“It’s me, Cali,” I say, still pleading it’s him at the other end of the weapon.
A dirt-covered hand is clamped around my bicep and I’m flung around and into a puffy chest—Dad. He squeezes me so tightly I’m having trouble breathing. “Carolina,” his voice croaks out. He shoves me back with his palms and looks me in the eyes. His face is covered with red dirt, leaving only the whites of his eyes to recognize. The comfort of his arms around me is enough to make me break down again. “Carolina, sweetheart.” I lift my gaze to his face. “How did you find me?” The reunion was short lived, as I knew it would be. He knows I wouldn’t have found him on my own.
“Dad, so many people are after you. They all want whatever you have. I was escorted here by Tango—the bodyguard you hired to take care of me. You gave him your coordinates in case of an emergency.”
He pulls me back in. “What is the emergency, Carolina. Are you okay? Are you not well?”
“Dad, it’s Tango. He’s dying. He said you have a trial drug that can . . . cure cancer? Whatever you stole from China to use on Mom . . . ”
“I see,” he says.
All I can do is look at him, trying to ignore the anger and resentment I have toward the two of them at this moment. “I ran into Mom yesterday, or she ran into me. I saw her. I know she’s alive, and it’s because of you.”
“Honey,” he calls out. But it’s too dark down here to see if he’s calling out to mom. I don’t know how large the area we’re standing in is, but I hear footsteps.
“I see you found him, sweetheart,” my mother’s voice sounds from a dark corner. I can’t quite contain my anger any longer. I didn’t think I’d have the opportunity to say what I want to say to the two of them, and I have to realize I may not have another opportunity to do so again.
“Before this reunion commences, I think there’s something you both need to know. And that’s . . . you should be ashamed of the life you’ve forced me to live for the past three years. Leaving Krissy and me to believe we were nearly parentless. You both left me to grieve her death, the death that one of your assistants caused, Dad. Reaper, I mean—Reagan, remember him?” I ask. His eyes show recognition, but he doesn’t respond to me verbally. “Not only did he swoop in when you took off after Mom died, but he made me fall in love with him. And do you know what he did after that, Dad?” I shrug my shoulders, not even understanding why I should be informing him of the consequences of his thoughtless actions. “He tried to force your location out of me, but thankfully for you, I didn’t know where you were . . . ever. And because of that, he decided to kill Krissy. Right in front of me. I watched him murder her. I watched her die. And where were you two? Living in a fucking cave somewhere?”
“Carolina,” Mom interrupts me. “Honey.”
“No. No, Mom. I’ve been grieving alone for you and Krissy for the past year, all while holding my steady pace on the run from the people who were trying to use me as bait to find Dad. I’ve been shot twice, and I still have the bullet in my shoulder—the bullet I wish would have flown through the center of my chest.”
I have been suffering, feeling like a small child in the constraints of my own mind, wondering what I was supposed to do to carry on. Now here I am, at a crossroads, and I still don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing. What the fuck am I even fighting for anymore?
But as quickly as the question enters my head, the answer catches up almost as fast. I have a reason now. I want to save Tango. I want to save the one person I’ve been able to trust and to feel something real for. To have known a person for only a few weeks and realize that they have been more honest with me than a lifetime of bloodline relationships, makes me realize I’m fighting against a brick wall with the two people who put me on this earth.
My mother’s hands find their way to my shoulders and I want to squirm out of her grip, but for some reason I give her a chance to say what she has to say.
“Honey, what can we do to make this better?” Everything in me wants to laugh at this question. “I know we destroyed your life, and in a way your dad was selfish to save me and sacrifice you. But in the name of love, I have a feeling you might do something similar—kill, fight, and beg for the one who you care the most about. That is what your dad did for me. And it’s what you’re doing for that boy you are with.”
Tango.
“You know what you can do for me? You can salvage the last person in this world who wants to be a part of my life. Tango is dying. He has maybe days left, if that. I want you to use whatever the hell you stole from China and cure him.”
