by Karina Halle
“It doesn’t matter,” I spat out. “I guess you know about the plans for tonight?”
He smiled. “Yes, I do. And it’s perfect, Ellie, just perfect. This couldn’t work out better. Dinner. Food. Tonight is when you’ll do it.”
A wave of horror flashed through me like the lightning strikes outside. “When I do what?”
“When you kill Travis.”
My mouth dropped open and my hand automatically went to my necklace. “I am not doing it. I’m not killing him. I’m leading you to him. I’m working as a mole. I am not your assassin. I am not your weapon.”
“You’ve always been a weapon,” he said, coming closer and pulling something out of his pocket. “That’s what makes you and I so good. This time you’re the weapon and I’m the one holding the trigger.”
He brought out a necklace with silver angel wings as the pendant. He flicked the edge of it and the angel wings opened up, a locket. Inside was a tiny, tiny vial of powder.
“What is that?” I said, barely breathing.
“It’s poison,” he said matter-of-factly. “Tonight, you’ll put it in his food. He will die.”
“I … I can’t … I won’t. They’ll know I did it!”
“They won’t. I’ll be waiting for you outside, Ellie. I’ll be there.”
“No,” I shook my head. I wouldn’t do it. And though I could have pretended for the sake of pretending, to make things go easier, to get him out of here, I wanted to let him know that I wouldn’t. That he couldn’t make me do everything he asked. That I was stronger than he thought I was.
“This whole time,” I said sadly, “this was your plan, wasn’t it?”
He furrowed his brow. “It’s better this way, Ellie. You have to be the one to do it. It’s the only way you’ll get your revenge.”
“You need your revenge too.”
“Yours is more important.”
“Or maybe my life is more expendable than yours,” I said bitterly.
His face contorted like I had slapped him in the face. “How could you say that?”
I chewed my lip and held out my hand. “Just give me the damn necklace.”
“No, I’d rather put it on you,” he said reaching for the one around my neck.
“No!” I yelled, ripping out of his grasp. But it was too late. His hand closed around it and he ripped it off. He stared at the razor blade in his hand. The tracking device staring up at him.
Fear took a hard, sharp hold of every part of me.
His eyes burned, blazed, unable to accept what he was seeing.
“What is this?” he seethed, his face reddening.
I could have come up with a lie, if I really tried. But there were no lies left in me.
“What is this?” he screamed. He grabbed my face in his hands, squeezing my chin and my lips, the pressure burning against my bones. “Who gave you this? Tell me!”
“Or what?” I tried to say. “You’ll kill me?”
His eyes widened, all whites around the yellow-gold, his pupils black as night and mean as sin. His grip on my face became tighter and I started to squirm from the pain.
Finally he screamed, “Fuck!” and turned around kicking in the bathroom stall door. He spun around. “Where is he? Huh? Where is that tattooed motherfucker?”
I rubbed at my jaw, cowering away from him. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t fucking know!” he marched over to me and placed his hands at my throat, pressed me up against the wall. “How can you not know?!”
I took my hand and dug my nails into his palms, driving them down, making him bleed, staring right back at him, trying to fight through the air I was losing again. I would not lose again.
His eyes twitched as they searched my face, searching for the truth. When he realized he was already getting it, he released my neck and let me breathe again.
I took a moment to recover, swallowing painfully, and then said. “I don’t know where he is. And that’s the truth.”
He walked away, shaking out his shoulders, going in a circle around the room. The bathroom door jingled and he lifted his head and yelled, “Fuck right off!” He then turned to face me and instead of anger, his face was slack with something else … bitterness. Heartache, if he had a heart that could ache.
“Did you sleep with him?” he asked, voice barely above a whisper.
“What the hell is it with you men and sex?” I said. “Like who gets to fuck who really means anything. No, I didn’t sleep with him. Are you happy?”
He laughed caustically. “Am I happy? Oh, angel, my dirty, rotten, lying angel! No I am not happy. I won’t be happy until you do as I’ve told you.”
