by Ellie Danes
“We won’t know if you’re telling the truth,” Bree said, “so there’s no deal anymore.”
Adrian chuckled but shook his head. “Then we’ll just have to help Nathan remember.”
The bodyguard nodded and cracked his knuckles. The sound set off a ripple in my head. Maybe I would finally remember. That urge, the urge to be complete again, was not something I could turn my back on.
The larger bodyguard returned to the motel room, having bribed or coerced the authorities into leaving this as a private matter. I remembered him, the faded gang sign tattoo that showed just above his collar. Another ripple crossed the dark surface of my memory.
“You can’t do that,” Bree said. “Nathan has to remember on his own. You’re not putting thoughts in his head.”
Adrian checked his watch and was suddenly bored with the whole situation. “Then let’s just get down to the important facts. Nathan owes us a substantial gambling debt. He was going to cover that debt by transporting some goods for us.”
“Running cocaine?” Bree asked. She glanced at me and it hurt to see the way she saw me now.
“Except he never completed the run. He took off and took the cocaine with him,” Adrian said.
My mind flashed over a dark road with headlights barreling toward me. “I didn’t make it very far, did I,” I said.
The larger bodyguard answered. “We caught up to you but the cocaine was already stashed somewhere.”
“The bank,” I muttered.
“That’s right. The bank. That’s where we met the lovely Bree,” Adrian said.
My hands balled into fists. “I didn’t tell you about the bank.”
Adrian laughed. “No, you did not. No matter how my men asked you just couldn’t tell them anything useful. We thought it was your training, but now it seems it was just a lucky hole in your memory.”
“Then how did you know?” Bree asked.
“Enough,” Adrian said. “You remember now, Nathan? How is your memory these days?”
“Fine,” I said with gritted teeth.
“Good. Then remember this: you owe the cartel and we will collect.” Adrian brushed imaginary lint from his suit coat and walked to the broken door of the motel room.
Something about that gesture sent a bolt of lightning through my brain. I remembered sitting at a bar with a bottle of high-end tequila between me and Adrian. I teased him about the lint-picking and pointed out it was his tell.
He only did it when he thought he was holding the winning hand.
Chapter Seventy-Six
Bree
“Wait!” I cried.
I couldn’t let Adrian Juarez get the last word. Nathan was just going to let him walk out the door on the expectation that he would run cocaine across the border for the cartel. I couldn’t let that happen.
“Bree, stop,” Nathan said.
I pushed past him and spoke directly to Juarez. “If you were smart you would renegotiate the deal. Better yet, you would agree to a truce.”
His smile was gone but he turned around and paused. “A truce? Why would I agree to a truce?”
“How much time and resources have you wasted trying to track Nathan? How much money have you already lost on this deal?” I asked. “We’ve already proven to be too much trouble for you and your men. Why not walk away now before you waste more time and money?”
“Bree, you need to stop,” Nathan said.
I turned on him, my cheeks hot with anger and frustration. “How can you say that? How can you just stand there and let these criminals tell you the right thing to do?”
Nathan flexed his jaw, furious that I would call him out in front of Juarez and his men. “I lost the money, I made the deal, and the right thing to do is to hold up my end.”
Juarez gave me a smile that did not reach his dark eyes. Then he gave Nathan a polite nod. “Why don’t I let you two have a minute to discuss everything.”
Nathan grabbed my arm and dragged me into the small motel bathroom. The walls were thinner than our now-shattered door, but it didn’t matter. I had to try to convince him he was still worth saving.
Everything about Nathan had changed the moment Juarez had entered the room. The two knew each other and that was enough for Nathan to believe what the criminal said. He remembered Juarez from their gambling and partying, but did he really make that deal?
“Just think about what they said.” I pleaded with Nathan as he stood in front of me like a stone pillar. “They said you took the deal but you disappeared in the middle of it. What do you think changed your mind?”
“I don’t know, Bree. I was probably drinking, maybe doing drugs,” Nathan said.
I grabbed his shoulders and rose on my tiptoes to look him in the eyes. “Or you saw Maggie and decided you had to do something to help her.”
Nathan brushed me back, shaken by what I had said. “Don’t try to make me into a hero, Bree. I’m not a good person. Why can’t you believe it now?”
I dodged in front of him again. “What if you only joined that poker game in order to get close enough to find out where they were keeping Maggie? What if you lost on purpose so you’d be welcomed in to the drug-running? That would have gotten you close enough to formulate a plan to save her and the other kids.”
“Enough, Bree.” Nathan brushed me aside. “I know you want me to be some kind of knight in shining armor, but it turns out I’m just a degenerate gambler who owes a bad debt.”
“Nathan, please!”
I couldn’t stop him. Nathan strode into the motel room and walked right up to Juarez. “I’ll go with you peacefully on one condition. Bree leaves her and you never interfere with her life again.”
“You’re setting conditions now?” the shorter bodyguard rasped.
Nathan took one step toward the man and he cringed. Juarez laughed but stood shaking his head side to side.
“No deal,” he said.
Nathan moved so fast I was hardly out of the bathroom before he kicked the shorter bodyguard straight out the door. The man hit the opposite wall hard enough to leave cracked dry wall before he collapsed in the hallway.
