by Ace Gray
“Diablo blanco was here,” she whispered as if she was worried someone would hear. “He’s always here. With the truck. They cry. They always cry.”
My eyes went wide. “Mickey was here?”
“Diablo blanco is always here.” Her hand tightened on mine.
“Why tell me? Why share?” My mouth fell open in wonder.
“You are their ángel oscuro.”
I didn’t know what the old woman meant, what ángel oscuro meant, but I got the sense that it was something Elle would say. Even if I was wrong, I pretended it was some God-granted kernel of hope as I drove south.
The border ratcheted up my nerves again. I couldn’t trust the Italians and God only knows what Mickey had sent to the Chicago police. Or what they’d passed on to Border Patrol. I dug for the fake registration to my car, the one that matched my forged passport. I shoved the real documents in the back of my pants along with the weapons I was carrying.
They searched my car with mirrors and coke sniffing dogs. I was left to pray that it was enough and I would pass. And quickly. They wouldn’t find the trace amounts of cocaine that had been carried around in my car or the blood that had often coated my trunk.
I clenched the steering wheel, my tattoos warping and turning white. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched the dog sniff along my tires and the uniformed agent check the undercarriage of my car. I tried not to look uncomfortable. I tried not to look at all. And when they waved me on, I waited about a mile before I blew out a deep breath.
The brass of mariachi poured out of the radio when I flipped it on. It was bright and festive, so at odds with everything inside me. But I let it tin and whine as I drove into the Mexican night, reminding me where I was and being the odd battle cry to accompany on my warpath.
31.
Elle
Pain, dull and achy, constant and hot woke me. My eyes shot open, directly to the source, seeing in sharper clarity than I had since Cole stopped lighting up my world. Handcuffs were clamped down tightly on my still raw wrists, tethering me to the wrought iron headboard.
I hadn’t been dreaming, at least not about anything I could remember. No more vivid visions of angelic Cole or satanic Mickey. The fever had broken and I was healing.
“No,” I whimpered.
“Yes.” The unholy hiss slithered up my spine and made me shiver despite the warmth baking the room. I closed my eyes and buried my face behind my outstretched arm. “Now is that any way to treat your savior?” Mickey asked as his shoes clicked on the brown tile floor just before his fingers wrapped around my chin and pulled my face out from its hiding place.
“You’re not my savior. You’re my damnation.” My voice was as broken and hollow as I was.
“That’s not true. That’s not true at all.” He gripped my chin tighter, wrath flickered behind his soulless eyes. “When you had no home, who gave you a roof?” He yanked on me, forcing me to look up at the fan whirring above my bed. “When you were sick, who cared for you?” He bent down and brushed his lips along mine. “When you had these foul and festering wounds, who healed you?” He reached his hand down and explored between my thighs.
His words were so wrong, his touch so loathsome, that despite the weakness it put on display, I sobbed, wild, angry and desperate sobs. He dug his fingers into me, a pleasured response to the sounds I was making. So I kicked. Wildly. I landed one blow to his arm and his talons shredded at my skin; I cried harder, wails and screeches barreling from my lips.
Mickey’s fingers wanted to rip the fight from my body. And when I couldn’t shake him loose, I used his brutal grip. I thrashed against it. I let the pain wash over me in giant stormy waves. I let myself drown in the heat and fury of it all. I let myself drown in the darkness.
It wasn’t the harsh clasp of the metal around my ankles that woke me but rather the soft hands between my thighs. I tried to smash them shut, but they were pulled in opposite directions, now bound to the matching posts at the bottom. The woman who had bathed me days ago was changing the bloody bandages from Mickey for new ones.
“Please,” I whispered. “Please, leave it. Don’t clean them. Let them scar,” I pleaded. “Let me die.”
Her deep chocolate eyes looked down at me and crinkled, this time each small line turned down. Her brittle bones only bent her body over mine as she placed a quivering kiss to my forehead then continued her work.