He came over to me and quickly put his hands around my neck. I thought he was going to try and strangle me again but he just put the angel locket around me then delicately straightened the pendant so it was resting on my collarbone.
“You have no idea,” he said, soft and hard all at once, eyes focused on the angel wings, “how badly I want you to hurt right now. Because I didn’t think you could ever hurt me again, not like you once did. But you have.” He lifted his eyes up to me. “You betrayed me when all I’ve done is give you my heart and promise you a new life.”
I couldn’t say anything to that bout of crazy. He pressed the pendant into me and walked away, shaking his head, holding up the razor blade necklace in one hand.
“Your Camden will be tracking me now instead of you – he’s going to get quite the surprise. And you’re going to do as I’ve told you. You’re going to go for dinner with Travis. You’re going to kill him.” He put his hand on the lock, then turned his head to the side, eyeing me. “Or I’ll kill your Camden, for real this time. I’ll deliver his head to your doorstep.”
He unlocked the door and stepped out into the café, leaving me alone in the bathroom, wondering how the hell I was going to get us all out of this alive.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CAMDEN
After Ellie had gotten ready for her meeting with Javier, and I’d spent a few minutes grappling with the urge to scream, I got out of the closet and very slowly, very carefully made my way back into the main part of the hotel.
Gus was in the room looking like utter shit. For once I got to tell him that. He hadn’t slept at all, waiting up all night for me. I think he thought for a moment that perhaps Ellie and I were making up for lost time but he figured out pretty quickly from my expression that it wasn’t the case. I had to say, he looked a bit disappointed, as if the crotchety old man had been rooting for us as a couple that whole time. I guess I had been rooting for us too.
I couldn’t dwell on that, I couldn’t think about it. I just had to keep going and stick to the new plan. We activated the tracking device on Gus’s phone and were able to see where she was on Google Maps. It was actually pretty relieving to follow that flashing blue dot as it made its way through the streets of Veracruz to the café.
“So she’s just meeting Javier?” he asked, after the blue dot had been immobile for quite a while.
I nodded. “As far as I know. She should be coming back here after to get ready for her dinner with Travis. I guess we should get going just before six. That way we can be out and ready to follow her.”
“I agree,” he said, his eyes on the flashing light. He frowned. “Hmmm.”
“What?” I leaned over and he showed me the screen. The blue dot was moving away from the café, in the opposite direction of the way she came. She was heading north and fairly fast, in a car, not on foot.
“What do you think that means?” I asked. “Do you think Javier is taking her somewhere?”
“Maybe. Or maybe it wasn’t Javier that asked her to meet him.”
I looked at him sharply. “Who, like Travis?”
Gus shrugged quickly. “I have no idea. I don’t think we can afford to sit here and speculate.”
He was right about that. We ran out of the hotel and into the car. Gus had taken back the GTO. No one had touched the thin
g and I couldn’t blame them – with her scratched sides and smashed side mirrors, she looked like she was destined for the trash heap. But I knew better – I knew what she was capable of and I knew that today we’d need her speed and handling more than anything.
“You think the cops are still looking for this?” I asked as we cruised along the streets, trying to get the car and the blue dot to match up. I wished I was the one behind the wheel but Gus had proven himself with the car so far.
“I doubt it,” he said. “Mexico is a big country and we could be anywhere. People disappear easily in a few days. We’ll still be careful.”
We followed the blue dot as it went north along the Fidel Velázquez Highway, getting further away from the city. I started to get a bad feeling about all of this, as the buildings became more and more industrial.
My shoulder started to ache, I was all tensed up. “I don’t know, Gus.”
He nodded. “I know. This isn’t right. Something’s wrong.”
“I think she’s in danger.”
He gave me a grim look. “That kid is always in danger.”