The larger bodyguard stepped forward but one sharp kick to his outer knee and Nathan had him howling in pain. He groped for Nathan and missed, receiving a hard kidney punch as he recovered his balance on one good leg.
“Enough,” Juarez said but neither man listened to him.
Nathan and the injured bodyguard squared off again. This time it was the giant’s turn to get a hard punch in. Nathan’s head snapped back but it didn’t phase him. He spun around and delivered a wicked upper cut to the man’s chin. I heard the bodyguard’s jaw clack as his head whipped back and his eyes rolled upward.
The large man stumbled but forced himself upright and caught Nathan with a hammer-like blow to his collarbone. Nathan’s shoulder slumped but he raised his fists again and rounded the bodyguard.
I knew the fight could go on until they were both nothing but bloody pulp. Even Juarez wasn’t able to call them off. It was up to me.
As the two men circled each other, I walked straight between them and looped my arm through Juarez’s. “I’m going with whether you like it or not, Nathan,” I said.
Nathan’s face was pale with rage while Juarez stiffened with surprise. The shorter bodyguard stumbled back into the room and stood there swaying in confusion.
“Gentlemen, it seems we’re leaving,” Juarez said. He guided me out of the room and down the hallway.
Nathan followed close on our heels and I could feel his conflicting feelings boring a hole in the back of my head. I had defied him while at the same time sticking by his side. And he had to appreciate my bloodless end to their brawl.
Juarez led me to a black van and patted my arm before letting go. “Please forgive me for this next part but we have certain protocols that must be followed. You understand.”
“Don’t you touch her--” Nathan’s threat was cut off as a black bag was thrown over his head.
&n
bsp; I tried not to panic as the darkness engulfed me but then I felt one of the men slip a plastic zip-tie around my wrists. He pulled it tight and my hands were bound tight. We were shoved into the back of the van and left kneeling on the bare floor.
“You’re okay, Bree,” Nathan muttered. “I’m right here. I’ll get you free.”
I shifted until I could feel Nathan’s solid mass against my back. He moved to sit with one knee sticking up and then I felt him raise his arms above his head. One hard blow and the zip-ties around his wrists snapped.
I heard one of the bodyguards swear.
Then Nathan grabbed my hands and yanked hard. The zip-ties snapped and I bit my lip to keep from crying out. Nathan pulled the black hood from my head and I concentrated on taking long, deep breaths of fresh air.
Wind poured through an open window telling me before I even looked that the van was moving too fast for us to escape. The men had driven out of town quickly and there weren’t any stop signs to slow them down. We barreled along what looked to be an unused road and there was no use trying to get out. We were driving into the middle of nowhere.
I turned around to look at the driver, only to see the shorter bodyguard with a sawed-off shotgun pointed at us. He gave us both a negative shake of the head and gestured with the gun for us to sit on separate sides of the van.
We had no choice but to comply.
We were still sitting helplessly as the van bumped onto another rougher road. The windows were smeared with dust, but I could see we were heading toward another industrial campus. Large outbuildings surrounded a small two-story office building. No lights shone through it’s broken windows. Then a large door slid open on one of the buildings and the van drove straight through.
“Put the bags back on now,” the man with the gun said.
My hands shook but I did what they said. It was huge relief when I felt Nathan’s fingers thread through mine. He held on tight even as the van door flew open and a crowd of voices surrounded us. A half dozen men moved us across the warehouse floor. I heard the echoes and wondered if we were back in the building we had escaped from just hours before.
Then I heard a door open and a heavy hand gave me a sharp shove. Nathan caught me as the door slammed. I yanked the black bag off my head and had to fight off a wave of tears before I could look around.
We were trapped again in a windowless room. Except this time there was nothing but a ragged blanket thrown in the corner.
I sank to my knees and cried.
Chapter Seventy-Seven
Nathan
I was frustrated with myself for losing track of time. It wasn’t Bree’s fault that the small, bare room caused her to panic. She had been near inconsolable after they shut the door. I forgot everything else and knelt on the floor to comfort her.
It was a relief when Bree finally stood up and brushed herself off. “Knock on the door,” she said. “I have to go to the bathroom.”
I knocked and yelled but the guards didn’t open the door. Finally I heard one of them tell me something about a bucket. There was nothing else in the room and then I remembered the ragged blanket in the corner.
I pulled it away and showed Bree. “There’s a bucket.”
For a second it looked as if the flood of tears would start over. Then Bree primly spread out the blanket and told me to hold it up. She even laughed a little when she looked up and saw my eyes screwed shut in order to give her privacy.
It wasn’t until we’d settled back down on the floor, Bree tight in my arms, that I realized I had not kept track of the time. Soon I wasn’t sure if we’d been in the room for hours or if it was approaching a full day.
Panic didn’t set in until Bree stopped talking. For a while we were able to keep quiet small talk going, just in order to feel normal. We joked about motel rooms. We wished for the best of our favorite foods. We even argued over our favorite fairy tales.
“There is no way that Cinderella is better than Red Riding Hood,” I argued. “She doesn’t do anything for herself and she runs away.”
