by Ann Charles
“I’ll use your mother’s notes. She was always very thorough in her reports.” Steel raised an eyebrow. “Any last words, darling?”
“Yeah, I have it here in my pants.” She shoved her left hand into her pocket. When she pulled it back out, her middle finger stood solo. “Here,” she held it out to him like a gift, “take this and go fuck yourself!”
Everything shifted into fast motion.
Quint saw Steel’s eyes narrow in preparation for the gunshot.
On instinct, he dodged in front of Angélica, almost getting sliced by the knife whizzing past him.
He saw the knife make purchase in Steel’s ribs right as he squeezed the trigger. The gunshot exploded in the small chamber, deafening.
Quint’s left shoulder kicked back. Pain rocketed through his chest and arm, knocking him to his knees.
“No!” Angélica reached for him.
Another shot rang out.
Quint’s thigh bucked. A flash of pain jammed into it like a red hot poker. Then his leg gave out and he collapsed, landing on his throbbing left shoulder.
Agony clouded his vision. He rolled onto his stomach. The floor felt so warm against his cheek.
Angélica’s boot came into his line of sight.
His vision narrowed, a dark vignette edging the scene in front of him, swelling inward.
Angélica’s voice echoed as she called his name.
Before he could answer, the world faded away, taking the pain with it.
* * *
Jared clutched his side, the knife handle sticking out below his rib. He still held the gun on Quint, who lay on the floor, blood from his wounds soaking through his shirt and pants.
“You fucking prick!” Angélica glared up at him from where she crouched next to Quint.
“I wanted to do that so badly twenty years ago. It was worth the wait.” He turned the gun on her. “And then there was one. What do you think? Red roses at your memorial service?” He yanked the knife out of his side, his face scrunching in pain for a moment.
Counting on Jared’s weakness for blood to work in her favor, she rubbed her palm over Quint’s blood. “Look, Jared.” She held her hand out toward him. “Look at the wet, sticky blood.”
He turned his head away, squinting at her through the corners of his eyes. “I’d rather not.” He flexed his finger over the trigger. “Say goodbye to your photojournalist, darling.”
A streak of movement came from the outer passageway, darting across the floor toward Jared. It took a split second for her mind to make sense of it.
Rover? Blood from his half shot off ear covered part of his head and neck. The javelina bit down hard on the back of Jared’s lower leg.
Her ex-husband screeched in pain.
A gunshot boomed. The bullet whistled past her ear, ricocheting off the stone wall into the partially cut away support beam that spanned the ceiling.
Howling still, Jared fell to his knees trying to kick Rover away, but the javelina held on, jaws locked.
The howl turned into a roar. Jared turned trying to aim at his attacker. Before he could pull the trigger again, Angélica tackled him and sent him tumbling back into a pile of rocks.
His gun clattered onto the stone floor. She lunged for it, grabbing the grip. Jared latched onto it, too, his hand covering hers. He swung at her with his free hand, catching a fistful of hair and yanking it hard. She kicked him in the jaw, sending him reeling to the side. He pulled her with him as he fell, falling on top of her.
Jared tried to take the gun from her, but she managed to get her finger on the trigger. He tugged at it and she squeezed.
Another shot rang out.
The bullet hit the ceiling, ricocheting down into the pile of rocks to his left.
Jared squeezed her gun wrist. She turned her head and sank her teeth into his hand that still clutched her hair, feeling tendons crunch between her jaws.
His scream of pain was guttural. He fell back, holding his hand to his chest. “You bitch!”
She scrambled to her feet, clutching the gun tightly. “I may be a bitch.” She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, spitting his blood on the floor next to him. “But I’m a bitch with a gun. Now stand up, you worthless piece of shit.”
“Angélica, darling.” He held out his good hand as he rose. “You don’t want to kill me. It will ruin your career, and taint your family’s reputation in the archaeological field.”
“You’ve stolen your last theory, Jared. I’m going to make sure the world knows what you’ve done.”
His face contorted into a rage-filled mask. “I should have killed you while you were sleeping.”
“That was your first mistake. Your second was hurting my father.”
Jared flew toward her, but she was ready. She squeezed the trigger again while stepping out of his path. The bullet ripped into his hip. As he spun around from the force, her boot heel came down on a loose rock. Her ankle turned, and she fell hard onto her ass next to him.
A loud crack splintered through the chamber, followed by a high-pitched creaking sound. Small stones and dust rained down on the floor around them.
She looked up.
The support beam above her rumbled and dropped several inches, then sagged, creaking under the weight of the ceiling.
A scream crawled up her throat.
Groaning, Jared latched onto her boot.
She kicked free and struggled to her feet.
Jared lay on his stomach, blood spreading on the floor beneath his right hip.
Another resounding crack came from the beam above. She cringed as a shower of pebbles fell around her. The lantern lit the cloud of dust, giving the chamber an eerie glow.
She set the handgun on the floor next to Quint and crouched next to him. The rope binding his wrists was almost shredded clear through. It was loose enough to work over his wrists.
