Liberty At Last (The Liberty Series) (6 page)

Later I was on the cot, staring at the scary cat on the cover of Stephen King’s book, contemplating my fate. John believed that everything happened for a reason, and I was starting to actually think he might be right:
I’m going to die down here because I’m a fucking idiot,
I thought.
There’s a good reason for you.
My inner voice grunted her agreement.

I must have drifted off to sleep, but it was troubled, fitful. I was dreaming there was shouting, and I heard running in the halls, and machine gun fire. Lots and lots of machine gun fire. I lurched awake, to the darkness of my cell, and then I realized it was real. There was running in the halls and yelling and shooting out in the yard.

I sat still, frozen in fear, wondering what was going to happen.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement in my cell. I turned and saw something flutter from the window to the floor. I’d wondered, when I first got here, why there was no glass on my window.
Aren’t they worried about me screaming for help?
I’d thought.

Then it had become clear to me:
Nope, they weren’t worried about it. Not at all.
I could scream as much as I liked, as much as some of the poor souls in the neighboring cells did. It didn’t matter. The kids didn’t stop their games, the dogs didn’t stop barking. We were surrounded by miles and miles of cartel-controlled land and they were used to it. No one who heard cared.
No one was coming.

Except there was someone — or a whole lot of people — out there now.

I looked over at the floor. A small piece of white paper had landed there.

I grabbed it with shaking hands and unfolded it.

FROM THE DESK OF JOHN CARTER QUINN

LOOK UP

I felt my heart seize. I looked up to the window. All I could make out in the darkness was part of a boot. That was it.

I felt like all of the air had been sucked out of me. I couldn’t breathe — but I was pretty sure I liked that boot. In fact, I loved it.

John?
I wanted to scream his name, to call for him, beg for him to come in here and get me out. My voice wouldn’t come. Thank god, because the guard outside my door would’ve come in and shot us both before I ever had the chance to look at his beautiful face again. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I clutched the note to my chest.
He came. He was here. He still loved me and he was going to rescue me.

But there was a whole lot of shooting going on out there.
Please let him be okay.

All of a sudden something banged into my cell door. I wrenched my eyes away from the window. I watched, not understanding, as the guard outside my door slid down towards the ground and crumpled to the floor.

The door opened and a hulking six-foot-five man dressed in camouflage gear entered. He had a ski mask over his face and an enormous handgun with a silencer on it. He surveyed the room with the gun ready, ignoring me, looking in every dark corner.

I just gaped up at him, opening and closing my mouth like a fish.

“Liberty,” he said. I recognized the voice. I quickly looked up at my window and I could still see the outline of the boot. My visitor pulled up the mask and I could see, finally:
Matthew.

“Oh my god, Matthew,” I said, and fell to my knees. I was so happy to see him it made me collapse.

“Come on, Lib, we gotta get out of here — fast. John and the other guys are up there, waiting for us. We gotta move,” he said, urgently, coming over and pulling me up by the armpits. I swayed when I got up to my feet. “Stay with me, girl. It’s okay. I got you.” He clamped his arms around me, protectively. He started pulling me towards the door, out of the cell. At first, I was so relieved that I couldn’t think about anything else besides getting out of there, up to the outside world, up to John.
John.

But then I remembered. I remembered the reason why I’d gotten into all this trouble in the first place. I shook my head against Matthew’s chest.

No. We couldn’t. We couldn’t leave her here.

“Matthew, no,” I said, willing myself to speak up, in spite of my overwhelming desire to just get the hell out of here.

Matthew being Matthew, he chose to ignore me. He patted my back as if to indicate that it was going to be okay. He must have thought I was in shock, and I couldn’t blame him for that. He continued to pull me towards the door, but I dug my heels in and threw myself out of his arms.

He turned towards me in surprise. “What the hell?” he whisper-yelled at me.

I landed on the floor, panting, looking up at him.

“Liberty?” Matthew asked, cautiously. I could hear him forcing himself to be patient, like he was talking to a crazy person, or to his small son.

“We can’t go yet,” I wheezed, swiping a clump of greasy curls off my face. “It’s Catherine — John’s daughter. She’s here. She’s completely crazy. She’s been holding me captive. And burning me with cigarettes.” I was babbling. “We have to get her out of here.”

Even though we didn’t have the time for it, Matthew just looked at me for a beat. Comprehension dawned on his face.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he asked. He exhaled and went over to the window. I saw him reach his hand up so John could hopefully see it. He held two fingers out:
two minutes. Two minutes more.

I heard more shooting and I looked at him desperately. “She’s not gonna come willingly,” I added, a whine creeping into my voice.
That was an understatement of the first degree.

Everyone was gonna be so mad at me.

“Is she armed?” Matthew asked, sighing again, sounding resigned. He pulled his mask back over his face.

I nodded.

“Awesome,” he said. He crouched down in the corner of the room that was parallel to the door, so that whoever entered it wouldn’t see him right away. He motioned for me to sit down on the cot.

There was more noise coming down the hallway, people yelling in Spanish and running. A guard I’d never seen before suddenly burst into my room.

“Por que se abre esta puerta?”
he yelled at me, running in, his machine gun trained on me.

I shook my head at him:
No. You should run,
I thought. I didn’t want him getting killed just because it was his bad luck to come in here.

Before he could move, Matthew was up and on him. He held his hand over the guard’s mouth and put the silencer to his head until the guard released his weapon. Matthew moved his hand just long enough to pull a roll of heavy duty masking tape out from one of his enormous pockets and throw it to me. I tore off a piece with shaking hands. I silently patted it over the guard’s mouth.

