Relentless (Fallon Sisters Trilogy: Book #1) (32 page)

Like that was ever going to happen.
She pressed closer to him, hoping his strength would transfer to her. Bren's legs shook. Her heart ran a race of its own, its beat pounding against her chest. An explosion to the left and the fireball that ensued had her ducking, her one available arm curved to protect her face. Hell had nothing on this place. Flames danced with fury around them. Gasoline burned her throat, and the real fear the gas tank would explode had her reassessing paralyzed fear for move your ass or lose it.

There was one good thing about scared shitless—it could provide a burst of energy when it was most needed. Those legs that stood frozen in place seconds ago pumped with intense speed, dodging cars and the crush of people. They followed Trey and Serg's lead and hopped the curb. Having their own strike force out front aided their forward progress. In the distance, maybe two blocks up, she recognized the seafoam-green building under the street lights. Edging their way against shop windows, they crossed a side street, and she concentrated on the scalloped frontage of the building trimmed in coral. One more block and they'd be within steps of a door that would lead them out of this hellhole.

But their escort slowed, the hesitation nearly sending her full force into Trey's back. They stood in the lee of shadowing buildings, and Bren hoped it was enough to conceal them. Heeding Trey's earlier warning, she pulled her hood over her head, hoping she blended in with the men in her company, only scrawnier.

Trey spun around, his chest expanding, his breath coming in short pants. "Plan A's off the table." He nodded out in front. The side street, their only access to the back door of the cantina, was blocked by a military jeep manned with two soldiers. "No way we're getting past them." He looked to Serg. "Any ideas?"

"Only one, amigo." His thick dark eyebrows met in the middle of his angular nose, and he nudged his chin in Bren's direction. "We need to get chica off the street. The tunnel for tomorrow when heads are cooler and the cartel runs out of bullets." He wiped sweat from his forehead and angled his rifle down the sidewalk. "We go this way. Holiday Inn's a couple blocks up and back toward the park."

The thought of remaining there overnight sent a panic through her, and she shivered. Rafe released her hand, his arm slipping around her waist. He pulled her snug to him. "Cold?"

She shook her head. "Scared."

"Scared is good." She couldn't be sure, but from the sound of his voice he was smiling.

"Not funny. I want to go home," she whispered back.

And that tunnel is empty and waiting. Or is it?

Not that it mattered—the risk, anyway. Because Trey and Serg moved forward, and Rafe trapped her hand in his and pulled her with him, her fingers curling in response. They stepped off the sidewalk away from the soldiers and covered several more blocks. People darted and scurried across streets trying to find cover. Serg motioned up ahead. "One more block. We go right."

Bren's legs burned. But she refused to give in. Life or death, Trey had said. If she'd thought he had been a bit dramatic, shame on her. Rounding the corner, they headed past a Laundromat, lights on but empty—same with a small market and restaurant. The green fancy H in the word "Holiday" shimmered in the distance, and Bren kept pace with the men. A single shot rang out, and she ducked. Snapping her eyes shut, she held her breath. A wave of panic washed over her, waiting for the jagged pain to explode in her chest. When it didn't, she exhaled and kept running.

Trey motioned them on ahead of him and Serg. "Rafe," he said, winded, trying to catch his breath. "Hotel's up two blocks."

"Come on, Red." Rafe pulled her forward. Her head was still turned toward those trained to battle Juarez's drug trade with significant firepower, and she hesitated. Trey and Serg moved back in the direction they came, now only shadows.

"Bren." The edge to his voice brooked no argument. She moved with Rafe toward the hotel and concentrated on the glint of his semiautomatic, still gripped in his other hand. "You just as good at shooting as you are at roping?" Her words came on uneven breaths.

"Bull's-eye every time, darlin'."

A little cocky. But if they had to fight to survive, she'd go with cocky anytime. "How many bullets?"

"Twenty-one."

Was that even enough? She didn't want to know. Twenty-one bullets stood in between her and—

The thought never had time to truly register. The ground shook beneath her feet, and a dark swath of soldiers came at them. Overtaken, Bren and Rafe battled to stay together. But the warmth of his hand fell away, only the chill of the night air left to brush her palm, and the strength that had kept her from spiraling into the frightening abyss of despair was gone.

