Chapter Two

 

I jumped to my feet and pushed through Vaughan and Hendrix to peer at the road. The truck had been gone for several minutes by now, but I couldn’t stop staring at the place it used to be.

The bounty hunters had followed us.

Why hadn’t we thought of that possibility?

God, I had never felt so stupid!

We had let them go and taken off to Mexico, but those assholes knew where we were headed. They obviously couldn’t predict our every directional decision, but we had been stopping overnight. They could catch up with us and then pull back and wait for us to take off again.

We had been on the lookout for humans and Zombies alike, but it had never crossed my mind that humans would purposefully stay out of sight.

“They’re gone now,” Hendrix reminded me.

I spun around and glared at him like this was his fault. It wasn’t. But I wanted someone to blame. “For how long? They’re going to realize they passed us along the way at some point. Then they’re going to come back. Then what?”

“Then I kill them!”

The rest of the group had been silent during our exchange already, but after Hendrix’s words left his mouth, I could feel the silence still. It was as though he had sucked all the air from the room and left us frozen and confused.

He shook his head once and ran a hand through tangled hair that had become long and untamed over the last couple months. He needed a haircut. Or maybe he didn’t. I kind of liked the shaggy, over-the-ear-brushing-the-shoulder look.

He refocused and met my shocked gaze. He dropped a heavy hand to my shoulder and dipped his head a little so that I would hear him clearly. “I didn’t mean that. At least not in the cold-blooded serial killer way I said it.” He looked at the rest of the group spread out on the two sides of the billboards. “Really, I didn’t mean that I would… kill those people. Not unless they seriously provoked me. I just meant… I just meant that I would do whatever it took to keep us safe. I will protect us no matter the cost. But it’s simpler to shoot out their tires. So that’s what I would do first.”

We took a collective breath of relief and I relaxed under Hendrix’s touch. It wasn’t as though we weren’t above killing people that threatened our safety or our lives. But no matter how much killing, shooting, savage self-defense became a part of our day-to-day, saying it out loud still bothered us. All of us.

I wasn’t the only one that had an internal outcry of the heart at Hendrix’s harsh words. It was like my moral compass dug its heels into the ground and stuttered to a stop. I was not against self-defense. And I was not against killing in the name of self-preservation. Or, really group-preservation. But Hendrix turned it from something that we were forced to do into something we wanted to do. He evolved killing for the sake of survival into murder.

And I was not okay with murder.

What I used my bat and gun for kept this group together and kept myself alive. Murder was what Matthias Allen did to Tyler’s dead boyfriend.

It was what he did to Gage.

It was what he wanted to do to us.

So maybe for no other reason than abstaining from murder saved me from becoming someone like Matthias, I would never do it. Not unless I absolutely had no other choice.

And I really wanted Hendrix to be on the same page as me. It was very important that we agreed on this one major issue.

I didn’t know why it mattered more than anything else I believed or thought about him. Maybe because I respected him so very much that I couldn’t imagine thinking less of him. Maybe because he had looked so very determined when he said those words.

He had been fierce with conviction.

And that had terrified me.

“We knew what you meant,” Vaughan offered weakly behind me.

When Hendrix’s attention focused back to me, I nodded. “Yep.”

Slowly conversation and activity began again behind us. Hendrix held my gaze for a long time though, searching my face for the truth.

Finally, I couldn’t stand just staring at him. He was too intense, too serious, too vulnerable… too everything. I turned back to the road and searched the flat landscape for any signs of life.

Vaughan scooted by us and practically ran to check on Page. Left alone with Hendrix felt jolting. We obviously weren’t truly alone, but we might as well have been.

The air around us vibrated from his energy, shocking my system. He stood two feet away, but I felt him on my skin, I breathed him into my lungs; my thoughts centered completely on him.

Would he always do this to me? Would I ever get over him enough to be able to do simple things like speak to him? Or stand next to him?

I had a memory flash of my earlier self-struggling against this attraction to Hendrix. I knew this would happen. I knew I would ruin us.

And that’s exactly what I did.

“Reagan, I didn’t mean to scare you earlier, I just-”

“You didn’t.”

“Obviously, I did.”

“No, you didn’t. I mean you didn’t scare me. I’m not scared of you. I just wasn’t expecting you to say that. You surprised me.” My words came out too fast, rushed and jumbled. There was a part of me that had always thought of myself as a good liar. There was another part of me that laughed at how bad at lying the former part of me was.

