by Kade, Teagan
“Don’t worry,” I continue, “I’ve got somewhere we can go, but we’ll need to leave now.”
I take her face by the chin, directing her eyes to mine when I see them shift away to survey the damage. “It’s just stuff, okay? Stuff can be replaced. You cannot.”
That gets through. I see some of that tiger spirit I saw earlier at the airfield return to her eyes. “Okay,” she repeats.
I know whoever did this could come back anytime. Hell, they might even be watching us right now, watching the building.
There’s no time to pack. As calmly as possible, I rush us down the stairs, stopping at my mailbox on the lower level and taking out my key. I open it and take the envelope from inside, the envelope containing all the notes Winter wrote about the cartel’s operation. I figured it would be the safest place for it, thought somewhere way back in my head this might happen. That’s part of being a lifeguard. You’ve got to anticipate conditions, to think ahead.
I’m about to lead us out the front doors when I think better of it.
“We’ll go out the side, through the garage,” I announce. “Just in case.”
“Are we going to be okay?” Winter asks.
I nod, opening the door leading to the basement. “We’ll be just fine.”
But in reality, I’m not so sure.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
WINTER
If the threat wasn’t real before, seeing Archer’s apartment tossed like that brings it into perfect, terrifying focus. They were so close.
The first thing Archer did was leave his cell there. He bought another from a service station, said he was lucky he had a head for phone numbers.
Day has turned to night and everything somehow seems sharper, more dangerous. I keep checking the side mirror expecting to see a suspicious car there, the cartel come to claim me back.
Have I thought about going to Archer’s police friend? Of course I have. After all, Archer said I could trust him, but back in Cuba the police were as corrupt as the cartel members themselves—often worse because they were already in a position of power, basically untouchable. The whole thing makes me sick to my stomach.
Archer has been quiet as we drive. From time to time he’ll reach across and stroke my cheek, squeeze my leg in reassurance, and while I do feel safer with him, losing this second skin of unease I’m wearing is proving impossible.
Two hours of driving and the lights of Miami are left behind for a complete sort of darkness only the countryside can provide. But this is unlike any countryside I’ve known. The foliage is thick, an earthy smell creeping into the cabin of the truck as we work our way deeper into what Archer tells me are the Everglades.
Finally, we turn down a narrow single-lane dirt road flanked by tall, twisting trees, moonlight flashing between them. Another ten minutes bumping and rolling along, what sounds like a stick stuck in the undercarriage, we reach our destination.
Archer brings the truck to a stop, the headlights illuminating a small log cabin that looks direct from Deliverance. Without the sound of the engine and tires, you can hear the swamp—the calls and whistles of strange creatures in the night.
Archer’s still holding the steering wheel, staring at it. “It’s not much, I know, but it’s completely off the grid. We’ll be safe here.”
“Is the cabin yours?” I ask.
“It was my grandfather’s, actually. He lived here for almost thirty years after his wife died, went walking one day out in the swampland and never came back. They think the gators took him, but no one knows for sure.”
“That’s not helping.”
He attempts a smile, switching off the headlights. “You’re right. I’m sorry, but it has a bit of hillbilly charm to it, right? It’ll be like an adventure.”
“But we can’t stay here forever, hiding,” I protest.
“Just until I can come up with a plan,” he says, opening his door and starting to step out.
I pop my door open and join him outside. The air is thick and muggy, heavy humidity that feels like a blanket wrapping around you wherever you walk.
He points to the cabin. “You can go on. It’s unlocked. There’s a gas lantern just as you walk past the door, a bunch of firewood out back if you want to get it started.”
I smile and try to remember his words: It will be like an adventure.
I look around and realize he’s right. There’s no way the cartel’s going to be able to find us here. It really is the middle of nowhere, so deep and far in the sticks not even a satellite could find it.
Archer squats down next to the rear wheel of his truck, looking under the wheel arch. “I’m just going to see if I find the damn stick we picked up on the way.”
“Sounded more like the whole tree,” I note.
I leave him to it and head inside, finding the gas lantern and turning it on. It slowly lights what is a small but cozy space. It’s not going to win any interior design awards, but it’s far more well-furnished than it appears from the outside.
I’m about to head out back when the front door bursts open, Archer standing there, his face white.
“What is it?” I ask, whipping around.
He holds up something in his fingers. It’s small and black, looks a bit like a garage door remote with a single, blinking red LED. “We’ve got to go.”
“Is that a…”
“I think it’s a tracking device, yes. Someone planted it under the wheel arch. If it wasn’t for that fucking stick… but we need to go, and we need to go now.”
We just got here, I want to say, almost too tired to move again, but I know every second counts.
I nod and we both race back to the truck, Archer throwing the tracker into the scrub.
We both swing inside the truck cabin simultaneously, Archer turning the engine over and a rooster-tail of dirt flying up from the back of the truck as we do a full one eighty and skid back towards the one-way road we came in on.
Archer’s breathing harder than normal. “I don’t know how good the signal is. It might have dropped out around here. Still,” he says, “we’ve got to move.” He slams his foot down, the truck fish-tailing down the road.
