“Because I fucked him.” I growl, pushing to my feet. And just like that, the dam breaks. Gone is the self-pity. Reborn is fury. “In a moment of complete weakness, he seduced me because he thought I’d never tell you. Or if I did, you’d be so furious with me that you’d walk away. He wants you for himself, partners forever. One for all and all for one, and all that crap. But he doesn’t really know the real you, Kris, because you’ve never let him in, never let him know how terrified you are of that he’d find out that you were molested as a child!”
And once my tirade is over and I take a lungful of air, the reality of what I’ve said suddenly sinks in, and my heart almost stops beating.
Kris stiffens. He doesn’t pull away from me, but I can see his eyes have flattened to chips of black ice. My heart sinks. For the span of a few heartbeats, none of us move. We stare at each other in a sort of bizarre waiting game.
“I’m sorry—” I start to say, but Hyde rushes over and grabs the tops of my arms. He shakes me once.
“What the fuck are you trying to do?”
“Hyde,” Kris says.
But Hyde didn’t hear him. “You don’t know us! You think a piece of ass can separate the 281?”
“Hyde,” Kris says a little more firmly. He comes over and lays a hand over one that has a hold of my arm. “Let her go.”
After a moment, Hyde obeys.
“Kris,” Hyde interrupts, trying to reach out for his partner.
But Kris pushes away from both of us and turns his back.
I keep my mouth shut, trying to blend in with the barren bars behind me. I think I’ve just delivered two blows that pretty much signal a death knell on any hope of a future relationship.
“Holy hell, Kris, is it true? Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“Because this will change everything,” Kris says in a very low, ragged tone.
“How? Did you think I would think differently about you? Whatever happened, there’s no way I’m ever gonna think badly of you. You’re my brother, my partner.”
Hyde moves to touch Kris’s shoulder, but in the blink of an eye, Kris spins and punches him in the jaw. Hyde flies back into the bars before falling to his knees. He reaches up to rub his jaw.
“I love you like a brother,” Kris snaps, leaning over Hyde and grabbing him by the collar. “So two warnings. One, never speak of this, ever, and two, if you touch her again, you’ll be missing some teeth. Got it?”
Hyde nods. Kris lets go of the shirt and stands back, giving Hyde room to stand. They stand there, eye to eye, measuring each other.
“I’m not gonna talk about my past. Okay?”
Again, Hyde nods. There is a full minute of silence between them, and I can’t help but wonder at how two people can be so close that words aren’t needed. Then Kris’s gaze flickers away, toward me, and then I get it. I understand, because deep in his eyes is pain, along with anger and betrayal, and that cuts deeper than words ever could.
“I thought she would come between us,” Hyde admits softly, almost so quietly that I can’t hear.
But I do. And I hear Kris’s answer.
“She has come between us.”
There is a heap that binds them. A lifetime.
Kris turns away again, and I see the crack, which has already formed, growing larger. My own pain at seeing these two men, who once were so close and now stand so far apart, takes my breath away. I have done this; I have caused this riff.
I’m a very bad person. I see that now. I must be my mother’s daughter.
At that moment, a large bang erupts through the dungeon. Hyde and Kris spring apart and turn shoulder to shoulder. They both instinctively crouch on their haunches, ready for any attack.
The guards clang their way toward our cell, leering and taunting the scared prisoners. As they approach, they pull rifles out and aim them at Kris and Hyde. A man steps up to the door with keys in hand. He is tall, very good-looking with slicked-back hair and dark eyes. He gives Kris and Hyde a once-over before looking my way.
“Blondie,” he says. “Come with me.”
“Where are you taking her?” Kris demands.
“None of your business, GI Joe.”
And as the door opens, the rifle barrels are thrust into their faces. I hurry forward, not wanting to give any excuse for them to start firing.
“Evie!” I see that he is struggling with the notion of abiding by the firepower held on him and his desire to protect me.
“I’ll be okay,” I say, and I hope that’s true.
