A Fighting Chance (46 page)

“Will do.” When Sandrine takes Drew’s hand she goes without any fight. She looks back at me the entire walk out of the
bakery, and I wait until she’s gone before I let the emotions rush out of me. The pain of loss twists with my anger, and I slam my fist into the wall next to me, until I bruise my knuckles.
Fuck it. If this is how it’s going to be, I’m not gonna make it easy on them.
Heart racing, I push past a waitress who’s asking if I’m okay as I flee. With the black car out of sight, I hop into mine, and take off. But within a few seconds it falls in line behind me.

Then the chase is fucking on.

We’re knifing through traffic, cutting off drivers, and dashing for exits. My cell rings in the passenger seat and I answer it on speaker.

“Jesse?
” It’s Drew. “Can you hold them off for a few hours?” she asks with eagerness. “I’m working on something. Please.” My girl is still fighting for me. Ramón is wrong about her. She doesn’t have
too
much fight in her; she just puts blind faith in her strength.

“Yeah…I think I can. Any ideas on an estimate?”

“Two…maybe three hours of killing time. Probably not the best phrasing. Think you can manage?”

“Yeah…you’re not going to give up, are you?”

“Never. With you. Never.” And then she’s gone.

I mash the accelerator and wind my way through the cars. Swerve, weave, accelerate, cut off
, and swerve some more. On repeat. We do this for at least an hour. I’m flying down the road like the rest of the drivers aren’t pissed at me. One of them even pinballs between two cars, trying to avoid me.
Shit.
But dangerous driving has its benefits; the sensible people are moving the fuck out of the way. The black car presses forward and lands two or three cars behind me. I swing into the fastest moving lane, Frogger across the highway, and lose sight of the car in the stream of vehicles.

Not for long, though.

“Shit!” I jerk the wheel as the black car veers into my lane from the left, forcing me over into the exit lane that lands us on a barren two-lane road. When the oncoming traffic lane clears, he drives up parallel to me, and rams into the driver’s side. Yelling, I struggle to regain control of my fishtailing car as it skids off the asphalt. I bump several feet over rough gravel before my tires deflate finally, and the car comes to a stop. The black car parks behind me just as I swing the door open to take my chances on foot.

“Don’t run. Or I’ll shoot you,” he yells, getting out of the car.

“What the fuck do you want?” I scream back. “Who sent you? Ramón?” Standard bad guy walks up to my window with a gun in my face and a cell phone in his other hand.

“Get out,” he orders.
I’m sorry, Drew.
Walking me back to his car, he wrenches my wrists behind my back and painfully crushes them together with a pair of flex-cuffs. The trunk pops open and he stuffs me into claustrophobic darkness. My head bumps the ceiling as the car rattles back onto the road. I can hear muffled talking, so I know that he’s on the phone with someone. I’m unsure of how far we drive, and I can’t tell if being in a trunk makes it seem too long or too short, but eventually we stop moving. When the trunk opens again, he yanks me out by the shirt. He tells me to stay put. So we both lean against the car like we’re best buddies having a chat; best buddies where one of them is restrained with flex-cuffs.

We’re in the middle of nowhere, a deserted, dusty stretch of land with patches of dry grass and a road sparse of cars in the distance. “Can you at least tell me who’s doing this?” I ask. His response is to kick at the gravel, but we’re clearly waiting for something or someone. That someone finally turns off the road, and two sets of headlights illuminate us. My blood runs hot in my ears.
Oh fuck. Oh fuck.
The doors to both cars open and armed men with bandanas over their faces get out. Then a woman’s high heels hit the ground. Her curvy silhouette becomes clearer as she approaches, a thrilled, wicked smile gleaming.

“Hello, Jesse Chance,” Alejandra Bautista says.

She slaps me with her gun and I fall.

****

My life is not flashing before my eyes.