They both look at me with saddened eyes. “Carolina, if I do that . . . he will become the bait,” Dad says, breathing heavily. “You were never the bait, Carolina, you were always the fish. Tango is the bait, and he can have it, because once he does, I’ll be free.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
TANGO
I SHOULDN’T HAVE let her go down there first. It’s been five minutes, and I haven’t heard a sound. I pull my pack over my shoulders and secure it around my chest. I’m going in.
“Dude, do you think her dad knows about you?” Seaver asks.
“Yes. He hired me to be her bodyguard.”
The little amount of information Seaver has is pissing him off, and I can’t say I blame him. But this is where we part ways. This is the part where I find out whether I will live or die.
I offer my hand to Seaver, and he reluctantly shakes it. “Wish me luck, man.”
He nods his head. “Good luck with whatever, dude.”
I remove my pack and lean it up against a nearby tree. I need to look non-combative when I go down there, so I hide my pistol under my shirt. I look down into the hole and I don’t see anything but a faint glow of a flashlight. I close my eyes briefly and pull in a tight, sharp breath before lowering myself onto the ladder.
This is it.
CALI
“Carolina,” Dad whispers through his heavy breaths. “I was trying to save your mother from dying.” He places his hands over his wobbly knees and pushes himself upright. “I wanted to save my wife—the love of my life. I couldn’t just let her die.” He walks over to me and places his hands around my elbows. “As you apparently already know, I was protecting an unregulated drug which was being developed by some Chinese scientists to cure cancer.” He pauses for a moment, swallowing hard enough that it sounds like sandpaper going down his throat. “My morals stopped working and my heart took its place. Whether the treatment was controlled, tested or unregulated, I didn’t care. I wanted to try and save her, Carolina. I didn’t want to leave you without a mother.”
“Guess that was a lose-lose situation,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest. “Instead of just losing my mother, I lost you and Krissy too.” Dad buries his head into his hands, looking defeated—as he should. “Did you ever consider that Mom didn’t want to be saved?”
“Carolina,“ she interrupts me in a scolding manor. “Your dad did what he thought was right.”
He nods his head, saying no, and slowly backs away. “It was me who couldn’t stand the thought of losing her. It was me who committed an international crime in order to try and save her. It was me who didn’t give her the option.”
“What exactly is this stuff you have? Is it down here with you?” Please tell me he has it. I walk closer to him. “Why are all these people after you? Why have people tried to kill me for this? Why are you hiding in a hole in the middle of a canyon in Mexico?”
Dad lifts his face slowly from his hands. They fall to his side and he walks back over to me, placing his soot-covered fingers over my shoulders. “I didn’t think past the implications of saving your mom, Carolina.”
He removes his hand from my shoulder again and drops it into the cargo pocket of his brown pants. His hand fishes around for a moment and then he pulls it out. A Ziploc bag with a syringe?
“Is that it?” I ask.
I hear thuds tapping against the ladder. I whip my head around toward the hole in
the ceiling, watching the ladder clatter against the stone wall. When I see a pair of shoes appear within the dim light, I immediately know they belong to Tango. Dessert-sand colored boots, soles nearly worn flat, and laces so tight I’ve been wondering about the circulation in his toes. I don’t speak his name. I’m not sure what his intentions are. I’m not quite sure what to expect at this moment.
Dad looks worried. Mom looks knowing.
“Do you know this man, Carolina?” Dad whispers as Tango’s face glows under the light.
Tango’s expression is inquisitive, and I’m sure he wants to know what I’ve heard without having to ask me. I’m sure he wants to know if everything is okay, and if he has a chance at survival.
“Yes, Dad. I know him,” I confirm. “This is Tango, Dad. Mom, Tango,” I point between the three of them.
“I can see why you like him, Carolina,” Mom says exuberantly.
My face blushes. “Mom,” I say, making an attempt to stop any further observations on Tango’s looks.