The blue dot finally came to a stop at the end of a long road that ended into what looked like nothing. Ten minutes later, we were approaching the blue light. Gus took the GTO down a street with a few empty warehouses flanking the sides. At the end of the road was an office building with broken windows and a handful of cars parked outside. That was where she had to be. Unfortunately the software didn’t allow us to get more details and triangulate her position any closer.
“Either Javier has her,” I said, watching the area carefully as Gus pulled to the side of the road, a few yards away. “Or shit has hit the fan with Travis. How many guns do we need?”
Gus exhaled. “Whatever it is, I hope it’s enough.” He turned in his seat and started pulling them out of the bag in the backseat.
“This might hurt for a second,” he said and suddenly jammed my gun into the sling. Pain shot up my arm like rocket ships. “But it’s a good place for it.”
I winced, tears in my eyes, and looked down. He had placed it underneath my arm. No one could see it. “Fine. Give me two more as decoys.”
He handed me too small revolvers, I stuck one in my waistband and held the other one in my hand. That morning I’d put a knife in my sock.
Thunder rumbled in the distance as I eyed the Coffee Mate. “Think it’ll work a second time?”
“Don’t even think about,” he told me. He shoved a gun in his waistband and took another one to his lips kissing it. “Maybe this baby will get to see some action.” He smiled and then the smile went out of his eyes. I knew how he felt. There would be blood. I couldn’t let myself hesitate even once when it came to pulling the trigger, when it came to saving Ellie.
“Alright,” I said, giving him a heavy nod. “Let’s go see what trouble we’ll get ourselves into.”
We got out of the car and started hurrying down the sidewalk, guns to our sides, trying to be fast and inconspicuous all at once. It wasn’t easy, though there was no one on this dead end street. Heavy drops of rain began to fall from the sky. I was grateful for something to distract me from my nerves that were buzzing through me.
We were almost at the building, heading toward the side to see if we could see in the windows when I heard a gun being cocked. I knew that sound wasn’t necessary – it was there to make a point. To let us know we’d been caught.
Gus and I froze at the sound, making split second decisions in our heads. We had no choice but to turn around and see.
We did.
Javier was a few feet behind us, on the road, gun pointed at my head. Beside him was Raul, his gun aimed at Gus.
“Buenos dias, gringos,” Javier said with a smile. “Kindly drop your fucking guns and put your hands up or I’ll blow your heads right the fuck off.”
Gus and I exchanged a look. Defeat.
We did as we were told.
Javier waved his gun at us. “And kick it over, you know how this goes.”
I kicked mine angrily, as did Gus, guns clattering across the cracked pavement.
“Now,” Javier said, walking toward me, moving like a snake. I half expected his tongue to come shooting out, forked at the end. “I am going to frisk you for the rest of your weapons.” He stopped right in front of me, lips pressed together in a tight smile. “Try not to enjoy it too much.”
I closed my eyes, breathing in deeply through my nose, trying to dispel the anger that was punching me in the gut, in my lungs, in my chest. That rage would come in handy right about now, but rage acted without thought and I needed to play this next part so damn well or Ellie would be lost to me forever.
I almost controlled it but when Javier’s hands got to my family jewels and he groped around them and said, “I can see why Ellie chose me. My balls are bigger,” I let that rage out for just one second.
I spat right in his face. Well, since I was a lot taller, it kind of went on his forehead and trickled down into his eyes. I grinned at him, enjoying the look of revulsion and fury that flashed through him.
“Fucking pansy,” he sniped and then took his gun and jabbed the butt of it right into the bullet hole on my shoulder.
Everything went fuzzy and black and I could barely keep my lunch down. I collapsed to my knees and spat out bile, the pain overtaking me, ruling me.
Then Javier kicked me in the shoulder, same spot, and I rolled over onto my back, the waves of pain being comforted by swells of unconsciousness. Then I remembered Gus standing beside me, and Ellie and I knew I had to do what I could to stay awake and stay alive, pain or no pain.
