Scorched

by Jadyn Chase

  My back end hit the building. I couldn’t go any further and my enemy moved in for the kill. He chuckled in his throat and sulfur plumed from his nostrils. He stomped closer to finish me off.

  I couldn’t move. He curled back his neck and opened his mouth. His head whistled through the air coming at me in all its fearsome power.

  At the last second, I darted to one side. Quick as lightning, I snapped my mouth on the back of his neck. All his speed and muscle went into rocketing at me with everything he had. Now I harnessed that energy and helped him on his way. I guided his head in a stunning blow against the house.

  I slammed him into the corner post with all my might. His neck went limp in my jaws and I took the opportunity to give him a few more devastating blows while I was at it.

  All at once, he reared back roaring to the heavens. He spread his wings and bowled me over backward pulling himself out of my grasp. He rose on his hind legs for a moment. He wobbled and crashed onto his back. He got all tangled up in his own wings before he managed to unwind himself from the mayhem.

  I stood off a few paces and waited for him to reengage. He twisted onto his feet but, to my surprise, he spread his wings once more and launched into the sky. He flew away over the houses and vanished.

  The minute he disappeared, all the fight drained out of me. I collapsed into a pathetic man and crumpled onto my hands and knees. Fuck, my shoulder hurt! I whimpered to myself. I never would have let myself do that if I hadn’t been alone.

  I hung my head trying to hold myself together. I couldn’t pass out here. If that idiot took it into his head to come back, he couldn’t find me here in this state or I was a dead duck. Get up, Cisco. Get up.

  I couldn’t get up. I couldn’t even open my eyes. It took all my concentration just to stay alert. The cool sweet smell of grass drifted into my nose. I was on the lawn. I had three good limbs left, but I was probably losing blood from that gash on my chest.

  I had to get out of here one way or the other. I had to get help. If I could only get home, I could call Los Diablos and they would do the rest. I dared not call them from here.

  People were bound to have seen Diego and me fighting. Hundreds or maybe thousands would have seen him fly away. I had to leave now to avoid getting the club in trouble with the law. The authorities overlooked us fighting in gangland. If they caught us scrapping in an urban neighborhood far from the barrio, they would rain fire and brimstone on our heads and we would never forget it.

  Move, Cisco. Move, boy. Move now.

  I willed myself to crawl forward. I squinted through slit eyes crawling one excruciating inch at a time through the gate to the sidewalk. I clawed my way onto the bike and turned the ignition.

  I drove to my house blinking hard to make my eyes focus on the road. Just a few more miles. Just a few more blocks.

  I parked in the garage too dizzy to see straight. I stumbled getting off the bike and hit the floor. I wavered there for five minutes more until I summoned the will to get to the door.

  I supported myself against the doorjamb and lurched into the house. I would crash on the couch and call The Boss. That’s all I had to do.

  I steered for the living room and wound up staggering into my room instead. I pulled to a halt when I spotted Isabel crouched in a ball next to the closet. She raised her bruised face to gape at me in shock.

  I couldn’t say anything. A cool breath of air came through the bathroom door from the open window. She must have searched the house until she found a way in. Now she was here, scared but alive.

  A wave of relief hit me—or was that oblivion hauling me down into the depths of the ocean? I couldn’t tell. I couldn’t think anymore. I closed my eyes and the world went dark.

  7

  Isabel

  I hummed to myself making coffee and eggs. I didn’t remember being this happy in a long time, but I couldn’t explain why. I made breakfast for Diego a thousand times, but I never felt this way about doing it.

  I cleaned the kitchen as I worked. Cisco did a pretty good job at it, but how well can a man clean the kitchen living by himself? I wiped out the fridge, too. That looked like it hadn’t been done in a few years.

  I scrubbed under the burner elements on the stove and scoured out the sink. When the coffee pot switched off, I put three pieces of bacon and four eggs on a plate along with two slices of buttered toast.

