by Logan Fox
“Do you want to punch me?” Zachary lay his hand over the boy’s, squeezing hard. Angel’s shivers traveled up his arm, despite how hard he tried to still that hand. “Strangle me?”
He slid his knife across the table, turned it so that the blade pointed at his abdomen, and forced open the young man’s fingers. Angel fought him, muscles cording the tanned flesh of his arm, but then reluctantly relaxed his fist. Zachary wrapped Angel’s fingers around the knife. Then he sat forward in a rush and brought the tip of that silver tooth flush with his shirt at a point just above his navel.
“Do you dream of gutting me, Angel? Letting my innards spool onto the floor where my dogs can lick clean my blood?”
Angel’s eyes squeezed closed, a bead of moisture springing into the corner of each. The tip of the knife described a ragged line across Zachary’s stomach as he fought his quivering arm.
“If that is your dream, then do it now. Because this is the last chance you’ll ever get.”
Angel looked up at him then. His black eyes glittered like polished obsidian, his delicate face carved in an expression of trepidation. Then that cleared, and there was only a blank mask.
“Gracias, Don Zachary.”
He saw the young man’s intention flicker in his eyes before his muscles could propel the knife forward. Zachary twisted, hissing when the blade scraped over his abdominal muscles. Cloth ripped, and the knife thudded into the back of his chair. It twanged as he tore Angel’s hand off it.
Angel yelled out when he slammed the boy’s hand onto the table. Zachary snatched Rodrigo’s knife from where he’d left it beside his plate, and stabbed it into Angel’s palm. Angel screamed, tugged at his hand, and screamed again.
His face had gone the color of coffee with too much creamer. Tears trickled down his face, his mouth working as he stared aghast at where Zachary had pinned his hand to the oak table. Blood began pooling in his palm. His fingers trembled as he brought his other hand up, hesitating above the protruding handle.
Zachary laid his flattened hand on the top of the knife’s handle, warding off Angel’s attempts at pulling it out. He leaned close enough that his lips touched the young man’s ear, and whispered, “You could have been a fantastic asset, Angel.”
He rose in a rush, his chair skittering over the flagstone behind him. Both his dogs were on their paws in an instant, hackles raised. He jerked the knife free, watching impassively as Angel sobbed and drew his ruined hand into his stomach, folding over it as he began to cry.
Zachary held the blade to the side. Blue stepped forward and licked clean one side of the blade. Zachary switched hands, and let Lady clean the other side. Then he tossed the sliver of metal back onto the table, downed the rest of his wine, and looked up at the rapt expressions of his sicarios.
“Eat,” he said quietly, and left the dining room. Blue and Lady trailed him, the tip-tap of their nails on the tiles the only sound in the room besides Angel’s muffled sobs.
15
Balancing the scales
The cab driver seemed pissed off that he had to come so far up the mountains for a fare. Lars gave the poor man a grin as the three of them clambered into the back, but it didn’t seem to help matters much.
“Where to?” the cabbie grumbled.
“Silver City proper.” Lars swung his arms along the back of the car seats.
Just as he’d expected, Finn sat forward in a rush to avoid his touch. Cora, on the other hand, didn’t seem to notice. She stared out the window, face cupped in a hand, as if wishing she was anywhere but here.
He just didn’t get it. This girl wasn’t Milo’s type. Milo preferred hellcats full of fire and brimstone. Not naive innocents like Swan who wouldn’t say boo to a goose…if she even knew what one looked like when it wasn’t being served up to her on a golden platter with a swirl of some unpronounceable gourmet reduction.
Maybe he’d gotten cabin fever, closeted up with this cartel chick for close to a week. It would make him think strange thoughts. Do strange things.
Lars gave Cora a light shove. “Why so quiet, bunny?”
She turned to him, and looked past at Milo. “What did they do to you?” she asked.
