by Karina Halle
Camden paused then instead of continuing toward the voices, he carefully tried the handle on the first door to our left.
Locked.
And locked for a reason.
He looked to me questioningly. Could I do this?
I nodded and brought out the lock picker with fumbling fingers. I kept hearing Travis down the hall, knowing how close we were to him, how close we were to getting my mother out. Though it took longer than normal, I managed to pick the lock. We carefully pushed the door open and I held my breath waiting for it creak loudly. It didn’t.
And there were a set of stairs leading down into the dark.
We had found it.
Camden motioned for me to go first, the stairs were lit by a bare bulb, and he ever-so-carefully closed the door behind us. We went down slowly, step by step, my legs feeling weak, my jaw clenched hard.
We had found it but I was afraid to see what it was.
I stepped off the last step, my boots on hard concrete. There was darkness all around us, the light from the stairs not reaching very far.
Suddenly a flashback came into my vision. Me, eleven years old, walking down the stairs to Travis’s basement by accident, looking for money that wasn’t there and only finding the chemicals that would change the course of my entire life.
It wasn’t quite ironic but it was definitely something.
A moan came from the corner of the room and I realized that though we couldn’t see what or who was down here, they could see us.
I squeezed my gun for assurance and then took a step forward.
“Hello?” I whispered softly. “Mom?”
The moan got louder. I walked toward it and then Camden quickly brought out his phone, shining the weak light straight ahead of us.
My chest was shredded by what I saw.
There was a cage in the corner of the room, a large cage, like one you’d see when transporting animals to a zoo.
My mother was in the cage.
She was sitting half up, leaning against the bars, wearing what looked like the same dress I had seen her wear at Travis’s party. Her hands were gathered behind her back. Duct tape around her mouth. Her eyes were crazed, filled with tears, pleading for us.
“We need light,” Camden’s voice came through, calm and steady. He got up quickly, shining his phone around and found another bare bulb hanging from the ceiling and pulled the string.
Everything lit up. I glanced around me quickly, taking in a very familiar sight. It was like the same basement he scarred me in but worse, much, much worse. It looked like a meth lab crossed with a mad scientist’s lab. And very close to where my mother lay in her dirty cage were glass jar after glass jar of crawling black insects. Ants. Bullet ants. Este’s assumption about Travis using them for torture wasn’t just a silly hunch after all.
I looked back to my mom and immediately crouched down beside her, trying to ignore the welts she had all over her bare arms and legs. Insect bites.
“Mom,” I said, my voice breaking. “It’s me, Ellie. Your daughter. We’re going to get out of here okay?”
She shook her head back and forth, tears spilling down her cheeks, and I reached into the cage and pulled the duct tape off of her mouth in one go.
She winced from the pain and I whispered, “Sorry.”
“Ellie,” she cried softly and her voice reached down into my very soul. If I didn’t hold it together I was going to lose it.
“Mom, it’s okay.”
“You won’t get out of here,” she cried.
“Yes, we will,” I told her, my throat closing up. “Together. This is Camden. He’s going to help us.” I motioned behind me to Camden who was crouched down at my back. “Where is Gus?”
“Gus?” she asked. “What are you talking about?”
My veins had more ice than blood in them.
“Gus,” I said again, fighting to keep my voice steady. “He was taken by Travis. You know Gus, Mom, you know Gus. He came all the way to Mexico with Camden, to get me. We have to get him, I owe him this.”
“I’m sorry sweetie,” my mom said softly, shaking her head. “Gus isn’t here.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Her words settled over me like fine, cold dust.
Gus. Wasn’t. Here.
“But Javier said …” I started. I didn’t even bother finishing the sentence.
“Javier lies,” my mom said. “How do you think I ended up here with Travis?”
I narrowed my eyes at her, the rage building up inside, threatening to spill out. “Because you’re weak. And you’re a fool. And so am I.”
“Ellie,” Camden warned me.
