Page 53 of Last Destination

The doctor donned a mask and shone his penlight into the cavity of pus, scabbed skin and ragged, red flesh. “This will require an antiseptic flush, stitches, and a strong antibiotic. Wait here.”

He left the room and Nikki, Ambrose and Jamie each took their turn examining the evidence of Diaz’s bullet. Marley had curled back into a ball on the stretcher, closing her eyes as she found sleep. Relief filled my lungs just as much as the stale air. Her worry was not needed here.

“You’re one tough fucker,” Jamie muttered, shying away from my skin. “How long have you had that?”

“Since we faced a jaguar and you watched from the shadows,” I grunted, though it held none of the malice of before. Not since he’d helped save my ángel.

The doctor returned with his hands full of items, but he hesitated at the threshold, eyes widening no doubt on the roaming landscape of my Clube de Morte gang tattoo. The artwork ran from my ribs to the center of my spine along my side. It covered the three stabbing scars I’d received from lesser men. The shoulder wound ached with vengeful pain, but they were nothing in comparison.

His brown eyes hardened into angry slits and he met my gaze without fear. “Clube de Morte is not welcome here.”

“I am Clube de Morte no longer.” I held his stare, this man who had the stones to speak to me this way garnering my respect. “I am seeking a better life, like everyone else who passes through this village. I will pay for your service and her medication. That is all we ask of you.”

He pursed his lips and scrutinized me as if his stare alone could reveal my lies. “Men do not leave Clube de Morte.”

He was not wrong. Gang members did not leave their gangs and keep their lives. It was a blood trade, in and out. But my life was already gone, buried with a plane now under a river in the jungle. He eyed my companions, no doubt the wheels of his mind associating their presence with killers for hire. They had become my members, but they were not avowed assassins.

“I escaped.” I lifted my chin and cocked an eyebrow, challenging his assumptions. “Do you believe I would risk the Darién if I wanted to continue that life?” I swept a hand toward my companions. “These strangers kept me alive and do not know what this tattoo means. Please, fix my injury, and I will leave you in peace.”

The air was removed from the room while I awaited his response.

Eventually, the doctor nodded and resumed his position on the black stool. He tended to the laceration with careful precision. The flush singed the damaged tissue with a violent ache, but he numbed the area before layering cotton gauze and sealing it shut with a sticky plastic film.

I handed him another bill for his trouble, but before I could bring Marley back into my arms, Ambrose already cradled her against his chest, her head loose and floppy with sleep.

We left the building single file through the narrow door, our footfalls on the sandy ground loud against the clinging hush. We continued on the path until we reached our rented shacks.

“I don’t like the way he looked at you.” Ambrose’s words were whispered over the top of Marley’s head while he laid her down on the rickety cot. “Watch your back, Madman.”

I nodded, pleased my third was thinking of my well-being, though the unsettled gnaw in my gut at his words continued to grow. I had counted on anonymity outside of prison. My gang tattoos were now a liability, and not something I could easily cover until I was far enough away they would have no meaning.

Would my companions be swayed when they saw how the rest of the world looked at me? Would they remember my contributions to the group without my associations tainting their memories?

Survival was by whatever means possible, including befriending dangerous men. Would I still be considered an ally once freedom was in our grasp?

I did not know.

Marley’s face crinkled in sleep, her pained grimace pulling me deeper into my questioning. I was not a good option for her, a criminal with no interest in rehabilitation. I would no longer organize hits and kill for hire, just as I wouldn’t hesitate to rid the world of anyone who threatened her or those she loved.

Would she want that man?

I turned away from her once her frown smoothed into the peaceful blank canvas of sleep.

“We need to charge our phones.” Ambrose folded his arms across his chest, leading the conversation forward as we stood outside the shack, guarding the door.

“Yeah, about that.” Nikki scratched his neck. For the first time, I could not read his fidgeting as nerves or withdrawal. “Bianca called me back and left a message. She booked a villa for a month, starting tonight, just outside Panama City. We used Google Maps to ping our location,” he added, when viewing the confusion on our faces. “We’re somewhere close to a town called Yaviza. We’ve got a six-hour bus ride to get to Panama City. I already checked, and the buses leaving for Costa Rica can drop us off an hour from there, and Bianca will have a car waiting to take us the rest of the way. Once we get Marley’s meds, we can leave.”

“Agreed, but what’s after that?”

“We need food and rest.” Nikki pointed to Marley’s immovable form on the cot beyond the open doorway. “She needs a week’s worth of medication in her, I’d imagine. Then we fly out of Panama City, back to Brazil. We have a lawsuit to fight, don’t we?”

Ambrose's terse laugh could have burned skin with its acidity. “I’m not getting on a fucking plane anytime soon. I’ll take a ship from Panama to LA if I have to. I’m not going back to São Paulo, Nik. I’ll support the lawsuit in whatever way I can, but I’d be happy if I never set foot in Brazil again.”

My second’s face fell, his normally wide smile falling to expose his hurt. “That’s our home, mate. How do you think this will work between us if you won’t come to visit?”

The question hung over our heads like heavy rain clouds. Ambrose shoved his hands into his pockets and stared at the ground, his avoidance hitting my second like a blow to the chest.

“I-I don’t know,” he admitted to the earth instead of the man.