She hurried past him and whispered, “thank you,” before stepping inside her sons’ room and locking the door behind her.
Chapter 42
Rani
Rani heard Medina’s car trekking up the gravel and into the driveway. She heard the last gasp of the engine and then a door falling closed, then another. She crawled across the mattress to the window and searched for Jax through the glass. But then she saw the woman, older than the others, a scarf hanging down the harsh slope of her back.
From the top of the stairs Rani watched Medina lead her to a chair in the corner of the room. She searched her face, waiting to catch sight of that familiar dark blush, a scar, a scab, a bruise. But there was nothing. Not that she could see.
The old woman sat there, quiet for a long time, her own eyes flitting from face to face. A shadow brushed across her pallid skin, settling into the deep folds beneath her eyes. She was looking at Camilla, her gaze shifting from that slight dip of her lip to Veronica’s wiry frame in the doorway, shoulders jutting and sharp beneath her thin t-shirt.
The old woman slept there in that chair close to the door, her shadow shuddering against the wall as Rani came down the stairs in the middle of the night. The moment Rani saw her she slowed, maneuvering her weight on silent steps. She watched her own silhouette swelling along the kitchen floor and used the moonlight sifting in from the small window as her guide.
She stepped into the kitchen and saw Camilla, her hands pressed to the glass. The tile let out a faint creak and Camilla turned, body tensed at the sound. But when she saw that it was Rani she shifted, sharing the window. Rani joined her and when she peered through the glass she saw Veronica down on the beach again.
“How long has she been out there?” Rani asked.
“I’m not sure.”
“How long have you been awake?”
“Days,” Camilla said.
Rani looked at her. “I’m sorry.”
They heard the front door push open and there was Medina, another pale stranger following behind him. Rani couldn’t make out her face but the moonlight was still tousled in her blonde hair, phosphorescent strands in a tangle over her shoulder. Camilla sunk behind Rani, watching the girl. But Rani wasn’t moved. It wasn’t Jax. To Rani it was just another set of dark eyes, another voice to testify against Pascual.
“Where is he?” Rani said.
“Jax.” Medina paused. “He’s alright.”
“Are you done with him yet?”
Rani waited and Medina finally inhaled but she was already feeling for the door handle, springing it open. As she trudged down the beach she felt Camilla close behind her, each step she took sending a spray across Rani’s calves. She tried not to think about the strange girl back in the kitchen, the strange girl in front of her, another following behind.
There was something manufactured about their similarities, parallels so exact that it made Rani feel more like a piece of evidence than a witness. It made her feel disposable—reminded her that she was and it reminded her that what had happened to her in the attic above that record store was the same thing that had happened to Veronica in a farmhouse just outside the city, the same thing that had happened to Camilla in an apartment in Honduras, the same thing that happened to that girl in the kitchen in some part of the world so bright that the sun still clung to her hair.
And it would happen again.
Rani sat down next to Veronica, her knee brushing the side of her leg. But she didn’t flinch, not even when Camilla reached for her hand, fingers climbing to where it was hidden inside her jacket sleeve. And the three of them sat there, shoulders touching, waiting out the darkness until the sun was a dark red vein pulsing on the horizon.
Chapter 43
Jax
Pascual and Marcum were gone for most of the day leaving Jax with only the warning to stay put. He watched them go until he couldn’t read the license plate anymore and they were turning onto the highway. Then he waited. It was almost three but with all of the recent foot traffic Alana had been staying in her room until her sons came home from school. They would be there soon and Jax knew she would come out to meet them at the bus stop.
In the silence of the afternoon Jax sat on the arm of the couch, hands sweating as he waited for the low rumble of the bus’ engine to pull onto their street. Then he heard the soft click of the door to Alana’s bedroom and she was walking past him, glancing around the empty room before heading out the front door.
