd expected to hear shouts or gunshots from behind her.

  "Address," Jake muttered. "Safe house. Map. Paolo."

  She quickly deciphered what he was trying to tell her. He'd set up a place to go after rescuing her—one less thing to worry about.

  The door was unlocked, and they got Jake onto the passenger seat. She slid in next to him while TJ took the wheel. The keys were in the ignition.

  TJ started the engine, and they headed slowly down what appeared to be more of a dirt path than a road.

  "Why aren't you turning on the lights?" she asked.

  "There's enough light from the fire. I don't want to alert anyone to our presence if I don't have to. You need to figure out where we're going."

  She looked at Jake but his eyes were closed. "He said there was an address in here." She saw a piece of paper on the floor and picked it up. There was a roughly drawn map that used the village of Nic Té Há as one point and the ranch as the other. Since both she and TJ had been blindfolded on the way to the ranch, she was happy to get some perspective. There was an address marked halfway in between, with some short directions of where to turn and a few key landmarks that hopefully she could spot, but half of a brick wall and a tree with three trunks didn't give her a lot to go on.

  "I think I've got it," she said. "Hopefully, it's not too far. I'm worried about Jake. I need to see his injury."

  She touched Jake's hand, and her concern grew at the coolness of his skin. He was probably in shock. God knew how much blood he'd lost.

  As she rubbed his hand, her gaze caught on a gold chain looped around his fingers. She pried his fingers open. Even unconscious, he had an intense grip on what appeared to be a gold medallion. She wondered where he'd gotten that and why he didn't seem to want to let it go. But he couldn't hold on any longer. She took the medallion and slipped it into the pocket of her jeans.

  The truck hit a bump, and she lurched forward, bracing her hand on the dashboard. As she looked to the right, she saw the fire blazing higher and brighter than before. "What do you think exploded, TJ?"

  "Probably the weapons in the barn."

  She felt a wave of satisfaction. "Good, then they won't be able to use them."

  "They weren't going to be able to do that anyway. I made the code look like it would work, but at the last minute it wouldn't. I was hoping it would be enough to convince them I was willing to work with them." He shot her a look. "I thought I could tell them I wanted to go to their side, work for them. They obviously needed me. I was going to trade for your life."

  She was immensely touched by his words, even though she wasn't sure they would have made that
trade. "Thank you, TJ. I'm glad it didn't come to that."

  "Looks like Jake, the superhero, saved the day after all," he said with a smile. "When you told me he was going to set a fire, I had no idea the magnitude he was aiming for. He turned the entire forest into an inferno."

  "He got some help from the lightning. Amazing timing," she said, wondering if Jake's great-grandmother had used some of her witchery to help them.

  "Yeah, lightning with no rain. Weird, huh?"

  "That's the least weird thing about this night," she murmured. "Do you think they're dead, TJ?"

  "I don't know. They could have escaped, at least some of them."

  "I hope Rodrigo was in the barn when it blew up."

  "So do I."

  They drove in silence for another fifteen minutes, and then TJ switched on the lights. She kept her eye out for the landmarks drawn on the map and eventually she saw the trio of tree trunks and the half-built wall. "Turn left there," she said.

  A half-mile down the road was a small cabin. TJ jumped out of the car and ran up to the door. He was able to get inside, and a moment later he turned on a dim light and then came back to help her get Jake out of the car.

  "It's just one room, but it will do," he said.

  Jake woke up enough to stumble into the cabin and collapse on the bed. There was a small couch in the room next to the bed, an adjacent bathroom with a sink and a toilet, and a counter that held a small microwave and a mini-refrigerator.

  "I'm going to park the truck behind the cabin," TJ told her. "I'll be right back."

  While TJ went to do that, she brought the lamp closer to the bed and held it over Jake's leg. His jeans were covered in blood and there was still more coming out of the wound. She grabbed a towel from the bathroom and pressed it hard against the wound, eliciting a moan of pain from Jake.

  When TJ came back, he helped her strip Jake down to his boxers so she could inspect the injury. The bleeding had slowed down, which was a good thing. She couldn't see an exit wound, so the bullet was still in his leg. That might be a good thing; it could be acting as a natural plug against a bigger bleed.

  TJ brought her a sheet he'd found in a closet, and she stripped off a piece of fabric large enough to wrap several times around Jake's leg. With the pressure, Jake groaned again, blinking his eyes open.

  "Sorry," she told him. "I'm trying to stop the bleeding."

  "What bleeding?" he asked dazedly.

  "You were shot in the leg. But you're going to be okay," she reassured him as she knotted the bandage. She took one of the extra pillows from the bed and slid it under his leg to keep it elevated. After that, she pulled the blankets from the bottom of the bed and covered him up. He was already starting to chill from the shock.

  "Where are we?" Jake asked.

  "The cabin that Paolo told you about."

  "What happened? I remember fire and explosions."

  "You did what you said. You set the forest on fire with a little help from some lightning. The guards went running, and TJ and I climbed out a window and saw you get shot. Then the barn blew up; they had weapons inside. We dragged you into the woods and here we are."

  He gave her a painful smile. "Sounds easy enough."

  "It was not easy at all. You got hurt. I'm so sorry, Jake."

  "Hey, I'm alive, and so are you. Where's TJ?"

  "Right here," TJ said, stepping forward. "Thanks for the help."

  Jake nodded. "You're welcome. Glad to see you. Your sister has been driving me nuts for days."

  TJ smiled. "I'll bet."

  "You need to go to the hospital," Katherine told Jake. "We just have to figure out where that is."

  "Not now. Too dangerous."

  She couldn't deny that there might still be danger, but she was worried about Jake. "We might have to take that chance."

