"Yes."
"Then stay close and don't look at anything. Move when I move. Understand?"
I nod.
He turns and I follow, Lucas screaming against my shoulder. The hallway is worse than I imagined. Bodies everywhere. Blood on the walls, the floor, pooling in doorways. I try not to look but I can't help seeing faces I recognize. The guards who used to smile at me. The cook who made Lucas his favorite foods.
We pass the master bedroom. The door is open.
Mateo lies sprawled across the floor, eyes open and empty, blood spreading beneath him in a dark pool. Two bullet holes in his chest. He's wearing only the pants he pulled on, bare feet pointing toward the bed we shared.
Dead. He's actually dead.
Relief hits me so hard my knees nearly buckle, but Micah's hand is on my elbow, keeping me moving.
"Don't stop," he says.
We reach the main room. More bodies. The smell of gunpowder and copper thick in the air. Micah leads us through the carnage with practiced efficiency, stepping over the dead like they're furniture.
The front door hangs off its hinges. Outside, the courtyard is lit by the hacienda's security lights and the wash of helicopter searchlights. A massive helicopter hovers low, rotors screaming, kicking up dust and debris. Other operators in tactical gear provide covering fire, weapons trained on the perimeter.
"Go, go, go!" Micah shouts over the roar.
He shields us with his body as we run across the open ground. Lucas is shrieking now, terrified by the noise and the lights and the strange men with guns. My bare feet hit gravel and I nearly fall, but Micah catches me, half-carrying me the last few yards.
Hands reach down from the helicopter and pull me up. I collapse onto the floor, still clutching Lucas. Someone wraps a blanket around us. The world is nothing but noise—the rotors, Lucas's screaming, men shouting, weapons fire in the distance.
Micah swings in last, slamming the door shut. "Everyone's in! Go, go, go!"
The helicopter lurches into the sky. Through the open door I see the hacienda falling away below us. Men are running from the village now, vehicles racing up the road, but we're already too high, too fast.
Gone.
Micah pulls off his helmet and crouches in front of me, checking me over with professional efficiency. "Are you hurt? Is Lucas hurt?"
"No. We're—we're okay."
Lucas has stopped screaming, shocked into silence. He stares at Micah with huge eyes, then buries his face against my neck.
"You're safe now," Micah says, but he's looking at me like he knows I won't believe it. Like he's seen enough terror to recognize it won't fade just because we're airborne.
I nod anyway. Because Mateo is dead. Because the hacienda is disappearing into the darkness below. Because for the first time in what feels like forever, no one is watching me. No guards. No locked doors. No man who owns me.
Safe might be a lie I won't believe for years.
I saw Mateo's body. Saw his empty eyes. Saw the blood pooling beneath him.
He's dead.
And for now, that's enough.
I still dream about that night sometimes. About Micah's calm voice through the bathroom door. About the helicopter ride to freedom. About the debriefing sessions and the counselors and the slow, painful process of rebuilding a life from nothing.
But mostly I dream about Lucas taking his first real steps. Not in the hacienda under the eyes of cartel guards, but in the apartment I found six months after the rescue. Just him and me and a future that didn't include armed men or locked doors or the constant weight of captivity.
I built this life carefully. Therapy. A stable job. A house in Tucson where Lucas can ride his bike and play soccer and be just a normal kid.
Years of building safety from nothing.
