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Then Ernesto cut him again and the man cried out in pain on a short gasp.
“Who?”
“Fuck you,” Cole said, and Ernesto motioned.
His man grabbed a handful of Cole’s hair and yanked his head back. The knife danced over his throat.
“Get the information, then report to me,” he said as he left the room. The screams cut off as the door closed behind him.
Walking back down the long corridor, Ernesto could almost hear the ghosts of the people who had died here, their pleading and begging going unnoticed. There was a high-pitched, chilling howl he wanted to attribute to the wind, but no breeze blew down here. It was as if the screams and despair of this place had permeated the walls and floors, the very molecules of the building, and the only thing left of long, dead prisoners was the ghostly wail of their screams.
After half an hour and another glass of tequila, two men entered, SEBIN assassins, one was wiping his bloody hands. Ernesto ignored the bloodstains and rose, then moved to the door, stepping through and onto the balcony. The stench of the shantytowns rose up, a combined foul smell of poverty, desperation, and unwashedpeons. His greatest desire was to be anywhere but here, a place he knew well. He’d come from this. Yet now it was his domain, and he did enjoy the power. “Did you find out who helped her escape? I want them dead.”
“Sí, Hefe. We have the information. What do you want us to do with the body?”
“Send it to the American Embassy and dump it on their stairs.”
Lives hung in the balance, he thought, taking another hit of tequila. He wanted to be the one to tip the scales. When they told him who had helped her, he smiled. They would soon know his wrath, and he would have his beautiful America back in no time, beneath him so he could rut and fuck her, slake his lust in her lush body.
He made her understand she was his, and she also knew not to cross him. His thoughts crowded as he thought of her terrified, penniless, hopeless. She’d defied him, betraying him.
And for that, she’d never sleep peacefully. Never know if he wasn’t right behind her. Never. Until he was finished with her. He lifted the glass to his lips, smiling as he drank. A deservedly smug sensation rippled down his long body.
When I find her, she’ll wish for death.
5
Jack’s breathfroze in her lungs. The short hairs bristled on the back of her neck. Everything receded as if she were looking down a tunnel that seemed like a long, long way away.
She heard that hated voice, remembering every touch, every slap, the determined look in his eyes as her skin crawled beneath a cold wave of pinpricks. Fear gripped her throat, and everything went blank.
The next thing she was even barely aware of was running full out. Someone shouted at her, but it all sounded like gibberish to her. Lungs burning, ears roaring, heart choking her as it lodged in her throat, she burst past the moonlit gates, part of her overtaxed brain realizing that she was outside as she pushed people out of the way, and ran, not thinking about anything—not the breeze against her face, not pain, torture or death, not anything except getting away.
Everything was a blur, and it felt like she was moving in slow motion when all hell broke loose behind her. Her brain absorbed the action in snatches, as if through blinding flashes of a strobe light. Two men dressed all in black, like her, chased her. She moved faster. Her palms were sweaty, her muscles pulled tight. She scrambled ahead, frantically, awkwardly, grasping at the side of a car for a handhold to balance herself. The door opened and a startled face flashed before she saw a means of escape. She darted into an alley, a muffled curse sounding behind her.
Cold dread washed through her, along with the heat of panic. This was like a nightmare where she ran and ran and ran but never gained any ground, and the harder she tried, the slower she moved. Time became weirdly elastic. Sound came and went through the static noise of her blood surging through her veins—silence, then deafening sound, snatches of her own mumbled words of panic, the grunt of her pursuers.
The alley was so dirty, trash strewn about everywhere, mountains of junk piled on either side. Old crates of motor oil, rusty tin cans, nails, amputated car parts, bald tires, and beer bottles.
She ducked around a corner, smelling the heavy odor of gasoline and oil. It was a garage. She tucked herself under the overhang, hiding in the shadows, her lungs like overworked bellows.
She looked around herself, then straight up. The moon was directly over her, and it felt almost like salvation in the humid and sweltering darkness, not even a breeze pushing at the sparse treetops. She still clutched her shoes against her chest through the uniform, mainly because she had this twisted feeling that if she lost them, she’d somehow cease to exist. In this godforsaken country, it was the only solid identification she had.
Two dark figures swept past, and she breathed a sigh of relief, her mind only on escape. She felt along the wall, flattening herself against it and her balance vanished. Her world tilted and she braced her back, waiting for it to pass. Her stomach rolled loosely.
She couldn’t remember the last time she ate.
Swallowing, she pushed off and quickened her pace, the smell of bananas making her mouth water. She spied a grocer’s cart, no one in sight. She ran past and snitched a banana, kept moving, eating, shifting between buildings, people, and the filth in the alleys.
She burst onto the street, heading toward the west. Then she saw him. Big and beautiful, he looked around frantically, and he seemed familiar, but she felt like a wild animal instead of a human woman. Her brain was in flight mode and that was all she had room for.
She ran down another alley, but when she emerged, a scream tore from her throat as a figure lunged at her, arm swinging down. She pitched forward, crying out again as something hard hit her a glancing blow to the shoulder. Pain rained all the way down her left arm to her fingertips.
Stars shooting across her vision, she stumbled, staggered dizzily, and went down to her knees on the hard ground. But with a deft swiftness thanks to more white-hot adrenaline shocking into her system, she gained her feet. Her legs felt like rubber and the world seemed to pitch and roll beneath her. She couldn’t pass out. No! She had to move or die.
She grabbed blindly for a stack of junk to her right and jerked at it as she stumbled past, sending an avalanche of crap tumbling into the path of her pursuer. There were a series of crashes and thumps, the rattle and smash of bottles, but she didn’t look back.
She ran down another alley and slipped into the crowd of people shopping and looking for a meal or a drink. Shopkeepers and eateries were outside hawking for customers. People bumped into her, some already half-drunk. Lost and alone in this sea of people, she sought shelter and moved toward a low, long squat house. There was laundry drying outside and she slipped behind the building, snatching clothes off the line. As she turned to go, a woman opened a side door and gestured.