"Rafe!" Her desperate cry, lost on the wave of insurgency, ripped from her throat.

He cursed and tried to fight his way back to her, his familiar form disappearing among the soldiers, along with the fading of her name. He was gone.

"Rafe!" Her voice cracked, and cold, stark terror seized her. Surrounded, they thumped and paddled her like a pinball, shooting her from side to side. She struggled to remain on her feet. But the force overwhelmed her, and she fell to her knees. Pebbles dug into her shins, and her arms flew up to protect her head.

Her heart beat so fast she feared it would stop. Huddled into a small ball, her backpack protecting her from the jolts of their legs as they ran past, she prayed. A boot caught her calf, pinching her flesh, and she bit down on her lip to keep from crying out. The trembling ground around her steadied, the boots no longer echoing in her ears, and she lifted her hands from her head and peered through the last of the fatigue-clad legs passing by. They were gone, and she was left alone in a heap in the center of the street.

Shaking, Bren stood, searching for Rafe. No one remained. Alone in full panic mode, she tried to run. Pain shot through her legs; she staggered, her muscles still too tense for a sprint. In front, another street came up. She checked the street in either direction—only swaying palm trees and blinking traffic lights. Across the intersection a wrought-iron fence encircled a playground, and she hoped this was the park Serg had mentioned. She searched for her bearings, but only a tall, concrete building several blocks up, minus the fancy green H, remained—her North Star.

How had she gotten so turned around?

She crossed the street and hugged the fence, her destination the building ahead. She needed to keep moving. The pop of gunfire still pelted the air in the distance. She needed to find Rafe. Her mind raced, and horrible thoughts crept in. She was sick with worry—worried he'd been shot or worse—dead. Tears burned the backs of her eyes.

If she lost him...

The screech of tires brought her around. Two dark Suburbans rounded the street behind her, their headlights off.
Shit!
She needed to hide. But where? She searched the deserted streets. A fence, interrupted by the entrance to the park, beckoned along with a set of hedges on either side. Bren tackled the distance quickly and shoved her body into the tangle of shrubs. She took deep breaths to steady her breathing. The earthy scent of boxwoods reminded her of her garden. Before she left, the spring pansies had just begun to peek through.

Her hands clenched.
I'm not dying in this hellhole.

Angry shouts and the pop of gunfire erupted again, and her oath to deny death forced her to recant in a desperate plea of mercy.

Please, God, don't let me die!
She hunkered down, and gripped the iron fence.

Her fingers tightened on the bars. Her leg muscles trembled. She kept her eyes trained on the park. The lights in the park were off, but the glare from the streetlight on the corner picked up on the red roof of the jungle gym. The colorful swings swaying in the breeze gave way to sweeter, innocent days when death didn't hang in the air like an awful stink trying to suffocate her.

Finn's sweet face invaded her thoughts, and she sobbed. She missed her boys, and her heart smarted with the realization she might never see them again.

Doors slammed shut, along with her future. Heavy soles beat against the sidewalk and entered the park. She pressed back into the thicket to keep hidden. Several more men entered, holding assault rifles. Dressed in black, wearing stocking masks with only holes for their eyes and mouth, they danced and shouted and shot randomly into the air. A scream, high-pitched and savage, came up behind her. Something moved past her through the gate. Gone was the stomp of angry boots and shoes on the sidewalk, replaced with friction and drag and an earsplitting wail, fierce and keening.

Bren froze. Fear clutched her throat. What in
hell
was that? An animal?

It came again, a more urgent shriek. No, it had to be a human sound—frighteningly human. My God, what had she stumbled into?

Bren remained still. The risk of movement too great, she remained rooted to the ground. Her fingers cemented to the bars of the fence, afraid drawing back her hands would alert them to her location. She'd pray the overgrown limbs, thick with leaves, would conceal her pale skin against the black iron.

Bren gasped. Hog tied, a man writhed against the ropes binding his ankles and his wrists. His colorful striped shirt rode up his back. Bare skin scuffed along the pavement. His head thrashed back and forth, his face staring upward.

