Is this another full-on attack? Are they going to burn the whole clinic this time?
I try to communicate my worries to my angel, try to tug on his arm and tell him, “I have to be sure they’re okay!” and for a second I think he's heard me. He drops back, but instead of addressing my concern, he gets behind me, shoving me forward with his right elbow.
“What the hell?”
For a second, as I'm shoved along, I worry that he's with some other cartel. Or at least hired by one. He could even be freelancing—taking me hostage so Jesus has to pay to get me back.
I throw my arms out, wanting to stop and think before I just go with this guy, but I hear men’s voices shouting somewhere nearby, and my feet are moving too fast for me to slow down. We round the corner, to the front of the building, on the side where it’s charred, and I’m shocked to see Juan, plus Malcolm, one of Jesus’s lieutenants, on the pebble path in front of the building. They're both pointing guns my way.
I hear shots, and then I'm on the ground. Evan’s knee is on my back, and he’s firing over me, BAM BAM BAM. I strain my neck in time to I see Juan crumple to the ground. I guess I scream. I don't know. I hear a woman screaming, and I'm on my feet. “No don't, no don't.” I'm crying, bullets are whizzing by, and BAM BAM, Malcolm is down. Oh my God, there's so much blood.
My body trembles violently as I hang onto the angel.
“What are you doing? I don’t know what’s going on!” This isn’t even Thursday…
He shoves me behind him and runs a few paces forward, firing again and again. All my senses are sluggish. I hear tires screech, and look up in time to see a familiar silver Escalade crash into a telephone pole.
A second later, I hear a woman’s wail. Katrina's wail.
Angel is back, pushing me again, toward the clinic parking lot. Katrina is wailing like a mad woman, and like a frame from a disjointed film reel, I see her tall, round form stumbling toward us.
“You killed him! You killed him you stupid bitch!” She fires a .22 right at my face, and I can feel the heat of the bullet as it travels just to the left of my ear.
Whoosh, whoosh. Whoosh. The bullets wiz by, but none of them hit. Katrina is a lousy shot. She does fingernails.
We're out of town before I hear the roaring engines of Jesus's crew, on our tail. They're not right up on us yet, but it doesn't matter. We'll still be dead by morning. My only prayer is that my angel didn't really kill Jesus. Katrina wouldn't know. She probably over-reacted. Once before, Jesus got shot and came home bleeding, and she had to be sedated more than he did before Dr. Marino dug the bullet out.
As I hang onto my angel's waist and clutch the bike—and the angel's butt—with my thighs, I think of how weird it is that I'm this calm. Someone from the United States came here to take me back. Then he killed Juan. And Malcolm. And probably Guapo. And maybe Jesus. And Katrina, my old BFF, tried to kill me. And now the Cientos Cartel is coming after us. Me.
I spin through my mental, cartel rolodex, wondering who’s in charge. If Jesus is really indisposed and Guapo is as dead as I think he is, who will be behind the wheel of Jesus's battered Escalade?
Probably Christina, his twenty-year-old sister.
I close my eyes against the sting of the dry wind and wonder why Jesus was at the clinic anyway. It's not his style to come in person. But he was coming for me. Maybe he thought it was something a lover would do.
For some reason, I picture the nightgown-clad body of a young girl who got caught one time in Jesus's crossfire as he tried to kill her father. Then I picture Juan and Emanuel, in their slouchy blue jeans and designer shirts and boots. How I would ride with them to school in the back of one of Jesus’ many cars. How I used to think of myself as their substitute mom.
I'm so stupid.
I'm so very, very stupid.
The engines roar behind us, and the guy who rescued me—probably not an angel, after all—juices the bike. I wonder how long till they catch up. I haven't moved my body in miles; it feels cemented to the bike seat. But now I lean around the guy's arm to see the road in front of us. We're on 490, heading north toward Torreon; it’s one of the largest roads around, probably one the cartel would expect us to take. I frown as I peek out at the dark, cracked road again. My angel isn't holding the handlebar with his left arm. I can't tell how he's driving, but I know I don't see fingers around the handlebar. Did he get hurt?
Lots of people got hurt...
One of them was Juan.
How can a kid that young be dead?
It's disgusting. It's horrible, a shame, and I wish it wasn't real. I start to cry, and I’m ashamed because I’m crying for myself. I’m going to be lying in a pool of blood, too. So will my “rescuer.” I wonder if he has any idea what they’ll do to us. Especially if he killed Jesus. Gory images fill my head, and it's everything I can do to raise my arm and tug his shoulder.
I lean closer to his ear and suck in the dusty air so I can yell, “Pull over!”
“WHAT?” The wind carries his deep voice, slaps it against my ears.
“Pull over, now!”
It's a long shot, but it just might work. In the world of the cartels, you don't turn tail and run—ever. And by the logic of this hot, dry, barren place, you definitely don't pull off on the side of a highway in the middle of nowhere and hunker down with a big, shiny motorcycle. But that doesn't mean we can't try.
I see a farm house up on the right and jab his back.
“PULL OVER NOW!”
He veers sharply off the road, kicking up a cloud of dust as we fly behind a quaint brown house.
Crap, the dust cloud! I'm praying for a strong wind to blow it away when the sound of roaring engines explodes behind us and we go toppling off the bike.
14
Cross
I COME AROUND lying on my back, staring at the moon, which has a triple halo that smears and stretches in time with my pulse. I blink a few times to clear my vision and realize my mouth is stuffed with grass and dirt. There's something hot and wet on my lips. Damn. I bring my shaking hand up to wipe at a hot smear of blood.
I roll over, push up on my elbow, and look around the junk-strewn, dirt lawn, but I don't see her. “Merri!” I'm on my feet fast enough to make my head spin, striding toward the house. There's not a light inside it anywhere; everything is quiet. Where the hell is she?
“Merri!”
She hits me from behind. Hits me so hard she knocks me down, and I realize as we land in a heap of tangled limbs that the buzzing sound I thought was ringing in my ears is really the cartel catching up to us.
I see their headlights and Meredith jerks me toward the back porch.
“Come on,” she hisses. “Hurry!”
I glance at the Mach, dusty and scuffed-up, lying on its side beside the porch stairs, and I wish I could run and grab it, push it up the stairs and out of sight—but I can't. Not with one hand.
Merri jerks me along behind her, leading me through a sea of broken children's toys and rusted car parts, and I wonder what the odds are that she knows the people who live here. I've got my mouth open to ask her what the plan is when she drops to her knees on the wooden porch. As the motors roar closer to us, she lifts a hatch door. I'm thinking it's not even big enough for a dog to climb inside when she jabs me in the abs with her elbow.