Queen of Humbolt

by Tagan Shepard

  Their mouths and bodies fit as closely as puzzle pieces. The closer they got, the more danger Sloane felt of forgetting where they were. Forgetting who was in the next room. Forgetting the taste of blood on her tongue where she was being too rough with her damaged partner.

  She teetered on the edge of forgetting for a long time, reveling in Marisol’s kisses and the feel of her body. Her mind screamed for her to be sensible, but logic drowned in the singing of her flesh. Slowly, agonizingly, she ended the kiss, separating their bodies first and then their lips. Marisol appeared just as reluctant to break the kiss.

  Sloane was slow to open her eyes. She knew what she would see. Marisol’s flashing brown eyes soaking in lust, as were her own. When her lids fluttered open, however, she saw something completely unexpected. Fear in Marisol’s eyes. A panicked, animal fear that had not appeared once in all the beatings. She wasn’t looking at Sloane. She was looking over her shoulder.

  Before she could turn. Before she could think. Before she could do anything a searing pain exploded on Sloane’s scalp. The hair on the back of her head lifted in a violent yank and her head snapped back. Cold fingers wrapped around her throat, and blackness crept into the edges of her vision as she fought to breathe.

  “Looks like I’ve found your weakness at last, Marisol.”

  Sloane saw a brief flash of Jordan’s hateful face before it was gone. Then Marisol’s face was gone, too. With a single, violent yank Jordan sent her flying across the room.

  Sloane threw up her arms instinctively, but that only made matters worse. Her ribs caught against one of the roof pillars. Pain erupted up her side and through her chest, forcing the air from her body. She spun a few degrees in midair, then crashed to the ground in a heap.

  She heard a scream of frustrated anger, but it couldn’t be hers. It was a primal, agonized scream that exploded into the stillness the instant before her shoulder smashed into the ground, followed by the sharp smack from the crown of her head. She didn’t have breath to scream. Stars erupted in her vision as she gasped for air. The loose dirt of the floor flew into her nostrils and coated her dry mouth. She coughed and the sound was choked.

  She didn’t lose consciousness, but the world swam sickeningly. Marisol’s scream filled her mind. Then the cold fingers were back around her throat. Her temple pulsed as the blood built pressure against her skin. She tried to beg for help, but her mind could not form the words and her lungs didn’t have the air to make them.

  In the dim recesses of her mind, she understood what was happening. She saw Jordan’s face hovering over her. She felt the woman’s free arm wrench hers over her head at an angle that could have broken it. She felt her clothing move as the blackness hovering on the edges of her vision crept slowly toward the center.

  Her flailing mind brought up the image of Dominique Levy, the gentle, thoughtful woman she had seen last at her Inaugural Ball. The one who had told her that one day she might find a hidden depth to Marisol. The one who apparently knew those depths better than anyone. She must remember to tell Dominique she was right about Marisol.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Marisol had entered a perfect nightmare. She had been in the heights of ecstasy. A decade’s worth of hopeless fantasies had suddenly come true. Sloane’s body had been pressed against hers. They were kissing and Marisol had forgotten a kiss could be so divine. Could make her believe in a god out there in the void.

  Then she had opened her eyes and Jordan’s smug, malevolent face was inches away. Everything she had worked so hard to keep hidden from her kidnapper was hellishly displayed in Jordan’s smile of pure, delighted evil, revealing the horrors that were to come. Now she was trapped, hanging from this hook like a slab of useless meat, about to watch Jordan defile the most beautiful thing the universe had ever created.

  Marisol couldn’t remember the last time she had felt this kind of wild, impotent fury. She had fought the sense of helplessness all her life. If she had ever stopped to consider her choices, every single one of them from the time she was a little girl staring into her dead mother’s eyes until this day had been to avoid being helpless. Yet here she was, in the most important moment of her life, feet tied, hands bound over her head. She would never be able to get her body high enough to unhook them.

  In an act of pure self-hatred, Marisol let herself look at the struggle across the room. Jordan was laughing now. A high-pitched victorious wheeze. She’d released Sloane’s throat, but the Governor’s lips were still tinged blue and her face was a vivid shade of purple. Her head wobbled drunkenly and her eyes were vague as they spun.

