Into the Fire

by Kyla Stone

  “But you still love it.”

  “I still love it.” She looked out over the vast expanse. “When I lived with Ezra, this is where I used to come when I needed to escape, when I needed to think.”

  He saw it, too. After five days out here, he truly did. There was peace, wild and untamed, but still present. A peace he wanted. He felt the longing in his very soul. “It’s…something else.”

  She smiled wryly. “That’s quite the compliment, coming from you.”

  Above the tangled roots of mangroves, several dozen white egrets perched, their reflections pristine against the brackish water. A thousand insects buzzed all around them. Occasional splashes indicated creatures swimming—and hunting—just beneath the surface.

  Dakota said, “I think we need to talk.”

  42

  Logan

  Logan didn’t say anything. He didn’t know what to say.

  Dakota stared at the murky water. “After my parents died, I learned I couldn’t trust anyone but myself.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “I want to. I think I need to.” She spoke softly, haltingly, with an ache in her voice that twisted his guts. “I learned the people who were supposed to take care of me were the ones who were the most dangerous. It was a hard lesson. But I learned it. And I survived.

  “After having so much of my life out of my control, I thought the way to fix everything was to control as much as I could. But that doesn’t work with people. So, I’m having to learn to trust the people I care about.

  “The world is terrible and broken and full of ugly and dangerous things. But it’s also beautiful. Eden taught me that. She could see the beauty—could find it and name it and draw it in her notebook—and that’s what kept us going. When you forget to find that thing, that’s when you lose yourself, when you lose what matters.

  “Something is eating away at you. I can see it. You can tell me. You can trust me.”

  They were sitting parallel, side by side but not facing each other. Maybe it was better that way. He couldn’t bear to see the judgment in her eyes. “It’s not what you think.”

  “A bad thing happened to you,” Dakota said. “I can tell.”

  The sun was a white-hot circle in the sky, beating down on them. A great blue heron stood ankle-deep in the water.

  Beyond it, the log resting on the muddy bank wasn’t a log. An alligator, maybe twelve feet long, basking only a few yards from their flimsy fishing boat.

  “I was the bad thing,” Logan said.

  The gator didn’t move. Just stared silently back at him, a monster sizing up another monster.

  Logan closed his eyes. “I was the bad thing that happened to someone else.”

  She raised her hand and held it over Logan’s. He watched her fingers hovering over his own, hesitating, questioning. What would he do if she touched him? Did she know? Did he?

  “Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is ask for help,” she said.

  She withdrew her hand and set it gently next to his, inches away but not touching. She was leaving the choice up to him. She wasn’t going to force anything he wasn’t ready for. Or didn’t want.

  It wasn’t a matter of want. But how could he explain that to her?

  “Logan,” she said. “Let me in.”

  He’d gone too far, killing that woman. Almost killing the other two.

  He hadn’t been able to stop himself. He hadn’t cared in the moment, but he cared now. Killing in self-defense, killing to protect the people he’d come to care about—he felt no guilt or remorse over those acts.

  He’d done it before and would do it again in a heartbeat.

  But killing out of bloodlust…out of anger and vengeance…wasn’t that simply cold-blooded murder?

  If he’d taken half a second to analyze the situation, he would’ve known the threat was already neutralized. But he hadn’t wanted to. That was the darkness, the monster, the machine-like thing inside him that made him feel inhuman.

  His stomach lurched as he glanced down at the tattoo wrapped around his forearm in a tangle of barbed wire. He rubbed the five-dot prison tattoo between his thumb and pointer finger. “I’ve done things…”

  “Tell me.” There was no judgment in her voice. No condemnation.

  He remembered the night they sat together on the metal stairwell outside the hotel, when they both stayed awake to keep watch while the others slept and the city descended into chaos.

  She’d opened up to him, laid herself bare, and he’d forgiven her for everything.

  He doubted forgiveness was possible for him. He knew it wasn’t. The person whom he most needed forgiveness from was no longer among the living.

  His hands were trembling. That sick, cold feeling thrummed through his whole body.