“Sometimes I don’t think you know me.”

I whipped my head around and glared at him. “I know you.”

“Sometimes I don’t think you ever knew me.”

“Hendrix-”

“I’ll enlighten you.” His words were serious despite the impish curve of his lips. I was momentarily stunned by the expression on his face. He leaned toward me, closing the little space that separated us. “I will do anything to protect my family. I will do anything to protect you. Those people don’t want to chat with you, Reagan. They want to tie you up, throw you in the bed of their truck and take you back to Matthias. And we both know that Matthias doesn’t plan to sit down to dinner with you and work out your differences. It’s time to toughen up. The road ahead is going to be hard and filled with gray areas your ethical conscience is going to struggle to accept. That’s too bad, because you want to survive. I want you to survive. So that means I’m going to do whatever it takes to keep you alive. Toughen up, Babe. That’s the only way we’re moving forward.”

I opened my mouth and then closed it. He grinned at me like he’d just won the lottery. It wasn’t until he’d given me his back and started walking away that I finally thought of a brilliant response. “I thought you were going to tell me something about you!”

With a dismissive glance over his shoulder, he said, “That was about me. That is probably the most important thing you need to know about me.”

I stood there staring at him, trying to figure out that ambiguous puzzle for another six minutes. I didn’t move until dinner started and figured if I didn’t jump in and claim some food, I wasn’t going to get any.

I navigated the metal catwalk and found a spot sandwiched between Tyler and Page. We dug into stale crackers and Slim Jims. I grabbed some Pringles when they were passed around and ended my well- balanced meal with a Snickers bar.

All of our meals lately had been courtesy of our looting trip in that last American town. We still had lots of water to drink and if we rationed it carefully, we could keep up with a minimal cleaning routine.

There were so many of us though. If we weren’t vigilant this water would go fast.

Too fast.

We had no idea what to expect in Mexico.

There hadn’t been any places to find food since we crossed the border and our gasoline supply was also quickly dwindling. If we didn’t find supplies soon, we would have to venture back into civilization.

Nobody wanted that.

“I wish we could build a fire,” Nelson announced after dinner had been cleaned up and packed away. “This is perfect campfire weather.”

I tipped my face to the nice breeze that cooled my heated skin. The days were brutal in this desert, but the nights cooled off and kept me from melting.

“And some marshmallows,” Harrison added.

“Hendrix could play his guitar and serenade us with his cheesy girl songs. Remember when Dad threatened to take away his car if he didn’t stop playing that time we hiked Estes?” Vaughan added.

Instant curiosity peeked in all of us non-Parkers. I sat up straighter and waited for the rest of the story to unfold.

Nelson, Harrison and King burst into laughter. Even Page started giggling.

“I didn’t play cheesy girl songs; I wooed the girls with those songs. And it worked.” Hendrix leaned back and stretched out his long legs. His shoulders stayed relaxed and his lips twitched as though he wanted to laugh too. He was a picture of cool and laid back.

But I knew better.

There was nothing easy about him.

And I kind of liked that.

Okay… more than liked that.

“Top Forty is a disgrace to your manhood,” Vaughan put in.

“Not true!” Half of his brothers yelled back at him.

“Sometimes the masses get it right,” Hendrix argued. “The Beatles for instance. The Grateful Dead. Nirvana. Nsync.”

I snorted a laugh that I was not proud of. Hendrix making jokes never ceased to surprise me.

Vaughan slumped over and tried to control his giggling. Yep, Vaughan had been reduced to giggles.

Nelson, on the other hand, had apparently been inspired. In a voice that was out of practice, but still very impressive for the Zombie Apocalypse, he started off the Parker brother boy band with, “I’m doing this tonight.”

Harrison jumped in immediately, “You’re probably gonna start a fight.”

Vaughan struggled through his laughter, “I know this can’t be right.”

Then all together in semi-perfect harmony, they sang, “Hey baby, come on.”

“Oh, my god,” Tyler groaned. “They can sing.”

“And harmonize,” Haley added dryly.

They boys went on to finish the first verse. At the chorus, King stood up and danced the choreography, which I vaguely remembered to be correct. The metal shook underneath him and shouted its protest, but we were laughing too hard to care. Harrison jumped up to join him. My stomach hurt from laughing so hard.

The song labored on, with talented male voices joined in sweet synchronization. The more they sang, the better they sounded. Page leaned her head against my shoulder and watched her brothers with rapt attention. I joined her. This was just too good.

