THE WOLF CUB
Guisado. The stew.
People get dumped into giant kettles and boiled alive. Kerosene. Gasoline. Whatever’s available. We had each of the four men in Tanner killed in a different way, but when asked my all-time favorite method, that is what I say.
“When people don’t understand things, they like to blame the devil and God. I don’t blame anyone for anything, and certainly not some higher power. I think when you die, you simply stop and slip into a silent nothing, as vast as the beginning of the universe. When I slit a throat I think about that, how everything started.”
I crossed my legs on the table and admired my new sneakers as I addressed Alamo, Asesino, and Pozolero. I motioned for Alamo to light my cigar with his. The room was already full of smoke, making it look like their faces were swirling, modern art paintings.
“I want a Picasso.”
Someday I would be someone who could make that happen.
“Grande thinks he can keep his tunnel a secret, look what happens,” I extolled. Once we had Grande’s super tunnel, the entire Gulf Cartel would answer to me. We had been so close to getting the location from a gang loyal to him. But when Grande heard they were considering our ultimatum—come be a wolf, or be slaughtered like a lamb—he slaughtered them first. I admired Grande, I did. He was unflinching. Cutting off the arm to save the body.
But the whispers reached me. They always reached me.
There was one other person who might know the tunnel’s location. One of the gang had a girlfriend who escaped the massacre. I sent my favorite bounty hunter after her months ago.
“Any news from Ivan?”
“Not yet.”
“Track him down. We need to find that girl.”
JANE
Grande. Lobenzo.
The sheriff took a surprised step back as my glass shattered.
My brain felt like it was moving backward. Counterclockwise. Candle snuffed, relit.
When Lobenzo wants something, you give it to him, I remember Raff telling me. Some people aren’t really even people anymore. He’s possessed by demons or something. The Wolf Cub.
Sorry, I said. Or thought I said. No sound came out. I tried again.
“Sorry. The glass slipped.”
“Oh!” Savannah said. “It happens! Don’t worry, we’ll get you more . . . uh, soda.”
She waved over some of the servers to clean up my mess.
“Y’all wanna go out and find that band?” Cade tried to get the attention off me.
“Finally!” Savannah said and then whispered to us behind her hand: “And more champagne. Let’s find some more of that too!”
She grabbed Cade’s hand and pulled him along behind her, grabbing new flutes of champagne for us off a tray. I followed like I was in slow motion.
“What’s wrong?” Mattey whispered.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Come on. I’m in this too, you know,” Mattey said. “You can tell me what’s going on.”
“I . . . I don’t know.” I shook his hand off my arm. It was bad enough Cade knew so much. No way was I getting Mattey more involved. It wasn’t safe.
Mattey let out a frustrated sigh and sped up ahead of me as we walked outside. As soon as we reached the back patio, the music hit us, some happy country band that people had to shout over to be heard.
“Want to go dance?” Gunner asked. I could see the twins and Farty dancing with some of the girls from school on the other side of the lawn.
I somehow made myself answer him. “Maybe after I finish my drink. Don’t want to spill again.”
Cade leaned in so close I could feel his breath on my neck, mouth near my ear.
“Is it them?” He hooked his fingers protectively through the back strap of my dress, standing close enough that no one could see. “The cartels the sheriff named? Are those the ones after you?”
A sudden boom tore through the sky, practically stopping my heart right there.
The crowd made oohs and aahs of surprise as fireworks lit up the night. The band started playing “Happy Birthday.”
“Oh, it’s for me.” Savannah jumped up and down. “This is the best day of my life!”
She turned around and flung her arms around Cade’s neck, pulling his face down to meet hers, and on tiptoe, one leg back for balance, gave him a long Hollywood kiss. Cade’s fingers dropped from my back. His eyes stayed open, confused. They locked with mine in what felt like some strange apology. But he didn’t break away.
My face tingled, and everything inside me shrank. I had to do something. I swallowed the lump in my throat, and in what felt like a total blur, spun around to Gunner, took his smooth face in my hands, and kissed him hard. So I didn’t fall apart.
CADE
My eyes were so glued to Jane’s that for a second I felt like it was her kissing me, not Savannah. The fireworks were going off in the sky, but it might as well have been my brain flashing all bright and dark and bright again. My whole body heated up, and I wanted to pull Savannah, or Jane—no, Savannah—closer against me. She smelled like vanilla, and her mouth melted into mine like frosting.
Then Jane kissed Gunner. It hit me like a tackle midair.
Gunner pulled her onto the lawn to dance. I watched them together over Savannah’s soft, blond hair. Gunner kept stepping awkwardly closer to Jane as they moved with the music, hands placed on her waist and back like he was following instructions—ten and two, driving a car for the first time.
We danced like that for a while: Jane and Gunner, Savannah and me. I tracked their movements across the lawn. But Savannah pulled me away to get closer to the band, and I lost sight of them as the night wound on. I scanned the crowd. Gunner was with Mattey, but I didn’t see Jane anywhere. I gently unhooked Savannah’s hands from behind my neck and motioned them over to us.
