“If there are no threats, then people die. I don’t feel like dying anytime soon. Do you? Does Camden?”
I rubbed my lips together, wishing I had some lip balm on me. Actually, what I really wished for was a long hot shower, then a drink or two, then a few hours by myself to think.
No. Not by myself. With Camden. I needed him to think with me.
When we got to the car, he was turned around in his seat and speaking to Violetta. At a closer look, he was holding her hand as she lay in the back. My lungs pinched at the sight, as silly as it was. Poor thing was in agony and I was getting jealous.
“What are you doing?” Javier asked him as he got into the backseat, Violetta slowly sitting up.
“He’s holding my hand, what does it look like?” Violetta asked snidely. She looked like utter shit. Her face was ashen, her forehead thick with sweat, her lips dry and cracking. A shiver occasionally rocked through her despite my leather jacket that covered her shoulders that Camden must have gotten out of the trunk.
Camden looked to me and said, “She’s in a lot of pain.”
I nodded. “We’re taking her to the doctor now.”
“Took you long enough,” she said, then groaned. I noticed Camden squeezing her hand harder. I looked behind me at Javier who was watching them with a look of utter disdain.
“Javier,” I said carefully, slowly, until he looked at me. “Where are we taking her?”
He looked at the piece of paper that Dom had given him. “Outside of town. I know where this is. Take your first left until you see signs for the highway. Take it west.”
I did as he suggested, hoping the cops wouldn’t pull us over for driving with one headlight. It was Mexico but Aguascalientes was a lot more civilized than Mexico City and Veracruz had been.
We drove for a few miles outside of the suburbs before we came to a ranch house that was surrounded by darkness, only a few lights on inside. It looked like a farm – not exactly the place I had been picturing in my head. You know, like a doctor’s office or a hospital.
“This better not be another vet,” Camden mumbled. “Though I could use a refill on the dog medication now that we’ve run out.”
“Not a vet,” Javier said with impatience. “Pull up beside the truck there. This is Alonso’s house. He’s part of my … family.”
His cartel. I wondered if he was still on the “payroll” as Dom seemed to be, if he too was banished back to Mexico when Travis up and switched sides. More and more I was finding out that Javier didn’t have the power I once thought he did.
We got out of the car, Camden easing Violetta to her feet and supporting her. Javier marched past them, apparently no longer caring that Camden was touching his sister – not like he was offering to help her himself – and went for the front door. The path lit up from motion sensor lights.
He rang the doorbell and we waited a few moments.
A short man with thick grey hair and mustache eyed us over a pair of square glasses. “Si?”
“Alonso,” Javier said. “Como est a?”
“Javier?”
“Si.”
Alonso rattled off something in Spanish and eyed the rest of us.
Javier waved in our direction, said something about his sister needing surgery and something else. Probably that we were two gringos and inconsequential.
Alonso sighed dejectedly and opened the door wider, quickly motioning for us to come inside.
Camden helped Violetta through, Alonso staring at his tattoos with a mix of curiosity and revulsion. He then looked to Violetta’s arm and nodded grimly.
“Okay,” Alonso said.
Javier took her from Camden, much to her annoyance and he gave us both a steady look. “He’s going to fix her. You stay here. If you move, if you run, I will kill you. That is all.”
Then he, Violetta and Alonso disappeared down a darkened hallway until they entered a brightly lit room at the end of the hall. I could see Violetta’s eyes glinting as she turned her head to look back at us. Then they disappeared behind a dark door, the latch echoing in the quiet house.
Camden watched the door for a few moments before he folded his arms and looked at me.
“What went on in there?”
“With Dom?”
“Yeah. Him. He a good guy or a bad guy?”
My lips twitched in a half-hearted smile. “I don’t think there are good guys and bad guys anymore. I don’t even know what I am.”
“Ellie,” he said, his voice becoming softer. “You had to kill those men.”
I gave him a sharp nod. “I know.”
“I had to do some things that I’m not proud of too.” There was a rawness in his tone, like he was close cracking open. “I don’t think you and I can ever go back to being the people we were before.”
His words hit me hard, splicing me open. It wasn’t that I couldn’t go back to being me – I was never very good to begin with – but that if we’d both changed, could we find each other again as we had before? Did Camden lose himself in order to save me, and if he did, did that mean I’d lost the Camden that loved me?
Violetta’s scream pierced through my thoughts, jolting me into the present. I was about to take off toward the room when Javier came out, strolling toward us casually, his face in shadow until the last minute.
“What happened?” I exclaimed.
“He set her arm,” he said. He walked over to the bar and pulled out a crystal bottle of dark amber liquid, pulling the top off with a pop.
“Without any pain medication?” Camden asked incredulously.
He calmly poured the liquid into a textured highball glass and swirled it around. “We don’t have a lot of time. She bit down on something, don’t worry.”
“Don’t worry?” Camden sneered, stepping up to him.
Javier sipped his drink and winced, peering at the glass. “I’m fairly sure Alonso made this in his bathtub.” He eyed Camden with amusement. “And yes. Don’t worry. She’s my sister. I know what’s best for her. She’ll be on some pain medication, the good kind, better than that monkey shit you were given.”
Camden’s fists clenched and Javier saw that too.
“Easy there, big boy,” he said, grinning. He finished the rest of the drink and slammed the glass down. He wiped the back of his hand across his snaking lips. “You’re so overprotective over the ladies. They’re a lot tougher than you give them credit for, you know.”