"Get up, puta. Move!" one barks in clipped English, not a question.
My mind goes through my options quickly. We're on the third floor. Even without my healing injuries, the fall could be… catastrophic to my health. The window is a promise that kills. I look at it anyway: glass, narrow ledge, nothing but a ten-foot drop and death. Nope, not tonight.
Pulling my gun is out of the question; four rifles are trained on me. They would shoot before I have a chance. I hate to admit it, but they got me. For now. I have two options: go out like a heroine in a hail of bullets or find out what they want with me. They say curiosity kills the cat, but in this case, I'll take that chance.
"Well, congratulations, you got me," I say, scorching them with my eyes, "enjoy it while you can."
"Oh, we will puta, we will," one of them laughs. Before I take my earpiece off, I yell at Stephano, "HQ breached, call Grigori."
"Shut up, puta," one of the men steps close enough to hit me hard with the business end of his rifle across the face. I taste blood. God damn it, right as the bruises were healing. Maybe I'm vain, but I wanted Steph to see my healed face, and this just put me back a few days. FUCK. Now he's done it. He's officially pissed me off. I grab the rifle from his surprised grip and, using it like a bat, I beat the butt over his head. Again and again.
A shot rings out, the bullet whizzes by my ear, "Stop!"
Breathing hard, I glare into the black abyss of another man's barrel and drop the bloody weapon to raise my hands.
One of the remaining three comes around, twists my arms behind me roughly, and slaps zip ties on. Amateurs. I weigh a thousand tiny moves. I could still get out of here. It would be loud and bloody, but I could. That doesn’t mean Ishould. One, I don't know how many more are stationed outside, and two, in my current condition, another bullet or two would actually slow me down, hard. So I ingrain the face of the asshole who is pushing the barrel in my back, driving me forward and down the stairs, into my brain. He'll pay for it later. They all will.
We march down the stairs and encounter a heavily drunk tourist, whom they unceremoniously kick down the last steps. He hits his head, and it's lights out for him. If he survives the hit, he'll have one mother of a headache tomorrow and probably no memory.
The street is eerily empty, as if word has spread that the monsters are out hunting. It wouldn't surprise me if that were true. A large SUV is idling by the exit. Doors wide open. Barrel guy pushes me forward, and I have no choice but to climb in.
The SUV rides like a beast that knows it owns the road, heavy and slow, windows smoked so the world is a smear of dark grays. There are five men inside with me: the driver, one next to him with tattoos like bad maps, two in front of me, and one next to me, whose shoulders fill the leather.
We pull away from the city, and the lights slip behind us, then nothing but scrub and the tired hum of the tires. The men talk in Spanish, and I tune them out, vowing once again that I need to learn it. I keep my face soft, my thoughts to myself. It’s easier to be the thing they assume me to be: fragile, ornamental, the kind of woman you can pass around and trade like a coin. The kind who got lucky taking one of them out. They misname me the way men misname colors.
The SUV turns into a stub of road, and the sand is replaced by gravel that chews the tires. A shuttered warehouse squats in the dark, corrugated ribs catching the light of the moon. They kill the engine. Four bootedguards, spread like shadows, stand at the open sliding back door.
They haul me out by the elbows. One of them—the one with the knife-scar along his jaw—grins like a boy with a prize. They march me inside. The warehouse is the kind that smells of mold on concrete and dripping walls. A woman’s laugh haunts the high ceilings, coming from somewhere unseen.
They take me to a back room lit by a single naked bulb hanging over a table that has seen better days. Three Cartel members sit by it, a king of pockmarked skin, a thin man flicking a lighter, and a heavy-jawed thug who taps the table with one knuckle like he’s testing the wood for weakness. They look up when I come in the door, pushed in like a small animal at feeding time.
"What did you bring us?" the pockmarked one asks, or something to that effect, like I said, my Spanish is… not good. His voice is flat and unfeeling. He rises. His face is a field of cicatrices; his smile is a cut. He spits the words, part interrogation, part accusation, as he studies me.
"An American gringa? Have you lost your minds?" He curses in passable English.
I don't correct his assumption about my origins. I find it rather entertaining.
"This puta and her husband took Benji and Sergei out." Knife Scar fills him in.
"This little thing?" Pockmark turns to my captor, "Then where the hell is her husband?"
"He wasn't in the room." The other explains, sounding petulant.
I suppress a snicker because in our line of work, you don't get away with an answer like that and live. The slap is expected, loud and hard. The idiot falls back.
"Go back and get him," Pockmark snarls.
"Si, capitano," the guy all but crawls out of the room, followed by the others, leaving the three men and me.
My hands are zip-tied behind me. I feel the rope at my wrists like a countdown. I watch the thin man—he’s the one who smells of whiskey and worry—as he slides a cigarette between his lips. Thecapitanostudies me as if I’m a problem he’s been paid to solve. The lighter man watches my eyes. The heavy one grins like he’s already won.
"So, sweetheart, what’s your name?" Pockmark asks, leaning forward until his breath fogs the lone bulb. He’s trying to intimidate me. Instead, I feel like laughing. I can’t believe they don’t even know who I am. They have no idea what their little bloodhounds dragged in. That ignorance amuses me to no end.
"Ana," I say, forcing the humor from my voice and filling it with something I approximate to be fear. I haven't felt fear in… so long. I don't know what it tastes like any longer. I stopped being afraid of anything when I had to prove myself to my father. I was ready to die then, and I'm ready to die now. Death finds us all eventually. The only option we have is how we meet it.
They laugh because that’s what bullies do when you don’t bend. The lighter man reaches for me like a dog, testing. His fingers close near my jaw.
"Your husband?" he asks in a sharp voice. "Where is he?"
