“You email me.” Even though it was the best way to get a hold of me it still felt so cold, so wrong, to have our contact with each other go from skin to skin to email to email.
“Not call?”
“I’ll probably get a new phone and number to be safe.”
“Oh,” she said, looking panicked.
I put my hand on her leg, relishing the warmth of her skin. “When I get a new phone, I will email you the number. Any time you want to leave, I will come and get you. Your brother won’t hold you there. Remember, this all has to be your choice and your choice alone.”
“But if I choose to go, this is it? I mean, I won’t get to see you before?”
I wiggled my jaw back and forth and breathed out through my nose. “It wouldn’t be safe for him to see me. I’d rather not, you know, be exposed to a notorious drug lord if I can help it.”
She nodded. “I get it. Well, I guess you should probably go take your place.”
Something in me seized but I did what I could to ignore it. “All right. If you don’t go with him, if anything, anything at all seems the slightest bit wrong, change your mind. Just get advice. See what your options are. And come back here to the car. I’ll meet you and we’ll be on our way.”
“Derrin,” she said, adjusting in her seat to face me. She looked so soulful in that moment that I wished to god she was calling me Derek instead. It would only feel real when she used my real name, knew the real me, everything I was, and still stayed.
But she wasn’t staying.
Before I could say anything stupid, I quickly leaned over and grabbed her face in my hands, kissing her hard, like I was trying to create an impression on my lips, like she could seep into my skin and stay a permanent reminder. She tasted sweet and felt soft and that fire inside me was burning away. No matter what, no matter what, I would protect her.
I pulled away, breathless and surprised to see the moisture in her eyes, tears threatening to overflow. I quickly grabbed the gym bag from the back seat that had the sniper rifle in it and then left the car, shutting the door behind me. The sound echoed through the garage, lonely and cold.
I didn’t look back but I would see her again. I was on my way to protect her.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Alana
I’d never felt so unsafe, so alone, until I watched Derrin walk away from the car and disappear into a stairwell. I don’t even know how he managed to break into a locked door so seamlessly, so naturally, without causing any attention, but he did. Now I was sitting in the Camry wishing I could keep an eye on the time. A watch would have been nice. A new phone would have been nice.
Sometimes I was hit the overwhelming reality that my life would never be the same again. Something as simple as losing my phone, all my pictures, my useless contacts, my apps – something so normal as that and I felt like I’d never be able to have a good life again. Just the idea that Luz and Dominga were probably calling it nonstop, calling the hotel, checking up on me, was a wrench in my heart. Dominga’s maid friend was probably searching the room on her behalf, panicked at our disappearance.
That was providing someone else didn’t get to the room first. I could finally see why Derrin didn’t want me in contact with them at all. I hated that they had to worry but they would be the first people my enemies would go after for information. And if I knew anything it was how much they loved to extract the truth from their victims. When the victims didn’t know anything, it made it even worse.
I didn’t wipe the tear that rolled down my cheek but I told myself it would be the last time I cried. It had to be. Javier was meeting me here, at least I hoped, and he would fix everything. He would get me out of this mess.
When I figured I’d spent about an hour in the car, I took in a few deep breaths and finally got up. I walked over to the stairs that led up to the Wal-Mart, my cast echoing as I walked. I was less and less awkward but the damn cast was a reminder that I was always at a disadvantage and if I really concentrated I would realize my ankle was throbbing painfully. All that running yesterday did a number on it and yet pain was the last thing my brain was processing. It was all fear now.
Once up top, the sun hit my face and cleared a bit of the darkness away. Wal-Mart was busy, full of people living their normal lives, going to their cars with bags full of useless crap. I envied them, the blissful ways they could just continue in their lives, living in ignorance. None of them appreciated it. I sure as hell didn’t appreciate it two weeks ago.
I walked past the front of the store, past the vending machines stocked with tamarind and pineapple sodas, past robotic horses that children could ride, and gumball machines. I headed over to the fountain.
It was large and circular, made up of terracotta tile with water flowing into a blue-hued pool with only a few pesos at the bottom. There was a bench in the shade where an old man was dozing, a newspaper and a sandwich beside him, but other than that the place was empty.
I tried to look up at the windows of the office building next door but knew the sun would be in my eyes if I did – it was late afternoon and close to setting behind it – and if anyone was watching me, they might get suspicious. I just had to believe that Derrin was up there, watching over me.
But what if he wasn’t? What if he skipped town?
It was possible. Anything was possible. But I had to have faith in him. There were few things left that I could believe in.
I took a seat at the edge of the fountain and waited. I wished I had book or something to make myself look less obvious but since I was waiting for someone, I guess it didn’t really matter. I stared at the tiny birds that hopped around my feet, chirping, looking for a handout, then watched the highway beyond the store as it piled up thicker and thicker with traffic heading out of Durango, moving like syrup.
Finally a figure caught my eye. She was short, maybe 5’2” and dressed in a strapless yellow sundress, wearing wedge heels, holding a Chanel bag under her arm. Long dark hair flowed behind her. Even though she was wearing the world’s biggest sunglasses, I could still tell it was Luisa. She had this way about her that made her stand-out among the masses and it wasn’t just her beauty, nor the fact that she now dressed impeccably well, like a patron’s wife.
Unfortunately, Javier was nowhere to be found. And though when I had first met Luisa, I was witness to the warmth and soul she had as she was reunited with her parents in my apartment, every other time it was a little less and less. I didn’t think she was a bad woman by any means but there had been a hardness creeping into her heart. I suppose that would naturally happen if you were married to someone like Javier.