“No,” I hissed at him. I was about to lose it. About to lose everything. I squeezed my gun so hard I could feel the ridges cutting into my palm. Javier had lied to me. He told me Gus was here. All along I was chasing after something that wasn’t real. Where was Gus?
“Why?” I cried out. “Why did he lie?”
“Because,” she said, her eyes avoiding mine, “he knew you’d never come for me. But you’d go for your father.”
“My father?” I asked while I heard Camden suck in his breath behind me. “He’s dead. I know he’s dead. Don’t tell me Javier lied about that too?”
“Ellie, I think we should get her out of here first,” Camden said quickly. “I hear something upstairs.”
I ignored him and my mom went on. “The father you know is dead, Ellie. I’m sorry sweetie. He was … Travis killed him. To take possession of me. We never knew what we were getting into when we came here. We only wanted … revenge. For you.”
“The father I know?” I asked, suddenly recalling Javier wording things very similarly.
She gave me a sad smile. “Ellie, I’m sorry. Gus is your real father.”
“What?”
What?
This was too much. My brain started to shut down on itself.
Gus. All this time. Gus. The man I was looking for, the man who was like a father to me more than my real father was in fact my real father. This shit couldn’t even be digested. My mother had an affair with Gus. Who the fuck didn’t she have an affair with?
“Fuck,” Camden swore under his breath. “I had a feeling.”
I whipped my head to look at him. “You had a feeling and you didn’t tell me?”
“I didn’t know for sure and I didn’t know how,” he said quickly. “I knew you wanted to get him back badly enough as it was.”
“And Javier knew that too,” my mother went on, trying to adjust herself. I was both so angry at her and her lies and hurting because she was hurt. “He knew you’d come here for Gus if he told you that Travis had him.”
“But why?”
“To kill Travis.”
I shook my head, trying to get some sense into it. “Still? Again? Why doesn’t he just do it?”
“Because if you do it, he cannot be blamed. It won’t be a coup. And he’ll just take right over. Everyone’s allegiance will be to him. Cartels, my girl, are archaic.”
“Don’t call me that,” I hissed at her. “I am not your girl. I cannot put up with any more of your lies. Everything you’ve ever told me is a lie. You’re just like him.” Whether I meant Travis or Javier by that it didn’t matter.
“We have to go, now,” Camden said louder.
As if on cue, the building rumbled and shook slightly, the light bulb swaying.
“What the hell was that?” I asked, automatically looking to my mom.
She looked bewildered. “I don’t know.”
“Javier,” Camden said.
My mother’s mouth dropped open. “Javier is here?”
“He brought us here,” I told her. “How else would have we found you? How else would he have insured that I would keep going after Gus?” My voice cracked over his name.
“He ditched us in the jungle on the way here,” Camden filled in. “Obviously knowing we would keep coming. I guess he was waiting for us to make the first move. Either he’s got
ten impatient or they somehow know we’re down here with you.”
“Well, fuck this,” I said and quickly took my lock-picking tools to the cage she was being kept in. Once I had gotten that open, I crawled in beside her and got her handcuffs off.
She rubbed her raw wrists and looked at me proudly. “I taught you well. You always were the best at picking locks.”
My lip automatically curled. “You shouldn’t be proud at me for being a con artist, for being like you. You should be proud that I’m bothering to get you out of here after everything you’ve done to me.” I grabbed her by her arm and pulled her up and out of the cage, ignoring the look on her face, like I’d slapped her. “Can you walk?”
She swallowed hard but nodded. “Yes. I’ve only been in there for a few days. I … I talked back to him the other night and …”
I raised my hand. “I don’t want to hear it.” I looked at Camden. “You’ll take care of her okay?” Before he could answer, I snatched the other gun from his pocket and ran toward the stairs just as I heard gunfire breaking out upstairs.
“Ellie!” Camden screamed at me, full-on horror.
