Taming Cross (Love Inc.) (27 page)

I know I should go with these men. I should spare Evan. We're still in Mexico, and even in a big city like Ciudad Juarez, the Cientos Cartel has sway. Enough sway to install two cartel lieutenants at a rural border patrol post. But my fingers won't let go of Evan's shirt.

“This is the girl! I have seen her before!” The muzzle slides down my forehead, bruising my temple. “Come on, bitch! Or you’ll have a hole in your head!”

Somewhere in the back of my mind, like crickets singing in the background of a Southern front porch conversation, I can hear Evan imploring the other guard to listen to him. He says that I'm his wife, and we're headed back to our house in California.

I want to cry, because I want it to be true. But my emotions have dried up. My mind is only capable of processing the simplest facts. The one that stands out is: Evan will fight them for me. He won’t let them take me; he’ll fight, and he’ll get shot. This gives me the strength to hold my hand up, signaling my gunman to lower his gun, and swing shakily off the bike. Despite my determination to surrender, my legs are weak as jelly. I collapse into the guard, who scoops me up under his arm and starts to run.

I shut my eyes. This can't be real. This isn't real.

I picture Evan and me, back on the motorcycle, both wearing bullet-proof vests. In my re-creation of our fate, when the faux guards pull out their guns, Evan just jets past them, through the gate that would have swung down over us. They're lousy shots and all their bullets miss us. In real life, I'm panting, probably close to passing out from fear. I've surrendered fully, accepting my fate, but I want to stay awake. I combat my near-debilitating terror by remembering the feel of Evan's warm, hard abs underneath my hands.

From somewhere close, I hear screaming. The shrieking peel of rubber on asphalt. Gunfire.
Evan!

Don't open your eyes.

I tell myself the sound of whirring tires was Evan, jetting past the border.

It's time to go. Time to go to God.

I open my eyes with a plan to fight my captor. That way, I'll get shot and die without the rape I know is coming.

The guard whose gun was in my face is bleeding all over the ground, his forehead ripped open like a busted watermelon. The other still has Merri. She's tucked under his arm like a football. He is running toward another fence, behind which is a navy blue Range Rover with shiny rims. As I gas the Mach and fly toward Merri, thugs dressed in military gear pour out of the Range Rover and start to run toward her, too.

Fuck no they won't. She's mine!

I lean forward, pressing the weight of my body against the handles so I have better balance, and with my right hand, I raise the stolen semi and spray all of them with bullets.

It's a risky move. One, because I wobble on the bike and almost crash. Two because the ones that don't fall, fire back. I feel a searing pain in my right calf but I can't think about that now. One of the car's passengers—a woman with long, black and white striped hair and a bullet-proof vest—is almost to Merri. It takes everything I have to raise the gun again with only my right hand and aim at just her.

As I pull the trigger, I actually pray.
Please, God.

I only have enough strength in my arm to pull the trigger once. Somehow, the woman falls.

The other thugs running toward Merri start to scream and wail, but my eyes are trained on Merri. Her long, red hair ripples in the hot wind. Her legs kick. Her hands claw her captor’s arm. He yells something.

I try to follow her as I swerve to dodge bullets. One thing they're screaming makes it through my head:

“
CHRISTINA...”

“
Christina, Christina!”

“
Christina! No! No!”

I remember the name Christina. That's Jesus's sister.

I feel another bite of fire, this time near my throat. Adrenaline sweeps through me, and I make a bold decision. I point the bike at Merri and her captor, and I surge forward, toward them. When I'm close enough, I aim at the bastard’s head and slam on my brakes as Merri tumbles to the ground.

I open my eyes, and all I see is ground and sky, flipping like I'm rolling down a steep hill. Pain shoots through my body—stinging, tearing pain—and I realize that's because I'm rolling on asphalt.

“MERRI! COME ONE! GET ON THE BIKE!”

That's Evan's voice. Blearily, I note some of the cartel’s remaining higher-ups running toward us. I feel heat shoot through my hair and smell the bullet as I whirl around to find Evan, wide eyed and urgent, on his bike.

“GET ON!”

He can't help me and balance the bike at the same time. He's holding the phony guard's light-weight semi-automatic rifle with his right hand in the most awkward position I've ever seen in my life. The second my butt touches his bike seat, we shoot off like we're on the back of a runaway horse. Bullets follow us, pinging against the bike's metal. Ripping, again, through the curtain of my hair. Hitting Evan’s right shoulder.

