by JB Salsbury
I turn toward the street and jog. The fear that men are waiting in bushes to pounce on my family in their sleep fuels me until I’m running. Faster than I would’ve thought possible, I pump my legs and arms furiously, hoping to work the excruciating pain from my chest.
I take a shortcut down an alley.
Dogs bark as I sprint soundlessly to my demise. Tears burn my cheeks as they whip across my face, but I cannot slow. I won’t stop. I may not be an angel, but even ordinary people are capable of extraordinary things when faced with the life and death of those they love. I push through the cramps in my muscles and the ache in my throat.
The sky seems lighter, or maybe it’s the streetlights, but terror pushes my wobbly legs farther.
I see the old gas station up ahead. My lungs burn as my breath saws in and out. I slow to a jog as I round the corner of the station’s empty mini-mart toward the back, expecting to see someone waiting, but no one is there.
My body longs to rest, but adrenaline and nerves refuse it. With my hands braced on my knees, I try to catch my breath. Oh, if this could only be a dream, and when I open my eyes, let me be back in Milo’s bed, wrapped in his arms.
I pace the lot and focus on slowing my heart rate, as its speed is making me dizzy. Without a way to tell the time, I can only pray that I’m not too late and that the people I love are safe—
The sound of tires crunching on broken asphalt calls my feet to still and my lungs to freeze.
A dark car with equally dark windows pulls into the lot. The headlights are off. I swallow the lump in my too-dry throat. My legs itch to run again, but my muscles refuse to cooperate. The car comes to a stop, and the back door opens. I hold my breath as the blue-eyed man pushes out from the back to stand just in front of me.
“Good girl, Angel.” He looks genuinely pleased as he reaches out to pet my hair.
I jerk away from his touch.
He frowns. “Get in the car.”
“They’re going to come looking for me.”
Milo will, I know he will. He’ll never find me, but putting even a sliver of unease in the man’s mind feels like the biggest of victories.
He sighs as if I’m nothing but an annoyance. “There are over two thousand children reported missing each day. You really think anyone is going to care about one nameless foster child?”
I frown.
“Right. Now, get in.”
On heavy feet, I shuffle past him—
“Not so fast there, gringo.”
I jerk my head around to find a mob of men—at least twenty—emerging from the shadows. My weak eyes frantically search for a familiar face, but it’s too dark, and they’re too far away.
“I believe you got something of ours, and we want her back.” The man speaking is standing closest to us.
I squint hard. He looks familiar. It’s the big guy, Milo’s cousin.
“Back off or she dies.” The blue-eyed man grips the back of my neck so hard that the pain rips down my body, and my legs give out.
Something clicks loudly. The grip on my neck releases, but only a little.
“Let her go, or I’ll spray your ride with the inside of your skull, puto.”
That voice. It’s shaking with rage, inflamed with intent.
“Milo,” I whimper in relief as I sag to the street.
Two men with raised guns come closer, and I cringe away from their weapons.
“It’s okay,” Milo whispers, and even though I know he’s trying to soften his voice, he can’t mask the rage vibrating just behind it. “Go with them, Güera.”
I struggle to get away from the blue-eyed man, who scrambles to keep a hold on the hood of my sweatshirt. I hear a dull crack followed by a heavy thud. I whirl around to see Milo dressed in all black, standing over the man, who curls up in a ball holding his bloodied head. Another two men are holding guns to the head of the car’s driver.
Milo looks at me, and I recognize the look in his eyes from earlier. They soften with emotion when he sees the question in my eyes. “I told you I wasn’t gonna let you go.” He turns his attention back to the man clutching his head. “Get her out of here,” he says before landing a solid kick to the guy’s stomach.
I’m pulled back through the advancing crowd of men, who all spare me a quick glance before circling around Milo.