  With one hand she pinned Sloane’s wrists to the floor above her head. The other roughly hiked up Sloane’s tight skirt, ripping a seam. She pressed her body between Sloane’s knees and there was no doubt as to her intention.

  The sight enraged Marisol and she screamed again, the force of her rage propelling her body forward as far as the hook permitted. Even through her blind fury, she felt the easy glide of rope along metal and analyzed it. Perhaps her bonds were not as securely attached to the hook as she thought. She screamed again, this time more to cover the sounds of her movement than out of blind panic. The nylon rope shifted again.

  Sloane, who had a cut high on her forehead that bled freely down her dust-streaked cheek, seemed to regain a sliver of her senses. Jordan’s hand snaked under the tightly bunched dress, but Sloane struggled enough that Jordan had to abandon her attempts to get beneath her clothing.

  Something irrevocable inside Marisol snapped. As Jordan’s hand wrapped around Sloane’s throat again, the Governor opened her mouth in a silent, gurgling scream. It was a sound Marisol knew all too well. Sloane’s eyes, clearer than before, slid from Jordan’s face, across the room to land on Marisol. There was desperation in them. Pleading.

  Marisol’s vision went red with fury. She couldn’t let it happen. She would not let another woman she loved be taken from her like this. Watching someone else choke the life out of the most important person to her. Sloane’s bare foot began to shake.

  A roar originated in her very core and Marisol spewed it from her mouth like venom. At the same moment she jumped as high as she could with what little leverage the ground could provide her stretched toes. Her plan was thin. Ridiculously thin. It would crumble in an instant at the slightest wrong touch, but it was her only hope and she had to act.

  The rope binding her wrists came free of the hook. She grabbed with numb hands at the long, metal stick of the hook and somehow managed to hold on. She gripped it tightly, her hands in agony from the strain, but it didn’t matter. She was free of the hook, but she had more work to do.

  Jordan adjusted her grip and Sloane’s shouting finally had enough room to give voice. “No! No! No!”

  Jordan laughed and scooted her knees higher beneath her. She released Sloane’s hands, but Sloane’s attempts to retaliate were worthless. Even as Jordan’s free hand went back to pulling Sloane’s dress up, the hand around her throat clamped down, cutting off her cries.

  Marisol forced herself to focus on her task. Her plan stood on a knife’s edge now, and she needed to be very careful. Unfortunately, her bloodless hands were already sliding down the smooth surface of the hook and she needed to be higher to clear the hooked end when she let go. Kicking her powerful legs through the air beneath her, Marisol jumped again, gripping the hook arm a little higher than before. She blocked out Jordan’s laughter, thankful only that her distraction afforded Marisol time. She was close now. Almost there, but her hands were agony after being hung by them for so long and she was losing her grip.

  In an instant, Marisol registered both that she was not high enough on the hook and that she was at the limit of her strength. Her grip was failing and she was going to fall. Her bonds would slide back down the metal arm and she would be trapped again.

  Summoning all her remaining strength in one final, monumental effort, Marisol swung her legs, kicked and jumped. Only this time, when she let go of the hook, sh
e swung the rope back, away from her bindings. She felt the very tip of the hook scrape along the surface of the rope. It stuttered, caught, couldn’t find purchase, and finally, miraculously, swung free.

  Marisol fell in a heap to the ground. Her ankle twisted and her face smacked hard into the packed dirt, but she was free. Her body begged to remain on the floor. Every injury it had received since she came crashing through an air vent in Sloane’s luxury apartment building in Chicago ached and held her fast to the ground. But she was Marisol Soltero, The Queen of Humboldt, and she dragged herself to her feet.

  She stood, took a deep breath, and charged. Her movements were jerky, shuffling, and distinctly ungraceful because of her tied ankles, but she was aimed at Jordan and she was gaining speed. She didn’t look at Sloane. She couldn’t. If she saw the blackening features or the slow, inevitable drooping of her limbs, Marisol would crumble. Instead she put all of her effort into her awkward run. The ropes cut into her right ankle where the leg of her leather pants had ridden up her calf, and her charge gained a hopping skip as she neared her target.