And then the man grabs my arm, and the door swings shut behind us. As I’m led back through the dark winding corridors, I immediately get a vision. A Latino man, hair shorn so close to his head he looks bald. His head is oval, his cheeks rounded, the rest of his body big and beefy. I see the man who is escorting me strike a knife up under the ribs of the man in my vision, twisting it and piercing his heart. The Latino dies quickly, falling to the ground with a silent scream still forming on his mouth.
I stumble. My escort, the assassin, jerks my arm to keep me steady. I look at him with horror-filled eyes. Oh my God, what’ve I just seen?
We round a corner, and up ahead an entourage of people wait for us. I first notice Red Hair; she’s the only woman standing in the circle of several tough-looking men decorated with tattoos and metal. And sitting in the center of them, in what could only be called an audacious, ostentatious throne, is the Latino from my vision.
“Who is that?” I whisper.
The would-be assassin looks me with eyes devoid of emotion. “El Toro.”
No. Fucking. Way. I gotta save the bad guy?
The air explodes out of my lungs. No. I refuse. Shit. Yet…how can I refuse to help him? Everything in my life is based around the fact that I believe, with my whole heart that my visions come from God. That I am serving a higher purpose for Him. I’ve saved people without questioning why, without wondering about the moral fiber of the victim. I’ve never examined if the person on the other end of my vision has deserved saving or not.
But I’m questioning it now.
He’s a bad man. I know he’s a bad man. Why should I save such a man?
I am brought to a halt. El Toro. The man I’ve been hearing so much about. There is no doubt who he is by the way he holds himself, by the way others defer to him, and by the ugly-ass chair-ish throne he’s decided to use. My arm is released as the assassin moves to stand by it. El Toro rises and circles around me, analyzing me up and down. I want to gag.
“You’re quite beautiful,” El Toro finally says as he comes back in front of me. “My name is—”
“The Bull, yes I know.” I raise an eyebrow. “Are you sure it’s not mierda?”
The smirk instantly drains from his face, and without warning he backhands me. It takes all my strength to remain upright.
“I was told you’re a pretty little thing,” El Toro snidely remarks. “But you’re not little at all.”
“And I was told you bathed regularly,” I sass back. “But you stink like ass.”
And before I can blink, El Toro has lunged at me and wraps my hair around his hand. He yanks my head back until tears are streaming down my face from the pain.
“I can make you wish you’d die,” he murmurs into my ear.
“And I can point out the man who’s going to assassinate you,” I counter, keeping my words low so I won’t be overheard.
El Toro jerks his gaze into mine. He hadn’t expected that. The pressure on my hair eases somewhat.
“Stalling games won’t work.”
“Do I look like I play games?”
He studies me for a moment. I can only guess what he sees. Dried blood, dirt, dust—hell, I probably stink too. But ask me if I care.
“Why do you say this?” he finally demands. “I would have thought you would be excited for a chance to see me dead.”
“Not my decision why a bastardo like you should live and this brave man should die, but I’m willing to trade the informat
ion for a favor.”
“What if I don’t believe you?”
“Can you really afford not to believe me?”
I see El Toro’s dark eyes narrow as thoughts race through his mind. He’s not a stupid man, because someone like him doesn’t rise to this much power without a brain cell or two. But he’s also vicious, and he could just as easily kill everyone around him, including me, without feeling an ounce of remorse.
“Perhaps I already know who this man is.”
“Do you really want to take that chance? Always looking over your shoulder, not knowing when this person is going to make his or her move? Maybe in your sleep? Maybe by the food you eat?”
More silence, and then, “What’s your price?”
I move my head fractionally to make him ease up some more. “You believe me?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. But I figure I can hear you out.”
“The prisoners you have. Free them. All of them.”
El Toro bursts out laughing. “Seriously? You’re fucking loco.”
He lets my hair go and turns to walk away. “Your funeral,” I call after him as I reach up to rub my scalp.