My only regret was that they hadn’t shared this with us sooner.

Every person should experience Parker brothers singing and dancing. Oh, my gosh. This was by far the best moment of the entire Apocalypse.

The group entirely fell apart when Hendrix took a very emotional, very overdramatic Justin Timberlake solo. I laughed until I had tears and stopped making any sound.

“How do you even know that song?” Tyler demanded through a huge grin. “It’s so far before your time.” She pointed at the younger Parkers with an accusing finger.

“Our mom,” Nelson explained, sobering some. “She loved boy bands.”

“She really loved boy bands,” Hendrix echoed.

The light mood from earlier depleted until it was only a memory. The atmosphere grew immediately somber. The moonlight played on their faces, revealing faint smiles and lost boys that missed their mother.

Boys that could carry a tune and put on a show like these guys made my heart go pitter patter. Boys that mourned their mom as severely as they did made my heart crumble with longing and the desperation to give them all hugs.

I wiped the joyful tears away before they became sympathetic ones.

“Dad had always insisted we learn the piano and the guitar. Besides all of the other things he wanted for us, he demanded we be as musical as he was. Mom didn’t want a house filled with beginner musicians. She dreaded forcing all of us to practice and listening to nonstop Jingle Bells or whatever. So they compromised. She told my dad that if he taught us to play, then he would have to teach us to sing too. I think she secretly hoped one of us would become a rock star or something.”

“And so she made you sing bad pop songs?” Haley guessed.

Hendrix chuckled at the question. “No, she just made sure we could sing bad pop songs if we wanted to. When she got sick, and her health really started to decline, we decided learning her favorite songs might cheer her up.”

“And?” Tyler demanded.

The brothers looked at each other, nobody wanting to admit what happened next.

“They put on a concert for her!” Page squealed. Then she tucked herself into my side in case any of her brothers decided to attack her for spilling the dirt.

“How do you know that?” Vaughan demanded. “You were too young to remember.”

“I remember,” she said defiantly.

Harrison dropped back to sitting. “We are also awesome at A Bridge Over Troubled Water and Stand By Me. But you’ll have to pay us if you want more.”

“That is the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard,” Haley sniffled.

“God, that was such a long time ago.” Nelson pulled Haley into his side and kissed the top of her head. “I honestly can’t believe we remembered it all.”

“You two kids were practically still in diapers.” Vaughan pointed at his younger brothers who just rolled their eyes.

“Can you sing?” Miller asked Page from her other side. He watched her with a kind of fascination I had never seen from him before. He was young too. Music had been pretty much non-existent over the last three years. I wondered when the last time Miller had heard something that pretty.

Or hell, any of us.

Page shrugged, “I don’t know. I’ve never tried before.”

“You should try,” Miller encouraged. “I bet you have a pretty voice.”

Page didn’t say anything else. She snuggled closer to me and turned her attention back to her brothers, who had started sharing more memories of their deceased parents.

I loved listening to them and the stories they told about their pre-Zombie life, but I felt the need to process their song first.

I had the strangest reaction to their silly performance. I knew it was just a joke, but I felt it so profoundly that it became so much more than that to me. Parts of my body and soul felt nourished after a long, harsh famine. My soul felt replenished. My mind felt satisfied.

I might start making them perform for me on a daily basis.

Their goofy song was a therapy session I had needed badly.

Eventually, we settled down for bed. We stretched out on the harsh metal grate on top of thin blankets we kept tightly rolled in our backpacks. We used our packs as pillows and divided up the night’s watch.

I wasn’t first watch, so I turned to my back and tried to relax. Not surprisingly, that didn’t happen right away.

Instead, I stared up at the incredibly vast and star-speckled sky and let my thoughts run wild. I rarely gave my mind the freedom to wander, but something about this emotional night encouraged me to give it a chance.

The stars overhead were nearly overwhelming. They glistened in tight clusters and sparkled in every direction. The clear night opened up a view I didn’t think I had ever seen before. Or maybe I had, but I’d never taken the time to realize how purely beautiful a sky this full of stars could be.

There was a primal rarity to it. I felt as ancient as the stars. I imagined this was what the sky looked like when the first humans walked the earth. I imagined it was always clear like this, that the galaxies wrapped around this planet were always this transparent.

The view stole my breath and calmed my restless spirit.

