by Karen Diem
Zita backpedaled, hopping over the groaning man, toward the stairs as her mind raced with the best way to disarm him and get to Quentin.
Sobek paused by the downed thug. His eyes were hooded, almost lost in his face, as he stared down his nose at his employee. After stepping on his hand with a disdainful sniff, Sobek shot him.
Ears ringing with the close discharge, Zita gaped at him. Her stomach revolted, and while she wrestled that into submission, her mouth ran free. She avoided using the fake Mexican accent, but it took effort as every nerve screamed at her to check on her brother. “You know you just killed your own dude, right? Most people give out pink slips when they want to fire somebody.”
Sobek sniffed. “Not my man or my problem. Other people’s help is terribly unreliable. If I told them once, I told them a million times… I’m the artist with a knife… They’re hired thugs who should obey orders and leave their own shoddy equipment at home. My men would know better.” He brought the firearm back up to center it on her again.
A gun roared again inside, once, twice. Ceramic shattered, and Quentin cried out, pain in his voice.
Her heart clenched, and she licked her lips, her throat dry and painful.
“Hmm. You might be down a brother, so I’ll have to slice up your other one. How sad. Guess I’ll just pin this one’s death on you, then. Unless his employer wants to lose the only source of the pink ice, they’ll have to believe me when I tell them you did it.” Sobek faked a pout that dissolved into a cackle.
Zita gave him a dubious look and tried to lure him away from her place and, more importantly, Quentin, by sliding sideways onto the top step. “Pink ice? Like diamonds? You run a drug ring, kidnap and torture people, and sell jewelry. You’re a busy psychopath these days.”
Ignoring her gibe, Sobek raised this gun, clasping it in both hands in a Weaver stance as he stepped over the dead man and moved toward her. “I grow tired of the oh-so-righteous Garcias. Come along quietly now, or I’ll shoot you where you stand. And, Quentin, inch any closer and your sister will enjoy a lovely gut wound. It could mean a beautifully excruciating death for her, though nowhere near as perfect as the one I could grant her, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
His voice ragged and hoarse, Quentin growled. “Or I could shoot you first.”
As she eased to the side, Zita glimpsed her brother as he peeked around the corner with the tip of his gun just visible. Relief poured through her. At least the body is between them, so Quentin can’t do something stupid like rushing an armed man.
Sobek paused, then sidled away, moving back enough where he could see both siblings. “A crocodile never forgets. You can shoot me, but you might also hit your baby sister,” he taunted.
Hoping her brother would catch the hint, Zita let her mouth run free as she inched out of the direct line of fire. “Elephant. Elephants never forget. You can distract a crocodile, and it’ll forget about you, but an elephant? It’ll take your distraction and go back to what it was doing before. And, just saying, you don’t smell like a crocodile.” She pursed her lips as if thinking and tapped the side of her chin, then pointed at him. “Maybe you could be a sick frog that’s been rolling in its own shit, psycho shit in your case, but you don’t got the reptile tang.”
As she had hoped, her words focused Sobek’s attention on her, and he turned his head away from Quentin for a moment. “You’re begging to be cut open. I wonder how long before you scream?” He rushed her.
Quentin’s firearm boomed, echoing in the hallway and interrupting whatever threat Sobek had been about to spew.
Sobek let out a wordless exclamation and staggered, losing his forward momentum. He lifted his gun at Zita. “If I can’t vivisect you…”
She burst into action, twisting her torso as she stepped and kicked, hitting his wrist with the sole of her foot.
The weapon flew from his hand, clattering against the wall.
She whirled back into a ready position and fell into a slow ginga, careful of his greater size and the supernatural strength she had witnessed before. Need to keep him away from the gun and Quentin.
Sirens screamed in the distance.
Sobek crouched, wrapping one arm around his side, where dark red bloomed. A droplet ran and dripped on the floor. He grabbed the railing at the top of the steps with his free hand and coughed, an ugly wet sound that ended in a gasp. “You wouldn’t shoot an unarmed man, would you?”
“¡Zita, muévete! You’re in the way,” Quentin hissed, altering position to keep Sobek in his sights.
