by LP Lovell
“Then stop acting like it,” she snaps. “We leave in ten minutes.”
She slams the door on her way out, and I stand there in shock for a moment. Una hates Rafael, and I don’t know why. Without him, I’m not sure what I would be. Maybe that’s what she hates. After all, he was there for me when I didn’t even know she existed.
I find my bag at the end of the bed. Rafe obviously had it brought up here. I dress in a pair of black denim shorts and a clean tank before pulling my hair into a ponytail. Fastening a leather holster across my chest, I take both my guns—the one that Rafael gave me, and a colt 40.—and slide them beneath each arm. When I step out of the room, I find a guard posted right outside the door. I pass him by and exhale a frustrated breath when he follows me. Turning to face him, I stab a finger into his chest. He drops his gaze to my finger and frowns.
“Stop. I don’t need protection, so you can leave.”
“Boss’ orders,” he says simply, clutching the rifle in his hand.
I’m aggravated by my sister’s comment, and the simple presence of this guy is making me feel suddenly suffocated and irritable. “Look, I’m leaving, and my sister will shoot you if you try to follow us.” He scowls at me and the muscles in his jaw twitch. “I’ll tell Rafael I gave you the slip,” I say, suddenly feeling just a little bit guilty when I think about what Rafael will do to this guy for letting me go.
He takes a slow step back, and I nod before turning away and striding down the corridor. Una is waiting at the bottom of the stairs, gun already in hand. I eye the weapon before meeting her gaze.
“What are you doing with that?”
“We figure Rafael’s guys might not appreciate us leaving.” So she plans to shoot her way out…
“Where’s Rafe?”
“Not here.”
That makes this a little easier. Una jerks her head to the side, motioning for me to follow. We step out into the warehouse, and no one seems to notice us, but I spot Carlos lingering in the office doorway, a frown on his face as he leans on his crutches. He says something into a radio, and I know we’re probably not getting out of here. Una takes out four of Rafe’s guys- unconscious, not dead- before we make it out onto the airfield. She strides across the dusty tarmac of the airfield, and yank the door of the helicopter open. Sasha sits in the pilot’s seat, flipping various switches.
“Does he actually know how to fly this?” I yell over the deafening sound of the engines as we lift into the air.
“Of course.”
“Okay, and did we technically steal this?”
“Borrowed.”
Great. Rafael is going to be so mad…and then my sister is probably going to shoot him. Why do my family have to be so…aggressive? The desert passes by beneath us before we climb higher into the sky. A little while later and we’re landing in yet another patch of desert. Una shoves a rucksack at me. “You’ll need that. We have to walk a few miles to the site.”
By the time we climb up the final rocky hillside, my tank is soaked through, and dusty desert sand sticks to every inch of my damp skin. Una lies on her stomach, a pair of binoculars pressed to her face. Below us is a simple-looking ranch. There are several barns and a farmhouse, all of which back onto a dirty-looking lake. The ranch is surrounded on all sides by hills, not unlike mine and Rafael’s lake. It would be nearly impossible to find if you didn’t know it was here, and you certainly wouldn’t expect a cartel boss to be hiding out here.
“I count twenty-three guards. Could be more in the buildings,” Una says.
“He’s here,” Sasha murmurs. “That’s too many men.”
“Too many for us?” I ask.
He snorts, and a rare smile touches his lips. “Of course not.”
“We use the hills to approach. There’s a spot where there’s a steep incline up against the edge of the lake.” She points it out. “It’s unguarded.”
Half an hour later and I’m dangling on a rocky cliff face by a rope. Una’s two-minute explanation on how to abseil really wasn’t all that helpful, and they’re long gone. I ease my way down the cliff side, trying to breathe properly as I feed the rope inch by inch through the pulley. At one point it slips, tearing across the skin of my palm and burning my hand.
“Come on, Anna,” Una says from somewhere below me.
“You’re not helping!” I daren’t look down, and as darkness encroaches, it’s very hard to make out how far I even am from the top anymore.
