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“You should’ve talked sooner.” River spoke so quietly, I almost didn’t hear him. He fisted Luiz’s shirt and brought them face-to-face. “You have a choice now, Luiz. You can die slowly, or you can die painfully.”
“But y-you s-said,” Luiz spluttered. “You said you’d let me—”
“Choose,” River growled.
I walked closer slowly, needing to see this. Craving it. I wanted to see bloodshed and suffering. And if my brother ran out of inspiration, I was ready to help. We had some time before we had to be on our way.
Luiz fucking lost it. He started sobbing about his kids and his wife and his mother. “I gave you my uncle!” he cried. “I need to see my babies again! Where’s your fucking humanity?! You call yourselves good guys?”
Actually…I had never called myself a good guy.
River leaned even closer. In the faint, cold light of the lantern, he was nothing but dark shadows and pale blue contrasts. With a barely visible background and a cartel motherfucker shaking with terror.
“My humanity is gone,” River whispered. He let Luiz go but remained close while he pulled out a knife from his pocket. A folder Emerson had once given him. Riv extended the blade, then grabbed Luiz by the jaw. He pried the guy’s mouth open, nicking him in the process. Blood seeped from Luiz’s bottom lip. He was shaking so hard. River was past giving a fuck. He forced the blade into Luiz’s mouth and started puncturing his flesh. Against his cheeks, along his tongue, over his gums.
“Please,” Luiz choked out.
I sidestepped past the glow of the lantern and saw River more than I saw Luiz.Stop. The second I saw the unshed tears in my brother’s eyes, I reached my limit. It was as if I woke up from a nightmare, stepped into another, and… I couldn’t do anything, fucking anything, about the love of our life right now, but I could stop River from doing something that might come back to haunt him.
I closed the distance between us and carefully covered his hand with mine, and I withdrew the knife from Luiz’s mouth. Blood gushed out from the wounds with each spluttering breath.
“He has to die,” River gritted out.
“He will. I’ll handle it.” I nudged him back and gripped the knife. River would have no remorse whatsoever about us getting rid of another worthless murderer, but the, uh…the approach, the way we killed, could affect him for a long time.
River didn’t torture.
He stepped backward and sniffled, lifting his arm to wipe his mouth, and the tears spilled over. “They’re gonna force him to fight for his life. To kill or be killed.”
No, they fucking won’t. We’ll get there before.
I turned to Luiz, grabbed a fistful of his hair, yanked his head back, and slit his throat.
He let out a gargled scream that soon morphed into a series of choked coughs.
I wiped River’s blade off on my T-shirt, then pocketed it. We were done here. We’d gather most of the shit onto the plastic, and I had to reach out to Elliott. He had a choice to make too. Either they stayed in Europe and waited to catch Carillo, or they joined us in Colombia. Now that we had Hillcroft involved, I had no doubt they could arrange for transport straight to South America.
“We’re out in ten,” I said, walking over to River. I cupped his face in my hands and forced him to look at me. But then…what the fuck could I say? I was determined to do everything in my power, but I couldn’t make false promises. We didn’t do that. So I just pressed my forehead to his and did my best to convey all the things I couldn’t voice out loud.
THE DROP ZONE
Shay Tenley
2023
I should’ve taken Spanish in school. Motherfucker.
My breaths came out shallow and rapid as two men ushered me off what I could only assume was a bush plane. Thank fuck. Talk about a bumpy ride and an even bumpier landing. My stomach tightened with each stumbling step down the ladder, and I was greeted by a thick wall of humidity.
I couldn’t see shit through the bag over my head, but I could count voices, the sounds of engines, and guess by the complete darkness that it was in the middle of the night.
Steady breaths.
We didn’t know how much we relied on vision until we lost it. We didn’t just see with our eyes; we estimated range and surface levels. It was a belittling mindfuck to trip over the smallest rock or a tuft of grass. The slightest irregularity in the ground could send me tumbling down.
I was passed on to another man—scratch that, two. They gripped my arms tightly, yanking my restrained wrists in different directions. Another thing that shouldn’t hurt so damn much, but they’d been cutting into my flesh for over two weeks. The cowards kept me cuffed even when they wanted to go up against me to assert themselves. Cuffed in the front during a fight, cuffed behind my back all other times.
My head was killing me. I couldn’t relax for a second. I had Reese in my mind, reminding me to keep my cool, to be strong, to analyze everything going on around me, and to use my other senses to predict what was next. I breathed in the stuffy air inside the bag. I heard forest sounds—fuckingmonkeys.