Feinting left, Zita attacked low, trying to sweep Sobek’s feet out from under him. Her kick rebounded off his ankle, and she flipped off a wall to avoid a vicious swipe of his good arm.
“I’ll hear you both screaming sometime soon,” Sobek hissed, grabbing the railing again and leaping over it, down the three flights of stairs. He landed with a loud thud and a groan.
She ran to the railing. Bloody footprints emerged from a larger splatter and trailed into the darkness.
Quentin swore and headed for the steps. His right arm bled freely and hung limp at his side. “He can’t be far. If those pendejos hadn’t shot my gun arm, I’d have gotten him, and this would be over. Are you okay?”
When he tried to push past her, Zita grabbed his uninjured arm. “Oye, I’m fine, but you’re hurt! Don’t even think about running off after that chingado psycho, gun or no.”
He grimaced and winced, pulling away. “I’m fine.”
In reply, she poked the shoulder above his wound.
Quentin gasped and paled, staggering.
“Yeah, I can see that. Your shoulder’s probably dislocated, and you’re chingado bleeding all over. You’re not going nowhere, mano. You want me to clean that and get it bandaged so we can put your arm back into joint?” Zita steered him away from the steps.
With a last glance down the stairs, he acquiesced. “They winged me, but I’ll let the EMTs handle it.”
“You got a solid hit on him, you know. Sit down and keep the neighbors back,” she said as she stepped inside and surveyed her apartment.
Two men bled on her carpet, one conscious, the other not, and a third sprawled bonelessly like a grim lap blanket over the wicker chair by the futon. Blood stained the white furniture red, and shiny pink plastic and blue curls peeked out from the other side of the chair. A clay parrot was smashed, near the soil leaking from a crack in the giant container that held her magically enhanced pepper plant.
She gulped, queasiness almost taking over, but curiosity propelled her toward the body and whatever the blue curls were near it. Please don’t let Quentin’s date be dead, she prayed. Her second thought was more practical. Where am I going to find a new chair at a good price? I’m not keeping the death cooties one even if someone gets all the blood out.
“Zita, you don’t need to see all this. We should wait outside for the police,” Quentin said, coming up behind her. “Why don’t you take a minute and rest, and I’ll handle everything?”
The remnants of her nausea burned off under his patronizing tone, and she turned to glare at him, hands on her hips.
Before she could say anything, he sighed. “Never mind, I sound like chingado Miguel. How about you sit on the steps and fend off your neighbors while I grab my phone and call the cops?” He offered her his second-best smile, the one he used when conning their older brother. His gaze darted past her. Pain etched deep lines around his mouth, adding years to his face.
She narrowed her eyes. “If anyone’s handling them, it’s you. I’m not injured and dripping all over. What are you hiding, mano?” After shoving past him, she drew closer to the death cootie chair, hating every step, and finally identified what hid behind the dead man. Whirling, she glared at Quentin.
Her brother held his hands out. “Oye, Zita, cálmate. I can explain.”
Zita’s temper rose, and she took a step toward him.
Quentin recoiled at her expression.
Zita slashed a han
d through the air. Since the shots had to have awakened the neighbors, she hissed her words. “Oh, you don’t need to explain nothing, you pinche pendejo. Instead of being safe at Mamá’s where you said you’d go, you dressed up a chingado blow-up doll like me with a clown wig and some of my clothes to set a trap for Sobek and his boys. Were you just going to kill them all?” She threw her arms up and swore at his stupidity in every language she knew.
Perhaps sensing how upset she was, Quentin let her vent. When she paused, he said, “Are you okay?”
Her mind racing, Zita seized the wig. “I’ll hide this stuff before the cops make it more complicated and send you to jail forever. We’ll leave it out of our statements, but believe you me, mano, we are talking about this first chance we have. While we’re at it, we’ll also cover how you’ve been a regular man-whore since you were kidnapped in August and how that’s screwing up your life.”
Quentin’s mouth compressed. “There’s nothing to discuss, and even if there were, you hate talking.”