Exposed, the knife wounds Mickey had carved into me looked worse than I imagined. They were healing but slow and with mangled scar tissue puckering the edges. Before I’d passed out, the fight against Mickey had only opened one of the small scabs lingering on my skin. With how mangled they’d been and how they’d mended so far, I guessed I’d been away from Cole for weeks.
Cole.
The thought of him seeing them, of him seeing me after Mickey had ruined me, was enough to make me heave. I couldn’t twist or turn to puke so I had to swallow down the acrid bile in my throat. That’s what I’d be to him if I ever saw him again—acid. Acid that had burned through his life and left gaping holes. He’d thought I was filling something, some void in him, but neither of us had acknowledged what ruin I’d wreaked in his life.
“You’re up.” Mickey’s voice wasn’t smooth and sultry this time but rather sharp and strict.
“What do you want from me?” I asked, surrendering to him, to what I’d become.
He quirked his head and let his eyes rake over me. The corners of is sleazy smile curled up when I didn’t pull against the chains or hide from him, when he knew I’d given up.
“I want you, darling. I want your sweet cunny.” He leaned in and ran his hand along my leg. “And I want it willingly.” He traced the edges of the fresh bandages. “I want to claim what was Cole’s and I want the loyalty he owes me.”
“If I give you what you want will you leave him alone?” I studied him as he thought about the answer, fixated on the apex of my naked thighs.
“Depends on how good you are,” he finally answered with a soft stroke between the folds of my sex.
Shivers wanted to shake and roll through me, they wanted to make me tremble, but my body didn’t respond anymore.
“Will you kill me when you get bored?” My voice was laced with trembling hope. Hope he seized as he flicked my clit.
“Yes, yes I will.”
“Then I’m done fighting,” I whispered as all the tension melted from my body, all the sensation too.
His sinister laugh filled the space even with the wide open and breezy windows. His hand roved my body, but I couldn’t feel anymore. I wouldn’t.
“I highly doubt I’ll get bored. I’ve seen you fuck.” His fingers pulled back my shirt, I only noticed because I watched from underneath long lashes.
“Swear, Mickey. Swear on your life, to God, to whatever you find holy, swear.” My voice was sturdier now, my limbs limp against steel.
“Swear what, lass?”
“That you’ll kill me when this is over. You’ll slit my throat and watch me bleed.”
“It’ll be my pleasure,” he said with a purr as he leaned in and took my lips in a violent kiss, biting me when I didn’t kiss him back. “But until then, you’ll be mine. And you’ll be good. Understood?”
I nodded weakly as he grabbed and pinched my cheeks, puckering my lips.
“Good. There are worse monsters than me out there, and far worse fate than death.” He leaned in again, kissing me hard and savagely taking anything from my lips that he wanted. This time, with my death on the line, I kissed him back.
The night sky was a comfort when it blanketed me, inky and thick. The moon had disappeared, the stars wouldn’t show their faces, and tonight… tonight I was glad. I could fade into nothing with them. My skin wasn’t marked or tarnished by Mickey’s touch in the dark. It faded into the void. I faded into the void.
My body really hadn’t gotten feeling back. It seemed like my heart had stopped but by some means, ice pumped slowly through my veins. Shallow breaths didn
’t pull in oxygen, but something rancid cycled through my mouth rather than lungs. And my soul, my soul was lost forever.
I was a house of bones and holes—nothing more.
A distant and dreary place in my mind wondered about Cole. About how he would take the news of my death. If he’d ever know…
Rage would fill him and thunder through his spaces, his life, like a deadly summer storm. But I couldn’t bring myself to pray he’d find me before it was too late. I couldn’t look into those beautiful green eyes and know what I was, what I’d become. I was the filth I’d lived in and he didn’t deserve that.
I could only pray that Horse would come back and care for him the way I couldn’t. The comfort and intimacy that ebbed and flowed between them would have to give the solace my disgusting soul couldn’t anymore. And Horse had to find Conrad, Conrad had to let him. The boys that had been mine had to find a happy ending.
