Fight For You (3 page)

I’ve been so careful, and I’m so close.

The fact that I’ve suddenly become a person of interest to some shadowy stranger, days from accomplishing my goal, makes me want to scream.

For the first time in months, I’m consumed with emotion, so angry my hands shake as I open the front pocket of my pack and dig out my key. It takes three tries to get the key into the lock and once I’m finally inside my room, I can’t sit down.

I toss my backpack on the bed and pace the carpet between the bed and bureau, hands clenching and unclenching at my sides. I’m shocked to find myself craving a cigarette and know if I had one, I’d step out onto the pigeon-shit covered balcony outside my room to smoke.

I took up smoking to have an excuse to mingle with the other members of my gun club. I only smoked outside the shooting range and have never had the urge to light up anywhere else. I had assumed I must be immune to the addiction, but maybe I simply haven’t been under enough stress to trigger a craving.

For a moment, I consider hitting the bodega a few doors down from the hotel but dismiss the idea with a sharp shake of my head.

I need to be strong, calm, and focused. I haven’t let myself look further into the future than this summer or imagine who I’ll be or what I’ll do once I’ve finished this, but even in the short term, I can’t afford to let my body be weakened by chemicals or addiction.

I just need to take a deep breath, calm down, and think rationally.

I fetch a bottle of water from the mini-fridge and take a long drink, focusing on the cool flow of liquid down my throat. I relax my shoulders and jaw and let my weight settle evenly between my feet.

Once I’m steady in my body, I let my mind focus on the problem at hand.

Who knows I’m in Costa Rica? Horatio—the man from my gun club who put me in touch with Carlos—and anyone in his organization that he might have mentioned the deal to. Horatio isn’t forthcoming about his alliances, but I’m pretty sure he’s involved with one of the Cuban gangs running South Miami. Anyone affiliated with him would be bad news. Ditto for Carlos and whatever organization he’s affiliated with, which means there is a nearly one hundred percent chance that the man following me is dangerous and that whatever he wants isn’t something I’m going to be eager to part with.

So what does he want?

More money? Does he plan to rob me or kidnap me for ransom or something even more menacing?

If Carlos had a meaningful conversation with Horatio, he should have learned that I’m a loner, not well-off, and don’t have any obvious ties to people with money. That would lead me to rule out kidnapping, but criminals knowing I have no one waiting for a postcard from my trip to South America presents its own problems.

I’ve done what I can to play down my looks—choosing modest, loose-fitting clothing, always pulling my hair back in a tight braid or bun, and limiting my makeup routine to a tube of Chap Stick—but I’m still attractive. When I first joined the gun club, a couple of the regulars tried to start something, but I quickly made it clear that I wasn’t interested in that kind of relationship. I’m not vain enough to believe one of Carlos’s friends took one look at me and decided I was worth pursuing, but they might have taken a look and decided I was worth selling.

The cartels traffic in people as well as drugs and, from what I’ve heard, make a better living at the former. The majority of the people sold into sex slavery are young girls living below the poverty line who have slipped through the cracks in the foster system—or in some cases been forced into the skin trade by their own parents—but I’m not quite twenty-two. Not a girl, but maybe young enough to fetch a decent price on the international slave market.

I move toward the balcony, surveying the street outside through the filmy glass doors.

There’s a lock on the inside I’ve already bolted, but it’s not strong enough to withstand a firm shoulder from someone as large as Carlos. And even if it were, all an intruder would need to do is break one of the glass panes and reach inside to open the door. I’m on the third floor, but there is a fire escape with a ladder that leads to the ground. It would be as easy to come up as it would be to go down.

I noted the flaw in the room’s security when I checked in, but it didn’t worry me before. Now that someone is watching me, however, it would be smart to look into a more secure situation.

Unfortunately, The Allegro Hotel is laid out around a center courtyard. All of the rooms have balconies, so asking for a room change wouldn’t accomplish anything. And assuming my tail has figured out which room I’m in once, he could certainly do so again.

I’m going to have to change hotels, but not tonight. It’s already ten-thirty and I don’t want to be out on the streets alone later than this. The search for another temporary base will have to wait until the morning. I’ll just have to prepare for a potential break-in as best I can and hope I get lucky tonight.

After brushing my teeth and changing into gym shorts, I drag my large, traveler’s backpack in front of the glass doors, giving anyone trying to come in through the balcony something to stumble over in the dark. Then I unpack my smaller pack and put my new toy together. The familiar activity is soothing, giving my mind something to focus on aside from the unease humming through my nerve endings.

I would prefer not to fire the gun inside the hotel, but an intruder won’t know that.

The gun is small for a sniper rifle, but it’s still as long as my forearm. The sight of it alone might be enough to scare him off and if not, the weapon could be used to inflict blunt force trauma as long as I get to my attacker before he gets to me.

After the gun is assembled, I turn on the television and watch the end of a Costa Rican variety show involving a surreal mix of human heads superimposed on cartoon character bodies, dancing girls in bikinis, and bad man-on-the-street interviews. A little after midnight I turn off the set and prop myself up against the headboard with the gun resting lightly across my thighs.

For the better part of an hour, I stare at the doors leading onto the balcony, watching muted orange light sweep across the glass as a car passes by on the street outside, waiting for something to happen. I figure if the person following me has been watching my window, they will wait a decent amount of time after seeing my television set turn off before making a move.

Another half hour passes and the night grows quiet.

