Taming Cross

by Ella James

  “What are you doing, Meredith?”

  “It's not your business!” Her eyebrows pull together, like she's worried, but then her face twists angrily. She jerks against me. “Let me go!”

  “I will,” I say evenly, “but I’m coming with you.”

  “No you’re not!” She jerks again, this time hard enough to throw me off, and in a heartbeat she's sailing through the window.

  It takes me a second longer, because I've got to push my body through using only my right hand for balance. My booted feet hit sand about three feet below me; a dust cloud puffs around me, blocking, for a second, my view of a row of scrubby bushes and beyond that, a quiet rural road topped by a fading sunset.

  Merri is moving through the bushes, sticking close to the building, hunching down low to the ground. My legs are so much longer than hers, it's not hard to catch up. Only this time, instead of grabbing her arm, I throw both arms around her back.

  I whirl her around to face me, gritting my teeth as she claws my neck. “Where are you going?”

  “Let go!” Her eyes are dancing. Furious.

  “No! Are you going back to Cientos? That’s crazy!”

  She flails against me, trying her damnedest to get away. “A lot of things are crazy!”

  “You need to—”

  “No,” she hisses. Her chest is heaving, her hands now locked around my forearms. “They'll kill me, here or there. Anywhere. I'm dangerous to everyone. That's why I'm doing this.”

  What the fuck?

  I guess I give her a look that shows her just how crazy I think she is, because she looks triumphant.

  “See?” She pulls back a little, so I can see every inch of her stubborn face. “I told you to go away and forget you found me. You think you can go up against the Cientos Cartel?”

  I notice movement behind her as I say, “I think I will.”

  Then I see the glint of light on metal, and I realize there's a gun to Merri's head.

  I know something is wrong by the look on my stubborn angel's face. In the dim light of dusk, I can see him blanch. Then I feel the gun against my head and I just let the breath seep out of me.

  So this is it. This is how my life will end.

  I clench my right fist against my angel's arm and pretend that I'm holding my rosary. I left it in my luggage, in the attic, along with a long letter to Sister Mary Carolina; if I were to bring the rosary anywhere near Jesus, he'd accuse me of trying to manipulate him.

  I say a silent Hail Mary and pray that the Sisters here are right. That God forgives; that He's forgiven me.

  For what seems like too long, none of us move. It’s quiet, so I can hear the heavy breaths of the man behind me. It's Guapo, I think—one of Cientos' lieutenants. He manages the sex business. He's tall, always wears black, and he smells like the vanilla tobacco he loves to smoke.

  If Guapo has his gun to my head, there's no way I'll make it out al—

  A gunshot bursts my eardrums and I wait to die. When I see my angel jump from his crouch, I just assume he's been shot.

  I'm blinking, wondering dully why God would send an angel to me only to have him killed, when hands grab me. Not Guapo's, the angel's.

  I don’t get a chance to orient myself before we’re running alongside the stucco wall, feet kicking up the sand nestled around the building’s base. Despite having spent my entire time here on the inside of this building, I’m pretty sure we’re moving toward the front. I didn't climb out where Father Mendez told me to, near the cafeteria wing that got burned, as it’s not Thursday evening.

  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.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  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.

  “Get in there!”

  “You first.”

  I watch her ass disappear into the darkness and see her hand jut out. “Come on!” she hisses.

  I'm not sure I can fit, but I'm leaner than I used to be, and anyway, it sounds like our pursuers are in the driveway now, so I don't have much choice. I go in feet first, giving Merri a front-seat view of my ass. When I'm in up to my armpits, I feel her arms yank around my waist and I topple back against her. She mutters something.

  “Sorry,” I hiss.

  I'm clawing at the boards that make up part of the porch and also our little shelter’s walls, trying to take some of my weight off her, when I hear a car's motor yards away.

  Motherfuck. I pull the gun out of my pants with my right hand. I feel Merri move behind me and I want to tell her I've got this, but I'm too afraid to break the silence.

  The motor dies. It sounds like just one car. The rest of the cartel has driven on; once their noise fades, a deathly quiet settles. Then I hear a man's voice. He sounds winded. I figure he's excited about spotting my bike, but instead I realize he's talking into a phone.

  “Yes, he is really dead. Yes.” There's a brief pause, during which I hear the click of a cigarette lighter. With the gun still in my hand, I train my eyes on the boards to my right, the part of the porch that separates us from our pursuer, but I can’t see him. Can only hear him. “Yes, we are hunting them like dogs.” Another pause. The man laughs. I smell cigarette smoke. “I don't know about the clinic. It's supposed to be the Virgin's place.”