My heart tried to shudder in my chest but it couldn’t quite manage.
I tried to sleep but exhaustion just weighed me down and made time move in jagged zigzags.
My eyes glazed over and the desert of my lips cracked. I didn’t try to pull on my restraints, weakness keeping my limbs pinned. When the door creaked on its hinges and slid against the tile, I didn’t flinch. I simply didn’t care. Nothing couldn’t care.
“Comida.” The old woman’s voice was accompanied by a warm, rich aroma. Peppers and spice tickled my nose before it turned my stomach.
“No.” I shook my head, perfectly fine with starving to death.
All the faster.
“Necesitas comer.” She shoved the spoon toward my mouth.
I pursed my lips and twisted away from her. The spoon shoved against my lips anyway. I shook against the utensil and soup spilled down my lips and chin.
“Necesitas,” she said more sternly. I shook my head again.
Her talon-like hands pinched at my cheeks the exact same way Mickey’s had. Just like him, she forced me to look at her. She made enough space to slip broth between my lips. My stomach reacted violently at the first food I’d had in God knows how long. I heaved and spice mixed with acid forced its way up my throat and out of my mouth. Puke trailed down my cheeks and dripped into my hair.
I didn’t care.
And when she poured more broth down my throat, more sputtered out on my cheeks than slid down my throat. The more she poured the more my insides churned. For the first time since Mickey had promised to kill me, I yanked on the metal holding me down. This time not because I wanted to be free but because I was choking.
More soup found its way to my lips. I choked and spit and fought as best I could, but then she brought her weathered hands to my nose. She cut off my air and kept spooning soup into my mouth. As soon as she spooned in, she covered my mouth. Broth squirted against her hand before she clamped down further. I jerked and writhed but she held firm.
Death was something my mind welcomed, wished for, but my body still railed against it. The lack of oxygen didn’t stop me from trying to gasp. That just shoved broth into my lungs, burning my insides as it went. Only when I swallowed what was left in my mouth did she let go of me and let me drag desperate breaths into my lungs.
I couldn’t catch my breath. Each sharp intake burned against the hot pepper-laced soup. Before I could settle, she shoved more in, covering my nose and mouth again to force me to gulp it down. Whether this or the cuffs or the cuts I’d been given were worse torture, I didn’t know. I didn’t care. They broke the tiny remnants of my spirit all the same.
Tears started falling again, mixing with the soup as it alternated between burning my belly and becoming puke on my cheeks. When she finished, she wiped her leathery hands across my face then shoved them up into my hair, stroking me gently.
“Necesitas comer,” she said with a small, sad smile.
“She’s right. You’ll need your strength once those heal.” Mickey had appeared and pointed directly between my thighs.
“You can use me weak and wounded,” I said, my tone saying just how little I cared.
He wordlessly opened an iPad and placed the device on my chest. A grainy black and white video played in front of me.
Two men sandwiched a naked woman, thrusting into her while she shook and trembled whether from the fucking she was being handed down or an orgasm raking over her skin like hot coals. Her chest bounced as she wrapped her hands around the matching male thighs, slipping a finger into each of their asses. Groans filled my room and seemed to echo from somewhere deep within the home.
“You’re going to watch what goes on here. Watch the girls that know their place.” His eyes flitted from me to the screen.
“I know my place.” I closed my eyes to shut out the reveling threesome.
“Fine,” he said palming my breast and forcing my eyes back open. “I wanna know what filthy fucking things drench that cunny. I wanna make you wet before I ruin you.”
A sob choked in my throat but I swallowed it down.
My words were shaky at best when I managed, “Ruin me however you want.”
32.
Cole
Tenancingo wasn’t the shithole I expected when I first got there. White-washed buildings and red tile roofs were speckled with dark green, tropical trees. A pure white Jesus loomed over the city with gracious palms upturned. But when I looked again, something seedy peered out at me from every storefront and street corner.
