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I curse when my forehead collides with the bars of the cell beside mine. My spatial awareness is crappy without my sight. Rubbing my face, I try to clear some of the sleep from my brain. I stop when I feel something wet on my palm. I bring my hand to my nose and sniff, but I’m not picking anything up. The cells down here are already too ripe with scents I’d rather not think about.
Reaching out to the bars again, I slide my fingers around the cool metal when my hand encounters something else. Somethingother. It’s soft. Fabric of some kind. I slide my hands up the item, my sleepy brain taking a fraction longer than normal to process things. When it does, I yank my hands back and turn, throwing up what little I’ve eaten, barely missing my feet
I stumble back and take a deep breath before blowing it out and sucking it in again. “Relax, Salem. You’re fine. It’s fine. Everything is fine.”
Only it’s not fine because the material I felt is wrapped around a leg, a leg that is attached to a body, a body that is hanging from the bars of the cell. It’s not my first dead body—my mind drifts to the woman from earlier. I roll my eyes, thinking it’s not even the first dead body I’ve seen today, but the loss always cuts me. Death is nothing to be complacent about. It sneaks in and takes what it wants when it wants it, imperious to the prayers of man and the heartbreak left in its wake.
It’s not that I don’t understand the need for it. From a purely scientific point of view, death is as important as life. Without death, there would be people living in constant pain with no end in sight. Cities would become overcrowded, and countries would fall under the demand for resources that we just don’t have. No, death is a necessity. But that doesn’t mean the scales are always balanced.
I wipe my cheeks with the backs of my hands when I realize I’m crying. Crying won’t help me now. It won’t help any of us.
I listen for the sounds of anyone else, wondering if they know what’s happened. Ignoring the drip-drip, I concentrate on the other noises I’m familiar with—the wheeze of the man in the second cell, his body consumed by pneumonia, yet he holds on for what I don’t know. I listen for the deep snoring of the large man in the fourth cell, who looks and mostly sounds like a bear. If shapeshifters from the books I was fond of before I ended up here were real, I’d bet money on him being one. He’d be a bear or a dragon or something, for sure.
The praying man who cursed me out earlier is in the cell behind his. Next over, but one, is the weeping woman, who reminds me of ghosts who are trapped between this world and the next. I listen for all these sounds and hear…nothing.
It’s as if el calabozo has been muted. Hell, I’d think I’d have lost my hearing if it weren’t for that incessant drip-dripping noise that makes me want to scream.
“What the hell is happening?”
I don’t expect an answer, so I jolt when the door clangs, and a few moments later, the dim light flickers on overhead. The safety of my corner beckons me, but fear paralyzes me, and then I realize I can hear voices approaching. Voices I don’t recognize.
Americans.
“What the fuck is this?” one of them whispers.
I dart my eyes around, but they haven’t made it as far as my cell yet. Should I pretend to be asleep?
“No idea. I’m tempted to say a virus outbreak or something, but this guy has definitely had his face caved in,” the other voice replies with a hint of sarcasm.
I can also detect a slight lilt in his voice. Irish, perhaps?
“A virus sure as fuck doesn’t cut you open from chest to sternum either. Jesus, what happened here? This feels like more than just punishment. This is…”
“A message,” the other one finishes. “But for who?”
But I do. If they’re saying what I think they are, that everyone else down here is dead, then the message is meant for me. A reminder that I can’t save everyone and that Alejandro can get to me any time he wants to.
“Shit. This one’s a woman.”
“Is it her?”
“Hold on, let me take a closer look.” I hear the sound of boots scuffling on the floor before I hear theclinkof one of the cells being opened. A moment later, a harsh breath can be heard before he replies, “It’s not her.”
“Fuck. Intel says she should be here, so where the fuck is she?”
A body steps into view as I squeeze my arms tightly around my legs and look at the pair of boots through my hair that’s fallen forward to cover my face.
“Ah, Zig. I think I found her.”
More footsteps, these more hurried. I feel my body shaking.
“She alive?”
I hear the clang of the key in the lock and squeeze my eyes shut as my heart lodges in my throat. A hand on my hair makes me jump, my head shooting up as I scurry backward until I bang into the bars behind me.
“Holy shit,” a big guy says, looking down at me with shock on his face.
Big is an understatement. This guy is huge in both height and sheer muscle mass. I look from him to the other one, the one who is closer, the one who touched my hair. I frown, wondering if I’m seeing double. I shake my head. Okay, not a concussion, but twins. Very handsome dark-haired twins in combat pants with large guns strapped to them.