But I kept running, gun in each hand, taking the stairs two by two to the top.
I was getting Gus back.
And I was going to make everyone pay.
I slammed the door open into the hall and was surprised to already see a guard running toward me. I quickly raised my gun and shot him in the head before he had a chance to aim at me. Then I kicked the door back shut, my gun already pointed straight forward and saw Dom at the opposite end of the hallway. I figured the guard was running toward someone.
Dom froze where he was, his gun also drawn.
“Don’t you fucking move!” I screamed at him. “Don’t you fucking move.”
To his credit, Dom stayed put. I had a feeling it’s because he wasn’t allowed to kill me. I was going to have to make that work in my favor.
I ran down the hall toward him but when I crossed the foyer I was met with glass breaking and bullets riddling the walls. I kept running, noticing there was fire coming up from behind where Dom was, filling the end of the hallway.
I stopped in front of him and immediately pistol whipped him across his nose. He cried out, grabbing his face and dropping his gun. I scooped it up, sticking it in my boots. Now I had three guns. I had a feeling I could never have enough.
More bullets and shots came from the foyer. I quickly grabbed Dom and swung him around the corner into the laundry room, shutting the door behind us. I slammed his head against the door, stuck the end of my gun against his temple, and yelled, “Talk! Tell me every fucking thing you know or I will kill you.”
He looked at me in utter fear, at my eyes which must have shown the rage that was flowing through me. What had Javier said earlier about depravity? Well he must have known I had that in spades, just waiting for the right moment for me to snap.
And I had snapped.
“Talk!” I screamed again, my spit flying into his bloody face.
“You were set up,” he said, panicking. “From the start.”
“You fuck! And you said you liked me.”
He blinked several times. “I do like you. But I love my family.”
I pushed the gun harder into his head. “What was the plan? Where is Gus?”
“You were supposed to be a diversion. You’d kill Travis and we’d swoop in, secure the compound. I don’t know where Gus is, I don’t. Javier said he was being kept somewhere for future use. I don’t know what that means. He’s alive, though.”
“Take me to Javier,” I told him, pulling him off the door and jamming the gun into his lower back.
He looked over his shoulder. “He’s in a firefight.”
“No,” I said, “Derek and Este are in a firefight. Javier is somewhere else, biding his time. Waiting for me. Take me to him. Now.”
“Please, I have a wife and child,” he pleaded.
“I won’t kill you if you do as I say,” I told him, meaning it, too. I didn’t want to kill Dom but I was realizing I was prepared to if absolutely necessary.
“You won’t but Javier will,” he said.
“That’s your problem.”
Another explosion rocked the house, this time from the opposite wing. We stumbled a bit and Dom went for his gun but I had my gun back on him in no time.
“I don’t think so,” I said. I nodded at the door I had broken into last night, the one leading to the backyard. “Let’s go.”
I kicked open the door and hoped that Camden and my mother were somewhere safe. “Who is setting off the explosions?”
“Derek,” he said. “Improvised Explosive Devices.”
“If he accidently kills Camden or my mother, everyone here dies, including you. Tell him to rein it in.”
“I can’t–”
“I know you’re communicating to each other, do it now!”
Dom sighed and pressed the Bluetooth device in his ear while I did a quick scan of the area. I could see the pool glistening in the distance, a single body floating in it. Several statues on the grounds were cracked or knocked over.
“Derek,” Dom said. “Stop the explosions and hold. Take out only Travis’s men. If you see McQueen or any of the Watts, do not shoot, do not engage. We need them alive. Copy?”
Dom nodded at whatever Derek said in his ear. “Okay,” he said to me. “He’s been called off.”
“Lucky you,” I said. “Where’s Javier?”
His eyes darted to the pool house, a small cottage with a single darkened window that was open a crack. Just enough space for a gun to fit through. Of course.
“He’s not going to kill me, right?” I asked Dom as I readied myself to run across the lawn.