  Maybe slaving for Diego all this time finally paid off. I took in every detail of Cisco’s breakfast the last time I stayed here. Now I remembered and made it the way he liked it. I even added milk and two sugars to his coffee.

  I carried them to the bedroom, but I almost dropped everything on the carpet when I saw he had his eyes open. I screamed before I checked myself.

  He heaved himself up onto the pillow. “What are you….Aaargh! That hurts!”

  I hurried to the bedside table and settled the breakfast there where it wouldn’t fall. “Take it easy. Don’t try to move too fast. You’ll tear out your stitches.”

  His head shot up and his eyes popped. “Stitches?” He glanced down at himself.

  A wide swath of gauze and tape covered his bare chest and a triangle bandage supported his arm in a sling. The bedspread fell away from just enough of his midsection to reveal his bare hips.

  A light spread over his face, followed by a cloud. “Did you….?”

  Yeah, so I took his clothes off. I couldn’t exactly put him in bed with his blood-soaked jeans on, could I? So sue me.

  I waved my hands in confusion. “I…. I stitched you up. You were bleeding pretty bad and I put your shoulder back into joint. Sorry. I hope you don’t mind.”

  He peered up at me with his mouth open. “Where did you learn to do all that?”

  “My dad was a medic in the army. He was also something of a doomer, you know. He always thought the world was coming to an end. He said me and my sister had to know how to do all that stuff just in case the shit hit the fan. Anyway, it wasn’t that hard. Your shoulder should be all right in a few days. It will hurt for a while, but you should be able to use it no problem. Just don’t do anything too strenuous or you could dislocate it again.”

  He leaned back on the pillow and pulled the bedspread up to his ribs. He sighed and looked away. “Thanks.”

  I shifted from one foot to the other. I didn’t want to look at him. He looked too good lying there with no shirt on. I won’t lie and say I didn’t take my chance to admire him last night while I had him undressed and senseless.

  I couldn’t do that, now that he was awake. “Anyway, I made you breakfast. I hope you like it. I watched you the other day and I saw how you like your coffee. I made some tortillas, too. I hope you don’t mind. It’s just that I noticed you don’t have any in your fridge. A fridge doesn’t seem like a fridge without tortillas in it, you know what I mean? Old habits die hard.”

  Christ, I was babbling like a brainless little girl. I didn’t know what to say or what to do with myself. I rubbed my hands and searched the room for nothing.

  He surprised me out of my wits by speaking. For some reason, I let myself forget that he could do that. “Thanks. I know what you mean. I haven’t had good homemade tortillas in my fridge for a long time. I don’t know how to make them, so I’m stuck with store-bought.”

  I whipped around to stare at him. “Really?”

  “Where did you learn to make tortillas? Did your mother teach you?”

  I blushed to the roots of my hair. “No! My mother did not cook—not ever. She wouldn’t risk her nails for that.” I held my hands in a dainty, limp way to mimic getting my nails done. Then I laughed. Don’t ask me why. I was nervous enough to be sick in my shoes.

  He made me want to laugh. Something about him made everything into a big joke, even life-threatening situations like yesterday. None of it seemed to matter when he was around.

  He grinned and that face lit up the room again. “So where did you learn? Did you learn in La Muerta?”

  “Yeah.” I couldn�
��t stop smiling at him. “Diego insisted on having fresh homemade tortillas on hand at all times and I didn’t know how to make them. He used to get irate about it. You know what I mean. Amelia, El Jefe’s daughter, took pity on me and taught me how. After that, Diego had to find other things to get irate about.”

  He chuckled and turned to the bedside table. “I really appreciate you doing it. It means a lot to me and I’m sure they’ll taste wonderful. Thank you for the breakfast, too, by the way. You didn’t have to.”

  “Yes, I did. You made me breakfast last time, so it was the least I could do.”

  He picked up his mug and took a sip. Then he hummed under his breath. “Perfect!”

  I laughed again. He made it so easy and natural to laugh at everything. He groaned leaning back. “You should be careful. You have some pretty bad bruises on your back.”

