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She went to pass him, heading for the door. Without thinking, John’s hand shot out, pulling her back to him. He took her shoulders and turned her so that she was up against the door, squeezing her chin so hard he was probably hurting her.
‘We’re getting out of here,’ he murmured against her lips. ‘I promise you.’
‘I don’t need a man to save me,’ she whispered, her eyes wet.
John kissed her, long and hard, pressing his body against hers until he was practically grinding her into the bedroom door.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Because I need you to save me.’
And he did need her to save him from this.
There was a rap of knuckles on the door.
‘We rolling?’ Guillermo hollered.
With great reluctance, John peeled himself from Mariana’s slight form, swiping a thumb across her face to erase the smear of red lipstick he’d just kissed halfway across her cheek.
‘Gimme five,’ John yelled back, finally letting Mariana go. ‘I’ll meet you out there.’
She nodded, straightening her clothes before she opened the door and stepped out into the hallway.
John felt strangely out of place as he wandered through Mariana’s bedroom – a place where he’d fucked her countless times behind the security a locked door afforded – and into her bathroom. He had an eerie feeling of deja vu that he couldn’t quite place. That sinking feeling again. That inescapable reality.
He went into the bathroom, and by the time he heard Guillermo yelling and bashing his fists against the front door not thirty seconds later, Mariana was long gone.
John burst out of the bathroom, almost bowling Guillermo over. The Mexican’s face was red, his fists white as he clenched them tight, raining down blows on the locked front door.
‘She changed the fucking code again!’ Guillermo said.
John looked up at the ceiling, taking a deep breath, hoping Guillermo was just clumsy-fingered. ‘Here, let me try,’ he said, shoving him aside and entering the code. Zero-six-six-six-hash.
Nope. Nothing.
More alarmingly, he knew that if they entered the wrong code more than five times, an alarm would be triggered remotely and the security company would call Dornan. Not a great idea to have him turn up with armed guards to find his girlfriend missing and John and Guillermo standing sheepishly in her foyer.
‘I’ll try her birthday,’ Guillermo said, reaching his hand out to hit the keypad next to the door. John caught his hand midair. ‘Don’t do that.’
Guillermo looked surprised. ‘Huh?’
‘If you do that enough times, the alarm gets triggered. Dornan gets a call. How the hell are we supposed to explain us being stuck in here?’
Guillermo sagged against the door. ‘Well, how the fuck are we supposed to get out? We don’t turn up to church, Boss is gonna notice that, too, send out a fucking search party to cut our nuts off.’
John was already dialling Mariana’s cell. She answered on the second ring, and he heard the noise of the highway in the background.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ John asked, trying to keep his voice as steady as possible. He didn’t need her hanging up on him.
‘I’m meeting with Emilio,’ she said, her voice sounding far away. He imagined the way she’d balance the cellphone on her knees while she drove, her hair blowing around her face as she cruised down the freeway. She always drove with the windows down, no matter what the weather was like outside. Said it made her feel alive.
Well, she wouldn’t be alive much longer if she was going to pull shit like this.
Guillermo leaned over towards John and yelled, ‘You’d better let us out of this fucking place, now!’
John narrowed his eyes at Guillermo, as if to say,what the fuck?He purposefully took three steps away from him, staring at the tiled floor as he pinched the bridge of his nose.
‘Just tell me what you’re doing,’ John said wearily. ‘Tell me why you’ve got a gun and six bullets and don’t want us to come with you to your meeting with Emilio.’
‘She took the box,’ Guillermo said. At first John was confused, until he looked to where Guillermo was pointing at the kitchen counter, where a box of human ashes had sat just minutes ago.