When Marcum’s nephews were back in their room Alana ventured into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water. She downed it in three long gulps before tipping the glass under the spout to refill it again and Jax wondered how long she’d been waiting to have something to drink. He watched her lean against the kitchen counter and then she finally faced him.
“I haven’t seen anything on the news.” Her voice was soft with a hint of accusation.
“On the news?” Jax said.
“I thought you said the police were listening.”
“They are. They were. They haven’t found anything yet but they’re looking.”
She took another drink, watching the empty street through the window.
“They wanted me to ask you something,” Jax said.
Alana’s eyes drew to his chest as if the police weren’t just listening in on them through a wire but they were actually there in the room. “Ask me what?”
“They wanted me to ask you about Melissa Cavarón.”
“Marcum didn’t do that.”
Jax was jolted by her reply, a hint of malice in it.
“Why would you ask me about that?” she said. Jax opened his mouth to speak but she stopped him. “I told you everything I could about the things Marcum’s done. Why would you ask me about a crime your brother committed?”
“They don’t have any proof.”
And fallibly Jax heard the same harsh inflection in his own voice that he’d heard in Alana’s, the sort of rehearsed truth you would hear from a sibling trying to protect the brother they loved. But Alana hated her brother almost as much as Jax hated his.
Jax lowered his voice. “Did Marcum ever say anything to you about it? Maybe he and Pascual talked about it over the phone.”
“He does most of his business over the phone. I usually never know who he’s talking to.”
“What about when it was all over the news? I know it was a long time ago but do you remember anyone saying anything about it, about how she died or who might have done it?”
“I don’t. But maybe…”
“What?” Jax waited, hoping she’d remembered something.
“Maybe it’s not me you should be asking these questions. Maybe it’s you.”
***
They finally picked Jax up just before sunset and he watched as highway signs and rusting freight cars and sunken fence posts sprang up along the road he and Marcum had travelled just a few nights before. They came to a warehouse almost a mile back from the main road and Marcum and Chavo stepped out of the idling car and up to the steel walls of the building.
Suddenly they began to split down the middle, dark interior expanding and concave like the hard belly of an insect. Silhouettes peeled from the darkness—Calvin Reyes, Nuncio Canez, Rodrigo Morales, Jose Villalovos—Jax ticked off the names until faces started to emerge that he didn’t recognize.
The car’s headlights shot a straight beam that severed the room in half, both sides flanked with men in thick black coats. The glare was so bright that it took Jax a few minutes before he spotted Ivan, slumped down in a chair inches from the car’s grill, bloody shirt warped against his skin.
Jax could feel his resolve waning and he knew he didn’t have much time. Something bad was about to happen, something he was going to have to just stand back and watch. Pascual wasn’t putting on this big of a production for nothing. He was putting it on for Toly, for every rival gang leader in the city, for every cop that wasn’t on his payroll yet, every city official that dared chal
lenge him in a press release.
He was going to make sure Jax played a role in it too. Jax knew he’d been waiting to test him. There was no way he could avoid being caught in the cross hairs. Jax sat there, unmoving, trying to calculate the right moment to run, to abandon Pascual, Medina, everything. Then Pascual slapped him across the shoulder.
“Get out,” he said.
Jax stepped out of the car and when Pascual followed the glow of the headlights up an exposed metal staircase, Jax let the darkness swallow him, his steps silent, calculated, constantly moving toward some invisible exit that he hoped existed. The doors slid closed again and there was a loud buzzing as a few overhead lights started to flicker on. There were still a few pockets of darkness but where Jax stood, at the base of another set of stairs, he was completely exposed, his only potential trajectory being up.
He couldn’t just stand there. He had to move. But everything and everyone was completely still. They were waiting for something. A deep rumble surrounded the building, the mechanic sounds ricocheting off the steel walls until Jax had to cover his ears. Something slammed into the doors, splitting the metal seam a few inches, just wide enough for Jax to make out another pair of headlights. There was another car fighting to barrel its way in.
