Taming Cross (Love Inc.) (13 page)

Checking to be sure the girl is still helping the kid, I grab the gun, attach the magazine—just to be on the safe side—and stick it back in the belt of my pants. I hope by the time they notice it’s missing, Merri and I will already be out of here.

After maybe twenty minutes of searching, I pause in the middle of some hallway and let out a deep breath. Meredith is here. Missy King is Meredith Kinsey. I almost can’t believe it. I wonder again how she came to this fate—but does it matter? Am I still trying to ease my guilt? I pick up my pace and keep on the lookout for nuns, for anyone who can direct me to Meredith.

The building is actually four buildings: one that was apparently the old cafeteria, and was all but decimated by the bomb; another in the front that serves as the clinic; another pod serving as the sanctuary; and still another unit with the dorms. I've wandered into the church pod.

The carpeted halls are dark and smell like old Play Doh. I pass a young nun who is busy cleaning; she glances at me, then hurries by. An older nun chases a little girl who laughs ecstatically as she rushes past. I just keep moving, reminding myself that I’m doing nothing wrong. Another hall, a sharp right turn, and I see signs for the sanctuary. I peek inside, hoping to find Merri praying, but it's empty. The painted porcelain crucifix on the far wall glows under two weak lights. It kind of creeps me out. I cross through a hall at the back of the clinic, and I'm pretty sure that this will lead me to the dorms. Where I hope to find Merri.

I'm feeling more and more stressed thinking of where the cartel is right now, when like an apparition, I see a swatch of reddish hair flying down the hallway right in front of me.

I pick up my pace, and I'm about to shout Merri's name when she ducks her head, and I notice the way she's dressed: black sweatpants and a grey t-shirt, plus sneakers. And she's creeping, like she doesn’t want to be seen.

Interesting.

For a half second I hope maybe she's looking for me, but then she goes down another hallway, pushes through a door, and disappears.

By the time I finally get the nerve to follow her into the room, at least a minute has passed. It’s dark when I walk in. Then I notice movement, and I realize a window is open. A window is open, revealing a small swatch of the deep pink sky, and Merri is halfway out of it.

I don't think before acting. I close the distance between us in half a second and wrap my hand around her upper arm. “What are you doing?” I have a sick feeling in my stomach when I ask this. I've built Merri up to be innocent—the opposite of everything I'd thought about Missy King—but what if she's really some kind of drug runner or something?

Then she looks up at me, and I know I'm wrong. Her eyes are huge, her mouth a worried twist. And when she speaks, her voice is barely more than a rasp. “Are you here to take me to Jesus?”

“What? Fuck no! I already told you that I'm not.” I tighten my grip around her soft, warm arm, trying to tug her gently toward me, but her hands cling to the window frame.

“What are you doing, Meredith?”

“It's not your business!” Her eyebrows pull together, like she's worried, but then her face twists angrily. She jerks against me. “Let me go!”

“I will,” I say evenly, “but I’m coming with you.”

“No you’re not!” She jerks again, this time hard enough to throw me off, and in a heartbeat she's sailing through the window.

It takes me a second longer, because I've got to push my body through using only my right hand for balance. My booted feet hit sand about three feet below me; a dust cloud puffs around me, blocking, for a second, my view of a row of scrubby bushes and beyond that, a quiet rural road topped by a fading sunset.

Merri is moving through the bushes, sticking close to the building, hunching down low to the ground. My legs are so much longer than hers, it's not hard to catch up. Only this time, instead of grabbing her arm, I throw both arms around her back.

I whirl her around to face me, gritting my teeth as she claws my neck. “Where are you going?”

“Let go!” Her eyes are dancing. Furious.

“No! Are you going back to Cientos? That’s crazy!”

She flails against me, trying her damnedest to get away. “A lot of things are crazy!”

“You need to—”

“No,” she hisses. Her chest is heaving, her hands now locked around my forearms. “They'll kill me, here or there. Anywhere. I'm dangerous to everyone. That's why I'm doing this.”

     What the fuck?

I guess I give her a look that shows her just how crazy I think she is, because she looks triumphant.

“See?” She pulls back a little, so I can see every inch of her stubborn face. “I told you to go away and forget you found me. You think you can go up against the Cientos Cartel?”

I notice movement behind her as I say, “I think I
will
.”

Then I see the glint of light on metal, and I realize there's a gun to Merri's head.

I know something is wrong by the look on my stubborn angel's face. In the dim light of dusk, I can see him blanch. Then I feel the gun against my head and I just let the breath seep out of me.

So this is it. This is how my life will end.

I clench my right fist against my angel's arm and pretend that I'm holding my rosary. I left it in my luggage, in the attic, along with a long letter to Sister Mary Carolina; if I were to bring the rosary anywhere near Jesus, he'd accuse me of trying to manipulate him.

I say a silent Hail Mary and pray that the Sisters here are right. That God forgives; that He's forgiven me.

For what seems like too long, none of us move. It’s quiet, so I can hear the heavy breaths of the man behind me. It's Guapo, I think—one of Cientos' lieutenants. He manages the sex business. He's tall, always wears black, and he smells like the vanilla tobacco he loves to smoke.

If Guapo has his gun to my head, there's no way I'll make it out al—

A gunshot bursts my eardrums and I wait to die. When I see my angel jump from his crouch, I just assume he's been shot.

I'm blinking, wondering dully why God would send an angel to me only to have him killed, when hands grab me. Not Guapo's, the angel's.