I move another few inches before hands land and on my waist. Whipping my head around, I come face to face with Sasha’s impatient expression. He plonks me on the floor and starts tugging the ropes and harness off me.
“We need to move,” he says when he’s done, leaving me to put it all in the rucksack. I shove the gear inside and jog to catch up with them. We have to wade through the edge of the lake, and the water is up to my waist. I try not to think of all the things living in here.
When we make it out of the water, we’re at the boundary fence of the property. Una makes quick work of cutting the chainlink fence, but stops and turns to me before going through.
“Don’t freeze. It’ll cost you your life here.” And on that encouraging titbit of advice, she disappears through the fence. Don’t freeze. I won’t. I refuse to be the weak link, the useless one who may just get shot because of her misplaced sense of right and wrong. The fact is; right and wrong don’t exist out here. This is just bad men and worse men, nothing else. My error with the Sheriff was in thinking that a man with a badge must still have some good in him. Truthfully, it doesn’t matter. It’s not my job to pass judgment on a man, simply survive. Kill or be killed. I’m not sure if I want it to get easier or not. Part of me wishes that I could just kill a man and move on like Una does, whilst the other hopes that I never take the loss of any life that lightly.
Death in itself has become common practice to me. I’ve watched slaves shot for escaping, strangled to death while they’re raped, or put down for contracting an STD. The brutality of death is no stranger to me, but when it’s on my hands…it is.
I remain close to Una as we move past the fence line and tuck into the side of an outbuilding. She glances at Sasha, and he nods before disappearing into the shadows. They don’t really need words to communicate. They think in exactly the same way, both raised to think only of strategy and killing. In a way, I feel sorry for my sister, even as I’m in awe of her.
Una checks her watch a couple of times as we wait. There’s a clearing in front of us between three buildings. Several men are gathered there, milling about with rifles clutched in their hands. They don’t look like cartel. Dominges must have hired mercenaries to protect him. It would seem he fears Rafael more than he lets on. Or maybe it’s the death of his brother that has him surrounding himself with a small army.
I’m distracted by the muted pop of a gun firing, followed by another and another. Men start to drop like puppets with their strings cut. The others start frantically looking for where the gunfire is coming from. Some fire in the direction of the roof of one of the barns. Others scatter, taking cover behind various outbuildings. Either way, their shots have now broken our element of surprise and they’re scattering like fleeing prey.
“Take the back of that building,” Una barks. “Stay sharp.”
I back away, moving around the small building we were taking cover behind. Peeking around the corner, I check that it’s clear before dashing across the alleyway to the next barn. I suddenly realize that I’m alone, in Dominges’ heavily-fortified ranch. If he catches me... I glance at the gun in my hand, remembering the conversation that Rafael and I had. He won’t take me alive.
Gritting my teeth, I focus on killing as many of his men as I can. These guys protect a man who traffics hundreds if not thousands of women each year. They’re scum, only concerned with lining their pockets.
When I creep around the back of the barn, I see two men pressed up against the wall, but their attention is on the shots still being fired into
the clearing. Sasha is merely the distraction.
I shoot both of them in quick succession. Headshots—bulletproof vests won’t save them here. I go back the way I came and move to the next building, but when I get there, the men are already down, and Una is crouched beside them, taking their ammunition.
“Okay?”
I nod, and she jumps up, jogging across the now empty clearing. Sasha joins us a few seconds later. “They know we’re here. There are at least ten in the first barn. More in the house,” he says.
Una takes her backpack off and rummages inside before pulling out several grenades.
“Lazy,” Sasha drawls.
She pushes to her feet, and then all hell breaks loose. There’s a low rumble in the distance and the ground beneath my feet trembles.
“What was that?”
“That is an explosion.” She grabs my wrist and tugs me down to a crouch just as several men sprint past the alleyway we’re now tucked into. The gunfire starts, and it’s not the simple pop, pop, pop of a handgun. The rhythmic rainfall of a machine gun filters through the night until it’s all I can hear. “Nothing changes. We go after Dominges,” Una says. I can almost see her brain firing through all the possibilities and strategies she needs.