Furious, she waved the blue hair at him. “That’s how you know I’m serious. The world might end since I’m the one suggesting a talk about feelings, but this is important. You can’t keep ignoring that you’re messed up and need to handle the damage. I’ve kept my mouth shut for months, but this isn’t working, and I’m not losing you to an STD or another stupid plot like this. You need help, so you are going to talk to a priest, or a shrink, or a talking circle of talking therapy people. Whatever. I’ll help you find one, but you need to do this.”
Sirens roared in the parking lot.
Zita swore, snatched up the doll, and hustled into her exercise room, throwing it and the wig into her equipment closet. She slammed the door shut. By the time she got back, Quentin was talking to a cop. Extreme weariness seeped in as her adrenaline ebbed.
***
Since she’d been sleeping on the sofa, or trying to, given Andy’s weird late-night gaming habits, Zita knew she could teleport to Andy’s basement apartment if she wanted. Leaving her violated home was the sensible thing to do.
Which was, perhaps, why she hadn’t done it yet.
She was also supposed to stay out of it until the police gave her clearance to return, but she’d ignored that too. Despite her defiance, she hadn’t been blasé about staying and had partially shifted to allow herself better senses. All four deadbolts were thrown, and she’d left up the police tape. The door would have to be replaced since a bullet had carved a lethal peephole in it. The forensics team had cut out a square around it to preserve the bullet’s passage. To keep out insects (and her nosier neighbors), she’d filled the hole with putty and duct-taped over it on both sides. The cops can deal. It’s my place. Well, technically, it’s Miguel and the mortgage company’s, but I rent it, so I’ve got rights.
Even though her apartment sang with her scent and her belongings, the acrid chemical odors of the fingerprint powder and the miasma of the men who had been in her living room still intruded. Especially the dead one. Her stomach threatened to rebel again, but she forced it to settle back down. Hopefully, Mamá will have tips on cleaning that up since I don’t have the funds to hire anyone.
Anger coursed through her, and Zita stalked down the hall and entered the exercise room. She clenched her fists. Despite her exhaustion, more than anything she wanted to push herself on a hard run—or flight—then beat the crap out of someone, preferably someone named Sobek, so he never endangered her brother again. Instead, she took a deep breath, focusing on the familiar scents in the room: her own sweat, the metal and leather of her equipment, and the strong vanilla tang of her favorite soap in the nearby bathroom. One by one, she relaxed each of her major muscle groups to avoid getting sore from tension, watching herself in the mismatched mirrors that covered a wall. She prowled the confines of the room, senses high, even though her nose told her that no one else had entered the space recently. The brilliant blue walls, mirrors, and gleaming silver equipment were untouched. Her breathing and pacing was the only movement that disturbed the long vines of the cheery fake plants, and her careful ordering of the bright rainbow wash of color from her DVD collection had not changed.
She scrubbed a hand over her hair, rubbed her gritty eyes, then turned back to the closet where she kept sports gear. When she opened the door, Quentin’s blow-up doll stared at her with its perpetually surprised face. Yanking the valve harder than necessary, air escaped it in a hiss. “You need to go away. If the cops realize Quentin tried to lure Sobek in, it’s not self-defense. I don’t know whether it was suicide by serial killer or Marine bravado, but I’m not letting him go that easy.” While she waited for the doll to deflate, her mind drifted from one brother in trouble to the other.
As she stared at the contents of her closet, her eyes fell on a newly washed canteen. Her mouth widened in a smile. “Pues, it won’t solve Andy’s problems, but it’d at least help his mood.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
On Wednesday morning, Zita lasted all the way through three renditions of the song, then threw down her headphones and jumped off the treadmill before it could grind to a halt. The poor old thing had struggled to keep up with her, anyway. She stomped over to Andy and tapped off the power button on his computer. The deep bass and peppy electronic music cut out, and for a moment, the only sound was Cupcake’s purring and the droning voice from her headphones.
“Hey!” His fists clenched, Andy rose to his feet, dumping Cupcake to the floor.
The cat glared at them, then began cleaning himself vigorously.