The only sounds are the faint droning of the air conditioner far below on the first floor and the breeze tinkling the wind chimes outside the closed shop across the street. The last time I look at the clock, it reads two fifteen. I expect to stay awake to welcome three o’clock, but at some point I must have nodded off.

When I wake up, it’s nearly four in the morning.

The first thing I register is the time. The second is the way the hair on my arms is standing on end.

Even in sleep, my body has sensed that something is wrong. The watched feeling has returned with a vengeance, so strong I swear I can hear another heartbeat thudding not far from my bed.

CHAPTER THREE

Sam

Trying not to panic, I mentally check in with my immediate surroundings.

There is no one by the door to the room, so if I need to run, that way is clear. My gun is still on the mattress beside me, just a few inches from my curled legs, so that option is available, too.

Now I just need to find out what I’m up against.

Keeping my lids slitted just enough to see, I roll over to face the balcony doors. I do my best to look like I’m still asleep, keeping my arms and legs heavy, not wanting the intruder to know I’m conscious until I make my move. Once I complete my shift in position, I intend to stay completely still. I am anticipating that the person who has broken into my room will be a man, dangerous and possibly armed, but nothing more.

I have no other expectations or suspicions.

I am entirely unprepared to see
him
standing on the other side of the patio doors, watching me through the smeared glass.

It’s Danny.

Here.

Close enough to touch.

Close enough to throw my arms around him and hug him breathless.

All I have to do is open the door.

My eyes fly open and my throat locks, strangling the sound of surprise rising inside of me, transforming it into a soft whimper. But Danny hears it, and his gaze shifts, settling on my shadowed face.

“Let me in, Sam,” he says softly. He looks so beautiful, so familiar. Safe, but alien at the same time, like something from another world than the one I’ve been living in for the past year. “I think we should talk.”

Talk.

After a year apart.

After I ran from him and shut him out and severed the connection between us without even a goodbye or a note telling him I’m sorry but that I couldn’t love anyone when I was filled with so much hate. After a year of knowing that he’s looking for me, longing for me, and ignoring it. A year of hiding from him and the memories of the girl I was when I was with him.

I was
a girl. Just a stupid little girl, playing at being a woman, thinking I understood what it meant to promise someone forever.

But I understood nothing.

Forever is impossible. Forever in a vacuum, maybe, but not forever in the real world.

The real world has too many ugly variables. It chews you up and spits you out and then goes back for seconds, gnashing you between its teeth until you barely recognize your own face in the mirror, let alone the face of the person you love. The person you
loved
when you were someone else, someone with a functioning heart, who hadn’t been forced to choose between two masters.

I could never have hated the men who hurt me the way I needed to hate them if I was trying to love Danny at the same time.

Love lies. Love whispers that living well and loving well are the best revenge. It convinces you to let go, step back, and leave justice in the hands of God or karma or some other imaginary thing that will never get the job done.

If there is a God, then he let four men brutalize me and continues to allow unimaginable horror to befall innocent people every day. If that God is real, I want no part of him and nothing in my personal karma earned me a gang rape or a not guilty verdict for the men who violated me.

God and karma are lies and maybe…

Maybe love is a lie, too.

If love were real, then I wouldn’t be able to look at Danny without bursting into tears and running into his arms. I wouldn’t be able to cross the room and stand facing him through the glass without saying a word. Not a word, after so long. If love were real, I wouldn’t be able to reach out and draw the curtain between us, shutting myself in even deeper darkness and leaving Danny on the other side.

But I do it.

I draw the curtain and then I wait, breath held, ears straining for some sign of what he’s doing on the other side.

I don’t know what I’ll do if he forces his way in. I was prepared for someone to hurt me—I’ve been preparing for that for months. I’m not prepared for someone to care or to go hunting for the girl they knew hidden inside the woman I’ve become. That girl is dead. I wouldn’t know how to be her if I tried and I’m not going to try. I can’t, not until I’ve finished what I’ve started.

And maybe not even then.

Hope, faith, and a soft heart made that girl weak. I refuse to be weak again. If I have to choose between happiness and strength, I choose strength. I choose to be hard and cold and ready to fight my own battles without anyone else to protect or disappoint.

Danny wouldn’t love the person I am anyway
, I think, the thought sending a sharp feeling spreading through my chest.
He should go and spare both of us an exercise in pain and futility.

Finally, after five endless minutes that seem to stretch on for an eternity, I hear the fire escape creak as Danny climbs down to the street below. I hear the soft thud of boots on concrete as he lands and the softer tread as he walks away. Only when I’m certain he’s gone do I let myself crawl back onto the bed and curl up in a ball so tight my abdomen cramps and my spine starts to ache.

I press my fist to my closed mouth and fight to steady my breath, but I don’t think about Danny and I don’t cry.

I haven’t cried in a year and I’m not going to start now.

I am going to breathe, sleep, and then get up in the morning and try to forget I ever saw the man I used to think would be my forever.

CHAPTER FOUR

Danny

“If I love you, what business is it of yours?”

-Goethe

If this had ever been about me, I might have kept walking.

If I’d come to Costa Rica looking for Sam, instead of the monsters who hurt her, her dismissal would have cut me apart. The only thing worse than not knowing where she is or how she is or if she needs me is looking into the big blue eyes of the woman I love and seeing…nothing.

No love. No hate. No sadness or regret.

No emotion at all aside from the clear desire for me to leave and never come back.