  Just when Marisol thought she could take her tormentor by surprise, Jordan’s head snapped up. She saw Marisol coming and released Sloane’s neck, twisting to meet the onrushing attack. It was too late. Another two skipping steps and Marisol lowered her body, ramming her shoulder directly into Jordan’s chest as she stood to meet the charge.

  At the moment of impact, Marisol’s world blinked out in pain. It came back almost immediately, but the pain redoubled when they slammed together into the floor. Marisol’s shoulder wrenched. Her back slammed so hard into the floor that all the breath was knocked from her lungs.

  Jordan and Marisol tumbled over each other, the momentum of the collision rolling them across the room in a jumble of flailing limbs and curses in two languages. Most unfortunately, Jordan landed on top. Her knee dug into Marisol’s already brutalized side as she struggled to her feet. With stoic inevitability, Marisol watched Jordan stand. Instinctively she knew the fight was over. Her efforts were Herculean, but they were not enough.

  As she rolled onto her back, Marisol knew she didn’t have the strength to get back up. She had fought her body for every last particle of strength and now there was truly nothing left. She barely had the strength to breathe.

  Marisol watched helplessly as Jordan pulled herself up to her full height. She loomed over Marisol, her expression full of mingled hatred and glee. Her hand reached toward the holster on her hip. Marisol swallowed hard and waited for the end of her pain.

  She had given everything she had to this world and it had only taken, giving nothing to her in return. Nothing but a perfect weekend and a single kiss. All the bad she had done and the little bit of good had been worth it for that one, perfect kiss. She stopped the thought of what would happen to Sloane after she was dead. It appeared on the horizon of her thoughts and she turned away from it. Her last memory would be that Brin had kissed her. She had learned everything of who Marisol was and she had kissed her anyway. It had been worth living for. It was certainly worth dying for.

  Two gunshots in quick succession exploded into the night. Just as quickly two roses bloomed on Jordan’s chest, all shining scarlet and twisted petals. Her mouth drooped from a smirk into a straight, neutral line. Her eyes dimmed and she spat a mouthful of blood into the dusty air. She stood still as a statue for a single moment, then crumpled into a heap at Marisol’s feet.

  Her fall revealed Sloane standing a few feet away. She was shaking like a leaf, her finger still wrapped around the trigger of Marisol’s shining Colt. Her eyes were wild with panic.

  A sudden silence filled the room and Marisol realized she’d heard the muffled roar of a crowd and the impassioned bark of sports announcers until that moment. She lay still, waiting for the television sounds to start again, but instead she heard the shuffling of booted feet. She scrambled to her knees with difficulty, forced to push herself upright on her sore elbow and bruised shoulder.

  “Boss?”

  The man’s voice, calling through the door, was as good a cover as Marisol could hope to have. She shuffled awkwardly to Jordan’s feet, using her bound hands to search the tops of her boots. Jordan had always carried a boot knife. She’d enjoyed whipping out the blade dramatically and, though Marisol had rolled her eyes at the time, she was relieved now to find Jordan had continued the habit.

  “Hey,” the man called again, an edge of annoyance cutting through his words. “You kill ’em? I thought I heard gunshots.”

  The ropes around her wrists allowed her just enough play to position the knife but sawing through them was a challenge. Fortunately, Jordan kept her knife sharp and Marisol was able to slice through the coils quickly. She had her right hand free of the ropes when she heard the familiar sound of screeching hinges as the heavy door began to open.

  Marisol leapt forward, calculating the angle of her movement even as she performed it. As she dove over Jordan’s corpse she tucked her shoulder and rolled. Her feet came to the ground again, she dug the toes of her boots into the earth. She propelled her body as far away from Sloane as she could and landed on her knees directly across from the door.

  The first guy was one of those who had strung her up on the hook. One step into the room and Marisol dropped him, his machete spinning across the floor. Jordan’s boot knife protruded from the base of his throat and he gurgled as he fell. Throwing the knife was agony on her abused shoulder. Even she was surprised at the accuracy of her throw with her recently freed hand. Blood was still working its way to her fingertips and the pins and needles made it difficult to use them.