No matter how hard Alejandra presses the muzzle of her gun against my temple or how insistent she is that I pray for my soul (the irony, really), I can’t recall a single thing about my life. I’m on my knees,
there’s a cloth bag over my head, my blood is trickling onto my face, and all I can think about are numbers—how many times someone has pointed a gun at me, how many stabbings I have sustained. The scariest of them all? How many seconds it takes for a person shot in the head to die. And then I won’t be able to think about anything ever again. Have I lived up to my mom’s expectations? Have I saved HJ? Will Drew be okay? Drew. My Drew.
Flesh or dust.
Forever.
But dwelling on any of these won’t matter, because whether I’m really the hero or the villain, a sinner or saint, the only thing I’ll actually
be
is dead.

“I want to see his eyes. Let me see them. They remind me of Henry’s,” Alejandra says
with excitement, as if I’m some present to unwrap, and someone snatches the bag off me. She swivels my head from side to side, pressing her nails into my flesh as she grips my chin. Jamming her stiletto into my thigh, she says, “The
things
I would’ve done to you under different circumstances.” The gun sinks against my head. “Would’ve
blown
your mind.” She laughs at her own joke.

I have a feeling even if those
things
were for sexual pleasure, Alejandra still would’ve had me tied up, bloody, and facing a loaded gun. This bitch is
that
maniacal, and I refuse to give her the satisfaction of my fear. Plus, I’m not going out like a bitch. “Is this about my dad? Are you trying to punish him for screwing you? You think my father gives a shit about me. Look, I’ve been there. I’ve spent my entire life…
there.
He doesn’t. You can’t get even with—”

“Shut up!” she yells, backhanding me with the assistance of her gun. The pain rattles my
jaw, and I spit out the blood pooling in my mouth. “This isn’t about your father,
guapo
. It’s
for
him.”

What?
Frigid fear suddenly pours into my veins, and I can’t hide it anymore. “What the hell does that mean?” My voice comes out in an elongated breath. “What are you talking about?”

The gun whips across my face again
, and more blood settles in my throat. “I’m talking about you shutting up.” She turns to her henchman who brought me here. “Where’s the money?”

“There was nothing in the car.”

Alejandra’s head snaps back in my direction. “Is it with your
whore
?” She hits me again. This time it’s palm not metal, thank God. “I should shoot out your kneecaps,” she threatens.

“Señora, we have shovels. We can dig a hole
and make him suffer,” the man who brought me here says. There’s always an overachiever in the group.

“Oh, yes,
I can bury you up to your neck,
alive.
” She snaps her fingers. “Go bring them and start digging.”

The men return with shovels
, and I try to block out the sound of the metal blades breaking through the dirt over and over again. It goes on for close to two hours, I think. My breathing is shallow and I’m trembling, but I do my best to take in what could be the last hours of my life.
My life
. It hasn’t been horrible. I got to go to college. I got to get back with Drew. I got to connect with my brother. Those things make me happy. I’ll die happy.

“I’m going to put you in that hole…” Alejandra says, laughing.
As the men continue to dig, the sounds of other car engines roar.
Three more sets of headlights drench us in light as they race toward where we are. “And I’m going to watch the ants have at your fl—” There’s a pop, and she topples onto me so hard it pulls a muscle in my neck.

“Get down, Jesse! Get down now!”
someone calls out as whizzing bullets snap through the air. Under the weight of dead Alejandra, I tip to the side and lie as flat as I can. All around me I hear the thud of bodies falling to the ground. The sickening sounds seem to last forever, and then suddenly it’s quiet. With a groan, someone lifts Alejandra’s body off me. I look around and pretty much everyone who came with her is dead or dying. Everything in my stomach lurches toward my esophagus.

“
I’m surprised you have not shit your pants,” Ramón Vegas says, laughing. “We are already seeing each other so soon,” he adds as he leans down over me, his black suit bunching. Smoke is still curling off the muzzle of his gun. Next to him is the man who put me in the trunk, and all of Ramón’s goons. “Welcome aboard,” Ramón says to Alejandra’s soldier, shaking his hand, a wide smile on his lips. “You will be handling fighter recruitment now.”
Shit. He wasn’t kidding about leadership changes.