He cried, the words a jumble of Spanish that meant nothing to Bren. The others paraded around him, taunting him with jeers and kicks to his side and head. A taller black form approached, his arm swinging up from behind his back with malice, and the gleam of a machete took shape, and the blade swung down viciously. A gut-twisting shriek echoed in her ears and was silenced. Blood spurted like a geyser where his head should have been, and Bren shook in horror as they hoisted the ropes binding his ankles over a thick tree limb several steps from where she crouched. It swayed just like before. Just like...
God... Tom's body.
Dark and menacing, its arms dangled and the nightmare she'd lived with for months left her wide awake and petrified.

She so desperately wanted to shut her eyes, but she needed to keep
them
accounted for. Nausea assailed her and she swallowed in desperation. Clenching her teeth against a second wave, she remained entrenched.

Another man slung his rifle behind his back and reached for the head. His fingers grabbed the head by its hair, and he held it high. His comrades laughed and slapped each others' backs while he walked toward the fence and Bren.

Bren whimpered. The irrepressible sound sent jagged spokes of fear racing over her skin. Dark pant legs and boots stood straddled before her. The drip of blood, steady and horrific, plopped on the supple leaves inches from her face. The man stepped back. Another round of bullets sprayed the night sky, and panic rushed her. Boots and heavy shoes filed past the gate into the street. Their voices, filled with mirth, vanished with the abrupt slamming of doors.

They were gone.

Bren chewed on her lips with indecision. Her fingers, still white-knuckled and oddly sticky, remained on the fence. Terror-fed adrenaline spiked, and she shot up to her feet and screamed. The head, jammed on the spike of the fence, stared back, now a hideous death mask, eyes bulging, mouth frozen open.

An iron grip seized her arm, and she could taste her own fear as it spun her around. "Bren!" His voice was so rough, she scarcely recognized it as his.

She shook. Her fingers tight and sticky, she raised her hands.

His eyes hardened, and he pulled her from the entanglement of shrubs. "I got you, darlin'."

Silent tears flowed down her cheeks. She couldn't even wipe her face. The blood—his blood—stained her hands, and it hit her swift and sickening. She now knew the meaning of having someone's blood on her hands, and the truth that could only live in her nightmares awakened. The blood was no longer that of a stranger's in a hellish land.

It was Tom's.

B
ren couldn't keep her teeth from chattering. Warmth eluded her. Had eluded her since Tom's death, and tonight as she witnessed the most barbaric of acts, she realized that the tortured soul she had become would never experience true warmth unless she told someone what she had done.

Rafe slipped the room passkey through the lock. It beeped then buzzed, and he opened the door.

Still frozen and standing rigid in the hotel's corridor, her hands held out, fingers stiff with dried blood that she'd refused to get anywhere near her person, Rafe pulled her inside. He flipped on the light and dropped their backpacks against the wall. A soft glow illuminated the hotel room from around the narrow entryway where she could make out the beginnings of matching comforters draping two beds. Rafe directed her into the bathroom and hit the light. It was small, with only a single shower behind a frosted-glass door, a toilet, and narrow vanity with one sink.

"You have any open cuts?" Their eyes met in the mirror—his tense, hers blank and staring.

She shook her head. "N-no." She clenched her teeth to stop them from chattering.

He frowned. "You're freezing." His hands came up, brusquely rubbing her arms.

She nodded. "A l-little."

He turned on the faucets and began pulling up her sweatshirt sleeves. He tested the water and directed her hands underneath. It was warm. The instant contact of the heat against the cold of her skin burned slightly. The water, turning a rusty pink, swirled down the drain. He hit the pump soap. Working up a lather, he reached for her hands.

While he scrubbed, his long fingers moving vigorously in between hers, she noticed the differences in their hands. Where hers were small and pale and slightly trembling, his were generous and male, shades darker, and moving in controlled motions. He rinsed her hands and grabbed the hand towel off the bar on the wall and dried them. As he flipped the towel over his shoulder, their eyes met in the mirror again.

Gone was the gentleness he possessed while administering to her blood-caked hands. He scowled at her. "Do yourself a favor and forget about tonight."