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My heart constricts as I spot the pale grey smoke stacks looming in the distance. The devastation that they rise from instantly becomes clear as I mount the crest of the hilly dirt road. It all serves as a chilling backdrop to the scene that greets me next.
The limo that brought Catalina here sinks into the earth ahead. The tires are shot, the windows are riddled with bullet marks. Dark blood stains surround the tattered husk. I skid to a stop and jump out of my car.
&nb
sp; I’ve been in situations like this before; a late-comer to carnage and mayhem, but I’ve never had a reaction quite like the one I’m having now.
I’m panicked. Me. Angel Montoya. Panicked.
I don’t give myself the time to delve on the novel sensation. There are more important things to focus on, like who those bodies belong to.
It’s obvious right away that neither are Catalina.
But I recognize them as my men...
Fucking hell. I swear to god, someone’s going to pay for all of this. I’m going to make them suffer, slowly. My reputation is going to need a particularly vicious makeover and I’ll be happy to tear the skin from this town’s bones once I have it back under my foot. But first, I need to get there...
And that means finding Catalina, and then that means finding out who’s behind it all.
In the past, I’d thought I’d been clear on what happens to those who test me—there were a lot of troublemakers when I first started out; none of them lived to pass their stories on.
So, who’s stupid enough to try me now?
They can’t be so stupid; they’re making you look like a fool...
I slam my clenched fist against the trunk of the busted limo and it sinks further down into the earth.
I swallow the rage and focus on my task. Catalina. She’s not dead. At least, she’s not among these dead.
I survey the gruesome scene. The driver is hardly recognizable anymore...
But beside his body are footsteps. Little barefoot footsteps. They scurry away from the chaos, towards the thick blanket of forest that borders the road. I follow them, past the bullet holes, past the mangled corpse of the bodyguard, past the perfect butt print where Catalina must have fell, into the shrubs at the edge of the trees.
They disappear there, but something else becomes disturbingly clear. Another set of footsteps. Huge alligator skin boot footprints, even bigger than mine... and they follow my woman into the woods.
The stranger’s footprints are fresher than Catalina’s. At least she got a head start. Now, it’s up to me to catch up to her before anyone else does.
So, where did you fly off to, little bird?
Catalina’s tracks suggest she was running away from her burning village. It would make sense, to get as far away from the destruction as possible, but, for some reason, I can’t see Catalina running away. She knows the people on the other side of this bridge; she’d want to go to them, see if there was anything she could do.
I’m sure of it.
There must be a shortcut through the woods, a shortcut that I don’t have to take. I’m decked out in bulletproof gear and fully loaded with enough firepower to fight off whatever small army devastated this little town. I’m going to bust in the front door, and if there’s still anyone left to challenge me, then, well, it’ll be their unlucky day.
I confirm the address where Catalina was supposed to be dropped off on my phone as I head over the bridge, towards the town, determined but cautious. This is no time to be hot-headed. One wrong move and I end up dead, unable to help anybody. My blood slows, a familiar coolness constricting my veins.
The ghost town is silent. Shards of glass crunch under my feet, viscous blood sticks to the soles of my boots, corpses litter the streets. My heart wants to break its icy encasing and sympathise with Catalina—she must know so many of these bodies—but I keep it locked down. There’s nothing to be done about the past, only the future can be controlled.
I make my way through the hellish streets, unchallenged. An eerily calm breeze laps against my skin, but nothing else moves. What the hell came through these parts? There isn’t a gang in this district that I don’t at least have a working knowledge of, and as far as I know, none of them have the strength to do such widespread damage, at least, not so quickly.
Whoever was responsible for this had to have worked quick. I know enough about death and destruction to know that all this happened relatively recently, and it happened completely under my nose... again.
Just last week, I would have never imagined that anyone would dare do something so significant without my blessings. Everything’s changed so quickly, and I’ve never felt like more of a fool.
Someone’s been playing me. Someone powerful.
I don’t stop to hold myself a pity party. I turn down onto Catalina’s street and my frozen heart stops beating all together.
