It didn’t take Maggie long to figure out that the two men, who almost literally raised her from the dead, were more like ghetto commandos rather than paramedics or firemen. The skinny one even wore some sort of do-rag over his skeletal visage. Still, even if they were little green men, she didn’t have the strength to fight back.
The next several moments flew by in a whirlwind, during which she phased in and out of consciousness. The fact that they were not rescue workers was further confirmed by the fact that they merely grabbed her beneath the arms and dragged her through the dirt of the cavern and up a small trail, to where natural stalagmite and stalagmite formations had formed a curtain of stone. The Hispanic-looking one carried a high-powered rifle with a scope, while his thinner partner carried an AK-47 assault rifle. The two men laid her in the niche and started setting up some sort of encampment.
“Water,” she croaked.
The two men looked at each other, and the skinny one said, “You’re in charge, Ramirez. What did your new boss tell you to do?”
“I do what I have to do to survive. And no one said that he’s my boss.”
The skinny one rolled his eyes and said, “Okay, Jamie, I didn’t mean to—”
“Just get her some water.”
The skinny one complied, and Maggie was thankful for the healthy gulps of H2O as it poured down her throat. Maggie wanted to talk. She wanted to ask questions or figure out what the heck was going on. She wondered if this could be some sort of trap Canyon was setting for Captain Yazzie, but she really had no idea what was happening. For all she knew, this could’ve been an attack orchestrated by Marcus or his brother. But she supposed there wasn’t much she could do about it either way, so she slipped off into a strange dreamland of scorpions and sand and old bones.
Still, her thoughts dwelled on the sharpened femur bone that she had hidden in her pant leg. It would be a useful tool, but she lacked the strength to wield it.
She wasn’t sure how long she’d continued on that way, slipping in and out of consciousness, reality and dreams becoming so distorted that the world felt like the flipping of channels on an old TV set. Unfortunately, most of the channels seemed to be static.
But then she heard voices echoing through the cavernous chamber of the temple. Not just any voices, familiar voices. Her heart started racing. Adrenaline pumping. Her mind coming back into sharper focus. There were several voices, but two had stood out that she knew well. The voices of the love of her life, Marcus Williams, and his brother, whose voice she was also marginally happy to hear.
She tried to roll over without making too much sound or drawing the attention of her captors, which she now assumed these men to be. Dust and sand from the floor of the niche blew into her face and nose, but she didn’t mind. Anything to overpower the stink of death that still clung to the inside of her nostrils.
The voices continued, coming closer. As they did, she prepared to move. Undoing her jeans, she slipped her hand behind the back of her thigh and removed the sharpened bone, a weapon she had been begun fashioning on her first day in the pit. She had intended it for the neck of Captain Xavier Yazzie, but it was always a good idea to field test a weapon before using it on one’s primary target.
But even retrieving the weapon sapped her strength, and she began to doubt her ability to move against either of the men. The water had definitely helped, and she no longer felt the effects of the dehydration, but she was still weak from the ordeal, not to mention the damage to her leg and hand. Perhaps waiting would be a better idea, gathering her strength, clearing the fog from her brain. She had no idea what was actually going on, but she knew enough to know that attacking someone with the intention of killing them wasn’t something you wanted to do unless you were sure. She was unsure in a lot of ways, and so she waited.
The two men conversed a few times in hushed tones. Maggie was close enough to hear them, but they spoke in Spanish, a language of which she only knew the basics.
The one whom the skinny one had referred to as Ramirez looked down the scope of his rifle and seemed to be making slight adjustments on his sights. The skinny one had propped himself on the ledge of the rock formation, ready to open fire with his AK-47.
As she tried to blink the cobwebs free from her eyes, which had been deprived of light for the past few days, Maggie recognized that Ramirez was military trained by the way that he moved and held the rifle. She could also tell that he was readying himself to fire, which meant it was now or never. Either she would make a move or not, because someone that she cared about could be on the wrong end of that rifle. She tried to lunge forward but was unable to push herself up on her arms. Her two captors were focused on their targets and ignoring her. She realized that, even if she was able to take out Ramirez and keep him from shooting, his skeletal little friend would simply turn the AK-47 on her. Pushing those thoughts aside, she told herself that her own life didn’t matter. She just had to move.
But her muscles wouldn’t cooperate. Her whole body tingled, and she felt like she had been sitting inside a dryer on spin cycle. She took several deep breaths, trying to psych herself up.
She rolled forward and pushed herself up onto one knee. From that angle, she now saw that Ramirez also had a side-arm, which answered the question of how she would handle his partner.
She heard Marcus’s voice again, accompanied by others.
Ramirez, possibly aware of her presence but not considering her enough of a threat to take his eyes off his target, paid her no attention. The military-trained young man had underestimated her. A mistake that people had made about her for most of her life. Ramirez was about to pay for that mistake.
She lunged forward, her makeshift bone knife extended for the kill. But instead of connecting with her target, she stumbled and fell to the side, again ending up in the dirt. She remained there for second, the bone knife clutched to her abdomen, her left hand and knees supporting her.
And then Maggie felt the concussion wave of the rifle blast, followed a millisecond later by the sound of the shot.