We didn’t get to sleep outside often and never was it this relaxed. The casual night, despite the earlier drive-by, had forced me to trust this place in a way that was probably dangerous. Just because I couldn’t see or hear all of the dangers threatening our lives and community didn’t mean we were safe.

And the human threat was as dangerous as ever.

But we had each other. And, as cliché as it sounded, that gave me strength. These people gave me courage.

This bond we’d formed steeled my will and clothed me with armor.

Hendrix’s words from earlier bounced around in my busy skull. Toughen up. Toughen up because that’s the only way to move forward.

He was right. But I wouldn’t realize how right, until the morning.

Eventually, I fell asleep. I slept lightly and as aware as I could be. Page’s legs were tucked between the wall and my body to keep her from tumbling over the side during the night and that made me hyper-aware of her safety.

Plus, there was always the chance that I could tumble over too. And that did not sound fun.

I took my turn on watch, sitting up with a loaded firearm in my lap. We shared short shifts of just an hour each during the night. We wanted to be as alert as possible while getting the most sleep possible. I timed my shift with a stopwatch that had managed to survive for a long time according to Apocalypse standards and then passed it off to Tyler.

By the time dawn pulled us from sleep and announced the new day, I hadn’t had a deep sleep, but I’d had a mostly uninterrupted one. That was good enough for me. My body had learned to function with much less than this.

We stretched and brushed our teeth over the side of the railing. A small breakfast of stale and smashed Nutrigrain bars got passed around. Then we went through the semi-arduous task of climbing down from our temporary safe haven.

It wasn’t really difficult except for Haley. Unlike Page, who could drop from the last rung of the ladder with the promise of her brother’s catching her, Haley had to hang there patiently until the Parkers could manage to grab on to her, not drop her and set her safely on the cracked dirt.

She huffed and puffed dramatically, but I had a sneaking suspicion she was just trying to catch her breath and didn’t want any of us to know that.

When we had loaded up the truck again, we spent some time deciding which way to go. We could back track and try out a different side road that would take us in the opposite direction of the bounty hunters. But the maps we’d picked up from the pharmacy before we crossed the borders showed that we would have to cross a major highway and we weren’t sure how populated those places were. If we continued on the road we were on, there was a different route a few miles ahead of us.

Of course, we could run into the bounty hunters on that road too. They might have gone that way. We had no way of knowing what they did once they drove by us last night.

My hope was that they’d run into a pack of Zombie coyotes and been mauled to death.

But that was probably wishful thinking.

Either way was risky. In the end, we decided to go up against the odds of running into the enemy we knew. We hoped that gave us some kind of advantage.

We still didn’t have any idea what to expect in Mexico. And none of us was anxious to find out.

We piled into the truck. This time I managed to claim a seat in the backseat of the cab sandwiched between Tyler and Haley with Page on my lap. All of us were sweaty and uncomfortable and it was barely light outside, but soon we’d be on the open road and the wind would whip through the cab and cool our sticky skin.

Vaughan took one last sweep of the area, to make sure we’d left no traces of our visit and then we were off, speeding down the highway, anxious to outrun all of the threats chasing us.

“We should look for more of those,” Nelson shouted through the noisy cab from the other side of Haley. “That wasn’t a bad night’s sleep.”

“I agree,” Vaughan called over his shoulder. “We’re going to need to head toward civilization soon though. This gas won’t last much longer. Maybe two days… tops.”

That quieted the cab. Nervous energy filled the lightness I’d woken up with. A foreboding reached inside me and wrapped its sharpened claws tightly around my throat. I felt the danger before I saw it. I sensed it.

I swore I could smell it.

“Vaughan,” the warning was a whisper on my lips.

He slammed on the brakes and the tires screeched against the rough pavement.

Three cars lined up in front of us, completely blocking the highway. Men stood in front of their vehicles, casually leaning back as if they hadn’t a care in the world. Their arms were crossed or their elbows rested on their hoods in casual poses. Two of them wore cowboy hats with red bandanas wrapped around their biceps. The third’s head had been wrapped in the same style bandana.

In a moment of utter stillness, they casually peered at us. With measured severity, they took us in slowly, as if they had time to spare. Their dark faces made no expressions or gave anything away.

Panic flared inside of me. I gasped a fast breath, but then my lungs froze and I couldn’t seem to catch any oxygen. My skin prickled painfully with a grating wash of fear and frustration. I felt doused in it. Submerged.

When they didn’t immediately make a move to speak to us or start shooting, I hoped they would let us pass. Maybe this wasn’t as ominous as it looked.

