by Jadyn Chase
She entered the house and bolted the door behind her. “Hey!” she called. “I brought a roast chicken for dinner. I didn’t feel like cooking. Did you get some rest? I was thinking you could take the room at the end of the hall if you’re going to stay here for a while.”
“I won’t stay,” I told her. “That’s your home office and workout room. I couldn’t take that. I’ll find somewhere else to stay.”
“Like where?” she demanded. “Somewhere like Diego’s? I don’t think so. You’re staying here.”
I looked down at the floor. “Before that happens, I need to call Mario. Can I use your phone?”
She handed it over. “Mario. Francisco. Diego. You’ve got a man in every port, don’t you?”
My cheeks burned, but I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to go through another lengthy explanation, and what difference did it make, anyway? I wasn’t going to stick around to poison my sister’s life with my problems.
I stared at the screen trying to remember Mario’s number. I had it saved on my old phone. Now I couldn’t remember it. How could I discuss leaving La Muerta if I couldn’t call him?
I would call Amelia, his twenty-year-old daughter. I knew her number and she worked as La Muerta’s secretary and accountant. She knew every skeleton in La Muerta’s closet. She would give me her dad’s number.
I settled on the couch while Teresa clanged around the kitchen doing something. She passed the service window back and forth between the fridge and the sink.
I switched the device over to the phone and tapped in the area code. I got three numbers entered when a thunderous crash startled me out of my seat. I jumped a foot in the air and Teresa spun around as the front door sailed off its hinges. The bolt held, but the screws pinning the hinges ripped out of the wood. The door pivoted into the room and I gasped in horror when Diego charged into the house.
I scrambled backward to get away from him and wound up crawling up the back of the couch. I got to the top and hit the wall. I couldn’t go any further.
Diego barged into the living room and swung his arm up. A gun went off in his hand and Teresa hurtled off her feet. She smashed into the fridge with both arms hurtling out in front of her. Her dark hair pitched over her face.
I screamed, but I didn’t have time to do anything before Diego swiveled around to point his weapon at me. The whole thing happened so fast I never had time to think. The gun went off. At the last possible second before my head exploded, I toppled over the back of the couch and hit the floor between it and the wall.
The bullet shattered the sheetrock inches away from where my head was. The boom deafened me, but panic and desperation erased every conscious thought. Diego bellowed in bullish rage and charged across the room. He grabbed the couch and lifted it off the ground.
It must have been a lot heavier than he expected because he only got it a few inches above the carpet before it slammed down again. It pinned me against the wall. I screamed my head off, but I couldn’t get away.
The next instant, he appeared at the other end of the couch. He clamped both brutal fists on the upholstery and flung the thing away with no effort at all. The couch skidded at an angle and now nothing blocked him from coming after me.
He still clutched the gun in his hand. He took a wide stance and leveled it at me. I had to get out of there to save my own life, but I had nowhere to go. His knuckles whitened on the trigger grip and a surge of adrenaline hit me like a rocket.
I lunged for his legs and scurried between his knees. He wheeled around roaring like an ox. The gun cracked and I screamed again, but nothing happened. I launched to my feet and plunged for the open doorway.
His footsteps pounded on the floor behind me. He came up on me a lot faster than I expected. His fingertips brushed my hair to grab me, but I dodged to one side. His elbow hit the doorjamb and stopped him from getting a grip. I bolted across the porch and vaulted into the flowerbeds.
Terror and confusion narrowed my focus to a pinpoint. Where could I go to get away from him? I raced around the house. I didn’t see or hear Diego anywhere, but that didn’t mean anything.
Through the deafening beat of my pulse in my brain, I realized I still had Teresa’s phone in my hand. My fingers crushed the device in a death grip. I couldn’t loosen my fingers if I tried.
On a wing and a prayer, I dove into the shrubs behind the garden shed. I curled into the tightest ball I could and brought the phone up to my face. I fumbled in my shorts pocket and pulled out Cisco’s number. My hands shook entering the number.