A door is opened, and I’m ushered into a dark-colored car that doesn’t look like anything special. A man with a tattoo above his eyebrow gets behind the wheel, and two more hop into the backseat. They speak Spanish to each other in clipped phrases as we speed out of the lot.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Don’t freak out. I’m just taking you somewhere safe until Emilio can get to you.” The driver keeps his eyes on the road and speaks quickly. “Are you hungry?”
“Hungry?” That seems like a strange question to ask after what just happened. My stomach feels sick, my nerves shot, and—“What are they going to do to him?”
He spares me a quick glance and shrugs. “Don’t worry. He’ll get what he deserves.”
I know right then . . .
Milo’s going to kill him.
Milo
“MIRA, EMILIO.” SEBASTIAN’S voice cuts through the murderous rage that’s been roaring in my ears since Mercy was taken to safety by the LS. “Lo tomaremos desde aquí.”
I slam my foot into the Vanderfucker’s ribs one last time. Sebastian grips my bicep. “We got it, ese.”
“I heard you the first time.” My hair sticks with sweat to my forehead, and I wipe it away while stepping back from the lump of meat. I’m breathing heavily, and the sky is getting lighter by the minute. Pretty soon, suburban families will be out jogging and walking their dogs, and if we don’t get this cleaned up quickly, they’ll stumble upon a little LS business of the bloody kind. “Mercy.”
Sebastian jerks his chin. “Let’s go.”
I eye Omar, who gives me a chin lift before he and his boys pop the trunk on the Vanderdick’s Lincoln Town Car and load it with the two unconscious men.
I follow Sebastian around the corner and down the block to where his ride is parked. I hop in, and he fires up the engine. My pulse is still pounding furiously, and my feet hurt from kicking that asshole, trying to get him to tell me everything he knows about Mercy. He didn’t say shit.
“Here.” I hand him the Glock he gave me earlier.
“You’re not home free yet. You should keep it.”
I pop his glove box and toss it in. “No. Not when I’m with her. The sun is up. We’ll stick to crowds until we’re safe.” I run both hands through my hair, frustration eating away at my insides. “I should’ve kept at him.” I couldn’t get him to give up a name, a location, anything.
“Jefe wants our hands clean,” he says as he angles the car toward the freeway on-ramp while handing me two Amtrak tickets. “Let us do what we’re best at.”
I glare at him in the darkness, the dashboard lights making his usual scowl look even more sinister. “And what’s that?”
He glances at me with all the emotion of a rock. “Making people disappear.”
I suck in a breath, and my hand clenches around my phone in my palm. Making people disappear. I chuckle, and the sound is psychotic as I’m reminded of what I’ve done. I’ve pledged the rest of my life to the same people who made my mom “disappear” for wanting to protect her sons, the same people who abandoned us when El Jefe took off to Mexico.
My phone vibrates in my hand. When I see it’s an unlisted number, I want to toss the fucker out the window, but I can’t. I have to think of Mercy and what is best for her, and right now, she needs to hide out just in case more of these demented assholes from her past might be coming for her.
I answer the phone with no greeting.
“Go to the Carnicería Zamora in San Ysidro. Back door. Ask for Hondo,” El Jefe says in Spanish.
“I’ll never forgive you for what you did to her. For what you did to us.”
Silence meets
me on the other end, and the air inside the car thickens with tension.
“I’ll become whatever you need me to be for what you did for Mercy, but I will never forgive you.”
“We’ll see.”
The line goes dead.
“MAKE SURE MIGUEL gets this.” I hand Sebastian a folded-up piece of notebook paper at the Amtrak station. I can’t tell Miguel everything, but I told him we’re okay, I’ll be back, and he needs to take care of Julian.
Sebastian tucks it into his pocket with a nod, his face all business as he remains alert to everything around us.
A navy-blue Nissan Sentra with what I’m sure are stolen plates pulls up next to us. I hop out, and before I’m fully standing, the passenger-side door swings open, and a hooded Mercy comes barreling at me and slams into my chest.
“Milo, are you okay? I was so scared.” Her arms wrap around my waist.