“Where’s Jane?”
Gunner shrugged. “She said she was going to find y’all.”
“When did you last see her?” I asked.
Mattey looked worried. “Not for an hour, at least.”
“What’s wrong?” Savannah asked.
I tried to make it sound like no big deal. “Sometimes Jane just gets overwhelmed by stuff.”
“Stuff like my party? Was she not having fun?” Savannah looked devastated.
“No. This is an amazing party. She’s probably at the truck just taking a break. I’ll go check. Come on, Mattey.”
“You’ll be back, right?” Savannah asked.
“Sure. If not, though, I’ll see you at the game.”
“So . . . tomorrow,” Savannah said, like she knew we were probably leaving for the night.
“Yeah . . . thanks for having us.” I took a minute to give her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Happy birthday, Savannah.”
“Thanks, Cade.”
Savannah looked like a beauty pageant contestant who didn’t get the tiara but still had to smile and wave as Mattey and I hurried away to the truck.
No sign of Jane.
“Uh-oh,” Mattey said.
“Will you go tell Savannah we found her but she doesn’t feel good, so I’m taking her home?”
“But . . . we didn’t.”
“Yeah, but I don’t want anyone to worry,” I said. “I have a pretty good idea where Jane went.”
“Where?”
“Cartel stuff has her freaked out. I think she might be trying to take off. I’m gonna go check the bus station. Can you hitch a ride home with Gunner?”
“I want to come.”
“Please, Mattey, I need you to handle this. Can you make them think everything’s normal?”
“Fine,” he said. “Text me you found her though, okay?”
“Of course.”
Mattey jogged back up the hill and steep steps to Savannah’s mansion, and I to
ok off for the bus station. The factories churned their smoke in the distance like fat businessmen puffing cigars. I passed the old post office. The burnt scaffolding looked like I could blow it over. The charred walls still smelled of gasoline, just another mile marker of violence telling Jane to go.
When I got to the bus station, the lobby doors were unlocked, but the ticket counter was hooded shut for the night. Sticking out against the tile and plastic chairs was a girl in a bright red dress.
Jane sat alone, the bull’s-eye of an easy target.
I looked up at the departure board.
“The next bus isn’t for six hours.” My voice cut through the empty room. She didn’t turn around. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
Jane shook her head no.
I sighed and walked over to her, sliding into the stiff plastic chair beside her.
Jane stared straight ahead. “Sheriff Healey said Grande and Lobenzo. You asked if those are the ones. The answer is yes.”
I pressed my lips together. “So . . . worst-case scenario.”
“Right.”
“Damn it.” It wasn’t fair.
“I can’t stay here any longer,” Jane said.
“What are you gonna do, wait all night and then take off in a little dress and heels with no plan?”
“I have a plan.”
“You gonna share it with me? Clearly not . . .”
“Please don’t be mad at me.”
But I was. “This is messed up, Jane. I’ve helped you every step of the way since I found you.”
I slumped in the chair and raked my hands through my hair.
My mom never told me she was leaving either.
I just woke up one morning to a note with the same doodle of a daisy she would put on my lunch bags, like she hadn’t just blown up our lives. I need something different. I have for a long time. Please try to understand. Take care of your father. Love you always. And the fucking flower.
“You’d rather have Diego help you than me?” I said.
“What?” Jane acted confused.
“You heard me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Yes you do.”
Jane’s face twisted as she realized. “Oh. You saw.”
“Yeah. I saw. Why did you lie?”
“I didn’t. I just didn’t mention it.”
“Same thing.” I stood up.
Same thing. Same thing as me not telling her about the money. I hated this. We had to undo what was happening, get back on the same side.
“What if I hadn’t thought to come here or if there had been a midnight bus?” I asked her. “You’d be gone. Without ever knowing if maybe there’s a different path out of this mess.”
“Different path like what?” Jane scoffed.
“Maybe you should come home and we can talk about it. . . . Come on, Jane, please. We can get you on a bus tomorrow,” I said. “Right now, you’re a sitting duck. We both are.”
Jane didn’t move.
“Do you wanna get found?”
Jane looked around. She knew I was right. “Fine. Let’s go.”
When we got in the truck, she reached out and took my hand, placing an envelope in it.
“That’s what Diego gave me,” Jane said.
I opened it. Inside was a passport. It had a picture of a girl who looked just enough like her that it could work. Lilly Ford. Age twenty-one. From Wisconsin. She’d been to Ireland and Costa Rica, according to the stamps on the pages.
“He said to get out of town; people are looking for a girl with blue eyes. He was trying to help.”
I handed back the passport. I didn’t feel better.
“Why wouldn’t you just tell me?”
“The less you know, the better.”
“I think we’re past that point now, don’t you?”
“You still have no idea.” She shook her head at me like I was too dumb to understand.
“I kinda think I do,” I snapped.