Zita gestured with both hands for Andy to stop. “You’re done with that. You said you hate it, but you’ve been playing it constantly. It’s drowning out the tax crap I should be studying, and for what? All you’re doing is making yourself more miserable. I won’t stand by and watch it happen.”
He folded his arms across his chest. “Then don’t. You can always leave.”
Hurt sliced Zita’s heart for an instant before anger pushed it aside. “Oh, hell, no, mano. I won’t psychoanalyze whatever’s up your ass or pull any more of Wyn’s tricks, but you don’t get to keep punishing yourself. We’re going out.”
“You can’t make me. You’re not my mother.” Thunder boomed overhead.
Zita beetled her brows and frowned at him in the best imitation of her mother she’d ever done.
Andy slapped his hand to his forehead, closed his eyes, and winced. “Did that sound as childish to you as it did to me?”
As she chortled, Zita clicked off the tax instructions she’d been listening to. “Yeah, but I have that effect on people. Since you’re like a brother, I forgive your lame ass this time. Now, we’re getting out of here for a while and climbing. No real conversation required from you, just listen to my instructions and ask any questions you have. The other day, you mentioned that you damaged a building when you tried to climb it. After a few lessons, you’ll do better, plus it’ll give you a new way to practice controlling your strength.”
“It’s going to rain,” he said.
Sensing his capitulation was imminent, Zita pressed, “It does that a lot here these days. No worries, we’ll go somewhere without rain. Throw on jeans, a shirt, and sturdy shoes and let’s go. I’ll fill water bottles.” After a quick rummage through her duffel bag, she pulled out the canteens she had brought from her apartment.
He glared at her, suspicion on his face. “Last time you surprised me, you ambushed me with the cat.”
She put her hands on her hips. “Technically, that was Wyn, and if you’d talked to us, it wouldn’t have been necessary. No hay bronca, this will be you and me and the mountains. It’ll even be in the Southwest. You know you want out, and if you don’t go, Wyn will come over later to explore your feelings. If you turn this offer down, I’ll text her and encourage her to do so.” Her foot tapped so fast it almost vibrated.
Andy acquiesced with a nod. “Just us guys, then.”
Zita beamed. “That’s right! Wait! I’m not a dude.”
&n
bsp; He muttered under his breath, but she didn’t bother to listen.
“I’ll pretend that was an apology,” she called, racing up the stairs toward the kitchen.
When she came back down lugging a full cooler, Andy held up a hand. He still wore the same faded T-shirt and the fuzzy pajama pants he slept in. A smug Cupcake curled in his lap again, batting at Andy’s fingers. “If we do this, if I go with you, I’m not interested in talking.”
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I tried Wyn’s methods, and they didn’t work. Screw that, I suck at it anyway. So, this is just us hanging out. I picked out a nice, easy, obscure mountain we’ve been to before, so if you wuss out, you can take yourself home. Climbing is a great exercise choice. You can’t hurt anything too much with your strength, and it’s excellent practice for control. Unless you want to miss out on the thrill of doing it right, you can’t just claw your way up the rock. Plus, cheating like that makes Baby Jesus cry.”
He blinked at her, one hand absently stroking the cat. “We wouldn’t want that.”
“Nope. Come on, you’ve got to be dying to move. I know you haven’t been working out any, and that would drive me nuts.” She eyed him and wrinkled her nose.
He narrowed his eyes. “Not all of us get itchy when it’s been more than six hours since our last workout, and we did go to Brazil a couple days ago.”
Did he just suck in his gut? Zita made a derisive sound, air escaping her mouth in a disdainful hiss. “You were an Olympic-caliber judoka once, and you can’t tell me that you don’t miss exercising, even if it’s sporadic. Go get dressed. I don’t care what you wear so long as you’re comfortable, it can be washed, and your boots have traction. When we get back, send Wyn a copy of your resume so she can pretty it up. Having that will keep her from pestering you about your feelings or girls or merging your troubled chakras or whatever.”
Andy squinted at her as if trying to find a trap for a moment before he nudged the cat from his lap, rose, and ambled into his bedroom. The door clicked shut behind him.