Flesh Into Fire

by JA Huss

  “OK,” he says, not even fucking winded. “What you did may have worked.” He addresses that to Maddie.

  “Whattayou mean?” she asks.

  “I told the primary strike team that you and Carlos are missing and that this wing is on fire. I directed half of them to go look for you and the rest to deal with the fire.”

  “But then—” she starts.

  Ricky shakes his head. “I directed them to run around the long way. Told ’em this way was getting blocked off.”

  “Jesus,” I say. “That’s pretty fucking thin.”

  “Yeah?” says Mr. Super Soldier. “Thin like starting a fucking fire? Or thin more like showing up at the compound of one of the five biggest drug traffickers in the world armed with nothing but a goddamn drone? Thin like those?”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Let’s go. We got maybe five minutes,” says Ricky.

  And then we’re on the move again.

  Chapter Twenty-Six - Maddie

  I can tell Tyler’s in pain. I should have a million other concerns, but that’s the one that’s gnawing at me right now. I can see he’s hurting, hauling Carlos along, and I hate it. I want to be able to heal him. Make him well and whole and transport us out of here. But I can’t. So we keep on.

  Just as we get to a door that exits out into… wherever, Ricky stops.

  “As soon as we get out of here, we may encounter some resistance.” He looks at Tyler. “Stay behind me with Carlos, and Maddie, you stay on Tyler’s six. I’m hoping if they see we’ve got their boss, we’ll be able to get past the main gate and out of here without any shots being fired.”

  “Can’t you call in the cavalry? Like, I dunno, air support or something? However shit works?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “Again, almost nobody knows about this op or that I’m here, and we can’t trust the local cops. Besides, it’s Christmas.”

  “So?”

  “DEA agents take holidays off and shit too,” he says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “What they’re celebrating,” he says. Tyler laughs at that. I look at him under arched eyebrows.

  “What? Shit was funny. Good for you, Ricky Super-Soldier. I didn’t think you had a sense of humor.”

  Why do I suddenly feel like I’m at a goddamned keg party?

  “I’ve already called the one person I can call. She’s arranging with the Mexican embassy to get a plane to pick us up at El Ciprés. It’s only about three klicks out. We just have to get there. Where’s your car?” Ricky asks Tyler.

  Tyler doesn’t say anything. Just stands there, shifting the still-unconscious Carlos around on his shoulders and trying to act like he isn’t hurt in some way.

  “Ty?” I follow up.

  “What’s that, now?” he asks.

  “Your car, Ty? Where’s your car?”

  He gnaws at his lower lip for a moment before saying, “Uh. Know how you just started a fire to create a distraction?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I mean, you aren’t the only person who had that idea.” He winces as he adjusts Carlos again.

  “Dude,” says Ricky. “Was that your car they found burning across the road?”

  “Had to find a way to get the gate guards’ attention.” Tyler stares at the ground. Damn. Even with the muscles, and the beard, and bad attitude, sometimes Tyler Morgan can look like a five-year-old who just got caught drawing on the living room wall.

  “Fuck. Me,” Ricky says on sighed breaths. “What is wrong with you two?”

  “OK, whatever,” I snap. “No car. Way it is. So what do we do now?”

  Ricky rubs the barrel of the gun he’s still holding against his temple, which makes me nervous as hell, but I guess he’s just thinking. “When we walk out of here, we’ll be at the fueling station. I’ve only been down here once before, but it was to pick up one of the trucks. It had the keys just sitting in the ignition. If we’re lucky, that’s protocol, and we’ll grab one of those.”

  “Then what?” I ask.

  “Then we’ll drive a big fucking fuel truck through the front gate and hope that we can get the hell out of here and to the airstrip before we’re all caught and murdered.”

  He doesn’t say it with resounding confidence. He says it like it’s the absolute worst of a very limited number of already bad options, but it’s the only one we have left, so we have no choice. Or, I guess, we have the choice to just wait here to die.

  “What about him?” Tyler asks, bouncing Carlos and grimacing.