I remained on my back breathing hard until he reached down and ripped me back up until I was on my feet, swaying unsteadily.
“Hey now,” he said, lightly slapping my face until my eyes were open. “Hey Camden, hey Camden, you better stay awake. I am just getting started here with you both.”
Javier glared at Gus while Raul started scooping up the guns they found on us. They hadn’t found the one in my sling. I wanted to look at Gus to see if he had noticed but I wasn’t about to give anything away.
“I didn’t think I’d see you ever again,” Javier said to him, frowning and seeming a bit uneasy. “You’re one of the few good ones left in her life.”
I raised my brows and swallowed away the residue of pain. “You two know each other?” I tried to hide the surprise in my voice but I couldn’t hide much of anything, except my gun.
Gus was watching Javier, not me. The old man never looked so angry.
“No,” Javier said slowly, carefully. “I’d only heard about him. You’re a famous man in the Watt circle.”
“And so are you,” Gus grunted.
Javier tapped his gun against his leg, seeming to think. “I suppose it’s better they think something of me than nothing at all. They are here, you know. Her parents.”
That was news to me but it wasn’t the news I wanted. “Where is Ellie?”
Just then another man came around the corner, someone I didn’t recognize, holding a gun to his side.
Javier glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “What is it, Peter?” he asked testily.
Peter glanced at Gus and I, then said to Javier, “Travis Raines is having a dinner party tonight.”
Javier’s brow scrunched up. “What?”
“At his house,” Peter added for effect. “Ellie isn’t going out for dinner, she’s going there. To his house. To the compound.”
Whatever this meant to Javier, this was bad news. And if it was bad news for Javier, it was probably bad news for Ellie too. I looked at Gus who had an enlightened yet miserable expression on his face.
“Oh shit,” Gus grumbled.
Javier’s eyes were wild, thoughts spinning, and he nodded ever so slightly at Gus, as if he understood what Gus was realizing.
“What the fuck is going?” I said, wanting an explanation.
Javier shot me a look and swallowed hard, worry furrowing his face. A loo
k I’d never seen on him. The look was gone quickly.
“Ellie,” he said slowly, looking back to Gus, “will be at Travis’s tonight. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to get in there without a fight. The place will have heightened security who, I’m sure, could possibly find the cyanide capsule on her necklace.”
Her necklace. Of course. Javier had given her one and taken the razor blade with the tracking device. Cyanide. He was getting her to kill him tonight.
“Her parents are there. They work for Travis now.” Javier looked up at the sky and rubbed the side of his face. “They’ll see Ellie. And her cover will be blown.” He brought his head back down to face me. “She’s as good as dead.”
And you put her in her grave, was all I could think. You set her up to fail from the beginning.
“So what the fuck are you going to do now?” I asked, spitting out the words. “You’re just going to leave her there?”
Javier narrowed his eyes into reptilian slits. “I don’t know what choice I have. We can hope for the best.”
“And to think, you thought you were good enough for her,” Gus said, shaking his head at Javier with disappointment.
Javier whipped his head around and shoved his gun in Gus’s face, right up under his chin. “You don’t know anything, old man,” he sneered. “You don’t get a chance to interfere in her life, you gave that up. I don’t want to kill you because I know what you are and how much you mean to her, so don’t you fucking piss me off!”
My eyes were drawn to Javier and Gus, wondering what the fuck Javier was talking about, so I barely had time to realize what was going on. Raul now had his gun raised at Javier’s head and Peter was reaching for his own gun, perhaps to protect him. But the movement from Peter was enough to bring Raul’s gun to him. Raul pulled the trigger, blasting Peter in the head. The sound brought out the well-honed reflexes in Javier. He spun around, his arm suddenly around Gus, using him as a shield, his gun drawn.
Raul fired and ended up shooting Gus right in the gut.
I was screaming. Running for them. Javier pulled the trigger and shot Raul before he could fire again, and a bloody Gus slipped through Javier’s arms.