Maybe my fears were premature.

Maybe there was a toll to pay? Payment for using this road? We had supplies to spare if they were civil.

But then the guy in the middle, the one with the bandana on his head, stood up and slapped the hood of his black truck. The stillness I had momentarily grown accustomed to exploded in a rush of action and sound. Men popped up from the truck beds. They stood over us with malicious sneers and holding scary looking guns that promised pain.

They still hadn’t said anything to us, but the intent was clear. We didn’t need to speak the same language to understand that they wanted us to surrender.

“No.” Vaughan’s voice turned to steel. “Get down!”

I threw Page to the floor and put my hand over Haley’s back as I helped push her face between her knees. Vaughan slammed the car into reverse and punched the gas. We zoomed backward, jerking right and left, but managing to stay on the road. Tyler let out a startled scream when Vaughan flipped the car around, tossed the gearshift back into drive and shoved his foot on the gas.

Gunshots popped behind us, punctuating the air with warning shots. Fear pummeled my chest when I worried for the boys in the back. They were smart, I knew that. And they would know what to do in a situation like this. I knew that too. But it didn’t stop my blood from turning to ice and my eyes from watering.

Vaughan kept his foot on the gas. He managed the big truck and the potholes in the road like a pro. His determination to flee filled the cab and bloomed courage in all of us. We had made this vow to each other over and over and over. We wouldn’t be imprisoned again.

We wouldn’t be separated again.

Nothing could force us apart.

I lifted my head, anxious to see a long stretch of free road and nothing but blue skies in front of us. Instead, I watched in horror as two big trucks, one familiar and one rusted from bumper to tailgate, sped from the ditch to the middle of the road, trapping us between two immovable roadblocks.

Vaughan let out a string of curse words and slammed on the brakes again. Hendrix punched the dash as hard as he could, denting the plastic with his fist. Nelson shot up and immediately deflated. “Damn it,” he whispered.

A hand smacking the glass made me jump. Nelson reached behind my head and shoved the partition open. Harrison’s head poked through so he could see the reason we stopped again.

“Son of a bitch!” he growled. Nobody bothered to bring up the cuss jar.

The truck came to a complete stop, but Vaughan didn’t turn it off. The engine idled while people jumped into movement around us.

I stared at the back of Vaughan’s head and willed his wheels to spin fast enough to get us out of this. I mentally calculated our chances of plowing through both vehicles and surviving. Sure, they had all kinds of guns pointed at us, but we had willpower. We had desperation.

Surely that trumped any kind of manpower or firepower?

No?

Bleh.

A silence, thick and heavy, settled over us. Nobody said anything. There was nothing to say.

A man and a woman hopped out of their truck and moved to speak with the guy in the red bandana. I had to assume these were the two bounty hunters from the other day. They looked exactly like I expected them to, weathered, hardened and disgustingly arrogant.

I glanced in the side mirror to see that the first three trucks had moved into position directly behind us.

We were trapped.

Game over.

Another man ambled down from the newer truck. I recognized him as the man Hendrix had beaten senseless. His body was still covered in disfiguring bruises. His eyes barely opened and he licked at a split open lip that looked very painful. His eyes tracked through our cab until he found me, and then his stupid bloody lips curled into a victorious smile. He made a gun with his fingers and pulled the trigger, blowing pretend smoke off the tip of his finger.

God, had there ever been a more obnoxious gesture?

I did the same gesture back at him only I used my middle finger.

He didn’t seem impressed.

He walked over to us and kicked at the front bumper. “Out!” he yelled. “Get out!”

“What’s the plan?” Tyler asked without moving her lips.

Vaughan and Hendrix shared a look, but I had an answer ready. “To get them to kill us before they take us back to Matthias.”

She didn’t look at me, and I was grateful. I probably would have burst into frustrated tears. Instead, she reached down and squeezed my kneecap. She agreed with me. There wasn’t really another option.

Not one of us would let them take us back to the Colony. Death by bounty hunters would be a dream compared to what kind of punishment Matthias was no doubt cooking up for us.

And I seriously doubted he would let his children live beyond an initial hello.

“Don’t do anything stupid yet, Reagan,” Vaughan warned in a quiet voice. “Let’s see where this is going first.”

His attention was on the man in the bandana and the American couple. The three of them seemed to be arguing heatedly about something. That gave me hope.

Maybe Mexico didn’t extradite criminals.