He screams “fuck,” the bike's rear tire slides a little, then we pick up speed, shooting through the gate. It takes me a moment to notice that the roaring noise behind us is Christina's blue Range Rover mowing down the barbed-wire fence. They're coming after us.

Then I notice Evan's bleeding really bad.

“Keep on going,” I scream. Blood is pouring down his back, but we don't have another choice.

I can feel Evan panting underneath my arms as he fights against the pain. We swerve around a mechanical arm and through a crack in a second, half-opened gate, passing a few cars that must be sitting, waiting for this interior gate to let them through.

I hear the roar of the Range Rover behind us, then hear metal crush metal and turn around in time to see the blue SUV bash into a white Mercedes Benz. Horns start honking but I don't care right now.

We're through. They're not. And Evan's blood is dripping in my lap.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

The pain brings tears to my eyes as I call over my shoulder, “Take the gun!”

I would pass the damn thing to her but I know I'll lose my balance if I try. The shoulder hurts like a motherfucker, and I know that for once my history with pain makes me lucky, because if I weren't used it, I could never stay upright on this bumpy ass road.

As it is, I try to breathe through my teeth and tell myself that if I can’t keep it together, terrible things will happen to Merri.

Her left arm tightens around my waist and her right one comes around to take the gun. It's easier to drive once she has it. I pick up speed, back up to ninety, but I quickly drop down to eighty, then seventy. My vision is blurring, every time I inhale, smearing the yellow lines in the middle of the road.

I feel like we’re on fast-forward. The scrubby bushes that line the highway are trembling furiously. The clouds in the vast, blue sky are racing overhead. My pulse comes in uneven bursts. I know it's because of the bleeding, but there's nothing I can do about it until we get into El Paso.

As it is, I’m worried we’ll get stopped by cops. Or maybe that would help, I think hazily—they might help get me to a hospital—but they also might ask to see our passports.

I feel Merri’s helmet bump against the back of my head just as her breath warms my neck. “Do you want me to drive?”

I struggle to swallow so I can answer her, but I can't get my throat to work. I'm shaking so bad now. I don't want to do it, but I brake and pull over on the side of the road, where I barely stumble off the bike before I'm violently sick. Merri's arms are around my back, and I'm so fucking disgusted with myself.

Time to phone West for another rescue
, says a little voice inside my head.

You'll bleed out by then
, a morose voice answers.

I can't stop the groan that comes out of my mouth. It's muted by the thumping of a helicopter. I look up, feeling like I'm living in a nightmare. The blades are slow...so slow. The helicopter lowers in the parched field out in front of us, kicking up dust.

“Is it them?” I hear myself ask. I don’t even know who ‘them’ is. I can’t think straight anymore. All I can do is look at Merri.

Her eyes are so wide. Her words sound very slow; unreal. “It's the border patrol.” Her grip on my left arm tightens, and I struggle to keep the black to the edges of my vision. Her lips move, and I try to pay attention. She frowns, and I try to shake my head. I feel her hand on the side of my face.

“Evan, do you have those passports?”

I nod—so slow. I feel like I’m underwater. I raise my right hand to my chest, where the pouch is still strapped below my shirt.

Got to stay awake. Got to stay awake until I show them our passports. I’m going to need to explain this to Merri.

“Evan.” I feel her hand on my back. “Are you okay?”

“Never...better, honey.” Before the black takes over everything, I reach under my shirt and get the passports out.

“Give them these,” I hiss, “and tell them we're married.”

I hold onto Evan’s blood-soaked back and stroke his wild, dark hair. The passports are lying in the grass at my feet. Out in front of us, only twenty or thirty feet away, are two border patrol officers, each carrying an automatic rifle. I don’t know who they are or what their agenda is, but there’s nothing I can do except pray they’ll help us.

Evan hasn’t passed out yet. It takes a lot for him to pass out. Right now he’s got his left arm wrapped around my right knee and his face is pressed against my side. Every so often he’ll mumble something that sounds upset, but I can’t understand him.

The skin of his arms is cold and clammy. There’s an exit wound just below his collar bone—I’m able to see it because his shirt is ripped open there—and that’s good I guess, but he’s still losing a ton of blood.

The agents are running, and I steel myself for the possibility that they’re in the cartel’s pocket. They’re close enough for me to see their faces. One is short and broad, with red hair and freckles, and the other one is slim, with buzz-cut blond hair. Both are frowning. Both lower their guns as they get closer. I scramble for our passports as I let emotion wash through me.