He pauses, glances at me over his shoulder. I know he’s weighing my merit, but then resumes walking. The video stream starts playing through my head again. Maybe this time I’ll finally see what happens if I don’t pay attention to my gift. I must admit, having to save a psychopath does test my faith in his judgment, so I’m walking on very thin ice here. It’s not a situation I find very appealing.
“Eddie,” El Toro calls out, and I see the man who escorted me here, the assassin, snap to attention. “Retrieve our GI Joes. Ponlos en la arena.”
Put them in the arena. My eyes snap to the huge JumboTron that now sits on the defunct basketball court, a tall metal fence welded around the edges. Steps lead up to the door, and strapped onto the iron mesh are various types of weapons.
“You’re going to have them fight?” I ask, horrified. If Hyde’s in the cage, then there’s no way I can protect him.
El Toro smirks. “I like my entertainment.” He opens up his arms and gestures to the people sitting in the stands. “And so does my audience.”
I can’t help but notice the guns he has stashed in various places over his body. One in front of his pants, one in a side holster. One in each boot, the butts sticking up making them easy to reach.
My heart has been thumping heavily for a while, but now it starts pounding. My body flushes with fear. Not for myself, never for that. But somehow I’ve always thought we’d get out of this place, all of us. Alive. I naively assumed in my happily ever after that everything would work itself out because it always has before. But my visions never gave me this, fighting on top of a stupid scoreboard, and suddenly I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to fix this. And with the indecision freezing me, panic screams inside my head, the noise deafening everything else.
“And maybe it will loosen your tongue,” he says to me as he resumes his seat as king of the damned. He does a kind of snap thing that causes Red Hair to come over and grab me, yanking me to stand at El Toro’s side. That’s when I look down and see that he has one of his guns out, pointed right at me. “Incentive for them to fight well,” he responds to where my gaze has gone.
“You’re crazy,” I mutter to him. “Jodidamente loco.”
In a matter of minutes, Hyde and Kris are led out to the arena. Immediately, the spectators start booing and hissing, throwing whatever scraps of trash they have. As they are poked at gunpoint up the ladder and into the fenced octagon on the JumboTron, Kris throws a look my way and I can’t help but get choked up.
I am caught in the helplessness of the situation, and because I know these two warriors so well, I can see the mockery they place in their fighting. I am filled with mute fury because I am the damsel in distress. The dress in my dream. I was helpless in my blind obsession and caught by a madman who has me prisoner, and now Hyde and Kris are just as helpless.
In the back of my mind is the vision of Hyde dying, the dream teasing me like a grotesque nightmare that can’t be erased. I have never cared about any of my visions, never really cared about the people I have helped. But now, I stand terrified at the conclusion I am racing toward. I have never feared death, because I’ve always thought that I would foresee it, just as I foresee everything else. But perhaps I have been completely wrong about that assumption. Perhaps I am being shown Hyde’s death because it is my own.
The sudden realization freezes me. How perfectly logical; how it all makes sense. Years of wondering why I had been given this dubious gift to predict the future. I meant to save Hyde not for me, not for him, but for Kris. Because if anything happens to Hyde, I know Kris will become an emotionless automaton. They have lived years together as a team, and now I have the means to save their partnership.
Of course, immediately my mind tries to reject what my heart already knows. I have spent too many years surviving to allow myself to be guided by fate, yet fate has always been my copilot.
It is almost too cruel to have given me the other half of my soul, to have let me love as deeply as anyone can love, and then strike me down. How can my God be so cruel? It’s almost enough for me to curse the heavens and rant his name. But I do nothing except wonder if I have the strength and the courage to save Hyde, because taking the bullet meant for him means my death.
My internal strength is interrupted as Red Hair whispers into El Toro’s ear. He halts the mock fight, which eases my stress level somewhat. I had been afraid he would issue some command I couldn’t have predicted.
Two women are brought into the gym, but I’m too focused on watching Hyde and Kris to pay much attention. Red Hair next to me is so excited that she’s practically jumping up and down, like a kid in a candy store. The rest of the gym audience grows quiet, their attention shifting from the fighting pair to a girl walking toward El Toro’s platform. Even Hyde and Kris have stopped fighting, so I turn my attention on her.