I take her backpack from Hector with a nod of thanks. As silently as they arrived, both he and Sebastian slip away and out of the parking lot. I take a few minutes to just hold Mercy, to remind myself that she’s here, that she’s okay, that she’s free.
Even if I’m not.
I slip on Mercy’s backpack. “I’m fine, Güera. It’s almost over. I promise.”
She pulls back and frowns. “Where will we go now?”
I kiss her downturned lips then grab her hand and pull her toward the train station. “San Ysidro.” I stop at the vending machine and pull a few dollars from my pocket. I get two granola bars, a bag of pretzels, and two bottles of water. That’s not much, but it’ll keep her strength up for the trip.
I jog to the train as they announce the last chance to board. I motion for Mercy to climb on in front of me, and we take the first available seats, one right by a window. I put her there and sit on the aisle as all my protective instincts flare, because the possibility that we’re being hunted is in the front of my mind. Would a man like Mikkel Vanderburgh be arrogant enough to think he could pull this off on his own? Or are there others out there who know about Mercy and, when he comes up missing, will be next to hunt her down?
My foot pounds a steady beat on the hollow floor as the train lurches forward. Mercy stares out the window, and with her hood up, I can’t see her face, but I catch the tremble in her lower lip.
“Hey.” I wrap my arm around her shoulders and pull her close. “It’s gonna be okay.”
“I’m scared, Milo. What if he gets away and goes after our family?”
Something heavy moves behind my ribs at how easily she calls us all family. “Shh . . . that’s not gonna happen.”
Her bloodshot eyes peer up at me. “How do you know?”
God, she’s beautiful. Looking into her eyes now, the trust and devotion shining back at me makes the sacrifice I’ve made worth it. “You’ll just have to trust me.”
She sniffs, and her expression turns from worry to cold, hard determination. “He’ll only stop if he’s dead.”
“I know.” I hold her gaze for as long as it takes for her to read my thoughts. His death certificate was signed the moment he threatened to take you away from me.
She licks her lips, and I can’t help but lean in and press mine to them. She’s so warm, so soft, and some of the tension in my shoulders melts away with every brush of her tear-stained mouth.
I pull her to my chest, and we turn toward the window as the Southern California beaches fly past. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to give her the life she dreams about. I think that once this all blows over, we’ll go back to the little apartment I found on the beach and live out all the dreams we had planned.
I wonder if she’ll ever forgive me when she realizes what I’ve done, what I had to do to save her, what life I signed us up for.
Will she understand?
Mercy
I WISH I could’ve stayed on that train forever, the ocean to my left and Milo at my back with his arms wrapped tightly around me. I pretended we weren’t running away. I fantasized about a trip we’d take where Milo and I would splash around on different beaches and fall asleep under the shade of palm trees. We’d laugh and talk about the future we had ahead of us.
When the train came to a stop, so did the blissful daydreams. We took a musty trolley for a short trip from San Diego down to a city called San Ysidro, where Milo said we could walk from there.
The day is warm, too warm for my sweatshirt, but Milo thinks it’s better if people don’t see me. By now, Chris and Laura have probably filed a police report, not that the police could do much, seeing that we’re legal adults. Unsure of the rules when it comes to wards of the state, if anyone is looking for me, my unique coloring would give me away instantly, and Milo says the less Chris and Laura know about where we are, the safer they are.
“This is the place.” Milo takes me around the back of a single building covered in Spanish writing and painted pictures of cows, pigs, chickens, and sheep. An old metal door with a big lock is there, and I’m surprised when he turns the handle, and it opens for us.
I squeeze his hand harder as he guides me into the space. The smell turns my stomach, and I cover my face with my sleeve-covered hand.
“Keep your head down,” he whispers.
An older man barks something at us in Spanish, and I tense at Milo’s side.
“Hondo?” Milo says.
“Emilio Vega?”
Milo nods, and the man smiles and rambles off a long string of Spanish while motioning for us to follow him outside.