I pressed the phone to my ear and concentrated all my attention on the sound of ringing. Please pick up, Cisco, I prayed. Please, please, please pick up.
6
Francisco
The Boss propped his hands on his hips and narrowed his eyes at me. “You should have told me about this sooner, Ese.”
“This is the first chance I got to tell you,” I replied. “I couldn’t exactly leave him lying there in the gutter, could I?”
“You should have called me the minute he showed up,” he boomed. “Christ, you should have called me the minute you saw her brand.”
“Whatever, man,” I countered. “Anyway, she’s calling her Jefe to get herself released. It doesn’t mean shit.”
“You better hope it don’t,” he retorted. “If it turns into something more than shit, you’ll be the first to hear about it.”
“I hope I am.” I tried to sound more nonchalant than I was, but it was never a fun experience getting chewed out by The Boss. That dude could cut a grown man to shreds with a glance.
He waved his hand. “All right, Ese. Get out of here. If it turns out to be nothing, you have nothing to worry about.”
I turned on my heel and marched toward my bike. I couldn’t escape the creeping sensation of a dozen eyes boring into my back, but I kept it cool until I put on my shades and mounted up.
I fired up the motor and roared out of the warehouse. I didn’t want to hang around to be pitied like a whipped dog. All the other vatos in the club knew exactly what I was going through. They’d all been there themselves, but I couldn’t stand that look of pained sympathy in their faces.
I rode three blocks before I steered to the curb. I shut down the bike before I slammed my fist into the gas tank. “Son of a bitch! Fucking shit! Stupid son of a fucking bitch!”
How could I be so stupid? I never should have tried to handle some runaway La Muerta broad and her drunken old man on my own. El Jefe was right. I should have called for backup the instant I realized who and what she was.
Instead, I decided to play nursemaid to a bundle of primed explosives. What kind of chump makes a mistake like inviting her into his house and making her eggs and bacon and coffee?
The Boss was always telling me my soft heart would get me into trouble one of these days. I guess now was the time. It could have gone a lot worse. I could have gotten killed last night instead of getting off with being chewed out from one of my closest brothers.
I vented my frustrations on the poor bike before I started to cool down. Damaging my most precious possession wouldn’t accomplish anything. Like he said, if it came to nothing, I had nothing to worry about.
Hell, Isabel might be back with La Muerta getting thumped by her old man at this very moment. If she was, La Muerta wouldn’t come around asking us to get her back, would they?
My phone rang. I pulled it out of my pocket and read the screen. Unknown caller. That was weird. No one I didn’t know had this number. I made sure of that. I punched the button. “Francisco Alvarez speaking.”
A garbled belch of static crackled down the line. I held the phone away from my ear until it stopped. I listened again. Nothing.
“Who is this?” I demanded. “You’ve got five seconds before I hang up.”
“Cisco! I need….”
The screaming voice fired down my spine before it cut out. Then an ear-splitting screech stabbed into my brain and the phone went dead.
I liste
ned to the deafening silence, but nothing more came through. I caught a few fleeting words, but I would recognize that voice anywhere. Isabel.
My throat constricted with all the things I would like to bellow down that phone. Where was she? What was the problem? Was she in danger?
I didn’t have to ask. She wouldn’t call me screaming like that but for one reason. That fucker must have followed us. Maybe he knew about that friend of hers from before and he figured Isabel would run to her if she needed a place to stay.
The Boss’s iron visage flashed before my eyes. You should have called me the minute you saw her brand. Maybe I should have. Maybe I should have reported any member of La Muerta dragging their problems into our territory.
One striking difference set this situation apart from last night. It wasn’t happening in Los Diablos territory. It was happening across town, and no screaming, terrified woman ever called Francisco Alvarez for help in vain.
I fired up the bike and hit the gas. I pounded down the freeway burning rubber to her friend’s house. Isabel. He better not have hurt her or someone was going to die. That was all there was to it.