  He chortled into his drink. “You should see the other guy.”

  “Who was he?” I asked.

  “Diego. Who else?”

  I froze and gaped at him. “What?”

  “He was hiding in the bushes behind Teresa’s house. After I got your call, I went over there and found her shot in the chest.”

  My breath stopped in my throat. “Is she….?”

  “She’s fine. She’s in the hospital, but she’s going to be fine. I’m certain of it. She was breathing fine when I called the ambulance, and by the time paramedics took her away, they already started to relax like they do when someone isn’t in any danger.”

  I closed my eyes. I tried to say, thank you, but no sound came out. A lump constricted my voice box.

  “I didn’t see you anywhere around, so I went looking for you,” he went on. “That piece of shit jumped me in the backyard.”

  Without thinking, I sank down on the bed next to him. “I had no idea! I’m so sorry. I never meant for you to get hurt.” I couldn’t stop staring at the bandage on his chest. He got hurt fighting Diego. He went to the house to answer my call. No one ever did that for me before.

  “Forget it. It’s over. I didn’t really hurt him—not like he hurt me—but I chased him off, anyway. I’m sure that will only make him mad enough to strike again, though, so we better be on the lookout for him.”

  I dared to peek up at his face. “We?”

  He shrugged. “You know what I mean.”

  I did know what he meant, and it wasn’t we. One way or the other, I couldn’t stay here. Los Diablos would have to give me back to La Muerta eventually. Damn. I still hadn’t called Mario. He had no idea I wanted to leave.

  He might say no. He might refuse to release me. He might insist I go back to Diego. What would I do then?

  Francisco moved in bed again. He tilted to one side and picked up two pieces of bacon in his beefy hand, and his leg touched me through the bedspread. All at once, I realized I was sitting on his bed. He was stark naked under that bedspread just a few inches away.

  His eyes darted to my face while he munched his bacon and I beheld a veil of suspicion and reserve there that I’d never seen before. For the first time since he found me kneeling in the street, he didn’t return my gaze with that frank, accepting countenance that made me admire him so much.

  He held himself at a distance. He guarded himself against me. That could only mean he felt it, too. He felt the same electric charge of significance when he touched me.

  I jumped to my feet. “Well, you probably want your room to yourself. I’ll leave you alone…”

  I raced away without finishing. I hurried back to the kitchen and got busy sweeping and mopping the floor. I didn’t really know what to do with myself. I ought to leave Francisco alone. He’d done enough to help me already. I didn’t need to overcomplicate his life by sticking around.

  I didn’t want to leave, though. I wished I could be half as useful to him as I was to Diego all this time. I worked my ass off for Diego, but Francisco really deserved it.

  I sloshed the wet mop into the bucket and compressed the wringer when a dark shadow appeared to one side. For a fleeting instant, I flashed back to Diego’s apartment. I jumped three feet in the air and leaped away before I saw it was Francisco.

  My hand flew to my heart. “Oh, my God! I’m sorry. I thought you were….” I couldn’t finish.

  He eyed me with that dark mistrust blocking me from him. I wanted to run far, far away from that face. He started to really look like Diego when he glared at me like that. “I know what you thought and I’m not him.”

  “I know you’re not.” I put the mop back on the floor. “I’m sorry.”

  He lunged at me and caught the handle. His strength stopped me from moving. “Stop doing that! You’re not here to be my maid.”

  I stared up at him and opened my mouth to argue, but no words came out.

  He tugged the mop out of my hands. “You’re my guest here. I don’t want you keeping house for me.”

  My heart sank. “You don’t?”

  “No! I don’t want you treating me like Diego.”

  My spirits soared once. Then they crashed into my shoes. “Well, if I don’t do this, what can I do for you? I only want to repay some of the kindness you’ve shown me. I don’t know how to do anything else.”

  “Don’t do anything,” he replied. “You don’t have to repay me. On second thought, if you want to repay me, you can get your life together and don’t go back to that son of a bitch. Get out of it and don’t go back. That’s how you can repay me.”

