“Thanks, buddy,” I mutter, pushing his face off mine.
Alejandro stomps the accelerator. The wheels spin, spit dirt into the air, and the car fishtails once before catching traction.
Then we’re gone—ripping down the forest road with assassins behind us and a corpse ridingshotgun.
“Saint, what the hell—” I snap the moment the fresh corpse hits the back seat.
She doesn’t answer. Doesn’t even look at me. She just climbs over the bench seat with the grace of a cat burglar and slides into the passenger side as if we aren’t being hunted through the forest.
Seatbelt on.
Posture relaxed.
Expression bored.
“What? You’ve never seen a dead body before?”
She opens two pieces of pink gum and pops them both in her mouth with a sly grin. And yes, I fucking look at that mouth before turning back to the… lack of road.
A sniper round punches into the trunk, reminding me we’re not.
“Puta madre?*…” I mutter, jerking the wheel as the car fishtails across uneven terrain. Roots, rocks, dips—this forest hates cars almost as much as it hates assassins. “Me cago en todo lo que se mueve…”?*
But we’re close.
Just ahead is a narrow maintenance road, and beyond that, a highway entrance where I can lose the riffraff behind us.
The car bucks hard as we hit a patch of exposed roots. Saint barely reacts—just reaches up to adjust the elastic band around her hair like the force of impact personally offended her styling choices.
I’m weaving between trees, scanning for the road, when a second vehicle barrels up beside us, matching our speed. I risk a quick glance.
“Ah, hijo de puta?*… you’ve got to be kidding me.”
La Cucaracha?*.
The Guild’s most irritatingly persistent assassin. You could drop a building on him, and he’d crawl out asking for a raise.
His window rolls down.
He grins at me—big, stupid, toothy grin—like we’re old buddies catching up at a reunion.
His gun rises.
I shout over the engine, “Long time no see, Cucarach?—”
A silver blur slices past me.
Saint’s dagger.
It buries itself dead-center between his eyes. His grin freezes, drops. The gun slips from his hand. His foot slams down on the accelerator as his head snaps back.
The entire car veersleft—straight into a tree.
Full speed.
Metal crunches. Glass shatters. The impact echoes through the canopy.
I blink once. “Rude much? I didn’t even get to say hello.”