  He forgot the oppressive sun, the heat, the bugs. Everything was still—the sawgrass, the mangrove trees along the far bank—hanging limp and motionless, drained by the heat.

  Tell me.

  He did.

  43

  Logan

  “For you!” Tomás stood outside Logan’s apartment doorway, clutching an orange and gazing up at him with those huge, earnest eyes. An oversized Avengers backpack sagged from the boy’s slim shoulder.

  “Fruit of the day,” he said with a goofy grin.

  Logan leaned out and peered down the shabby hallway to the right, then the left. The exposed fluorescent light bulbs along the cracked, stained ceiling flickered and buzzed.

  No one there. No one but the kid.

  A big deal was going down tonight or maybe tomorrow. He didn’t have time for this. Still, he managed a smile and took the orange. “Next time, I owe you a candy bar.”

  “I just got Call of Duty: Black Ops 5. Wanna play?” Tomás folded his hands into two finger-guns and mimed a shooting battle. “Bam, bam, bam! You’re so dead! I’ll beat you this time for sure.”

  Occasionally, Tomás’s mother, Adelina, asked Logan to watch Tomás for an hour or so while she went grocery shopping, to the doctor’s, or had to work late cleaning houses for rich people in the suburbs.

  Logan and Tomás would play video games until she returned, exhausted and rubbing her eyes, but with a grateful smile. That she was a beautiful woman didn’t hurt, either.

  “Where’s your mama?”

  Tomás shrugged. “We ran out of Lucky Charms. She promised she’d stop at the store on her way home.”

  Logan glanced at his phone. It was already past 3:30 p.m. She’d be back by 4:00, 4:30 at the latest. The kid would be fine on his own for a while.

  Tomás poked his gun-finger into Logan’s stomach. “Bam! Let’s play.”

  “Maybe later.” Logan was distracted. There was too much going on. He needed to think, to focus. He plucked the orange from the kid’s hand, said a hasty goodbye, and shut the door.

  He tossed the orange in the overflowing trash bin beneath the sink filled with dirty dishes. He didn’t like oranges all that much, though the kid seemed to think he did.

  Anyway, he was too tense to eat.

  He paced his narrow one-bedroom apartment, his shoes scuffing the peeling linoleum in the kitchen and worn carpet in the living room. It was less than ten long strides from the sagging kitchen cabinets to the far wall, bare and yellowed around the huge 70-inch TV screen Alejandro had bought for him last year.

  Alejandro Gomez, second in command of the La Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, chapter in Richmond, Virginia. A stone-cold killer and ruthless leader, one no one wanted to cross or disappoint, not if you wanted to keep all your fingers.

  It was Alejandro who had taken him in like his own son, had given him a role, a purpose, a brotherhood. To Logan, a fatherless boy scraping out a living on the streets, brawling for every inch of space to call his own, that was everything.

  He’d fought and bled and killed his way through the ranks until he was Alejandro’s righthand man, his soldier, his assassin.

  So what the hell was Logan doing here in his apartmen
t, wearing out the soles of his shoes? A cold fury burned through him. It was all he could do not to break something.

  Last night, Francisco “The Snake” Torres-Amador, a rival leader of one of the regional Bloods franchises, had taken out seven of Alejandro’s men in a raid of one of their stash houses. They’d stolen 1.5 million bucks in coke and destroyed the house, setting it ablaze and attracting the attention of the cops.

  One of the MS-13 members killed was Alejandro’s sixteen-year-old cousin.

  Alejandro would never let it go. Not until he hunted down every single Blood involved and removed their limbs from their bodies, one by one, while they were still alive.

  Thing was, the stash was only at the house for a day on its way to L.A. and bigger buyers. Only a handful of the local upper tier MS-13 members knew about it or its location.

  Which meant only one thing.

  Alejandro’s crew had a mole—and Alejandro suspected Logan.

  Logan cursed. The simulated gunfire and rumbling noises of Tomás’s video game echoed through the paper-thin walls. The old lady across the hallway, Mrs. Costales, was cooking empanadas; the delicious scent wafted through the crack beneath the door.