“Red Riding Hood is totally oblivious,” Bree said. “She has no idea she’s stuck in a room with a wolf.”
That was the last thing Bree said. She sat shivering in my arms and stopped responding to my questions.
“Bree, I’m so sorry. I’ll get you out of this, I promise,” I whispered against her hair.
She nodded but it was hard to tell if it was a response or a shudder. Bree’s body shivered despite the warm temperature in the room and that’s when I knew she was truly terrified.
And nothing I said could lessen her fears. I had no idea what the cartel had in store for us. They didn’t take betrayal lightly and I couldn’t imagine a scenario in which we could convince Adrian Juarez to let us go.
“Wait!” My realization made me sit up and Bree startled upright. “I heard the guard answer my question through the door.”
I hauled Bree to her feet and rushed over to the door. Pressing my ear hard against the surface, I could make out two intermittent voices. They snubbed each other’s favorite football teams and then a long silence would follow.
It was the same for an hour, maybe more. Bree huddled on the floor by my feet while I stayed pressed to the door until my ear was raw.
Then the shift change came.
I moved along closer to where the guards were standing. The new men were briefing the others on what had been decided.
“Bree. Bree.” I nudged her with my foot. “Stand up. I need your help.”
Bree looked up at me as if waking from a long sleep. “What?”
“I can’t hear what the guards are saying and I think it’s about us,” I said. I held out a hand.
Bree took it and hauled herself up to standing. She shoved me aside and pressed her ear to the door. I smiled in relief. Just the idea that I needed help was enough to revive Bree.
“They’re saying something about a bunker.” Bree shifted and pressed her ear to the door again. “Mexico City. The bunker is in Mexico City. One of the guards has two sisters there that he hopes he won’t have to see. The other one wants to see his sisters. Now they’re calling each other names.”
I laughed. “Yeah, more of that stuff. We need some entertainment.”
The bunker in Mexico City was interesting but it was hardly information we could use. I was just happy that Bree was once again bright-eyed and active.
“No, wait. He just said it. One guard said ‘we have to be ready to move the Americans.’ He’s just happy he doesn’t have to guard us there. There’s apparently no cell reception or WiFi in the bunker.” Bree turned to me, a worried creased deepening in the middle of her forehead.
“Moving us is risky for them. It’s good news for us,” I said.
Bree shushed me and listened at the door again. “He’s complaining about how far underground the bunker.”
Bree’s voice caught and I knew what she was thinking. The bunker was sounding more like a grave.
“This is our opportunity,” I said. “I’ll make sure we never get to that bunker.”
“Wait. Shh!” Bree shifted again and pressed her ear hard to the door. “Armored car? Why would they be talking about an armored car?”
I balled my hands into fists and gave the opposite wall a hard punch. “It’s all my fault. They saw how fast I got us out of the restraints in the van, so they don’t want to take any chances. They’re going to transport us in an armored car not to keep us safe but to keep us contained.”
I cocked back to punch the wall again but Bree clutched my arm. “Wait. This is our opportunity! The armored car. It’s not here. They keep talking about it coming to meet them somewhere in the desert. He hopes they’re on time because the van doesn’t have air conditioning.”
I stepped back from the wall and paced around the small room. “So, if we’ve heard them right they are planning to drive us out in the van, meet an armored car, and transfer us.”
Bree nodded, the color draining from her face.
“And they are going to take us to Mexico City in the armored car and put us in some underground bunker that even the guards hate.”
She sank to the floor and leaned back against the door. Her eyes took on the faraway glaze that I had worried over for hours.
“Bree, please. Hang on. I’m working on a plan for us to escape during the transfer,” I said.
“And go where? We’ll be surrounded by armed men in the middle of the desert. Unless you can make a helicopter magically appear, we aren’t going anywhere but to the bunker.” Bree shivered and drew her knees up to her chest.
I paced around the room. “There’ll be a way to distract the guards. Maybe get them to open fire on each other accidentally. Our best bet will be to go for the armored car. I’ll take care of the driver and we’ve got ourselves a vehicle.”
“I don’t want to hear any more gunfire.” Bree’s voice was hollow. She shook her head in the negative and then couldn’t seem to stop.
I knelt down in front of her. “Bree, you have to believe I’ll come up with something. I’ll figure out a way to get us out of here.”
She didn’t say anything. Bree hunched her shoulders and pulled her knees in tighter.
Then I realized my mistake. I took both of Bree’s hands and kissed her knuckles. The only thing that revived her before was action, and now I expected her to just sit back while I came up with an impossible plan. If I wanted Bree to remain calm and alert, I needed to ask for her input.
“How can we start a fight amongst the guards?” I asked her. “Think. You have to help me. How can we get them into an argument.”
Bree blinked and brightened up. “They’ve already been arguing about football. Tell them you overheard the other trashing their team.”
I smiled, relieved to see the light back in her eyes. “If we can get them riled up enough, it’ll be the perfect distraction. We get into the armored car, lock the doors, and then hijack it.”
Bree and I hammered out the details and a half dozen different scenarios. Every time she started to flag and the worried, pale look took over her face, I’d ask her to run over the plan with me again.