That Elle might be here or had been, made an invisible hand strangle at my throat. The way everyone watched me as I moved throughout town didn’t help.
Diablo blanco was whispered from the alleys and dark doorways, and I couldn’t decide if it was a warning flitting before me or a curse following in my wake. I walked the streets cautiously, not sure if I was looking for Mickey or some sign like the beat down motel outside of Laredo. Cinderblock buildings mixed with fishnet tights and too-short skirts for a combination that just left me feeling dirty. And hopeless.
But that was the reason more than any of the others that made me sure Mickey was here. Any city devoid of hope had to be the food his wretched soul fed off.
I slid into a bar painted in bright hues of green, yellow and pink. The chairs were all mismatched, holes breaking through their wicker or woven seats and backs. The stools were cracked vinyl with stuffing more visible than the former sparkly red of the fabric. A sweaty bartender with his button-up plastered to his chest, eyed me over the counter without so much as an hola.
Meat hissed on the grill along the back wall and the glass door cooler that held a small selection of beer bottles hummed too loud, working overtime in the heat. I shifted just enough as I sat down to show off the gun shoved into my waistband. The man behind the bar straightened but stayed silent.
“Una cerveza, por favor,” I ordered coolly with a jerk of my chin.
His eyes fell to the floor as the cool crack of a bottle top cut through the whine and tin of the scratchy music. The fan above me simply pushed stifling air around as the oppressive heat drew condensation down my bottle the moment it slid across the splintered wooden bar.
“Señor?” A soft female voice interrupted me and I turned as I slugged back the first bit of ice cold beer. “Sex?”
She was young, too young. Mickey had pulled in barely legal girls with barely formed breasts, but none of them were so obviously childish. It wasn’t that she was maybe thirteen and propositioning me in the bar that knifed my chest. The soulless void behind her eyes terrified me. And mostly because the list of things that would make her buckle and break weren’t far off from what Mickey would do to Elle.
I glared at her, the monster inside me snarling and raging at what might have befallen Elle, but seeping out through my eyes at the small child. It took her a moment to realize that someone demonic sat before her but when she did, her eyes went wide and she started to back up. I couldn’t unfreeze my face, though.
The mask that hid my inner pain and reflected my outward murderer fell into place all
too easily. And while it was Mickey I wanted to rail at, not this broken girl in front of me, red cracked and flared through my vision. One of my hands fisted on the bar counter and it groaned under my vise grip. The other one was reaching for my gun subconsciously, not to aim at her but to obliterate the men that made her.
Men like Mickey.
All the times I could have killed him, all the moments I was close enough to shove something into his barely beating heart... The sheer number of minions desperate to seize his throne had always stayed my hand. But they shouldn’t have. I should have taken the opportunity to rid the world of his filth.
My fingers itched at the trigger, the small girl still caught in my intense gaze.
“Calm down, Cupcake.” The familiar voice was like a cool breeze goose bumping my skin and the big, strong hand that shook my shoulder was an anchor.
I caught worried, deep chocolate eyes as I twisted to hug my best friend. I didn’t know how he’d found me, but as I squeezed tightly and patted his back, I didn’t fucking care.
“What are you doing here?” I held him just long enough to speak into his chest before I stepped back and studied him.
“I’ve been down here on Conrad’s stupid scavenger hunt, and when I called in a favor on a credit card trace, they told me.” His face twisted in on itself. “As soon as I heard, I started looking for you. Luckily, I remembered some of the towns Mick had property in. And you stick out.” The pad of this thumb traced the thick tattoos on my neck.
“Conrad’s scavenger hunt?”
“Yeah. The bastard wasn’t joking when he said crawl.” Horse rolled his eyes but the corner of his mouth ticked up. “He left me a note that I only found when I tore the house apart. It told me about spring break his sophomore year of college. I dug through everything he owned, everything Elle had left at the house, to figure out he went to Cancun. When I did, I left.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I’ve been on this fucking trek since.”