The minute I got near the place, I noticed the front door missing. I kicked down the stand and leaped up the steps four at a time. I stuck my head into the living room but I didn’t see anybody.
A gunshot blast revealed the studs behind the sheetrock across the room. The couch sat at an odd angle. Other than that, I didn’t see anything amiss besides the door tilted against the corner.
The house yawned still and silent as the grave. No one was there. I strained my ears. That was when I heard a popping sound coming from the kitchen. I yanked my sidearm from my shoulder holster and tiptoed around the wall.
There lay the friend—Teresa, her name was. A gaping bloody hole oozed dark and ragged through the remains of her shirt. I rushed over and knelt at her side. “Teresa! Can you hear me?”
Her eyelids fluttered. Blood spattered between her lips when she coughed, but she couldn’t focus. I pried back the tattered remnant of her shirt to take a look at the wound. It went through the upper chest under the collarbone. It might have hit the lung. That would explain her coughing up blood, but the other side of her chest still rose and fell with steady breathing. She was hanging on.
I fought down panic. “Keep still, Teresa. I’m calling 911.”
I struggled to control my hands calling the number. “911 emergency,” the operator droned. “Please state the nature of the emergency.”
“We need an ambulance,” I stammered. “There’s a woman with a gunshot wound to the chest.”
“Is she breathing?” the operator asked.
“Yes!” I thundered.
How I got through the rest of that call, I have no idea. My instincts told me to rush around the house looking for Isabel, but I couldn’t leave Teresa in her condition. I snatched a kitchen towel and held pressure against the wound until the paramedics arrived.
I managed to stay calm and collected until they left. I gave the cops a report and they cordoned off the house— “just in case she dies and this becomes a crime scene,” they said. Fan fucking tastic. That was exactly what I needed to hear to make this the single worst day of my natural life.
The cop taking the report made a face at my colors—as if I was the one who shot Teresa and then had the nerve to call the paramedics for her. Christ, I hated cops! Then they taped me outside the cordon and abandoned me there on the sidewalk.
My bike stood at the curb. It whispered its suggestions into my ear that no one but I could hear. I could get on and ride back to Los Diablos territory and forget all about this. I did my good deed for the day. I saved Teresa’s life. The paramedics said so.
I couldn’t leave, though. I stood there for five more minutes just to make sure no official meddlers came back to spy on me. When I satisfied myself that I was truly alone, I rotated around and faced the house.
Whatever happened to Isabel, wherever she was, he didn’t kill her here. I didn’t get a chance to ask Teresa what happened to Isabel, but maybe she didn’t know anyway. I had to find out. I had to know if Isabel was alive or dead. She called me asking for help, and by God, she was going to get it.
I didn’t cross the cordon. That meant nothing to me, but I already knew Isabel wasn’t in the house. She would have heard me and the cops in there and come out if she was.
I circled the building keeping my eagle eye trained on the walls. I focused all my will on it to compel it to give up its secrets. That house knew where Isabel was. It knew what happened to her. It saw the whole thing with its silent eyes.
I sauntered around to the side gate. I peered over it into a backyard enclosed by a board fence. Nothing there. I flicked the gate hasp up and prowled onto the lawn. Shrubs and flowerbeds decorated the borders. A clothesline stretched from the house to the fence. A gentle breeze ruffled the foliage.
I stopped in the center of the lawn and scanned the surroundings. Something didn’t sit right here. My nerves prickled. Then I caught it—the unmistakable smell of blood. I flared my nostrils to detect where it was coming from. It led me, one sure step at a time, to the garden shed.
I halted. The scent overpowered me. I could never miss that. What would I find back there? Would I move the branches aside and find Isabel torn to ribbons or dismembered?
I eased forward and put out a hand. I brushed the leaves and an almighty explosion went off in my face. A gargantuan form erupted from nowhere and launched into view. In a heartbeat, a towering white dragon burst from the shadows.
