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I shudder and Hector puts his arm around my shoulders impulsively, then pauses.
“This ok?” he asks softly.
“Yeah,” I say, leaning into him, like I’ve done so many times before. I let my head flop back on his bicep. It’s as hard as a rock. “Who did he tell?”
“Well, me,” Hector replies, thinking a bit. “Not in too many details, but enough that I knew how serious things were, and that if he delayed to contact me for more than five minutes outside our agreed time, it would be bad. That I would need to act—and I did. I don’t know what would have happened if I hadn’t, if…” He swallows, passes his hand over his eyes. His fingers are shaking. “He told the whole thing to Reid.”
“Reid? My guard Reid? He…” My voice dies.
I don’t need Hector’s answer to know.
I remember seeing Reid that night. It didn’t register at the time, maybe because of self-preservation or whatever, but I saw him. That was when I knew how bad it was.
His was one of the bodies that were strewn about on the way to the hide-out. I remember how Marco tucked me against his body, shielding the dead guards’ bodies from my view, and I remember how his neck had smelled, familiar and sweaty and cold with rain, how his breath had clouded, panting, against my hair. How I had seen everything, even though he’d tried so hard to protect me.
How I had seen Reid, lying there, shot through the head, and all his squad shot as well around him.
More than twenty people. I knew only him.
Further into the trees, more bodies had been scattered, but it was too far and too dark to see them.
“He’s dead,” I say. “Reid is dead. They all are.”
Hector inhales sharply. “I know, now,” he says. “I didn’t when we arrived at the barn; I was told later. I wondered why he and his squad weren’t doing anything, why they were not responding, none of them. How he had allowed things to go so far. Marco’s phone was monitored the entire time by the assassination team, but during the last two hours, he had his signal and GPS on, and everyone could trace you and find you. That’s how my team found you. Thank God we were in time.”
“You were not,” I say, and the tears start again. “You were not in time.”
Hector looks so shocked his lips turn white. “Wh-what do you mean?”
My mouth moves, but nothing comes out. “Marco,” I say finally. “Marco died before you came.”
“You… Oh.” Hector leaps on me so quickly I barely have time to react before I’m crushed against his ribs in the most heart-stopping hug. “No,” he says, burying his head into my neck. “No, Liv, no. That’s not true, honey. I’m… I’m so sorry nobody told you; I had no idea you didn’t know.”
“Know what?” I struggle to climb out of his arms and look up into his face, but he won’t let me go. His arms brace around me, as if he’s expecting me to fall or go limp on him or something.
“Marco isn’t dead,” he says, and my body jerks, but his arms are there, like steel, around me, holding me up. “He is alive,” he repeats. “He… We didn’t know if he would make it for the past two days, but he did. He has survived three nights so far. Things are looking good. His condition is still critical, because he’s lost a lot of blood and his injuries were near fatal, but he was covered in bulletproof vests.”He was also covered in bullets, I think. Nobody saw but me. “He is still asleep, but he is not dead at all. Like, not even a little bit.”
“He…He…” is all I say. I can’t breathe.
And then Hector is shaking me and saying, “Hey, Liv, hey hey…”
But everything is already blacking out.
I wake up a second later, to him holding me and saying: “You’re ok, you’re ok.”
“He’s really alive?” I murmur as I fall apart in his arms.
“He is,” he says. “He is.” He presses my face against his chest and lowers his head to my neck. “Listen, Liv,” he says in my ear, “I’m so sorry. I don’t know how to be your brother, ok? I can’t imagine what you’re going through right now, or what you’ve been going through, and what awaits you, and I want nothing more than to be there for you. But I’m messing it up already. I don’t know how to be anyone’s brother.”
“I don’t know how to be your sister either,” I murmur between sobs. Marco is alive, my heart is singing. I am so relieved it hurts to breathe.
Hector holds me tighter, and that helps.
“But I know this,” he says. “I know that I want to destroy anyone who hurts you, like I always have. That I would do anything to make you happy. That I’ll always have your back. That I can talk to you like I can’t talk to anyone else, that I can tell you anything I want.”
“I feel the same. The exact same.”
His face splits in a huge smile, and he tugs at my jacket until I’m folded in his arms.