  Rather than attempt to stand, Marisol tucked her arms across her chest and rolled toward the discarded machete. Wielding a two-handed weapon was a risk given the ropes still hanging from her left hand, but her opponent wasn’t much of a threat. He clearly thought he was entering the room to help dispose of Marisol and Sloane’s corpses, and so he was unprepared for attack. Marisol hacked at his knee and he roared in pain, crumbling in front of her. She silenced him quickly, his hand never touching the rifle slung across his shoulder. Rolling back to the first man, she checked to see he was no longer a threat before turning her attention to Sloane.

  She hadn’t moved. She still stared wide-eyed at Jordan’s body, the gun gripped in her hands.

  “Brin?”

  Marisol kept her voice quiet, but maybe she was too quiet. Sloane stood silently, the gun quaking in a thousand directions.

  “Put the gun down.” Sloane didn’t move her arm, only her eyes moved, spreading even wider and darting around. Marisol put the slightest edge to her voice. “Brin, look at me.”

  It was a calculated risk, Marisol knew. People holding guns, particularly those new to the sensation, tended to move the weapon to wherever their eyes went. True to form, Sloane whipped her gaze around to fix on Marisol and she brought the barrel of the gun with her. She told herself that she trusted Sabrina Sloane. That she was a strong woman who could handle this moment. Still, it was more than exhaustion that made Marisol shift with slow, ponderous movements as she shuffled forward on her knees.

  Sloane looked away from her, focusing back on Jordan’s body, and the gun went with her gaze. With almost the same effort it took to get herself off the hook, Marisol climbed to her feet. She could already see the red marks of Jordan’s fingers coming to life on Sloane’s gorgeous neck. She gritted her teeth against the image and shuffled to her side.

  “I shot her.”

  The voice did not sound like Sloane’s. If Marisol hadn’t seen her lips move, she wouldn’t have believed the source.

  “It’s okay.”

  Sloane whipped her eyes up. Had Marisol thought they were wild before? Now they were feral. Crazed. Deranged. She waved the gun around as she spoke, the barrel cutting a warm trail through the air so close to Marisol’s face that she nearly flinched away.

  “Okay? How is this okay? This is not okay! A woman is dead! I killed her!”

  �
�Brin.” Her voice was firm but patient. Finally, Sloane’s eyes cleared a fraction and she really looked at Marisol for the first time. “It’s okay, baby.”

  The tears came like lighting out of a clear blue sky. One moment Sloane’s eyes were dry, the next she was weeping uncontrollably. She dropped the gun. It rattled on the floor and tumbled until it rested, butt up against Jordan’s boot. Sloane threw her arms around Marisol, sobbing into her neck and mumbling incoherently. Marisol hugged her back with what little strength she possessed, tucking her chin against Sloane’s shoulder.

  She could have spent the rest of her life like this with Sloane’s warm, solid presence pressed against her body. The feel of her lips and her nose pressed into the soft flesh of her neck. The grip of needy fingers on her damp T-shirt. There had been precious few genuinely good moments in Marisol’s life. Any that she had were always tinged with bad, and this was no exception. Still, she reveled in it for the mere fact that they were both alive for the time being.

  Her exhaustion was too much in the end and she couldn’t keep her feet. She managed it gracefully until she hit her knees, but she fell the rest of the way to her side. Sloane was on her in a heartbeat, yanking at the ropes around her wrist. Marisol bit off her yelp of pain as the ropes yielded quickly. The moment her hands were free, Sloane gripped them hard in her own, pulling them in a knot to rest against her chest. She leaned forward in a flash of movement and pressed Marisol into another searing kiss.

  Shock as much as lust accounted for Marisol’s immediate response, but she did not have time to fall into the kiss. As soon as it began, Sloane broke the contact and leapt to her feet. If nothing else, Marisol was able to take the brief kiss as proof that their first was not inspired by the proximity of death.

  Sloane grabbed the machete and brought it back to Marisol. She knelt at Marisol’s feet, positioning the machete, which trembled wildly along with every other inch of her body, to chop down through the ropes. In her current state, it was far more likely that she would chop off both Marisol’s feet.