Tango snickers in return, probably trying to work the light-hearted mood. “I’ve become quite fond of your daughter, sir, ma’am. “ Tango approaches Dad without nerve and offers him his hand. “Sir, I apologize for showing up here, but I’m a desperate man. And as I’m sure you already know, desperate times call for desperate measures. I’ve been given a death sentence. I most likely don’t have many more days left, and I’ve looked at this situation as a selfish opportunity for another chance.” I want to call a timeout and tell Tango what Dad said about him becoming the bait, but I know he won’t care about the repercussions.
Dad closes more of the space between him and Tango, careful not to move his icy stare from his face. Dad plunges his hand into the dangling Ziploc bag and pulls out the needle. He looks up at Tango, the half-foot tall gap between them making Tango’s six-foot-two size prominent compared to Dad’s five-foot-seven height. “Do you care about my daughter, son?”
The question catches all of us off guard. Dad has never asked anyone this question. He hasn’t been around to meet anyone of any interest. Maybe if he had been, Krissy would still be with us.
Tango doesn’t shift his body. He doesn’t blink. He doesn’t flinch. His stare lowers to Dad’s eyes, and the look on his face is alarming. Tango usually says exactly what’s on his mind, and he never seems to plan out his words. But right now, he appears to be carefully thinking about a response. The pause is silent and is stressing me out.
“Dad, leave him alone.” I place my hand on Dad’s chest and try to push him away from Tango, trying to create a space I want between them. Maybe I’m only interrupting this because I don’t want to hear the answer. I don’t want to hear if he doesn’t have an answer. I don’t want to watch his face contort with sympathy when I find out he was only using me—that I shouldn’t have trusted him.
Dad takes my hand away from his chest, removing me from this situation between him and Tango. “Do you care about my daughter or is this only for a cure?”
I watch Tango’s Adam’s apple dip into the crook of his neck and then bounce back up. “Yes, sir.” Tango’s eyes flash over to mine. They slowly gaze over my face, and his expression softens. “Sir, I care very deeply for your daughter, and yes, as I said, I’m sick.”
“Well then, it gives me great honor to do this . . .” Dad takes the needle and grabs Tango’s arm, pushes his sleeve up and looks him in the eyes once more. But as he’s looking at Tango we all hear gunshots from above. We all freeze.
Seaver and Kacen?
The ladder descending from the hole above rattles against the wall. “Just do it,” Tango demands, trying to ignore who might be coming down here.
Two Asian men drop from the middle of the ladder and stand before all of us. “Give it back, Eli,” one of them says.
Dad doesn’t look at either of the men. He keeps his focus on the injection spot. Dad quickly plunges the needle into Tango’s arm as the men try to stop him. But I put myself in their way. I use myself as a shield even though I’m quickly thrown to the side. I hope it was enough time, though. I’m not sure if the substance transferred into his body completely. “Sorry men, I don’t have the drug anymore,” Dad says as one of the men snatches the needle from his hand.
The two Asian men are yelling something in a language I can’t decipher, but I can tell how very angry they both are, and I can tell things are going to turn bad quickly.
I consider drawing my weapon as the men stop yelling. It almost sounds as if the two of them came up with an idea to settle their anger. And now I’m worried about what that idea might be.
Dad releases Tango’s sleeve and pats him on the back. “Well, son, you are about to make my life a whole hell of a lot easier. It gives me great pleasure to say: tag. You are it.” Dad looks over at the two men and places his hands in the air. “I’m not holding this drug anymore. You don’t have a reason to be after me.”
“You, come with us,” one of the men says to Tango. “We’ll need to find out for sure if the substance is really a viable cure.”
“No need, men,” dad says proudly. “You can leave knowing the treatment does in fact work. He points to Mom. “I used one of the two injections on my wife here three years ago. Look at her. Healthy as a horse.”
The men look to each other, both smiling proudly. They say something to each other and turn back to us. “Good, you both come with us.”