Just kidding! This was the Apocalypse after all. Nothing ever went as I wanted it to.

I followed Haley from the cab and blinked in the hot, blinding sun. It was still early in the morning, but the desert warmed up quickly. I could feel the heat of the ground push through the soles of my boots and the morning sun as it baked my jeans. The gun tucked into the back of my pants felt slimy when I started to sweat. I became hyper aware of the weapon I needed to keep at all costs, but would inevitably lose. No doubt they would search my friends and me.

It was still hard to tell if the Mexicans were working with the Americans or if they had separate plans for our group.

“There’s more of them in the back,” the older of the two men explained. I recognized his voice from the other day.

One of the guys in the cowboy hats walked over to the truck and swung the short door open. He waved his big gun around and it wasn’t long before I heard the scuffling of boots as Harrison, King and Miller shuffled out. They joined us in the shade of the truck and raised questioning eyebrows at their older brothers.

I wasn’t the only one conditioned to expect a plan from Vaughan. But this time it didn’t seem he had one.

I regretted not pushing to backtrack and go the other way this morning. Why had we thought we could outrun these guys? Why had we thought we could escape the clutches of the Colony?

“You’re the chica?” the guy in the bandana demanded with a thick accent. He looked to be somewhere in his thirties. Young enough that he still had a cocky swagger to his gate, but he also held an air of authority and wisdom that came from experience. This guy made me very nervous. “The one from the poster?” He pulled said flyer from his jeans pocket and flipped it open with one hand.

“You tell me,” I retorted. Hendrix’s forearm pressed discretely against mine- a warning.

The guy in the bandana chuckled at my attitude. “You are the girl,” he decided. “You’re worth mucho dinero. So much…” He rubbed his thumb against his other fingers to symbolize “mucho dinero.”

I shrugged. “No such thing as dinero.”

His grin turned evil. “Not pesos, real money. Food. Guns. Water. My partner from the North, he’ll make me a very rich man.”

“I’m not worth anything,” I confessed trying to sound believable. “Not enough to make you rich. You’re wasting your time. And his time.”

Doubt flickered across his hard face, but the bounty hunters refused to give me this one victory.

“Diego, that’s the girl!” the woman practically shrieked. “That’s her. I swear it! That’s her! See? She’s got all the brothers with her. And his kids. This is them, I swear to god.”

“Silence!” The bandana man shouted and jabbed his gun her direction. The woman wisely shut-up. “I will decide if it is them or not.”

The man and woman shrunk back, huddling close together. Their beat-up friend moved to stand next to them, not anxious to speak his opinion.

Diego walked forward, taking his time approaching us. He moved with grace and confidence that seemed at odds with his criminal-like personality. He held his gun casually in front of him, but his pointer finger stayed poised on the trigger and his eyes gleamed with attentiveness.

This man wouldn’t hesitate to kill.

He walked a slow circle around us, taking his time measuring our worth. All of us were still armed; nobody had bothered to take our weapons, but not one of us moved for them. We were surrounded by men who already held and aimed loaded guns. And Diego’s presence sent unease and mild terror swirling through me. I was sure my friends felt it too.

In the cab, I had been cavalier with my threats. It was easy to choose death over Matthias when I didn’t have a gun shoved in my face. But now that the choice was here, survival instinct kicked in and I couldn’t make myself willfully walk towards death. I needed to survive.

And I needed to make sure all of my friends survived.

Hendrix’s arm was hot and heavy against my own. The small touch was the comfort I needed to stay standing, keep my shoulders squared and my chin lifted. He gave me courage I couldn’t have gathered without him. He gave me hope I wouldn’t have found unless he stood next to me.

He gave me a promise to escape.

“It’s them,” Diego announced. “Load them up!”

The men moved into action, not hesitating for even a second.

“Wait a second!” the bounty hunter shouted. “These are our prisoners! We’re taking them back to our side of the border!”

Diego tossed his head back and let out a sadistic laugh. “Shoot the gringos,” Diego ordered. “But leave the ugly one alive to fetch his master.”

I ignored the instinct to stay still or be shot. I spun to the side, grabbed Page and crushed her against my body. I wrapped both of my arms around her head and tried to shield her as best as I could. The gunshots punched through the air, echoing poignantly in the middle of the road.

Diego’s men did not question his orders. They obeyed.

Two bodies hit the pavement and the slow slump screamed louder than the two shots.

This was what Mexico was like.

Now we knew.