That safety net is gone and familiar dread worms its way right back into my gut.
We’re five minutes down the road when I spot lights in the distance, coming the other way. I point. “Look.”
Archer slams on the brakes, clouds of dust washing forward, lighting up the headlight beams. “Shit. It’s got to be them.”
“What do we do?” I ask frantically. “We can’t go back. It’s a dead end.”
I can tell Archer’s thinking, tapping into that well-practiced calm his job demands. “Hang on,” he says, throwing the truck into reverse and turning the wheel hard, the truck leaving the road and crashing through the scrub to the side.
I look out the window and see the lights getting closer, moving fast.
Archer settles the truck about ten feet from the road, moving back until the truck won’t go any further, and cuts the headlights, the din of the swamp returning.
All we can do is wait.
They’re going to see us, I think. They’re going to see us and we’ll be dead. My father is going to lose his only child.
As if reading my thoughts, Archer reaches across and takes my hand. “We’re going to get out of this. You understand?”
I nod.
The lights get brighter and then suddenly overpowering, but when the vehicles arrive, plural, they blast right past where we’re sitting in the scrub, hidden from the road.
Archer waits until they’re gone, an excruciatingly long time. “Okay,” he says, turning the key and engine rumbling to life ahead, “I figure we’ve got maybe five, ten minutes to haul ass out of here.”
“And then what?” I ask.
He shrugs. “I’ve got no fucking idea.”
I’m thrown back against my seat again as the truck drives out of our little hidey hole, swinging back onto the single-lane road, a steely det
ermination settling on Archer’s face as we make our escape.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
ARCHER
I look over to where Winter’s asleep against the passenger window, passing cars illuminating her on and off.
It’s tearing me up. I’m doing my best to keep her safe, but it seems like a losing battle. It seems the more I try to help the further I’m digging us down into the shit.
If I’m honest with myself, I don’t know a way out of this. It’s us, the two of us, against one of the biggest drug cartels in the world, and they don’t fuck around when they want their property back.
Did you really think you could take them on? I ask myself. One guy against an army?
I tighten my grip on the steering wheel and concentrate on driving, just focus on the lines of the highway. Billboards and signs pass by, but I still don’t know where we’re headed. I keep a tight eye on the rear-view. I expected us to be followed, but so far I can’t pick up a tail.
I consider, for probably the tenth time in an hour, driving us straight to the police station and getting Liam involved, but I know if I did the trust Winter has so carefully placed in me will be lost. I’m not willing to put what I have built with her at jeopardy just yet.
There’s not going to be a relationship if she’s dead, my head interrupts bluntly.
The thought is too terrible to consider.
I check my watch. It’s just past midnight and I still don’t have a plan of action.
“Think, motherfucker, think,” I tell myself aloud. “You’ve got a brain. Fucking use it.”
I’m watching the lines in the road trail on to infinity when it comes to me.
At first the idea seems ludicrous, completely insane, but the more I think about it the more I realize it may be Winter’s only hope.
You can’t run, I tell myself. That guy I bumped into at the bus station, clearly one of the cartel heavies, he just missed her. They must have pinned her on the security cameras near the station somehow, which is a pretty fucking good indication of their reach.
An exit looms up and I take it, heading us back towards Miami.
*
I reach across and shake Winter lightly. “Winter, baby. Wake up.”
She stirs and sniffs, wild-eyed as she looks around.
I place my hand on her knee. “It’s okay.”
“Where are we?” she asks. “Are we back in Miami?” she adds with increasing nervousness.
She sees Robbie leaning on against the driver’s window sill looking in.
“Hey,” he says. “Nice night, isn’t it?”
I give him the you-fucking-asshat look and turn back to Winter. “You’re going to stay with Robbie for a bit at his place while I go sort something out.”
She looks scared. “Sort out what?”
“A way out of this. Trust me, okay?”
“I don’t bite,” adds Robbie.
It’s testament to my desperation I’d trust Robbie to look after the only woman I’ve ever cared about, but for all his testosterone-primed bravado and chest-beating, all that ‘pussy slaying,’ I’m pretty sure ol’ Robbie’s gayer than a rainbow-colored clutch. Not that he’d openly admit it. I’m pretty sure he’s so deep in the closest he’ll never find his way out.
“I won’t be long,” I tell her, squeezing her thigh. “Go on.”
“You’re not going to do anything stupid, are you?”
What I’m planning is basically stupidity personified, but I nod and smile. “I’ll be fine, baby.”
She leans across to kiss me and holy God above do I just want to stay here and take her in my arms, forget about everything. But I can’t.
She opens the passenger door, Robbie helping her out. I reach across and grab his shoulder, talking quietly. “You look after now, you hear?”
“Bro,” he smiles, “I’ve got this.”
All I can do is shake my head. “What the fuck am I doing?”
He shrugs in turn. “Beats me, but you make sure you come back, hear? I can’t be the only sexy lifeguard left on the beach.”
I can’t help but smile back, looking past him to where Winter stands on the sidewalk with her arms wrapped around herself.