The words become real, instantly. This isn’t going to end how I hoped. The two men draw their weapons and I try to pull mine, but before I can, a barrel is pointed directly at my face.
“Cali, don’t,” Tango says with desperation. “I’ll go. And I want you to leave.” I won’t leave him. Not for anything.
“You will not take my wife,” Dad says loudly, and the barrel turns toward his head instead.
“We will return them if they survive when we are done. Deal?” Each man offers my dad and I a hand to shake.
“Cali, do it,” Tango says, gritting his teeth together.
“What do you mean if they survive?” I ask before I make any deals.
“We won’t kill them ourselves. The cancer though, that can still kill,” one of them says. “You two are the first people who have been inoculated and we need you for analysis. This drug was not ready for human testing, but since you’ve both nicely offered to be our guinea pigs, you can give us the data we need to prove whether or not this drug does in fact work properly.”
“Cali, this could help other people too. If I make it through, I will find you. It’s okay.”
This is far from okay. How can I sit here and watch these two men take Mom and Tango, leaving us here to wonder whether they might kill them or not. I don’t trust that they won’t do that. I don’t trust anything, certainly not the words from men with guns pointed up to our heads.
“Please let me have a minute,” Tango says to the men. “I will come with you, but I want to say good-bye.”
“Yes, me too,” Mom says.
“We will be up there waiting. Two minutes, or we come back down.” The two of them were true to their word and scale back up the ladder, leaving the four of us in shock and staring between one another.
Tango pulls me into a dark corner where neither of my parents can see us. “Listen to me,” he says softly. “Your mom is still alive, which gives me good odds at surviving this. I’ve been through much worse, Cali, and I can take care of your mom and myself. If I make it through this, you better believe I will find you.”
“Tango,” I cry. “I want to come with you.”
“We both know that’s not going to happen, Cali. And if you try, they’ll probably kill you. It isn’t worth it. You need to live for Krissy. Remember?”
I nod in understanding, trying to stop the tears from pouring out of my eyes. Tango takes his thumb and clears away my tears. “You know what?” he whispers closely to my ear. “It’s always about fate, Cali. We will be together, some way or another.” I can hear the smile in his voice. The a
ir between us disappears as his lips press over mine. He leaves them there for several seconds before his arms wrap tightly around me and he pulls his head back. “Take my phone out of my pack up there. It’s against the first tree on the right. Call the emergency number to get you and Eli out of here.” I nod in response, and even though he probably can’t see me agreeing, he still tightens his arms around me and kisses my forehead once more. “Good, say good-bye to your mom. Love her like you did before she died, Cali. Don’t hold grudges. Life’s too short for that.”
I don’t want him to let go of me, so I clamp my hands around his wrists, bringing them to my chest, begging for a little more time. But I know he wasn’t the one who set the timer. He slides his wrists out of mine and lowers his lips to my ear once more. “Thank you for saving my life. I don’t want you ever to forget how much you mean to me,” he says.
“Tango, I wouldn’t piss them off, son,” Dad says. “You both should go.” I want to yell and scream. I want to say wait, I need more time. But I can’t.
Mom finds me in the darkness and her arms wrap around my neck. “I guess this is good-bye again, sweetheart.” The memories of our last good-bye sting my heart and force more tears.
“I think we both know it’s never good-bye, Mom. It’s always, see you later,” I cry softly over her shoulder.
“You are right, dear. And I will see you later.” I can tell she means that in a more ethereal way, whether later means from heaven or earth, but I’ll take it.
They both leave, trailing up the ladder to God knows what. All of me wants to follow them and try to shoot the men down, but I don’t know if there are more up there. And I’m smart enough to know Tango and Mom could be at the losing end of that battle. So I end my internal fight and fall to my knees and cry more. I cry for all the times I tried to be brave. For all the times I held it in to look strong. For all the times I thought there was no such thing as love, compassion, or trust in this world. Everything I believed in was wrong.
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