But the echo of the engine was too loud to be just one. There was another loud crack and it was as if the doors just fell away. Toly was in the flood of his headlights, his pale skin glowing, red lips fixed in a smirk. He tossed up a hand and yelled something in Russian. A moment later the cacophony of rumbling engines started to fade out.
Pascual’s voice bellowed down from the metal catwalk over their heads, every heave of his chest causing it to sway. Jax could barely make out the words. The blood rushing between his ears was all he could hear. Jax set the fire at the hideout. That was why they were there. He reached for the railing, holding himself up.
At the sight of Toly, Ivan twisted, biting the piece of cloth tied over his mouth, kicking at the legs of his chair. Chavo knocked him in the side of the head so hard that he slumped forward, a loud groan swelling behind his gag.
“What the fuck is this?” Toly spat, flinging an arm toward Ivan.
“You tried to kill me,” Pascual said, his voice low and placid.
A string of laughter rose up in the darkness behind Toly.
“Are you fucking crazy?” he said. He turned to his counterparts and shook his head. “You want to accuse me of something like this? You got some kind of death wish? If I wanted you dead, your fucking entrails would be wrapped around your throat.”
Pascual nodded once and one long wail escaped from the invisible rafters above his head. There was a scraping sound like someone’s boot grating along the braided metal floor of the catwalk and catching on the holes. The sound disappeared beneath a hollow whistle followed by the grinding tumble of tracks before the rope stopped short and a dark mass tumbled out of the sky. The body hung there, not yet dead, every jerking limb sending it spiraling until it was wound so tight that it had nowhere to go but in reverse.
Someone shouted from the darkness beyond the headlights but Toly didn’t breathe a word. He was shaking, blood boiling and rising to the surface. He took in a deep breath and let out a yell, the metal walls ringing, and every man poised a finger on the trigger of his gun.
Toly’s eyes scanned the room, marking each barrel pointed at his face and the man that held it.
“Enough,” he yelled at Pascual, the words so swollen with rage that they tripped over his lips and flew across the room in a thick spray.
Jax felt the urge to look at his brother but he couldn’t move, his eyes fixed on Toly and the invisible line of barrels he knew was poised behind him. He tried to count the silhouettes but there were too many.
“Don’t say another fucking word,” Pascual threw back.
“Go fuck yourself,” Toly yelled.
Pascual drew down his chin and the rumbling started again, another chain passing through the metal track that jutted out from the darkness. Another body unfurled from the shadows, stopping with a loud gasp. Pascual nodded again and another one of Toly’s men was tossed out into nothing, the force of the fall severing his neck to the bone. As he swung there, a pendulum of flesh and bone, blood spilled from the gash in his throat, from behind his yellowed teeth, and down from his nose.
Toly flung up a hand, a few stray drops landing against his skin. Jax watched as each backswing sent more sputtering down like rain, dripping a snaking trail around Ivan’s crumpled body below.
“Fucking shoot—” Toly yelled. But before he could finish a bullet sliced through his cheek, peeling away the flesh and sending the shattered bone to the floor like glass.
He fell back, cupping his face as a couple of skinheads dragged him behind the car’s open door. Jax looked up and saw Pascual slipping from the walkway overhead, his body tumbling forward as he reached for something Jax couldn’t see.
Jax stood frozen at the bottom of the stairs as bodies pushed past him, everyone moving forward, moving toward the oncoming bullets, but him. He stooped down low and let the other bodies’ shield him from Toly’s men but the crowd was too alive, everything too chaotic. Every few seconds he was exposed and he saw Toly’s men moving closer.
Chavo’s brother Ignacio slumped back on the steps, almost pinning Jax to the floor beneath his weight. He moaned, blood dribbling from his lips.
“T-take this,” he said, handing Jax his magnum.
Jax hesitated at first, his head snapping in all directions, his eyes trying to part the sea of bodies to reveal an exit.
“Fucking take it,” Ignacio spat at him.