I follow her as she starts for the house. The front of the ranch is like a war zone. Bullets fly, and men fall. The front gate is on fire, hanging off its hinges and several Hummers are now inside the boundary, heavy guns mounted on them. Those are Rafael’s vehicles. Or at least I think they are. Really anyone could have those vehicles.
The farmhouse itself sits in darkness, eerily unaffected by the violence so far. Una and Sasha take up positions beside both the front windows, before smashing them and tossing grenades inside. She slams me against the siding of the house just as the explosion sends the remaining windows scattering across the porch. The drab-looking curtains catch fire, and the flames creep up the wooden window frames, billowing black smoke out into the night air.
“Stay here, Anna. If he’s in there, I’ll bring him to you.”
They both dive through the front door, and I hear the sound of gunshots. I stay there, listening intently, though I can barely hear anything over the now roaring flames.
A hand slams over my mouth, and I’m hauled backward down the porch steps. It takes a few seconds for my mind to stop panicking, and then I bite down. Hard. A man growls, and his hand disappears. I slide my gun beneath my left arm and let off two shots without turning to face him. When I do turn around, he’s on the ground, winded. The bulletproof vest saved him from death but not for long. Pointing the gun at his head, I pull the trigger, and he falls still.
It takes me a moment to notice that I’m standing right in the middle of the war zone. Men lay dead or dying, some I recognize, meaning they’re Rafael’s. It’s utter chaos. Bullets fly everywhere, and I can’t even take cover because I have no idea where the enemy fire is coming from.
I spot Una as she leaps down the steps of the porch and runs towards me. The house behind her erupts into flames, reaching high into the night sky. The wooden structure groans under the strain. The brightness temporarily blinds me, and I blink away black spots. Movement registers in my periphery, and I turn just as a gun is pointed at my head. I swerve to the side, and there’s a crack beside my ear as the bullet splits the air beside me.
I just shoot, and its only when I really look at the man standing in front of me with a bullet hole in his head that I realize; he’s not a man at all. He’s a boy, a teenager. His wide, unseeing eyes stare at me, condemning me before he collapses to the ground. Something dark and ugly instantly grips me, squeezing until I feel like I can’t catch a full breath. I stare at his body, my hand trembling around the gun. Everything around me fades into the background as the heavy pounding of my pulse fills my ears. The ground rumbles again, and then there’s a bang, permeated by a rush of heat that feels as though it’s searing the skin on the left hand side of my body. And then silence. I hear absolutely nothing but a dull ringing in my ears.
Someone grabs my arm and drags me to the floor. I’m aware of the ground shaking, of the ringing and pain in my ears. I can feel warm liquid trailing from my ear. But I don’t focus on any of it, because now, the boy I killed is barely inches away and he’s staring at me, his glassy eyes promising torturous retribution. Reaching out, I close his eyes, tears tracking down my cheeks as I wonder if he has a mother who will miss him. War…it seems heroic, poetic even, a fight for a righteous cause, but how righteous can this be?
Something slides under my stomach, and I’m hauled off my feet and away from the dead boy. Fire and smoke and dead bodies are everywhere. Only when I’m shoved in the back seat of a car, do I blink and see Rafael’s face. He cups my cheeks, staring at me with a worried expression. His lips are moving, but I can’t hear what he’s saying. He tilts my head to the side and touches a finger to my ear, making me wince.
He starts checking me over, patting down my arms and body, his brows drawing tighter together with each passing second. His mouth is moving as he talks to someone else, but I look away, glancing out of the window. Something in me is cracking, and ugly black ooze is pouring out. Guilt locks around my throat in a chokehold, a lead weight pulling me into cold, ruthless waters. Tears pour down my face uncontrollably, and my hands shake, so I wrap my arms around myself, trying to hold myself together.
Run-down buildings pass us by as we speed through Juarez. I close my eyes, and all I see are someone else’s—dead, the ghostly mist creeping over the pupils.