  “We bring him with us,” answers Ricky.

  “What about the cops?” I ask.

  “El Ciprés is a military airport. We should be OK.”

  “Should?” I ask, with still more mounting incredulity.

  “Hey, fire-starters!” he shouts unexpectedly. “This is what we got to work with!”

  Tyler and I both mumble, “ok/yeah/sure/fine,” in no particular order, Ricky nods, Tyler adjusts Carlos and scrunches up his face, and I wish all of a sudden I was wearing panties as we push open the door and head outside.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven - Tyler

  I hope to fuck one of these trucks has keys in it, because I don’t know how much longer I can keep carrying this fucking guy. I mean, I do. As long as I have to, is the answer. But I’d love to let him go sooner than later.

  Nobody is immediately visible outside, so we gallop (they gallop, I lumber) by the fueling islands toward one of the trucks. This place is kind of amazing. If you didn’t know it was owned by just one guy to operate his shitty criminal empire, you might think it was a small town all of its own. The fuel pumps are decorated with tinsel and lights and shit just like it’s any old gas station anywhere.

  They’re probably about fifty feet away from me when they get to the nearest truck. Ricky jumps up into the cab and looks inside. “Fuck!” he shouts. “Nope!” He hops down and runs to another truck to keep looking. Maddie trails alongside him, her hair and dress blowing in the night breeze. She looks like something out of an old movie. Like Rita Hayworth in Gilda, only instead of in black and white, she’s in full, living Technicolor. And I have this thought…

  I’m going to marry this woman.

  Which is fucking nuts.

  We still have so much shit to work out, both between us and, I have a feeling, within ourselves (I dunno if she does, but I sure as hell do). We knew each other once, but there’s so much filling in and catching up that still has to be done, and we’ve barely started. I never thought in a million years I’d ever want to see somebody’s dumb face every morning for the rest of my life, much less marry it, but I want to see her dumb face every second of every day forever, because it’s not dumb. It’s perfect. And, oh, yeah, we’re trying to escape the clutches of a murderous drug lord and his army of men right now, so marrying somebody is the last thing that should be entering my stupid, broken, crazy, rambling, tortured thoughts.

  But it is. And just like when I thought of her when I set my apartment on fire (still haven’t told her that. Again, lots to fill each other in on), thinking of her and about her and marrying her… gives me peace. Standing back, watching her run around in the night, looking for a way to find, literally, the key to our salvation… I can see nothing else.

  Which I also mean literally. Because if I had been paying attention, I might have seen the bat swinging toward me a beat sooner, and I might have been able to avoid it before it came crashing into my already bruised and breaking ribcage.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight - Maddie

  “We have to hurry!” I hate that I say it the second it leaves my lips. Because it’s the kind of thing dumb bitches say in movies and TV shows when some guy who’s writing it thinks that it’s what women say when they’re panicked or whatever.

  But we do have to hurry. So fuck it.

  Finally, from inside the cab of the third truck Ricky checks, he turns back, holding a set of keys, and shouts, “Got it! Let’s go!�
�

  I breathe out the breath I didn’t even realize I was holding, and turn to Tyler to shout, “Come on!” But I don’t actually get the words out, because before I can, I see Logan, an insane look on his beaten face and what appear to be handcuffs with the chains hanging off them attached to his wrists, swing a baseball bat hard at Tyler’s ribs. It makes contact and Tyler fights to stay standing, trying to keep Carlos on his shoulders, but he can’t. He drops to his knees, letting him slide off and land on the ground beside him. It’s almost like he’s working to deliver Carlos daintily to the earth like a child being put into bed rather than just dropping him and letting his carcass crash down to the concrete.

  And I probably can’t, but I think I can hear the sound of the bat making contact with Tyler’s side all the way over by where I’m standing. I know I can’t actually feel it, since it isn’t happening to me.

  Except I can.

  And it is.