Shit, was the girl still stuck on that? Admittedly, he’d ended on a cliffhanger. Some folks didn’t like that. But it was up to Milo if he wanted to talk about his time with the Syrians. After all, Lars couldn’t corroborate anything he said.
Didn’t want to, either.
“He can tell you when—” Lars began, but Milo cut him off with a lifted hand.
His fingertips brushed the scar over his throat, just visible above the neckline of his sweater. “You wanted to know where I got this?”
Lars looked at Cora. She watched Milo with dread, a slow horror building on her face. “Did they—”
“Among other things,” Milo said, glib as always. But there’d been times when he hadn’t been casual about recounting the days he’d spent being tortured in the desert. Times when it was all Lars could do to calm him down before he went on a rampage.
Sometimes, he didn’t succeed.
Hunting helped some. There was something about the shedding of blood that seemed to calm the man. As if he was trying to rebalance the scales of blood shed by his own body with those of grouse, deer…sometimes men.
Lars couldn’t always be there to stop him.
“They let you go?” Cora asked quietly.
Milo let out a rough laugh. “Why the fuck would they do that?”
“You escaped?”
Lars felt Milo’s gaze move to him, and he tried keeping his face from twitching. “He escaped,” Lars said, trying for a jolly tone and probably coming closer to hysterical.
He’d gone back for him, of course. He’d been able to track the Syrians all the way to their fucking secret lair in the foothills of a dry, dusty mountain. And there he’d waited, trying to figure out their routine so he could formulate a plan to spring Milo.
Except…the same day he’d planned to go in after the mysterious stranger who’d given up his freedom for Lars…that same day someone staggered from the dark slit that led into the mountainside.
Someone covered in blood.
He’d thought his mind was playing tricks on him. That he hallucinated the vivid red splashed on those white robes.
But then the Syrian man collapsed in the dust and didn’t get up. And a few seconds later, Milo emerged from the cave. Lars had been too shocked to move. Frozen in place like prey spotting a predator. Because that was what it had felt like.
Milo caked in blood and dirt like a foal birthed into mud. Naked, erect, and as crazed as a rabid dog. He’d gone after the Syrian and torn off his blood-soaked robes, covering himself as if the animal inside him could sense Lars hiding nearby.
And then he’d looked straight at him, a pained resignation in his eyes as he slowly sank to his knees.
When Lars had reached him, Milo was shuddering. Blood dripped from the rag wound tight around his neck, the dry earth drinking it down like rain.
He’d knelt beside Milo, hesitated, and then touched his shoulder. “It’s over, man,” he’d said. “It’s over.”
Milo had shaken off his touch like an irritated hound. And then, in a growl that in no way resembled the deep, pleasant bass of before, he’d said, “It’ll never be over. It’ll never be enough.”
Lars blinked away the reverie. “And we all lived happily ever after,” he said, his voice sounding leaden to his own ears. “The end.”
16
Worst case scenario
Lars rented an SUV from the rental company in Silver City. They could probably have done with a sedan, but he seemed eager for space after the cramped hour-long cab ride. Or maybe it had just been the silence; no one had spoken the entire time during that trip down to Silver City. He and Lars flipped a coin, and Finn lost. He climbed into the driver’s seat, watching Cora and Lars in the rearview mirror as they slid into the back.
They stopped off for food at
a greasy roadside drive-through.
Lars and Cora spent the next thirty minutes of the trip comparing notes about their meals. Cora exchanged a bite of her burger for some of Lars’s onion rings, and he gave her all his lettuce and tomatoes for gratis. Then Finn had to listen to a fifteen-minute argument about the perfect burger.
He turned up the radio loud enough that Lars complained, and then turned it up a little more.
As much as he wanted to slam his foot on the accelerator and speed off to Texas as fast as the SUV could manage, he stuck to within a mile of the speed limit all the way down the 180. Getting pulled over for speeding wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to them, but it ranked at least in the top five.