  Sometimes, she brought him a few, always chattering in Spanish about pairing him up with her single thirty-two-year-old granddaughter. But he wasn’t hungry for empanadas now—he hadn’t eaten since last night, when he’d learned Alejandro hadn’t come straight to him to plan their revenge.

  In fact, he hadn’t heard from Alejandro at all.

  Alejandro had already cut him out. Someone had been whispering toxic lies in his ear. Maybe Oscar Reyes, a treacherous, slippery eel of a man without a loyal bone in his body. He’d slaughter his own grandmother for a chance at more power.

  Logan had loathed him for years but had never been able to pin him down and expose his duplicity. How was he going to fix this?

  Logan was an idiot for remaining here like a kicked dog, for sitting back and allowing this betrayal, letting the knife slide into his back without a fight.

  If he was going down, he was going down swinging. And Oscar Reyes was going with him.

  Anyone who knew anything about Logan Garcia knew he’d claw his way out of the grave just to keep on fighting. He flexed his scarred knuckles and nodded to himself. No, he couldn’t take this lying down.

  He grabbed his Glock from the counter, strapped on his holster, and slipped three loaded magazines into his pockets. Reyes had another thing coming if he thought—

  The door burst open.

  Instantly, Logan dropped to one knee, elbow braced on his thigh, pistol aimed at the doorway, ready to shoot someone’s head off.

  “Easy, ese.” Alejandro laughed. “I brought you a present.”

  44

  Logan

  Alejandro strode into Logan’s shabby apartment like he owned it. He believed he did, just like he owned Logan.

  Two muscular, tattooed Latinos followed him, dragging a limp body between them. They hauled the body into the living room and dropped him, groaning, onto the carpet two feet from the muzzle of Logan’s gun.

  The Snake looked up at him through eyes nearly swollen shut. Logan could barely make out the tattoos of snake eyes inked on Francisco Torres-Amador’s eyelids through the mashed flesh, torn cartilage, and mangled bone that remained of his face.

  Francisco eased back on his heels, wincing and breathing hard, one hand clutching the right side of his ribcage. He’d likely suffered several cracked ribs. Alejandro enjoyed kicking his enemies while they were down.

  Blood leaked from a jagged cut in the man’s forehead and dripped onto the carpet. Logan stared at the round, red stains until his vision blurred. The empanadas cooking down the hall filled his nostrils. The muffled bang and boom of Tomás’s video game filtered through the wall.

  Fresh anger roiled through him.

  “This is where I live,” Logan hissed. “You can’t come here like this. We don’t do this in our own backyards!”

  Alejandro only offered him a hard smile. “No? Maybe we should, ese. Maybe I wanted to see you two face-to-face, yeah?”

  Gonzalo Rodrìguez stood to the right—a huge, hairy gorilla of a grunt who spoke little and communicated mostly with his massive fists. On the left, rat-faced Oscar Reyes held a pistol outfitted with a silencer to The Snake’s skull.

  A silencer wasn’t silent enough. Would Tomás’s video game muffle the sound of real bullets? Would these flimsy walls offer any protection at all in case things went sideways and a stray round punched through gypsum straight into Tomás’s living room?

  Logan rose to his feet, gun still in hand, and circled the fallen man, Alejandro’s grunts on either side of him, buying himself a few moments to think.

  He’d lived here peaceably for three years. He liked his neighbors. Knew them. Many of the low-income housing tenements were overrun by low-rung hoodlums and neighborhood teenage gangs killing each other over territorial scuffles.

  He’d searched long and hard to find one that was relatively quiet.

  It meant something to him.

  Alejandro had helped him find this place. He knew Logan better than anyone, which meant he knew how to hurt him.

  “Times like this, we need to prove our loyalties, ese,” Alejandro said.

  Logan glanced from Reyes to Alejandro. Reyes’ grin was gleeful—and greedy.