“Quint,” she called, gently rolling him onto his back. She searched for a pulse in his neck. A steady beat thumped under her fingers.
A series of creaaaaks and snaps came from overhead, and then the beam above gave another inch.
God! She needed to get Quint out of there before the ceiling crashed down on both of them, but moving him would increase the bleeding. The wheelbarrow was out in the passageway. She couldn’t risk going for it with the ceiling about to give.
Rover stood in the entryway, skittish as the pebbles fell around them. He snorted and backed out of the room.
Mindful of the bullet wound in Quint’s shoulder, she lifted him under the arms and pulled. Her lower back strained as she lugged him across the floor.
When she neared Jared, she hesitated. She needed that shell. Without warning, three huge stones crashed to the floor around her, one narrowly missing Quint’s leg. She yelped in surprise.
Fuck the shell. She needed Quint more.
Angélica dragged him as fast as she could toward the outer passageway. Just as she reached the threshold, one of the ceiling beams crashed to the floor.
With a cry, she heaved them both into the passageway, falling back, dragging Quint on top of her.
Another low moan from the remaining support beam echoed out and down through the temple.
Silence followed, as thick as the dust in the air.
She had to get Quint all of the way out. The structural shift from the chamber collapsing could bring the passageway they were in down around them, too. Scooting out from under him, she scrambled to her feet.
Where was that wheelbarrow?
There!
She managed to load Quint into it with a lot of sweat and grunts.
As she gripped the handles, she saw a light beam moving around in the dust-filled chamber. She hesitated, her heart pounding.
Oh no. In her haste to get Quint out, she’d forgotten the gun in there with Jared.
“Angélica,” her ex-husband called, his voice weak. “Don’t leave me here to die.”
She coughed, her throat burning. Should she try rescuing
him? Could she make it in and drag him out, too, before the other beam gave way?
“I can hear you breathing out there, darling.”
Was saving him worth risking her life?
She thought of the people he’d hurt, the sadness he’d caused for so many.
She cleared her throat. “I’ve been thinking about you and me getting back together, Jared, and I just don’t think it’s gonna work out.”
A staccato of loud cracks reverberated from the chamber, the final timber yielding.
She stepped back, shielding Quint with her body.
“Angélica!” Jared screamed, his voice ugly with hatred and fear.
The final beam succumbed to the weight of the ceiling. A rumbling crash followed, spewing billows of dust out into the passageway.
She coughed several times, pulling her shirt up over her nose and mouth.
“Adios, you murdering bastard.”
Grabbing the wheelbarrow handles, she rolled Quint toward the sunlight.
* * *
“Damn it, Parker. Open your eyes.” Angélica’s voice reached through the darkness.
Quint obeyed, blinking his way into the light. When he tried to sit up, the pain almost sucked him back down into the dark.
Angélica eased him flat again and leaned over him, the morning sunlight streaming all around her. “I didn’t tell you to sit up.” Dust smudged her face in between the lines of worry. “You’ve been shot twice; you need to hold still while I try to fix you.”
Did she say twice? He remembered the stinging pain in his leg. That must have been the second bullet.
“Where’s Steel?” As soon as he could stand, Quint wanted to beat the hell out of that dickless wonder for using him as target practice.
“He’s dead.” She spoke like a robot while she inspected his wounds. “The ceiling caved in on him before I could get him out.”
He caught her wrist with his good arm. “Are you okay?”
“I’ll let you know after I finish tending to you.”
She gently tucked his hand beside him and then pulled his shirt away from his shoulder wound. Sticking her fingers in the cotton’s blood-covered bullet hole, she ripped the shirt apart.
“I’ve always wanted a woman to tear my clothes off.”
“Next time I’ll use my teeth,” she shot back, her lips turning downward as she focused on his injury.
When she lifted him enough to get a look at the back of his shoulder, a stab of pain lanced through it. He stiffened, lock-jawed until it subsided. She ran her hand over his skin, her touch feather-light.
“Fuck.” She sat back on her heels, wiping away the sweat from her forehead with her arm. Her hands were trembling, smeared with his blood. “The bullet is lodged in your shoulder.”
“It’s a one-of-a-kind souvenir,” he tried to joke. “You think I’ll have any trouble getting through customs?”
She didn’t laugh.
Moving down to his thigh, she carefully pulled his pant leg away from his wound.
“Angélica.”
She shook her head, sniffing. “This one went clear through. I think it’s too far to the side to have hit the femoral artery, but you’re still losing a lot of blood.”
“Boss lady,” he tried again to get her attention.
She moved back up to his shoulder. “Maybe if I …” She reached toward his wound.
“Don’t touch it.”
She froze, hands in mid-air, and finally looked into his eyes. “But I could—”
“No.” With his right hand, he touched her cheek. “You’re going to have to go get help.”
“I can’t leave you here like this.”
She needed to work on her bedside manner. The way she kept wringing the front of her T-shirt wasn’t helping him feel all sunshine and lollipops.
“You’re not dragging me down those steps.”
Rover waddled up, gently nudging Quint’s non-injured shoulder, dropping onto his side next to him. He huffed in the morning heat.
