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I dug my nails into my palms and willed the tears back. I wasn’t being brave. I just knew that if I broke, I wouldn’t be able to put myself together again.
Besides, Marcos needed me.
I stood up slowly, stiff and aching from sleeping on the ground. Together, Dr. Guzman and I checked Marcos’s wound…then exchanged worried looks. We’d left the dressing as long as we could, but it needed changing and we’d used up all the alcohol wipes. We had to get something sterile to clean it and dress it with, or Marcos was going to pick up an infection: and out here, without antibiotics, that would kill him.
Guzman cursed in frustration. I gently patted his arm: this isn’t your fault. I knew he felt responsible for Marcos and for me, too, even though I’d volunteered to go to the village with them.
I turned and looked out at the camp, biting my lip. The men holding us had short fuses. On the first night, we’d made the mistake of talking too loudly and one of the cartel had yelled at us and pointed a machine gun at our heads. Since then, we’d tried to be as quiet and trouble-free as possible. But we needed medical supplies for Marcos, and someone had to risk speaking up. Marcos was hurt. Guzman had a wife and kid waiting for him back in the city.
I had no one.
I timidly called out in Spanish. Dr. Guzman tried to quiet me, worried for me, but I shook my head: I had to do this.
A guard marched over, glaring. I shrank back, my heart sinking. I’d seen him the night we arrived: a guy in his forties with his long hair pulled back in a ponytail and thin, cruel lips. Something about him gave me the creeps. Why did it have to be him?
I explained in Spanish that we needed medical supplies but he shook his head: we don’t have any.
“Boiling water, then,” I pleaded. “And clothes, even rags.”
He sighed and I thought he wasn’t going to help. But then he stared at me, his eyes narrowed in thought…and he unlocked the chain securing our cage.
He motioned me out, and for the first time in nearly a week, I stumbled out into the world. He grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me with him and I hurried to keep up.
In the cage, we’d only been able to see one small corner of the camp. Now I got my first look at the rest of it: it was a mixture of tents, shacks, and old shipping containers, surrounded on all sides by thick jungle. I tried to take in everything I could: in case it could help us escape. But my heart sank when I saw the wire mesh fence topped with razor wire that ran right around the camp and the guards who patrolled, all armed with assault rifles. Even if we could get out of the cage, somehow, we couldn’t get past all that.
The guard led me to a wooden lean-to with a sputtering diesel generator. There was a kettle for the guards to make coffee. The guard started it boiling and then muttered something about finding me some cloth. I nodded gratefully, still surprised that he was helping me.
Using the toe of his boot, he scratched an X in the dirt just in front of me. Stay right there, he told me in Spanish. Or— And he tapped my forehead with the muzzle of his rifle, hard enough to hurt.
I nodded meekly, my stomach knotting in fear. He laughed and strolled off.
I stood frozen to the spot, listening to the kettle’s whistle build and build. Then I heard another noise, a low rumble slowly approaching from behind me. A car.
The shack’s walls were made of planks, only roughly nailed together. I checked the guard was nowhere in sight, then turned around, crouched, and found a gap where I could peek through the wall.
An SUV was pulling into the camp. Cherry-red, with a white logo on the side I didn’t recognize, like two black triangles side by side. The head of the camp—the man who’d been giving the orders, the night we’d been kidnapped—was there to meet it. The black-and-white bandana was pushed down around his neck, and he looked older without it: I could see the silver in his stubble and the wrinkles at the corners of his mouth.
The guy who climbed out of the SUV was much younger and he didn’t look like he was cartel. He was in a white shirt and black slacks, with fancy, blue-and-silver framed glasses. He had a couple of armed guys with him: bodyguards? My heart leapt. He’s a lawyer! Or some sort of negotiator, sent by the government, he’s going to bargain for our release—
But there was no introduction, no cautious handshake. The two of them just started a muttered conversation, as if they already knew each other. What the hell is going on?