68
Anna
I barely register the drive back to the warehouse. Rafael picks me up, tucking me against his chest as though I weigh nothing. I don’t fight him for once. Resting my cheek against his shoulder, I inhale the scent of citrus and cigar smoke that clings to his shirt, but it’s laced with the distinctive hint of smoke and burning. Death and destruction.
He finally puts me down in his bathroom, the lines of concern written all over his face. He places a wet cloth to my ear, and I catch a brief glimpse of myself in the small bathroom mirror. My face is covered in a fine layer of soot, tear tracks cutting lines through the black. My hair is streaked with dirt and blood, and bruises are beginning to blossom over my jaw. A trail of crusted blood is coming from my left ear, and a high-pitched ringing is all I can hear.
He continues to wipe the blood away before he grabs my tank and slowly pulls it over my head. I allow him to strip me out of my clothes, and watch him removed his own before he pulls me into the shower. The hot water washes over me, hiding the tears that I can’t seem to stop. The water turns a filthy brown, dragging the night’s events down the drain with it. Or at least I wish it would. Rafael washes my hair, scrubbing the shampoo into my scalp carefully and rinsing it. I stand there in a numb state of shock as he cleans my bruised body before washing the dirt and blood from his own. When he’s done, he wraps me in a towel and even dries my hair, finally dressing me in one of his over-sized shirts. I’m just numb, like a puppet he’s directing through basic motions. I’ve been here before, but for very different reasons. He guides me to the edge of the bed before going to the door and allowing someone into the room. I frown at the doctor. I don’t like him. I haven’t since the very first time I met him, and he drugged me.
I go to move and Rafael smirks, placing a hand on my shoulder and pushing me back down. I stare at him as the doctor grabs my face, tilting my head to the side. He puts something in my ear, and I wince away as sharp pain radiates through my head. He exchanges words with Rafael and hands him some pill bottles, then he’s gone. My lack of hearing is annoying and some what isolating. I’m left in my own private vault of ringing and rampant thoughts.
After making me take the pills, he pulls me against his chest and strokes his hand over my hair, lulling me into sleep. The tears never really stop.
I’m standing in the darkness again, and my pulse races as my lungs frantically reach for air. Closing my eyes, I try to calm mysel
f, even as I wait for The Master to make his grizzly appearance. A hand touches my arm, and I flinch.
“Anna.”
I open my eyes and find Lucas standing in front of me. He’s illuminated as though standing under a stage spotlight. “Lucas.”
“It’s okay. I’ll protect you,” he says, holding his hand out to me. I take it, and he smiles wide, but then the smile fades, and a tiny mark appears on his forehead, growing bigger until it’s the size of a quarter. Blood pours down his face like a tap being turned on.
“Lucas!” When I reach for him, I see the gun in my hand, my finger on the trigger. I blink, and the boy standing in front of me is no longer Lucas, it’s the boy I shot.
He collapses to the ground at my feet, and I fall to my knees.
I jerk awake and sit bolt upright, dragging precious oxygen into my lungs. My eyes sting, and the saltiness of my tears lingers on my lips.
Rafael reaches for me, his hand stroking down my back. “Anna?”
I can hear him. It’s faint and unclear, but I can hear him. The ringing in my ears has lessened, but the throbbing pain is still present. “I’m fine,” I whisper, not wanting to raise my voice in case he hears how hoarse it is. I swallow around the lump in my throat, choking it down. The room suddenly illuminates, and I squint against the light. Rafael sits up and grabs my chin, forcing me to look at him. His brows pull together in a frown, and his thumb swipes below my eye, wiping away tears.
“Talk to me. You fucking scared me earlier.” His voice is muted, as though he’s underwater, but at least I can actually hear him now.
“I couldn’t hear you.”
He tilts my head to the side, glancing at my ear before pulling my gaze to his again. “Another nightmare?”
I nod.
“You were saying Lucas’s name.”
I open my mouth to explain, but quickly close it as a broken sob threatens to tear up my throat. “I’m fine.”