“Javier? No. We were ordered not to kill you or Camden.”
“How nice. The bombs don’t really help.”
“We didn’t know where you were.”
“Well, here I am.” I looked around me then nodded at the cottage. “I’ll try and cover us.”
We started running for it, both Dom and I running as fast as we could, knowing there was a lot of ground between the main house and the pool house. We were only a few yards away when bullets started whizzing past us.
I turned and looked up at the roof of the house to see a sniper up there, taking shots at us as we ran. I aimed both guns at the roof and fired.
My aim was terrible.
I didn’t hit the sniper.
Instead, the sniper hit me.
My leg exploded in pain and I stumbled to the ground as the bullet seared through my calf. The cherry blossoms offered no defense.
I cried out, my gun falling away from my hands, and tried to crawl toward it. I barely managed to get it and quickly rolled on to my back aiming the gun at the roof when the sniper was hit before I could even pull the trigger. He stumbled backward and then slid off the room to his death on the hot patio below.
I turned around to look at Dom who had been brought down to the ground with me.
He wasn’t moving.
A shadow appeared overhead. I looked up.
Javier was standing over me, blocking out the sun, a rifle in his hand.
“Is Camden still alive?” he asked me in a strangely hopeful voice, as if Camden mattered to him more at the moment than me.
I pointed my gun straight up at him, my hand shaking from the bursts of pain that rocked my body in pure agony.
“Yes. But you won’t be.”
“You going to pull the trigger, angel?” he asked. “After I just saved your life?”
I grinded my teeth together in nauseating anger. “You lied to me. You lied to me.” I tried in vain to keep my hand steady. “You lied about Gus.”
He smiled, eyes glowing with madness. “I did lie. You wouldn’t have come here otherwise. You would have never fulfilled your destiny. To kill the man who ruined so many of our lives.”
I was done. So fucking done.
“Tell me where Gus is or I’ll
blow your fucking brains out.”
“You don’t have it in you, angel. You’re too good for that now.”
This was no longer a matter of good or bad.
This was all grey.
Hazy, fuzzy grey.
I squeezed the trigger.
The chamber clicked.
Loudly.
Empty.
And though Javier’s face was shadowed from the sun, I saw something in his eyes that I had never seen before. Absolute disbelief. Absolute shock. Absolute … fear.
And I felt relief that he was still standing there, alive. I did have it in me to kill him, that dark part of me that wanted him dead. But now I had nothing to regret.
I whimpered and rolled over, grasping my leg as another wave of pain rolled through while he stood there above me, in the middle of a firefight, absolutely dumbfounded by what had just happened.
Suddenly the ground around us erupted in another spray of bullets. I screamed and quickly rolled over, trying to get out of the way.
And Javier turned and ran back toward the pool house, toward safety, leaving me there on the grass, bleeding, while the bullets came closer.
Leaving me alone.
Leaving me to die.
I guess I had pulled the trigger first. The honeymoon really was over.
I rolled over onto my stomach, avoiding getting too close to Dom who lay dead beside me, and watched as he ran, wondering if there was a point in me crawling after him. I wondered how long I had before I died. I wondered if I’d ever see Camden again. I wondered if my life made a difference to anyone out there.
I just wanted another chance at it.
Another chance to be me.
Scars and all.
And while I was lying on the grass, my leg bleeding out, soaking my jeans, I heard a few more pops of bullets go out.
Javier was running into the pool house when he was struck in the back.
I screamed bloody murder.
He fell down flat, legs sticking out of the door, motionless.
Javier.
Shot.
Dead.
No.
No.
Not yet.
His legs twitched and he managed to pull himself into the pool house until I couldn’t see him anymore.
“Ellie Watt!” a cold voice bellowed from across the lawn. I could barely tear my eyes away from where Javier had disappeared, fighting back a range of emotions I couldn’t even pin down but I managed to turn my head. The voice had reached into me, holding me tight with an icy fist.