Soon, he managed to lose himself to the drive. Mind empty. Beast silent. It was almost peaceful, if he didn’t think too hard about where he was headed. If he could, for one moment, stop cataloging every car within sight of them, making a mental note of the color, model, and license plate. Because ever since they’d left the rental company in Silver City, he’d had the feel of eyes on him.
And he was long past the point of blaming his imagination. He knew he had some intuitive sense about these things; and the last time he’d ignored it, Syrians had captured him and used him to alleviate their boredom.
“We should switch cars,” Finn said, looking at the rearview mirror.
“Shh,” Lars whispered.
Finn’s eyes flickered over the mirror. Cora had her head on Lars’s shoulder, fast asleep. When his eyes met Lars in the mirror, the man gave him a humorless smile.
“Next chance you get, we’ll switch,” Lars murmured. “Leave the car in a parking lot somewhere close to the rental office.”
“Won’t that raise flags?”
“I told them we need it until Friday,” Lars said dryly. “So unless we’re driving around until then, no.”
Cora stirred, her eyelids fluttering. Lars took her shoulders and guided her gently to the other side of the car, slipping off his parka and wadding it into a makeshift pillow for her. She murmured something unintelligible before shoving her hand under her head and letting out a heavy sigh.
Lars moved to the middle of the back seat, wrapping his arms around both headrests. “Why’s some rival cartel got such a hard on for this chick?” he asked quietly.
“Leverage,” Finn said.
“But they’ve got the father, don’t they?”
“Could be another cartel that has him.”
“You suddenly start believing in coincidence, Milo?” Lars shook his head. “Nah. Worst case scenario, the same people that have Swan are the ones coming after Bunny. And only reason I can think that is, is because Swan didn’t prove as useful as they’d thought.”
“You think he’s dead?”
“50/50,” Lars said, dropping his voice to barely more than a whisper. He tapped Finn’s shoulder. “What if she knows something? I mean, if there’s been a rat at her place, they could have killed her the same night daddy dearest left for Mexico.”
Finn’s mind flashed back to Cora’s hushed retelling of the day her father arrived home unexpectedly with two bullet wounds. “Think she’s involved in cartel business?”
Lars shrugged. “She’s a cartel princess. Daddy could have given her the combination to a safe filled with dirty drug money. The GPS co-ords to an island where they keep all their coke.”
“Then we’ll just have to make sure they don’t get hold of her.”
“No…” Lars said, trailing off with meaning. “All we gotta do is get her to Texas.”
Finn was silent for a few seconds, feigning intense interest in an upcoming intersection. “That’s what I meant.”
Lars made a noise that sounded like disagreement, but didn’t speak again until they came to Las Cruces. They turned into Mesilla Valley mall, woke Cora, and went inside so she could use the restroom. Weighed down with water and soda for the next leg of the trip, they ditched their SUV in the parking lot and went to the rental office to hire a new one, this one a sedan.
Finn drove shotgun, and Cora sprawled in the back seat, legs up and staring out the opposite window. Every now and then, he’d feel her eyes on him, but he never turned to meet her gaze. But as the drive went on, and the day turned from late afternoon to the suggestion of twilight, his anger faded. Melancholy replaced it, and then that too familiar swarming anticipation that usually came before his beast became restless. Before it demanded violence or—lately—a virginal sacrifice to appease it.
He spent the rest of the car ride to Texas hoping that someone from the cartel would catch up with them so he could rid himself of that itch.
17
Bunny
She was sick of being in this car. Sick of the heavy silence that filled it. Surely, if Lars and Finn were friends, they’d have stuff to talk about? But they both just sat in silence; Lars watching the road with a hand draped over the steering wheel and the other holding the top of the window frame, Finn staring out his window like the toothy mountains on the horizon were the most interesting thing he’d seen all day.