  "No, we'll wait for Paolo. He'll come tomorrow. He'll tell us what's happened. Said we'd be safe here."

  "It was smart of you to get a place to take us to. You thought of everything."

  "It wasn't just me. Paolo set up the house and gave me the truck. Mamich said she would call the lightning, and she did. I couldn't believe it."

  "I couldn't believe you came after us by yourself," TJ said. "But Katherine had no doubts."

  Jake met her gaze. "Really? You knew I'd come?"

  "Yes, you've always been stupidly brave."

  He started to laugh, then groaned again. "Yeah, that's me—stupidly brave but apparently incredibly lucky."

  "Not lucky—smart. You provided a huge distraction. If you hadn't, we wouldn't have been able to get past the guards. They would have killed us." She shivered a little at that thought, still not quite able to believe they were safe.

  "Mamich said Rodrigo's weakness was lightning. He's always been afraid of the god of lightning. Did you see Rodrigo?"

  "Yes. He was there. He wanted TJ to do something on the computer to fix the weapon systems they bought from someone at MDT. We haven't had time to figure it all out yet."

  "You will." He lifted his hand toward his neck and that's when she realized he wore another gold medallion around his neck. He touched the metal and glanced at her in confusion. "Mamich gave me this. It was my great-grandfather's. She said it would protect me. But in the lightning I saw my dad. He had the same medallion in his hand, and he pointed to the land behind the house. I saw something sparkle in the lightning. And I thought I found another medallion, an exact match."

  "You did," she said. "You had it in your hand." She reached into her pocket and pulled out the second medallion. She held it next to the medallion around his neck. "It does match—almost."

  She touched the medallion he was wearing and felt a deep indentation in the metal. "Oh, my God, Jake, I think a bullet hit this."

  "I guess it did its job then," he said wearily.

  Overwhelming emotion ran through her as she realized how close he'd come to being shot in the chest.

  "And it led me to you," he added. "It put me right where I needed to be so I could see you, so you could see me." He grimaced as he moved his leg slightly. "Damn, my leg hurts."

  She couldn't imagine how he was even speaking through the pain. "I wish I had something to give you."

  "I'll be fine. I'm tough."

  "I know," she said, as she tenderly brushed a strand of hair off her tough guy's face. "You should sleep."

  He stared back at her. "Will you be here when I wake up?"

  "There's nowhere else I'd ever want to be," she said, making a promise that went far beyond what he was asking her.

  He gave her a painful smile and closed his eyes.

  "Is he going to be okay?" TJ asked.

  "I hope so. I wish I could get him to a hospital or a clinic."

  "He said his friend would be by in the morning."

  "That's hours from now."

  "If you think we need to go, I'll risk it."

  "Thanks. If anything changes, I'll let you know."

  "So are you and Jake back together?" TJ asked curiously.

  "I don't know what we are," she replied with a helpless shrug. "The last few days have been a whirlwind. We've shared some intense experiences, and we've talked a lot about the past, but this isn't real life you know."

  "It's felt pretty real to me," he said dryly. "I always liked you and Jake together. I thought you both just needed to grow up."

  "You're pretty smart, little brother."

  "If you come back to Corpus Christi, you could make Jake a part of your real life."

  "I am coming back, TJ, not just for Jake—for Mom, and for you, and for myself." She paused. "Oh, and I wanted to ask you something. I saw the doctor's name on Mom's prescriptions changed. And when I called her old doctor, they said she was no longer a patient. Why did she switch?"

  "She said something about insurance. I added her to my policy when I started at MDT. I thought we had coverage for any doctor she wanted, but I guess that wasn't true."

  She frowned. "It doesn't sound like you
took her to the new doctor."

  "One of her friends did, but I gave her the name of a doctor that—"

  His abrupt pause drew her brows together. "What?"

  "Dammit, Katherine. Jasmine gave me the name of a doctor to take Mom to. That's who she switched to."

  "That's weird," she said slowly. "Why did you get her involved?"

  "I told you. She had a relative that went through something similar, at least that's what she said. Now I wonder if that was true, or if she was just using Mom in some way."

  "Now I'm even happier that I asked one of my friends to look in on her."

  His troubled gaze met hers. "They wouldn't have done something to Mom."

  She really hoped he was right, but she didn't have a good feeling. "You said they were using Mom's illness as leverage to get you to consider doing some freelance work. Maybe it was to their benefit to make her a little worse."

  "If she's sicker because of me, how am I going to live with that?"

  "It's not your fault, TJ, and we don't even know if that's the case. We'll figure that out when we get back."

  "I'm going to kill Jasmine."

  "If she's guilty, I'm going to help you," she said. "But we both know she wasn't doing it alone, so you have to be careful how you play it. Do you have any idea what you're going to do next? Because I think you need to talk to the police, the FBI, Homeland Security, the CIA, the president…whoever you can get to. They're going to want to hear about the fact highly advanced weapons technology was in the hands of a Mexican drug cartel."

  "Now that I know actual weapons were involved, I have better information to offer," TJ said.

  "And I think the more visible you are, the less easy it will be for anyone to go after you. They can't keep you from talking if you've already talked."

  "I should have thought of that before I ran into the jungle to hide."

  "You didn't know what you were up against. You did what you needed to do to stay alive. Let's call that a win."

  He nodded. "Deal."

  She glanced back at Jake, worried as she saw his body convulse with a shiver. "He's cold."

  "Really? It's not cold in here."

  "I'm worried he's getting a fever. An infection could already be setting in. Maybe we should go back to the village. Even if we can't get to a hospital, Jake's great-grandmother might be able to help him. She has a pharmacy of herbs in her backyard, and maybe she has some instruments I could use to get the bullet out."