  I stared down at the floor. I understood what he meant. God knows I wanted to leave Diego. That was how I wound up in this situation in the first place. I just didn’t really see it happening. All my efforts to get away from him and change my life ended up digging me into a deeper hole.

  I started to believe I belonged with him. I let myself suspect I wasn’t good enough for anything else, that he was the best I could hope for.

  My hands felt empty without the mop in them. I glanced around for something else to do, but Francisco’s massive presence wouldn’t let me move. He told me not to do anything. His words worked a spell on my brain that held me fixed in place.

  He yanked open the fridge and took out a plate of plastic-wrapped tortillas. He lifted one corner and plucked off the top tortilla. He bit into it while he replaced the dish.

  “Oh, my God!” he murmured while he chewed. “These are the best. Thank you.” He rolled it between his fingers and reclined against the counter. “What’s your plan for today?”

  “I don’t have a plan.” I fidgeted from one foot to the other. “I should go check on Teresa.”

  He nodded. “I thought you might say that. I’ll give you a ride.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” I told him. “I can manage.”

  “I know I don’t have to do it,” he returned. “I want to do it. Have you eaten?”

  I wriggled like a bug under a microscope. “Not yet.”

  “Why not? You did all this and brought me breakfast in bed, and you didn’t eat yourself?” He shook his head and snorted. “That’s gotta change, girl.”

  “I’m just not used to it, is all,” I mumbled.

  “Let me guess,” he snapped. “Diego made you wait and eat after him. I’m telling you that has got to change. You have to stop thinking of yourself as a servant. You certainly aren’t one here.”

  He got out the tortillas again and laid two of them on another plate. Then he filled them with scrambled eggs from the pan along with a strip of bacon each. Then he poured a line of salsa along each one and handed it to me. “Eat up.”

  I cracked the biggest grin of my life staring down at that plate. That was the second time he made me breakfast, and that was two times more than someone made me breakfast in the last seven years.

  I took the plate and sat down at the table. Francisco sat down opposite me, but he didn’t move. He studied me while I rolled up the tortillas with all that luscious food inside.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “I’m watching you eat.�
��

  “What for?” I asked.

  “We’re leaving after this to go visit Teresa, aren’t we?”

  “Yeah, but don’t you have something else to do?” I asked.

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know.” I waved toward the door leading to the garage. “Don’t you have some oil to change or something?”

  He exploded in roaring laughter. “That’s a good one!”

  “What’s so funny about it?” I didn’t like his tone.

  “I did that last time, remember?” His eyes twinkled. “Oil to change! That’s priceless.”

  I glared at him. “I still don’t see what’s so funny about it.”

  He pointed at my plate. “Just eat your breakfast so we can go.”

  His wish was my command. I always jumped when Diego barked his orders at me. Now I did what Francisco wanted, not because I feared he would attack me if I didn’t, but because I wanted to make him happy. I wanted him to be satisfied with whatever I was doing. I wanted to please him, to make him smile like that and to know I was the one who made him smile.

  I picked up my food and ate it while he watched. I didn’t mind being under his inspection now. I wanted him to see me doing what he asked. I wanted to show him that I would.

  When I finished, he took the plate and put it in the sink. He led the way to the garage and climbed onto his bike. He gave me that curt nod all bikers use to tell you to get on the back seat.

  I wrapped my arms around his wide back and his protective aura folded me in a magical halo of bliss. I rested my head on his shoulder and settled into the most peaceful contentment I could remember. I didn’t have to worry about Diego with Cisco around. I didn’t have to worry about anything.

  I could be vulnerable and broken around him. I was good enough the way I was. I didn’t have to strive or pretend to be something else. I could let go of all my cares and just let him drive.

  The bike rumbled down the street to the hospital. Francisco parked, but he didn’t dismount when I got to the sidewalk. I waited, but he sat where he was in the saddle. “Aren’t you coming in?”