He points to some kind of old delivery truck. It’s not big, and the sides are covered with images and words similar to those on the front of the store. Milo holds his hand up to the man, who quiets as Milo turns toward me. He pulls a water bottle from my backpack and drinks half before handing me the rest.
“Drink it all.”
I eye the bottle, hoping my stomach can take it, then force it all down.
He tosses the bottle and hands me one more. “This one too.”
“Why?”
His expression turns apologetic. “We’re going across the border to Mexico—”
“No.” I take a step away from him on instinct, only to have him grip the front of my shirt and pull me back in as though he expected it.
“I promise you’ll be okay.”
“Mexico is where they kept me. I can’t go back there, Milo, I can’t—”
He presses his lips to mine, but the kiss is hard, as if he’s only doing it to silence me. “You’re going to have to trust me.”
“I’m scared,” I whisper.
“I know.” His dark eyes are mere inches from mine and unwavering. “Do you think I’d bring you this far to lose you now?”
“No.”
“No.” He presses a kiss to my forehead then brings the bottle of water to my lips. “We’re going to be in a tight space with no air conditioning. I want to make sure you don’t dehydrate.”
I hate this. I hate where we’re going and his explanation for the water, but like everything else with Milo, I trust it. The second bottle takes me longer, but I eventually get all the water down. I keep my chin tucked as Milo talks with the man and moves me forward until a dirty pair of worn-out boots comes into view. I focus on them because they look like the kind of shoes cowboys wear and seem to be a hundred years old.
“Come on, Ghostgirl.”
I snap my eyes to Milo at the use of that name.
“I don’t want anyone knowing who you are, just in case,” he whispers as the man opens up the back of the truck, seeming oblivious to what Milo’s saying.
Just in case someone in Mexico might be after me. I finish his unspoken words in my head and immediately wonder about Señora and Papa, and a pit forms in my chest.
The man barks something and motions to the space in the back of the truck, and a wave of stench similar to the one inside the store assaults me. I cover my mouth and nose and wonder if the smell is of those animals painted on the truck. The space is less than half the size of the room I stay
ed in at the psychiatric hospital but plenty of room for two of us.
More Spanish is exchanged, and I’m acutely aware of how much prettier the language is coming from Milo than from this man, who seems to spit with each word.
I hear a loud click and an unlatching, and another space is revealed beneath the truck’s bed, a crawl space just big enough for a few humans to fit.
My heart speeds. He doesn’t expect us to hide in there, does he?
“We can’t risk them checking for us at the border. If they see you, they’ll know who you are.” Milo looks down at me, and he seems just as worried. “It’ll only be for a little bit, just until we get across.”
“What if we can’t breathe?”
He studies the space and shakes his head. “It’s gonna work. It has to.” He shoves my bag in first, which makes it even smaller, then crawls inside. It’s barely tall enough to fit his wide shoulders when he’s on his side. He holds his hand out to me, and I crawl in after him. It’s hot and dirty and smells like sweat and urine.
Milo slides one arm over me and tugs until my back hits his chest. “Just breathe through your mouth, okay?”
The door slams and plunges us into darkness. I pinch my eyes closed and focus on Milo’s arm, placed protectively around me.
The truck fires to life. Not long afterward, sweat is soaking my clothes. A flicker of anxiety grows quickly under my skin, but every time I want to kick and scream, I remember the muti and what my fate would be if I didn’t have Milo to protect me. With my fears at the forefront and Milo at my back, I calm myself.
I squeak as we hit a bump that knocks my head against the metal flooring.
“Shh . . .” Milo presses his lips to my hoodie-covered head.
I pretend we’re safe in a bed in a big room with lots of open windows, which helps to slow my pulse.
We slow, and my heart speeds with the hope that it’s over.
“We’re at the border,” Milo says in my ear.
Stop. Go. Stop. Go. I’m grateful I didn’t eat anything, or I may have thrown up and been stuck with my own vomit sloshing against my skin.
People speak Spanish. Men. Are they yelling?