  Alejandro looked tense, suspicious, and quietly furious. He had a hairpin trigger of a temper. His retribution was swift, pitiless, and often reckless. He only questioned himself afterward, when it was far too late for the poor soul he’d already maimed and murdered.

  Logan needed to tread very, very carefully.

  “Just tell me what to do,” he said evenly, though his pulse had skyrocketed. “I’m your brother.”

  Alejandro raised his brows. “Are you?”

  “You know that I am.”

  Alejandro’s lips pressed into a thin line. He waved his gun at Francisco. “Kill him. Slowly. So we all can see where your loyalties lie.”

  Alejandro knew Logan killed with efficiency. He was very good at what he did, but he had a distaste for cruelty, for torture. A bullet to the brain was just as effective and saved energy and ammo that could better be applied elsewhere.

  Alejandro was playing with him, like a cat plays with a mouse. Testing him. But to what end?

  Francisco swore at them. Alejandro kicked him savagely in the face. The man collapsed with a yelp and curled into a fetal ball.

  Reyes laughed and spat on him. “Not so hot now, are you?”

  “Ask him who told him about the coke,” Alejandro instructed. “Shoot his feet, then his hands, then his knees, until he talks.”

  “We can’t do this here,” Logan said. “It’s too dangerous.”

  Reyes smirked. “You better hurry, then.”

  “Get him to talk.” Alejandro’s voice went low and cold. “And you better pray he doesn’t say the name of someone in this room.”

  “Go to hell,” Francisco growled. “I’ll kill you! My boys’ll hunt you down and cut off your—”

  This time, Logan kicked him in the stomach. “Shut up!”

  Reyes pulled a silencer out of his pocket and handed it to Logan. They watched as Logan threaded the long, black metal tube to the end of his Glock.

  He pointed the gun at the man’s right foot, encased in the latest pair of Lebron Soldier basketball shoes. He hesitated. He was a good shot. He wouldn’t miss. But the round might go straight through the foot into the ceiling of the apartment below.

  He got low as he aimed so if the bullet went into the floor, it would skim the ceiling over the occupants’ heads and lodge itself harmlessly in the outer wall. Hopefully.

  He breathed in, focused, shut out the anxiety, the dread, the fear souring his gut. He exhaled and shot down and angled into the side of the man’s foot.

  Francisco screamed.

  “Tell us a name,” Logan said.

  Francisco was too bus
y writhing on the floor in agony to answer.

  Logan didn’t have a clear shot of his other foot. Reyes stomped down on his leg, eliciting another shrill scream but it anchored him in place. Logan aimed for a larger target and shot just above the left kneecap.

  Each shot sounded like a cannon blast echoing in his ears.

  “Logan?” a tremulous voice asked.

  Logan whipped around.

  Tomás stood in the doorway. Alejandro’s men had left the door propped open.

  A chill went up Logan’s spine. His mouth went dry. They’d left the door open on purpose. They wanted someone to hear, wanted an innocent victim.

  Now they had one.

  “Get out!” Logan said.

  Tomás only looked at him in confusion. He held a bright orange in one hand, the plastic Call of Duty case in the other.

  “I just wanted…I thought…” His voice trailed off, his eyes growing larger as he took in the men, the guns, the bloody, groaning man on the floor.

  Oscar Reyes smiled like a shark, completely devoid of warmth or humor. “Come on in, kid.”

  45

  Logan

  Reyes herded Tomás into the room, pointing with his gun. “On the couch.”

  “No,” Logan said. “He doesn’t have anything to do with this. He didn’t see nothing. Get him out of here.”

  The boy froze. One step inside the doorway, the kitchen to his left, the main apartment corridor behind him, the living room straight ahead. His gaze went wild with fear as understanding slowly infiltrated his eight-year-old mind.

  Francisco wheezed through his broken nose. He raised his head and glared at Reyes. “Let me go and I’ll tell you what you want. I’ll tell you exactly who—”

  “No.” Reyes pivoted, aimed his weapon down, and pulled the trigger. The bullet punched through The Snake’s left temple, just above his ear. He died in mid-scream.