  “Ty!” I scream and start for him, but Ricky pulls me back. Just in time too, because I neglected to take into account the half-dozen armed men with Logan. All of whom are now pointing assault rifles in our direction. Ricky drags me around behind the passenger side of the truck we have the keys for and presses my back against the tire.

  “Do not. Fucking. Move,” he says. And before I can say anything, he’s pinned himself to the front fender, rifle at the ready, and is shouting at Logan. “Hermano! No lo hagas!”

  “Fuck you!” Logan shouts back, in English. “You fucking DEA dog, cockroach, rat motherfucker!”

  So much for negotiating, I guess.

  And that’s when the shooting starts.

  The sound of bullets hitting metal and echoing around makes it hard to even know where the shots are being fired from. I have no idea if Ricky has another gun, or more ammo, or what, but it doesn’t matter. It feels like the whole goddamned world is shooting at us right now.

  I cover my head—which is dumb, but I do it anyway—and peer around the truck tire to see if I can make out what’s happening with Tyler. It’s not good.

  He’s curled up in a ball, but Logan is fucking whaling on him. And each strike he lands feels like a shot to my gut. My spirit. My heart. I want to help him. I want to race to him. I have to fight every instinct in my body that tells me to run and help.

  Fuck, bitch. I dunno what to tell you. The devil. On Christmas. Awesome.

  Scarletton… Angel? Scarletton? What the hell? It’s a hybrid of Scarlett and Madison. Not the point right now. Listen. You can’t. You can’t go. You’ll do nothing but sacrifice yourself and he’ll still die.

  Shit, Devil says. Feather-pussy and I might actually agree on something. But, y’know, self-preservation is my shit, so…

  I look at Tyler being beaten like Logan is a cruel child and Tyler is a turtle he found, and I start crying. Not sobbing. Just crying. Because the worst. Fucking. Thing. In the world. Is watching somebody you love suffer, and knowing that there isn’t a single, goddamned thing you can do about it.

  I know exactly what that feels like.

  Maddie? the angel says.

  What? I think.

  You could pray.

  What? That’s me and the devil at the same time.

  Pray.

  To what? I silently scream. To who?

  It doesn’t matter. Whoever. There are thirty-five hundred different gods that people believe in around the world. Pick one. Or just pray to the universe. All prayer is in the transference of your life energy out into the world. The world is nothing but energy. And you’re part of it. And Tyler’s part of it. And you two are powerful together. I know you can feel that. So just send your power and your energy in his direction and see what happens.

  This is the dumbest fucking shit I’ve ever heard. (I’m not sure if that’s me or the devil.)

  Maybe, says the angel. But from where I’m sitting, chick? It looks like you’re about out of moves.

  For fuck’s…

  I can’t be sure, but it’s possible a bullet may have just grazed the ground where I’m sitting. So. Fuck it.

  I close my eyes. I try to tune out everything. Which is impossible, but I give it my best shot. I don’t even know how to start. Or what to say. Or who to say it to.

  So I just think of Tyler. I think of us as kids. I think of the scar that he gave me. And the selling-smiles-goldfish thing. And of summer vacations, and birthday parties, and Christmases all together. And I think of us now. And I imagine us in the future. Old and wrinkled and holding each other’s hands as we walk through the park. And old, wrinkly Tyler trying to slip his old, wrinkly hand down to touch my old, wrinkly ass. I really see it. I imagine it with all my might. I try to wish it into being with every bit of force and strength and mountain climber’s will I have inside me.

  And that’s when the explosion happens.

  “Jesus Christ!” Ricky shouts, falling backwards, pulling me with him, and landing on top of me.

  “What’s happening?” I scream. “What the fuck happened?”

  “I don’t know!”

  Shit is raining down from the sky all around us. There’s a massive eruption where one of the fuel pump islands was a second ago. And I can’t see anyone shooting at us anymore, because I can’t see anything. Nothing but a raging wall of flames.

  “Tyler!” I scream. I think. I can’t hear anything anymore. Not because of the explosion, but because the whole world just ended and, as I know from science class, there’s no sound when you’re lost, floating endlessly in space.