I know if I don’t leave now I never will, so I take off as soon as Robbie closes the door, take off heading right into the viper’s pit.
*
A general rule about American cities: The nicer the suburb sounds, the worse it is. Such is the case with Liberty City, the Airport Expressway to the south and I-95 to the east. It’s a fucking rat’s nest of crime and poverty best avoided twenty-four seven.
The Encantado bar is well-known for being a Lacoya hot spot. It’s common knowledge to anyone who’s lived in the area. I pull up on the other side of the road and cut the gas.
There was one thing I took from the apartment when Winter wasn’t looking. I check my pocket to make sure it’s still there and pull in a deep breath.
I stare across the road.
Fuck this. I’d rather jump into a tank of sharks.
I look at the shady characters hanging outside.
You are, I realize.
It doesn’t get any better inside. The place is loaded with gang-bangers and low-lives. As I walk in, I swear every eye is on me as I make my way to the bar. Shitty narcocorrido plays from tinny speakers mounted in the walls, the paint peeling, the stench of stale alcohol almost overpowering.
I reach the bar unscathed and get the attention of the barkeep, a leather-vested Danny Trejo lookalike who probably doesn’t even know what a smile is.
I come right out with it, keeping my voice a little louder than it should be. “I need to speak to someone who’s in Lacoya, someone with clout. I’ve got an important offer.”
He whistles, stepping back from the bar. I swear the music drops. “My friend, you got a fucking death wish? Coming in here with your big, fat American balls doing what? Slumming? Looking for some blow?”
No use beating around the bush. “I’ve got Serpiente’s girl. I’m pretty sure he’d like to hear about that.”
At the mention of Serpiente, the barkeep tightens his lips and flicks his eyes towards a shadowy figure at the end of the bar.
“That guy?” I point, but my question’s answered when the man that was pointed out stands and approaches me, the guy who was sitting beside me standing to give him his seat. Unlike most in the bar, this individual is well-dressed, with leather shoes, clean shaven… He looks more like a banker than someone who’s deep in the Cartel.
“Speak,” he says, “and be clear.”
I settle myself before I talk. “I have Serpiente’s girl, the one he lost a few days ago off the coast. I want to buy her, settle any debts. Tell him I’m the lifeguard who found her.”
The man provides no hints as to his thoughts on this. “Is that so?”
“Can you relay that to him, or do I need to find someone else who has his ear, someone with actual connections?”
Now the fucker smiles, standing. “Give me a moment.” He clicks his fingers at the barkeeper, who slides a shot of what looks like rum in front of me. “Drink, friend. It might be your last.”
I swig it down fast. It’s more like rocket fuel than liquor.
I watch the man in charge talk quietly on his cell in the corner, looking in my direction from time to time. When he snaps the cell shut and walks back over, he’s flanked by two large gentleman who were previously watching the door. Once more, every eye seems to be upon us.
I’m starting to doubt myself. Did I really think they’d go for this?
“What are you prepared to offer?” the man asks, standing before me.
I try not to swallow. “Fifty large. I’m not well-versed in human trafficking, but that seems like fair compensation.”
I’ve got the money. That’s not a problem. Years serving this country saw to that. I can go up to a hundred if I need to, but after that I’m all out.
“She means something to you, this girl, Serpiente’s prop
erty, as you said?”
I don’t like the clarification. “Are we talking business or not?”
The man brings up a finger. “This is what Serpiente is counter-offering: You give her to us, now, peacefully, and we don’t cut off your balls.”
I should have expected this. What did I seriously fucking think was going to happen? They’d take my money, give me a receipt, and I’d go happily on my way?
I chastise myself. Stupid. Fucking Stupid.
Still, I try. “A hundred,” I offer, “but that is final. Go, tell him.”
His finger waves from side to side in front of me. “Uh, uh. You don’t come in here ordering me around like a fucking puto.”
I throw my hands up. “Fine. The deal’s fucking off. He knows where I am if he wants to talk.”
I go to walk out, need to get out, but I’m blocked by a bunch of men who stand up from the bar. The whole place seems to tighten around me.
Fuck.
Was she really worth dying for? I ask myself, but the answer is unequivocally ‘yes.’ I had to try, to do fucking something. I knew the only thing the cartel would be interested in would be money, but it seems like even that isn’t enough. I hoped Winter would be just another girl to Serpiente, an easy sell, but it appears I’m not the only person she’s won over. Or maybe it’s more. Maybe they know she knows too much. Maybe they can’t afford to have her running around out there. I hadn’t even considered her father, how they could play him into all of this.
No, you didn’t think at all, did you?
“I’m sorry, my friend,” says the man in charge, “but we can’t let you leave before you tell us what we need to know.”
I have to play my hand, and I have to play it fucking now. I reach into my pocket and pull out the grenade I took from the apartment, holding it aloft so everyone can see. With a flick I pop out the pin, squeezing the trigger tight. In a perfect show of theatrics, the pin lands right in front of Pretty Boy.
“Get the fuck back!” I yell. “Get back or I swear to Christ I’ll send us all to kingdom come.”