“Look, Rover’s here to keep me company while you’re gone.” Quint noticed the blood darkening his fur. “What happened to him?”
“Jared shot him.” She wiped her hands off on her thighs. “Going to get help for you means running to the village and back since Teodoro took his bike with him. That will take an hour or two. It’s too long. There must be some other way.”
“We’re out here in the boonies. It’s the only way.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “You don’t understand, Quint. You’re losing too much blood. I don’t know if you’ll last another hour, let alone the additional time it will take to get you to a hospital. We went through this with my mom and it didn’t end well. There has to be another way!”
Short of teleportation, he was up shit creek and they both knew it. But he’d be damned if he’d take his last breath while watching her cry. He searched for something to lighten the moment.
“Never in my wildest dreams did I figure I’d go out while lying on the steps of a Maya temple with a javelina at my side.”
“I won’t let you die, damn it.”
He wiped a tear off her cheek. “Boss lady, I know you’re in charge of this site, but I don’t think you have jurisdiction over me on that level.”
“Shut up, Parker. I need to think of a way to save your ass.”
“I hate this goddamned jungle.”
“You’ve mentioned that before.” She looked down the steps. “Maybe if I got the stretcher up here.”
“I didn’t like your ex-husband from the start.”
“No shit.” She chewed on her knuckles. “Teodoro may have left behind something that would slow the bleeding long enough to—”
“Your father wants you to have kids.”
“Yeah, I know.” She raked her fingers through her hair. “But how will I get you down the steps without—”
“He told me I need to hurry up and get you pregnant before he gets old.”
“He what?” She gaped down at him.
Without thinking, he reached toward her with his left arm. A fresh flare of pain burned clear through his left shoulder. He clamped his teeth together and held his breath as he waited for it to pass.
Angélica gripped his hand. “Parker?”
A sudden chill spread through his body. He shivered and blinked several times, trying to clear away the dark fog that fringed his vision.
She brushed the hair off his forehead. “Breathe, Quint. Breathe through it.”
The clouds above him spun. The pain burrowed deeper in his shoulder. He groaned. Cold sweat covered his skin. He was vaguely aware of Angélica leaning over him.
“Listen to me, Quint. Let’s make a deal.” She cupped his cheeks. “You keep breathing, and I’ll do whatever you want when it comes to you and me—sex in the shower, a long-distance relationship, you name it. Just don’t give up.”
He frowned at her, gasping for breath as the pain refused to ease. “You picked a hell of a time,” he rasped, “to take me off the ‘temporary’ list.”
Her lips moved, but a loud ringing filled his ears, drowning out whatever she was saying. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to focus on his breathing. The throbbing in his shoulder pounded harder. A wave of heat crashed over his body, feeling like someone had thrown gas on him and lit him on fire.
Above the shrill clanging in his head, he heard a bass-like thumping noise growing steadily louder.
He struggled to open his eyes and sit up, but a fresh knock-out punch of pain put him down for the count.
Everything stopped.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Cuxta: To live; life.
Three weeks later …
Angélica lay back on her towel on the warm sand, staring up at the bright full moon, listening to the waves tumbling onto the shore. A cool, Caribbean breeze brushed across her face. She closed her eyes, breathing deeply as the sound of her father’s laughter echoed down from her beach house.
Damn. She’d come
so close to losing everything.
“Is anybody sitting here?” Quint asked from above her.
She opened her eyes. He stood over her, gripping two Coronas in his right hand. “If one of those is for me,” she sat upright, “then you are.”
“A moonlit beach, a sexy siren, and a cold beer. Shit, I must be dreaming.” He held the bottles out toward her. “Can you hold these for a second while I make my way down there?”
She stuck them in the sand and rose to her knees to help him, careful not to bump the sling cradling his left arm and shoulder as she helped him down onto the sand beside her. He grunted as he straightened his bare, long legs out in front of him. The white bandage wrapped around his thigh glowed against his tanned skin in the moonlight.
“You okay?” She handed him his beer, purposely brushing her fingers over the back of his hand before pulling away.
He chuckled, the shadows making him look even more rugged. “Now I am.”
“Did you get bored with Dad and Pedro’s anecdotes?”
“Actually, your father told me to get my ass down here so that he could talk about us behind our backs.”
She snorted, watching the white caps roll in. “Why am I not surprised?” She hated to ruin the lighthearted banter they’d shared all evening, but there was something bugging her. “Did you talk to your editor?”
“She gave me another month, but only if I include an additional article on what happened to Dr. Hughes.”
Tipping the beer bottle to her lips, Angélica weighed his words, considering what effect that story could have on the dig site’s future.
“I told her I’d have to talk to the head archaeologist first,” Quint said. “That I’d write it only if I had her approval.”
She turned to find him watching her, half of his face shaded.
“If you don’t want me to write it, I won’t.”
She scooted close to him so her shoulder touched his. “Thank you for that.” She took another sip, savoring it along with the happiness swirling inside of her at his honesty. “But I think the publicity could benefit the site. Hell, maybe it will even help to guarantee it a place in the history books, along with my mom’s name.”