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The rustling is almost right on top of us where we are crouched down in the long grass.
“You run, and you don’t stop for anything. Now go. I’ll see you soon.” For a split second he looks at me before darting off to the trees like I told him, and then the grass parts as I get to my feet, coming face to face with Garcia.
He halts as he sees me, then looks past me to where Max ran before bringing his eyes back to me. He tuts, swinging the navaja he’s now holding in his hand.
“You will die today, Jessica Fisher, just like your brother did. Will you beg like he did too? Let’s find out.”
He steps forward, and I adjust my stance, ready to fight him. He might look menacing, but I’ve faced off against men bigger than him before, and I don’t intend on dying today.
“I don’t beg, but give it your best shot,pinchecabron!” I snap, turning his earlier insult back on him.
He snarls, curling his lip, and baring his teeth. Dropping my eyes from his, which he seems pleased about, as though I’m cowering or submitting to him. I’m not. I use the time to read him and see he’s bleeding from where the bullet struck him in the shoulder. A weakness that I have every intention of using to my advantage.
When he makes his first move, I already know it’s coming and block it with my forearm. I follow up with a quick hit to his open torso, hitting him in the solar plexus. He stumbles back in surprise while attempting to draw back the breath my hit stole from him.
Shaking it off quickly, he comes for me again. Having learnt I’m not your average woman, he’s a little more cautious this time.
Looking to strike me with his left, I duck, but he pulls back and strikes out with his right, and as I change direction, the navaja slices across my left ribcage. I suck in a sharp breath as it slices across my skin.
“Sweet, sweet blood,” he says, licking his lips in a cruel smirk. “I will hear your screams, Jessica. Then I shall carve that little boy up into tiny pieces and send him bit by bit back to hisbastardofather. He thinks what my brother did was torture, but I’m going to show him true torture,” he snarls, stepping forward and swiping out again. I twist away from him, cursing as the slash to my side screams at the jarring movement, coming to a stop behind him, and I quickly double jab his right kidney. As he curls away from my hits, I swipe a leg, taking him to the ground, but I’m not fast enough, and he catches my foot, pulling me down with him.
I hit the ground with a thud that knocks the breath from me. Before I can recover, he’s on me. A scream tears from me as pain radiates through my shoulder and thunder cracks in the sky. My shoulder burns as he draws the blade back out, my back arching from the damp ground.
A siren blares on the road behind us as Garcia raises the knife again. I use the momentary distraction to clasp my hands together, raising them above my head and bringing them down on his chest, then quickly lifting upwards and hitting him in the chin. His teeth snap together, and his head is thrown back with the force. I shove my thumb into his bullet wound and buck my hips, and he topples to the side.
Rolling away, blood pumps from the wound to my shoulder as I move, and I slip as I try to get to my feet.
I hear rustling in the long grass and begin to crawl that way. I’m almost to the edge of the field when I feel a sharp pain to my right side, but I try to keep moving. It comes again, and my arms give out underneath me. I suck in a breath that gurgles and wheezes, bringing with it white-hot pain that has black dots dancing in my vision. I’m aware of someone close by as I collapse to the ground and roll over.
A figure stands over me, blurring in and out of focus and laughing. He thinks he’s won, and when he reaches down, grasping my throat, lifting my back from the ground and cutting off the already limited breath from my lungs, I worry he has too. But if I’m leaving this world, this bastard is coming with me.
I can’t feel much of anything right now as Garcia talks above me, muted and tinny.
I feel my eyes begin to close, and images swim behind my eyelids, a young Christian and me, and Rick and Max, and my heart skips at the vision.
I feel a presence beside me, and when I open my eyes, I see Christian. He’s here.
“Hey, JJ.”He smiles, and a tear falls down my cheek.“Don’t cry, I’m okay. But you have to fight, JJ. You can’t give up. Not now.”
“I miss you,” I whisper. He reaches out, stroking a finger down my face, and I feel it like a cool caress on my skin.
“I miss you too, but it’s not your time, JJ. You have a man and a little boy that need you now.”
At his words, Rick and Max reappear, and I watch as they race around the barn, swim in the lake, and I want that. I want to be there with them.
“I’m so sorry, Christian.”
“Don’t be sorry, JJ, just live. Live, laugh and love.”
There’s a loud bang, and the pressure on my neck disappears. Christian begins to fade, and I call out to him not to leave me, but my words come out strangled and inaudible. As he fades back into the shadows, I hear him whispering.
“Live, JJ. Live. Live. Live…”
Forty-Three
Rick
As my eyes adjust to the lack of light, I approach the rear of one of the cars and use it as cover. I raise up to look inside and notice a man in the driver’s seat, and the front passenger door is open. I edge round to the driver’s side, listening intently but hear nothing. Taking another look inside, I see that the driver is clearly dead. The front of his t-shirt is drenched in blood. I crouch back down, then drop to all fours and look beneath the car.