“Do you? Do you really? The cartels destroy everyone who gets in their way.” Jane’s voice shook. “Grande left Raff and his friends in nice poolside chairs at our condo complex with warnings written on pieces of paper . . . pinned to their chests . . . with ice picks. That’s what I came home to. That’s what I was trying to run from. I had no idea Lobenzo, the Wolf Cub, was after me too until Ivan caught me. Ivan said he would slice me into little pieces unless I told them where Grande’s tunnel is. They are both after me.” Jane’s eyes filled up. “And I don’t need them to come after Mattey and Jojo . . . and you.”
The weight of the violence she described closed in.
“But what if they come after you once you leave here?” I asked.
She didn’t have an answer. There were no answers. We drove in silence.
After a few minutes, Jane asked, “Cade, what did you think was going on with Diego?”
“I didn’t know.”
“You don’t trust me,” she said. “At all.”
“Yes I do,” I said. But it was a lie. If I trusted her I would have already told her about finding the money, the biggest lie of all.
Seeing her whispering with Diego had knocked me sideways. I hated that it had made me question Jane. But it did. It made me wonder if at the core she was someone who would take her cartel money and wrap herself back up in their mess.
We had reached the fork in the road.
“I want to be alone tonight,” she said.
“That’s not a good idea.”
“I’m serious. Don’t come. I need to think about what to do on my own.”
“I’m coming.”
“I said no.”
Jane stalked away down the path to the barn, completely out of place in her dress and high heels walking through the corn. She had to know I wasn’t going to listen, that the second I pulled up to my house to check in with my father, I would hurry back out there. I pulled in front of my house and hopped out of my truck, debating whether I should get the money.
Jane was mad at me. Or hurt. Same difference.
If I told her about the money now, what would she do? Say, Thanks, bye.
I would never see her again.
I will tell her. Just not yet, I thought as I trudged up the walkway. I heard the screen door slam and looked up.
“You’re late.” My dad lurched down the porch steps.
“Am I? Sorry. It was Savannah’s birthday. I told you.”
“I don’t care if it’s the pope’s birthday. You got a curfew.”
Lord, he’d been drinking. Like, all day, maybe all the way since last night drinking. He was swaying and squinting and twitching his neck around. I backed up toward the truck.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he demanded.
“Dad, you’re being crazy.”
“Get in the house, Cade.”
“I’m not gonna stay here when you’re acting like this.”
“What, you’re like your mother now? Just do what you want when you want and don’t pay anyone else no mind. Well, who do you think puts food in your mouth? Who breaks their back to keep a roof over your head?”
He approached me in two quick strides. We were face to face. Alcohol on his breath.
“I won’t let you turn into her.”
When I tried to push past, he shoved me back. Hard. My foot tripped over a rock, and I went flying toward the trailer hitch of the truck. There was white. And then black.
JANE
I paced the barn.
Even if I left on a bus tomorrow, would everyone I cared about actually be safe, or the next targets?
The cartels are the food chain. They are rats that whisper disease across your face while you’re sleeping, always in the walls, even if you think you are alone, the bites you wake up to, r
ed rings on your skin. They are the strange wail of a street cat in heat, a wanting that sounds like pain. Nighttime outside Montera. The cross on the pharmacy.
I waited for Cade’s knock on the barn door. I thought for sure he wouldn’t listen when I told him not to come. I didn’t really mean it. Obviously.
Hunter came. He licked my face and then collapsed into his little curl and was asleep in seconds. I carefully took off Jojo’s beautiful red dress and put on Cade’s old shorts and T-shirt and crawled onto the sleeping bag to wait. The minutes collected. No Cade.
I guessed I would have to say goodbye tomorrow before his big football game. Playoffs. Savannah was supposed to be picking us up at Jojo and Mattey’s.
Savannah. Why did she get her life and I get mine? I tried in my mind to jab at some ugly spot exposed and obvious but could find no blemishes. Her lips were like a rose—there, I said it. It took an infinity to make them. Eyes, nose, skin, strawberries. The left ventricle of hope, somewhere. The phoenix falls to its ashes. Again. The world will collapse to Tanner, Texas. She wins everything. Roses, warmth, a scream.
I’m sorry for kissing her, Cade whispered. Or so I thought. Then I realized I had drifted off to sleep and dreamed it. I should have known it was a dream, because Cade’s footprints were red. My dreams since Raff died were always filled with blood. Even if I dreamed of something simple, something nice, I found it streaked on a table, or window, or pooling on the ground. When I caught my own reflection I realized blood was smeared across my face like war paint. It was a parade of violence in my head every night. Gunfire drumbeats. Gritty trombone heartbeats. Bone confetti.
When I woke up, it was morning and I was still completely alone, thinking and rethinking where Lobenzo’s men might be, hungry wolves who would eat each other’s ragged bodies to survive. The cartel, the food chain, survival of the fittest. The heads of cartels are male lions lounging under a tree, hiding from the orange sun, waiting for the pride to bring them the kill, eating the hunt without having to move.
And at the top, the ones like Grande and the Wolf Cub think they are gods. Maybe they are—deciding who lives and who dies, deciding what happens to me.
Hide with Me Page 15