Matthew handed me his enormous gun, motioning for me to put it behind my back. The guard tried to yell through the tape so Matthew punched him hard in the stomach. He pushed him back into the corner and punched him again, square in the face. Clearly, Matthew had done this before: the guard was completely knocked out and slumped silently, conveniently down to the floor. Matthew crouched in front of him, ready for anything, his borrowed machine gun trained on the door.

I heard her careening down the hallway in her inappropriate shoes before I saw her. The only person who would wear heels in a Mexican prison. She stopped outside my open door. I leaned back against the wall, not wanting to make eye contact with her, not wanting to face the encounter.

“Liberty?” she called, warily. She must have been inspecting the dead guard. “Are you in there?”

“I’m here, Catherine,” I called. “I don’t know who shot him…What’s going on out there?” I flicked my eyes over to the window: the boot was gone.

“Come here,” Catherine ordered.

“On my way,” I said. A cold sweat ran down my body. I tucked the large gun into the back of my waistband, hoping it would stay put. I didn’t even look at Matthew as I stood up. He would know what to do.
I hoped.

Catherine watched me as I shakily stepped over the guard. Her guard was with her, watching the stairs, watching me and watching her all at once.

“Let’s go,” she said, grabbing my elbow and painfully jerking me down the dark hall. I tried to move slowly; I didn’t want the gun slipping out of my pants and clattering to the ground. And I also didn’t want to go down the hall. I’d been down there, once, and I was never going back. Angel
was down there somewhere, and John was in the opposite direction, back towards the outside. I pulled against her, just a little, and she turned towards me.

“Don’t you dare. Whoever they are, they are not getting
you
,” she said, and yanked me down the hall.

A shot hit her guard in the back. I watched in horror as he collapsed to the floor. She wheeled around, dragging me with her, and there was Matthew, all glorious six-foot-five of him, pointing the machine gun at her chest. I had to bite back the sudden feeling of guilt I had about John…this was his daughter
…
we were here to save her
…and it would have been easier if Matthew just shot her.

She never let her firm grip of me loosen. But she managed to pull out a small pistol from behind her shirt and raise it back at Matthew. She clicked it into ready position and then turned and aimed it painfully up against my jawline.
Ow.

I watched Matthew; he hadn’t moved. His gun was still trained on her. I looked at Catherine; she was staring at him, challenging him, cold as ice.
She would do it. She would kill me in a second. No matter how bad it would hurt her father. She would officially cut all ties to her former life, her family, and she wouldn’t look back.
I didn’t doubt it for a second.

My right arm was free. My right hand was sweating, but I didn’t even stop to think about it.

I pulled out Matthew’s gun and shot her in the foot.

She screamed shrilly, totally taken off guard, and fell to the floor, clutching herself. Her gun fell to the floor nearby.

I would only ever admit this to you,
I thought at my inner voice,
but I don’t feel too bad about that. Not too bad at all.

Honey, me neither,
she said, agreeing with me for once.

Catherine clearly had experience with pain — she got herself under control and shook it off fast. I kept my gun pointed at her but she still fearlessly gave me a filthy look. Even though I was the one who was armed, I was afraid. I practically felt my knees knocking.
Hell hath no fury.

Still glaring at me, she reached for her gun. Daring me to shoot her again.

Just give me a reason,
part of me thought, but Matthew was there before I was. He kicked the gun out of the way and picked her up, pulling her arms roughly behind her back. She fought, bucking against him, wild to get free.

“HELP!
AYUDA! AYUDEME!
” She was screaming her head off.

I clapped my hand over her mouth. Still screaming, she tried to bite me at the same time. I crushed my hand against her, pushing her head back against Matthew.

“Can I hit her?” I hissed to Matthew.

“Better yet, can you?”

“Some stepmother you’re gonna make,” he said.

I looked at him, horrified at the thought.

“Keep your gun out and your hand over her mouth,” he instructed lowly, dragging her towards the stairs.

We went up cautiously, climbing up into the confused darkness. It was chaos in the yard. Matthew kept Catherine close, one arm wrapped around her, the other wielding his weapon. I was next to them, with my hand flattened against her mouth. She was still making a ton of noise, but at least it was muffled.

All I could see were the flashing lights of guns that outlined the silhouettes of bodies, lots and lots of bodies, splayed out in the yard. My stomach roiled. Granted, I’d shot Catherine moments before, and I would be happy to elbow her in the face right now, but all the dead guards were too much. I knew they’d been my captors, but still. They had wives, kids. And working for the cartel was the best job they could find — in Matamoros, it was probably even the safest. It was all just such a waste. A waste of life.

All the shooting, all the bodies.
But where was John?

“Where is he?” I asked Matthew. He was scanning the yard but hadn’t fired yet — keeping us out of sight for now.

“He’s around the side of the building — guarding you from the outside, so he’d be close but also in the most dangerous position possible. ‘Cause that’s John.” My heart plummeted.

“Corey and Sean are out there,” he said, pointing towards an outbuilding where there was heavy fighting, “and Ethan’s still waiting outside the fence,” Matthew said. “I hope.”

I felt blackness threaten to overtake me. All I’d done was bring pain and suffering to everyone. Then someone hopped into the stairwell and I screamed, pointing my gun at the figure.

“It’s okay, Liberty,” a familiar voice said. A warm, strong hand grabbed mine, pointing the gun away from him. I looked up into the gorgeous face of the man I loved.
John Carter Quinn.
His beautifully lined face appeared like a mirage out of the darkness. He kissed me quickly on the side of my face.