Jax reached for the gun and held it out in front of him. He rose to the balls of his feet and hovered there until he spotted one of Toly’s men lying on his back in a pool of his own blood, his gun trained on Jax’s chest. Jax started to run but the bullet clipped his shoulder and he fell to the floor. Someone put a heel in the man’s chest and the barrel of a gun to his forehead. There was a fiery crack and the man was still.
Julian pulled Jax to his feet and led him through a maze of wooden crates and metal tanks. A large figure came hurdling down one of the dark makeshift corridors and slammed into Jax, sending both of them into a pile of splintered wood. The man struggled to roll back onto his feet, but when he did Jax felt the warm blood pooling under his shirt.
He reached for the wound and the blade gripped in the man’s hand took another swipe. Jax reeled back, kicking at the air until the tip ripped at the thin fabric of his shirt, barely missing his flesh. That’s when Jax remembered the gun, gripped so tightly in his fist that it was numb.
He anchored it against his ribs and pulled the trigger. A bullet lodged in the man’s hip but he didn’t slow, he didn’t hesitate. He threw his entire body on top of Jax and drilled the knife into his side. Jax tried to breathe, he tried to move his arms, but he was slipping, down from the sloping wooden crates, into the dark corner of the maze and out of his body.
He clenched his fists, squeezing the gun as hard as he could, pulling the trigger, though the barrel was buried beneath them, the trajectory of the bullet unknown. There was a gasp, a burning blast, and then Jax let the cold take him.
Part IV
Chapter 44
Jax
Jax felt the unforgiving pull of hands, of flesh clawing across his flesh, and he wondered how they worked, unflinching against the burning, against the flames radiating from every inch of his skin. He wanted to yell, to tell them that they were hurting him. But he couldn’t breathe.
The air passed in half inch beats down through his nose, unable to reach his lungs on command. The blood drained from his rib cage and into his open hands lying at his sides, each drop falling cold as rain. Something sharp pricked his skin and a new burning, a fresh burning raged across chest, ripping the weakened flesh in two.
A burst of air pushed its way into his lungs and Jax’s eyes struggled to open. He peered through heavy lashes, past the welli
ng of his tears, and watched as Pascual cut him open.
A soft moan escaped from Jax’s chest and Pascual’s eyes, burning and red, met his own. He waited for some sort of validation to spring from his brother’s lips, some sort of promise, some sort of threat, all the while waiting for some sort of plea to escape from his own. But it didn’t come. No sound escaped either of them. Pascual held his brother’s gaze for only a moment before turning back toward the knife in his hand, back to where Jax lay bloody and mangled.
Jax could barely make out the rest of his body, or where he was, or that they were even moving. But when the car abruptly started to slow he flew forward into Pascual’s lap. The cold blade fell flat against Jax’s skin and Pascual pulled him up by the throat. Jax tried to move his arms, to reach for Pascual’s hands and pull himself from his grasp. But his eyes were falling closed again, his breathing starting to slow.
But before his eyes fell closed completely he saw a flesh colored string draped across Pascual’s lap. Then he felt the wire being strung around his neck, the thin plastic cutting into him until he tasted blood.
There was a rush of cold air and Jax’s brother lifted him off the seat, his bloody shirt falling to the floorboard as he pushed him out of the rolling car. Jax, his eyes pinned closed, scraped across the gravel road, tumbling end over end, his broken body picking up loose stones like a wave, scooping up every bit of sharp debris and carrying it in his skin until gravity let go of him and he grated to a stop.
***
Pascual had unloaded Jax’s body at the tip of Ivory Ridge, the low sloping face of a tunnel less than twenty yards from where Medina’s team was staked out in an abandoned hunter’s cabin during Pascual’s meeting with Toly. A spray of bullets across the cabin windows had announced his arrival but when an officer finally reached Jax’s unconscious body lying in the grass Pascual and Marcum were already gone.
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