She is quite lovely, her skin flawlessly smooth perfection. I’m guessing Japanese because she has a longer, oval facial structure. Her long black hair shines almost blue in the torchlight.
She falls to her knees, and Red Hair seems to shimmy with pleasure.
“So you’re the one who pissed her off,” El Toro mocks. “She is our fiercest fighter, unbeatable in the arena, and she wants to fight you.”
I stare at this girl with anxiety and pity, because there is a whole lot of history between her and Red Hair that must be a nightmare. El Toro continues to talk, giving a hand command for Hyde and Kris to stop their parody of a fight, and I watch as they are led, once more by rifle power, out of the cage and presumably back to the cells.
The ground shakes beneath us, and I’m getting really sick and tired of having unstable ground beneath my feet. El Toro laughs off the earthquake, dismissing it, and the two women start arguing. I don’t listen until I hear the names “Noble and West.” I jerk my gaze at the young girl and study her features, wondering if she could possibly be connected with the other members of the 281. If she is, if they are here, then rescue might be on the way. My heart speeds up a fraction with hope.
And then I know the dream has fallen into place.
Red Hair grabs the girl—Kaori I believe is what she called her—and leads her to the JumboTron octagon. I want to run after them, knock the fucking Red Hair bitch into next week, but I’m helpless with El Toro’s gun and goons around me.
Next to El Toro I watch Hyde and Kris retreat, straining my head and eyes until they disappear through the darkened corridor. I start to look around, trying to jumpstart my brain into finding an alternate path out of this mess.
“Eddie,” El Toro says, his gaze focused on the two women in the arena. “Take this one back to the cells.”
The assassin takes my arm and starts leading me from El Toro. As we pass by the JumboTron, I try to see how the fight is going, but it sits too high. I can only tell that the fight is not
going well for the little Japanese girl, because the audience is cheering wildly.
As Eddie escorts me to the archway that leads to the back corridor, I turn, placing my hand on his arm. He looks down at me in surprise.
“Don’t do it,” I caution. “Don’t bring out that knife and use it on El Toro.”
Eddie staggers, shock flushing his face. Before he can ask, I continue. “I have visions of the future, and I saw you killing him, but I’m warning you to not do it.”
Eddie looks around, and I assume it’s to make sure we’re not overheard.
“He has my sister,” he tells me in a low, tortured voice. “You have no idea what he has planned for her.”
“You need to get your sister and get to MacArthur Park. You have to get out of LA.”
Confusion blankets his face. “Is this about the GI Joes?”
“Yes. You have an hour before sunrise, Eddie. It’s important.”
I see he’s grappling with what I’ve said, but in a flash he’s gone. I’m suddenly free as gunfire erupts behind me. I whirl to see what the hell has happened and a bullet strikes the wall next to me. I duck and put my arms over my head as I rush around the corner and into the corridor. I flatten myself to the wall and then sneak a peek back inside the gym. I see Kaori running with a big black man from the JumboTron, and the weapon fire seems to cover their retreat. They run to the other court entrance, the one opposite mine.
If I meet up with them, then they will help me free Hyde and Kris. We can free everyone in the cells and then get the hell out of here. But as I ponder that for a split second, my gaze falls on El Toro as he shoots after the retreating couple.
My vision had me saving El Toro, but I wonder if I’m actually meant to save Eddie, because ever since I talked with him, the vision has stopped streaming through my head. If that’s the case, then there’s nothing to stop me from stepping in to kill the self-proclaimed asshole king. If he dies, everyone goes free, we get to MacArthur Park, and it’s a win-win situation for the good guys.
My heart hammers wildly in my chest. I am weaponless, but this may be my only chance to get to El Toro and eliminate him as a threat. I’m a good fighter; I think I could be agile enough to dance around him long enough to snatch a gun.
Kismet Page 11