  I'm going cross-eyed trying to look through the boards when all of a sudden, I feel Meredith's body shaking against mine. I wish so badly that I could reach my arm back and hold her hand—or something—but it would be stupid to let go of the gun. I turn my body slightly sideways, trying to lean into her, but it doesn't work. We're too cramped. I can't move.

  Damnit, she's starting to cry. I can hear her small, wet breaths.

  “I got to do a walk around this house,” the guy is saying. Pause. “Oh, you want to blow me instead? How about I come over as soon as I’m done here and bring some of my tar?” Another pause. Merri's body is shaking so much now I decide to tuck the gun into my boot. “Then we plot how we will get the power.” The man laughs as I turn, with effort, to face Meredith.

  “From my cock,” I hear the guy say with a chuckle.

  With a final glance above me, at the hatch door, and just a breath of nervous hesitation, I wrap my right arm around the woman crouching behind me and bring her head to my shoulder.

  She's still shaking. I lean against her, just a little, and she wraps an arm around my waist and buries her face in my throat.

  It's okay, Merri. It's okay.

  Beneath my concern for the woman I'm supposed to be saving, I'm tense with wondering if the dude will come and find us, but then I hear him say “fuck it,” and I hear a stomp that I assume is hombre putting out his cigarette.

  Hail Mary, that would be some f-ing awesome luck.

  And then his car door slams, the engine purrs, and he drives off.

  I'm still shaking minutes after Tito drives away, and my savior’s arm is still around my back. I squeeze my eyes shut and take a big, deep breath, grateful that I'm not alone in this. I'm grateful for all of half a minute, and then I shove the stranger away.

  I reach around him to throw the trap door open, and as soon as the moonlight beams down on us, my terror and fear bubble up, and all of a sudden I'm furious.

  “Do you know what you did tonight? You killed Jesus!”

  The guy frowns, looking pensive as he holds onto the walls to keep his balance in the cramped space. “It’s been mentioned.”

  “Do you know what this means for me? It means I'll never, ever, ever get out of this country in one piece! Neither will you! We're fucked! I'm sorry I don't curse usually, but when there's only one word that works you have to use that word and we are fucked! Royally fucked!” I storm up through the trap door and fall onto the porch, belatedly realizing that I'm crying again.

  The guy is right behind me. His hand is on my back. I swat it off and stumble to my feet.

  “What's your big plan? I hope it involves a helicopter or a tank because otherwise we're going in an unmarked grave!” I cover my face, crying again, almost hysterical. “And the clinic...”

  It's my fault. It's all my stupid, selfish fault.

  I shove him in the chest. “What's your plan?” Before he can answer, I throw up my hands. “What's your fracking name?”

  “You said fracking.” His eyebrow arches.

  “Yes, I did. So the frack what?”

  “I love Battlestar.”

  “I don't see how that matters.”

  I turn away from him, because all I can think about in this second is that if I'd just gone with Jesus, probably no one would be dead. There's a chance he might have killed me just to make a point, but there’s a chance he might not have. Jesus liked me. He might have forgiven me, and there would have been no blood shed. No dead kids. No one in danger.

  “It doesn't matter,” the guy says with a shrug of his should
er. “But it's cool.”

  “Who are you?” I put my hand on my hip. “I want to know, for real this time.”

  He reaches down into his boot to get the gun, pointing it at the ground as he raises up to face me again. “Evan. Does that help?”

  “Not at all.” I slump down on the stairs. “Who do you work for, Evan?”

  “I already told you—a company that finds missing people.”

  And at that, he turns away, scanning the yard for something, then cursing. He lopes down the stairs and through the mess of junk, and I realize as he reaches the bike that the metal piece that holds the front wheel onto the rest of the frame is bent.

  “Motherfucking hell.”

  I'm right behind him, not sure if I'll cry this time or sock him in the nose.

  “Can you fix that?” I snap.

  I want him to say 'no', to tell me that we're screwed. That we're fracked. I want to give up hope, because it would be so much easier to just give up when I know there really isn’t any hope.

  Instead, he crouches beside it, running his hand along the metal rod. He flicks a glance at me. “I'm sure I can.”

  “Of course. What can't you do?”

  He grins a little. “Nothing. Actually,” he says, as he stands the bike up, “I couldn't slow us down a little while ago without knocking us both off. I'm sorry about that.” He looks like he might say something else, but instead he opens a big, leather pack attached to the back of the bike and starts to pull out tools.

  That's when I notice something: he doesn't use his left hand—at all. He spreads his tools out on the ground, laying each one down with his right.

  The night breeze plays through my hair and my eyes fill up with tears again. How long has it been since I've felt a breeze? Since I've seen the moon without the barrier of a window? I look up at it, feeling so many things, and wondering how long do I have to see it now, before the cartel finds us?