  The angel was full of shit. She’s been full of shit this whole time. Maybe everyone is and always has been, so why should she be any different? There is no god. No universal power that holds things together and makes shit make sense. There’s no nothing. There is pain, and suffering, and the tearing away of everything you come to love, and then it all just starts all over again.

  Not for me. Not anymore. I’m fucking done.

  I push Ricky off me, grab the rifle from his unsuspecting grip, and stand and round the front of the truck, ready to walk through fire and kill everyone still standing on the other side.

  But I don’t get the chance... Because of what happens next.

  And suddenly I can hear again. But the only sound that makes its way into my eardrums is that of my own terrified voice still screaming...

  “TYLER!!”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine - Tyler

  I don’t know why I don’t just throw fuckin’ Carlos to the ground. Some sort of impulse, I guess. Maybe I’m remembering Nadir again? I wouldn’t let him just crash down, so I don’t let Carlos either.

  Fuckin’ feelings.

  It ain’t easy. Logan’s really going all in on this bat thing. Maybe he’s working out unfulfilled dreams of being a major leaguer. Who knows? All I know is that the shit hurts, and I’m not sure how much more I can take.

  I get Carlos on the blacktop, and I do the only thing I can do… I try to wait it out. One of two things will happen. Either Logan’ll get tired and quit, or he’ll break my back and kill me. There is a third thing, I guess. He could just get bored and shoot me in the head. But my gut tells me at this point, homeboy’s way more interested in making me suffer for a while than he is in just killing me.

  “Fuck!” I find myself yelling. And not in a nice way.

  And that’s when I glance over and catch a glimpse of Maddie. I see her poking her head from by the tire where Ricky has stashed her and for which I am grateful. I think I may have been wrong to mistrust the guy so much. Maybe he’s not a bad dude after all.

  “Fuck!” And there’s that bat again.

  Shit. I don’t think I’m gonna make it. I kind of laugh at that, in between getting hit and listening to the hellfire of bullets and whatever shit Logan’s screaming at me in Spanglish. Of all the shit I’ve ever been through, I never thought this would be the way I would die.

  In love, I mean.

  Because I never thought I would ever be in love. Just didn’t seem like it was in the
cards for me. But. Here I am. In love and in big fucking trouble.

  It’s OK. I don’t mind. I’m not scared or anything. I’m just… sad. Because I think I might actually have liked being happy. It didn’t seem so bad. Some people change when they fall in love. I’ve seen it. Sometimes for better and sometimes for worse. But when it’s right, when it works, when it’s good, it doesn’t change you. It makes you more… you. It’s like that with Evan now that he’s with Robert. He’s always been the best guy, but there’s a… light that shines off him now.

  I wonder if it was like that with me these last few weeks. Was I lighter? Was I a better version of myself? I think I was.

  I think I was.

  Yep. I can feel it coming. My old, battered, beaten, scarred, mangled body has served me well, but I don’t think it’s got a whole lot left to give here. I’ve always thought that the body was just a tool, and that if the mind was willing, the body would find a way to push through whatever pain it was feeling and move on. But that’s simply not true.

  If that was true, Scotty would be alive today. He had more will and strength of character than anybody I’ve ever known. His body just couldn’t respond. And he had to let go. There’s no shame in it. It’s OK. I don’t want to leave Maddie, especially since I just found her, but it’s starting to look like I may not have a choice.

  All this whips through my mind in less than a fraction of a second, and as Maddie disappears behind the tire for safety, I decide that the only thing for me to do now is to try and transport my mind out of here so that my body can let it all happen and not feel guilty about it. And while I’m letting myself drift off, I will think of Maddie. I will think of her safety. And her protection. And her happiness. And her joy. I remember us as kids. Birthday parties, and holidays, and Christmases. Way better ones than this one.

  And I think again about seeing her at Pete’s for the first time. An angel, fallen from wherever. Because she is. She is to me.