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Probably the busiest room in the house. Good thing was that most kitchens had exits to the outside. I checked again. Still empty.
“We have to go, Cat.” I saw her nod in my peripheral vision.
We stepped into the brightly lit kitchen. It took a second or two for my vision to adjust to the light. Once it did, I spotted a glass-paneled door across the room.
“There.” I pointed with the shard of mirror.
We hurried toward the door, my heart hammering in my chest and my pulse roaring in my ears. I twisted the knob and nothing happened.
“Shit, it’s locked.”
Men’s voices rattling in Spanish came from one of the nearby rooms.
“Unlock it, Miri!”
I looked at the knob and cursed. “I can’t, it needs a key.” My stomach lurched as the voices grew louder.
“Come on!” I ran for the doorway opposite the direction of the voices. We were in an enormous and richly appointed dining room.
The men entered the kitchen, continuing their conversation. Cabinets opened and closed as well as the refrigerator. One of the men laughed at something the other said and they bantered back and forth for several minutes, punctuated now and then by the sounds of chewing.
I wanted to scream. How could they act so normal when they were torturing and raping hostages? How could they eat a meal and chat as if this were a regular house in a regular neighborhood while Cat and I were regularly beaten and terrorized? While young women were moved in and out of the house like cattle?
At that moment, I wanted to kill them. I needed to kill them. I didn’t realize I took a step toward the kitchen until Cat hissed under her breath.
“Miri.”
I snapped out of my daze.
“Sorry. I’m just... forget it.” I shook off the anger and focused on getting out of here.
Cat stepped forward and peeked around a fancy pillar.
“The front door is right there.”
“How far?”
“Maybe forty feet? I don’t know. There’s a big foyer with a staircase and the front door.”
“No one is guarding the door?” I was glad, but not surprised. Again, El Cuchillo’s weakness was his sense
of immortality. As if he were untouchable despite living in the dark and deadly world he chose to submerge himself in.
“No,” Cat said. She turned and faced me. “No matter what happens next, I want you to know I love you, Miri. You saved me from my stepdad and I’ll never forget that.”
“I’m sorry we ended up here, Cat.” I struggled to keep the tears at bay.
Cat shrugged. “We never seem to catch a break, do we?”
I sniffed quietly. “No. We don’t.”
She turned back to the door and motioned me forward. By the time we hit the foyer we were almost sprinting. Cat flung the door open and we bolted out into the night. Barefoot, with every single muscle in my body screaming in pain, I ran as fast as I could through the grass, Cat just in front of me.
I stepped on a rock and stumbled, but scrambled to my feet quickly. Not quick enough. An arm came around my waist and flung me to the ground, hard. My abused muscles screamed and the air whooshed out of my lungs as I hit the dirt.
I shrieked and closed my eyes, slashing out wildly with the shard of glass. It must have made contact with the guy because the glass dragged through something for a brief second before continuing its path through the air.
The man above me let out a choked gurgling and a cascade of hot liquid gushed down onto my face and neck. It was so thick I was rendered blind by the sheer amount of blood pouring out of him, unable to wipe it out of my eyes as fast as it fell. Dead, his body collapsed on top of mine. I shoved the heavy weight to the side, biting the inside of my cheek so I didn’t scream in agony from the fire that ripped through my battered ribcage.