I don’t get a chance to orient myself before we’re running alongside the stucco wall, feet kicking up the sand nestled around the building’s base. Despite having spent my entire time here on the
inside
of this building, I’m pretty sure we’re moving toward the front. I didn't climb out where Father Mendez told me to, near the cafeteria wing that got burned, as it’s not Thursday evening.

Is this another full-on attack? Are they going to burn the whole clinic this time?

I try to communicate my worries to my angel, try to tug on his arm and tell him, “I have to be sure they’re okay!” and for a second I think he's heard me. He drops back, but instead of addressing my concern, he gets behind me, shoving me forward with his right elbow.

“What the hell?”

For a second, as I'm shoved along, I worry that he's with some other cartel. Or at least hired by one. He could even be freelancing—taking me hostage so Jesus has to pay to get me back.

I throw my arms out, wanting to stop and think before I just go with this guy, but I hear men’s voices shouting somewhere nearby, and my feet are moving too fast for me to slow down. We round the corner, to the front of the building, on the side where it’s charred, and I’m shocked to see Juan, plus Malcolm, one of Jesus’s lieutenants, on the pebble path in front of the building. They're both pointing guns my way.

I hear shots, and then I'm on the ground. Evan’s knee is on my back, and he’s firing over me, BAM BAM BAM. I strain my neck in time to I see Juan crumple to the ground. I guess I scream. I don't know. I hear a woman screaming, and I'm on my feet. “No don't, no don't.” I'm crying, bullets are whizzing by, and BAM BAM, Malcolm is down. Oh my God, there's so much blood.

My body trembles violently as I hang onto the angel.

“What are you doing? I don’t know what’s going on!” This isn’t even Thursday…

He shoves me behind him and runs a few paces forward, firing again and again. All my senses are sluggish. I hear tires screech, and look up in time to see a familiar silver Escalade crash into a telephone pole.

A second later, I hear a woman’s wail.
Katrina's
wail.

Angel is back, pushing me again, toward the clinic parking lot. Katrina is wailing like a mad woman, and like a frame from a disjointed film reel, I see her tall, round form stumbling toward us.

“You killed him! You killed him you stupid bitch!” She fires a .22 right at my face, and I can feel the heat of the bullet as it travels just to the left of my ear.

Whoosh, whoosh. Whoosh. The bullets wiz by, but none of them hit. Katrina is a lousy shot. She does fingernails.

We're out of town before I hear the roaring engines of Jesus's crew, on our tail. They're not right up on us yet, but it doesn't matter. We'll still be dead by morning. My only prayer is that my angel didn't really kill Jesus. Katrina wouldn't know. She probably over-reacted. Once before, Jesus got shot and came home bleeding, and she had to be sedated more than he did before Dr. Marino dug the bullet out.

As I hang onto my angel's waist and clutch the bike—and the angel's butt—with my thighs, I think of how weird it is that I'm this calm. Someone from the United States came here to take me back. Then he killed Juan. And Malcolm. And probably Guapo. And maybe Jesus. And Katrina, my old BFF, tried to kill me. And now the Cientos Cartel is coming after us.
Me
.

I spin through my mental, cartel rolodex, wondering who’s in charge. If Jesus is really indisposed and Guapo is as dead as I think he is, who will be behind the wheel of Jesus's battered Escalade?

Probably Christina, his twenty-year-old sister.

I close my eyes against the sting of the dry wind and wonder why Jesus was at the clinic anyway. It's not his style to come in person. But he was coming for me. Maybe he thought it was something a lover would do.

For some reason, I picture the nightgown-clad body of a young girl who got caught one time in Jesus's crossfire as he tried to kill her father. Then I picture Juan and Emanuel, in their slouchy blue jeans and designer shirts and boots. How I would ride with them to school in the back of one of Jesus’ many cars. How I used to think of myself as their substitute mom.

I'm so stupid.

I'm so very, very stupid.

The engines roar behind us, and the guy who rescued me—probably not an angel, after all—juices the bike. I wonder how long till they catch up. I haven't moved my body in miles; it feels cemented to the bike seat. But now I lean around the guy's arm to see the road in front of us. We're on 490, heading north toward Torreon; it’s one of the largest roads around, probably one the cartel would expect us to take. I frown as I peek out at the dark, cracked road again. My angel isn't holding the handlebar with his left arm. I can't tell
how
he's driving, but I know I don't see fingers around the handlebar. Did he get hurt?

Lots of people got hurt...

One of them was Juan.

How can a kid that young be dead?

It's disgusting. It's horrible, a shame, and I wish it wasn't real. I start to cry, and I’m ashamed because I’m crying for myself. I’m going to be lying in a pool of blood, too. So will my “rescuer.” I wonder if he has any idea what they’ll do to us. Especially if he killed Jesus. Gory images fill my head, and it's everything I can do to raise my arm and tug his shoulder.

I lean closer to his ear and suck in the dusty air so I can yell, “Pull over!”

“WHAT?” The wind carries his deep voice, slaps it against my ears.

“Pull over, now!”

It's a long shot, but it just might work. In the world of the cartels, you don't turn tail and run—ever. And by the logic of this hot, dry, barren place, you definitely don't pull off on the side of a highway in the middle of nowhere and hunker down with a big, shiny motorcycle. But that doesn't mean we can't try.

I see a farm house up on the right and jab his back.

“PULL OVER NOW!”