This was their third rental car. They’d swapped out again in El Paso, where Lars had asked Cora if she felt closer to home now that she could almost spit across the border. She’d shown him the middle finger. Then they’d continued on their last leg of the journey, heading down the I-10 towards Terlingua, Texas.
The drive seemed to irritate Finn too. He kept shifting in his seat, glancing across at Lars and then the road as if wondering just how far they still had to go.
Night had fallen when Lars pulled into the parking lot beneath a huge stone block of a building in Marfa, Texas. Three rows of identical double-pane windows stared down at them, some lit up, some dark.
“This it?” Lars asked suspiciously, ducking his head to peer through the windshield.
“Co-ords are right.” Finn stared around them, eyes narrowed to slits, as if expecting someone to jump them from the shadows. “Don’t see anyone.”
“Well, you were supposed to be here, like, five days ago. What if they gave up waiting?”
“Then we’re pretty fucked, aren’t we?”
“Maybe someone at Reception knows. Did you get a name at least?”
“No. Swan just told me someone would be here to collect…” Finn’s voice trailed away, and he glanced at Cora in the rearview mirror.
“The package?” she supplied.
It had been a long, uncomfortable drive. She’d slept some, but kept fading in and out of consciousness when Finn and Lars spoke to each other. She’d caught snippets of conversations—mostly Lars recounting other bad ‘gigs’ they’d had that could never compare with the shitstorm Milo had rained down on them when accepting this contract.
After that, sleep had been harder to find.
She was tired, hungry, crabby. And worse, she could feel disappointment coming off both men in waves.
Because they’d been planning to offload her already. That she’d be someone else’s problem by now.
Her vision warbled with sudden tears, but she blinked them back hard. She opened the back door, ignoring Finn’s, “Hey!”, and started down the road at a quick walk.
She had no idea where she was, or where she was going, but anywhere was better than sitting in that car with a pair of men that obviously had better things to do than babysit Cora Swan.
“Hey!”
Boots thudded down the road behind her. Without looking back, she broke into a run. Luckily, her boots had less than an inch of heel on them.
Her pursuer sped up. So she did too. Soon she was running full tilt, her chest growing hot and stuffy how she tugged in air to replenish her spent lungs.
A manhole cover tripped her up two blocks later. Its strategic position between two pools of light cast down from the streetlamps meant she didn’t see it until she was too close to avoid it.
She scraped over the group, knees and palms burning against the concrete sidewalk.
Boots thumped to a halt be
hind her. Milo panted as he stalked up to her, and then wrenched her to her feet by the back of her parka.
“The…fuck?” he said through labored breaths.
“Leave…me…alone!” She yanked herself free, hauled in a huge breath, and started down the road again.
“Cora!”
“Just leave me here,” she called over her shoulder. “Go back. Go home. Go to wherever you came from. I release you of your fucking contract.”
“You can’t do that,” Finn said, catching up to her. He grabbed her arm, spinning her around to face him. “I have to make sure you’re safe.”
“Safe?” A gust of wind blew her hair into her face, but she swiped it away with an angry hand. “So you’re just going to follow me around the rest of my life? Because I’ll never be safe, Finn. Never!”
Her eyes ached how she wanted to cry, but she held back everything except her anger. She didn’t want this granite block of a man to see any weakness in her; if she was strong and determined, he would have no choice but to leave her alone.
And then she could disappear. Maybe start a new life somehow. Get a job, get an apartment. Become anyone but Cora Swan. Forget that Eleodora had ever even existed.
Would that ever be possible?
The sympathy in Finn’s eyes told her it couldn’t. And she hated him for feeling pity for her.
A tear made it past her defenses, cooling instantly as it flashed down her cheek.
“Come back,” he said quietly, stepping closer as if scared she would spook. “It’s been a long day.”
“Lucky for you, it’s over,” she said. “So go home, Finn. Leave me. I can take it from here.” She sniffed, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “Go.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Just go,” she whispered, but her voice was shaking too much for her to put enough emphasis on the words.