He must have been hiding back there until the cops left, and he shifted in the blink of an eye. He rocketed straight up and flexed his wings across the sky. He lashed his tail at me, and the razor spikes slashed my chest, cutting through my vest and my shirt, scoring a long gash into my skin.
The impact sent me hurtling backward. My shoulders hit the back porch and my weight shattered the steps to splinters. The dragon stalked onto the grass narrowing its eyes at me.
I saw it coming, but the blow dazed me for a few seconds.
He rumbled low in menacing hatred. He might have been drunk off his ass last night, but now he eyed me with cold, murderous determination. He knew exactly what he was doing and he measured every step down to the millimeter.
I blinked up at him. Get up, Cisco. Get up and fight. I could tell myself that for the rest of eternity. It wouldn’t do any good. I couldn’t command my arms and legs to obey me. Gravity held me prisoner. He opened his mouth. La Muerta. Death.
His throat glowed far down there beyond his teeth. The flames roiled and curled into view. From the depths of my soul, a forgotten voice called to me, No. Not like this. The bonds pinning me to the ground gave way and I rocketed upward so fast I didn’t even feel the change.
I levitated into the air just as the sizzling jet of heat struck my sternum. It spread its snarling tongues all over my skin and changed them with no effort on my part. It sucked the scales to the surface and forged me into the dragon I needed to be to fight this colossal waste of flesh.
The flames deflected off my scales. The heat transmuted me into a raging storm. No force under the sun could match that. I streaked at him screaming murder and destruction.
He never finished spitting his fire at me before I smashed into him going a mile a minute. I barreled him backward and tumbled him across the lawn. I overpowered him in a second and pounced on top of him to rip him a new one.
He screeched—why? Why should he be so surprised that I fought back? He must have known he would get some of this when he attacked me.
I landed with all four feet on his chest. The minute I knocked him down, I dove for the jugular, but he could fight a lot better as a dragon than he could as a man. He dodged his head to one side and hit me coming at him. He smacked my head sideways so I missed my strike.
He contorted under me and twisted out of my hold. I hopped onto the ground and rounded on him, but he lunged to his feet too fast. He was stronger tha
n he seemed and very fast. This dragon showed none of the wear and tear of decades of alcohol abuse that the man did. I could beat a drunk to a senseless pulp. I wouldn’t fight a dragon so easy.
He whipped around and attacked. In a fraction of a second, he wound his coils around me. He came within a hair’s breadth of immobilizing me. He took all my strength to match him. I slapped my tail at his sides, but he caught it and twined his own sinuous length around me so I couldn’t move.
He jerked me onto my back. I saw his head darting in to bite and slash. I pulled out of the way just in time, but he was much faster than I anticipated. Before I could recover, he was able to grab my foreleg between his teeth.
He couldn’t puncture my scales, but he wrenched his neck muscles to one side and I felt my shoulder pop. I screamed as much in rage as in agony, but I couldn’t move my leg. I dreaded the fight going back to standing up. If that happened, he would take me down in a second. I couldn’t allow this to go on. I had to put this fucker down and fast before he injured me again.
The white dragon redoubled his efforts. He knew he had me on the ropes. He let go of my leg and made another vicious plunge for my chest. I watched from a distance while his pointed snout shot toward the soft skin under my shoulder—the other shoulder. He was trying to immobilize me.
I used one of the only tools left in my arsenal. I spread my wings and hit him in the neck. That gave me enough of an opening. The move veered his fangs to one side just long enough for me to wriggle out from under him.
I couldn’t put my weight on my foreleg, but that didn’t matter. He had the strength and the speed, but I already knew I had the brains. Any vato that beats a woman had to be stupid as well as evil.
I held my injured leg close to my chest and swiveled to confront him. I wouldn’t need that leg again. He grinned showing all his hideous teeth. He thought he had this fight in the bag, but he was about to find out otherwise.
He snaked out his neck with a few exploratory strikes just to put me on the defensive. I pretended to dance out of reach and backed toward the house. Just a little closer, dipshit. Come on. Come and get your dessert the way you know you want to.