“Are
you
going to kill me now?” I choke out. It would be my luck, jumping from psycho-bitch frying pan into sociopathic fire.

“No. Can’t.”
Ramón sighs his disappointed look away. His new worker helps me up and clips the flex-cuffs off me.

“The shovels. I had to drag out the time so that Mr. Vega
and his people could get here before she killed you,” he explains. I vomit right then; they all find it hilarious.

“I made a deal with Drew
,” Ramón says. “She called me and told me not to kill you, and she would pay me fifty grand for not killing you. I told her I wasn’t trying to kill you, and she gave me the plate number of whoever was actually after you. I made a few calls, and long story short, I ended up making this man here an offer of employment.”

“I don’t think
Drew meant for you to kill all these people…”

“What did I tell you about my business? Did Alejandra seem like she was someone to reason with? She had one of my
recently
dearly departed men call her to tell her where you were dropped off when you left Acapulco. Obviously, the intent was to kill you only.”

“All it took was fifty grand?” I say with skepticism as we walk to his cars. Drew probably had to also offer for me to fight in a few more fights for him. It’s okay
, though; She saved my life.

But Ramón simply nods. “Yes. She’s smart. Between her time in my office and talking to Gabe, she was able to get my mother’s name and address, m
y illegally in the U.S. and accepting money from illegal sources mother. Drew said she would send my fifty thousand dollars there. She also thanked me for the lesson about
bending.
” He grins and tries to keep it bitter but amusement is flashing in his eyes. So
that’s
what was in the envelope. She was probably going to have Sandrine blackmail him for our freedom if he hadn’t let us go. My girl is the best fighter there ever was. I smile to myself. 

“You’re not gonna
break up
with Gabe now, are you? You kinda owed Drew for the hammer thing.”

“Yes, I suppose. I did let my guard down, too, and my mother’s name is tattooed on my neck
, after all. I pay my mother’s bills, so I’m sure there were plenty of envelopes on my desk with her address on them. Crafty
bitch
you got there. I guess she figured out the one way to keep me from coming after you two
ever
. I was still thinking of giving you back to her minus a body part or two, just on principle…but I love my mother too much…and Drew loves you too much.”

“Thanks…”
I say, almost as a question.

“Clean this up,” he says to his guys, swirling his finger in the air. Suppressing the urge to throw up again, I pull Alejandra’s cell phone off her body
with the bottom edge of my shirt. “Take that one.” Ramón points to a car as he gets into another. “They’ll drive you to a bus stop. And, Jesse? If you—or Drew—
ever
set foot in Mexico again—I don’t care why or when or where or for how long—what I’ll do to you will be the reason the State Department issues a
permanent
blockade on Americans coming to Mexico.” Ramón’s window goes up and the Escalade heads for the road.

I ask his henchman to take me to my car first and then to a bus stop. But
I don’t plan on leaving Mexico right away. My plans have changed. Alejandra’s words about my father are lodged deep in my mind.
It’s not about him. It’s for him.
I need to find out if it means what I think it means. That my own father just tried to have me killed.

I’m back in the States a week later at Hamilton
, after chasing down a few leads with Sandrine’s help, and confirming that I wasn’t supposed to leave Mexico. Well, except in a body bag maybe. Henry Chance will be dealt with in due time, but now I have to handle my real-life issues.

Hamilton’s campus has always been beautiful in the spring—endless sunshine, cool comfortable air, and laughter whipping through the wind. But today the sun feels like I’m under a giant spotlight, like all eyes are on me
, as I go from my off-campus apartment to the Zeta Chi house. It was bittersweet to see all of Lydia’s stuff gone from my place, but I’m happy she’s moving on from us. I’ve already seen a bunch of people I know, and I’ve been getting deserved dirty looks from her friends.