Tijuana Nights (The Nights Series Book 1) (29 page)

By the time I opened my eyes, my shoulders had slumped forward. Did I feel any better? No, I didn’t think so. There was absolutely nothing I could do about what was happening beneath us. I watched as Alicio instructed a young man, who I guessed would be about fifteen or sixteen years old. The boy walked up nervously to a pile of tools and weaponry on the ground.

“Just brace yourself,” Chase whispered in my ear. “This won’t be pleasant.”

Alicio’s voice cut through the crowds chatter.

“Tonight we bear witness to Izel Ayala’s family sacrifice to the Day of the Dead,” Chase translated slowly for me, “and Izel will officially adopt us as his new family forever after.” Cheers erupted from the crowd as Izel picked up a bloody chainsaw from the pile. I swallowed. I knew what was going to happen, and as much as I wanted to look away, I simply couldn’t tear my eyes away from the scene below me.

A woman who was chained up against the wall was looking at Izel, tears in her eyes, shaking her head. I was rooted to the spot, eyes trained on her. They had similar facial features, and at best guess, I would say she was Izel’s mother. My mouth went dry, as she spoke in rapid Spanish to him. I couldn’t understand her, but I could feel that she was trying to talk him out of whatever he was about to do. It was his leer that made my breath catch.

Shocked disbelief swept over me as he started up the chainsaw. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. The woman had closed her eyes, and I could see her lips moving quickly. I realised she was praying. She could have been praying for life, praying for mercy, or even praying for a quick death. Mostly, I imagined she was praying for her son – especially when she suddenly stopped speaking and looked at him with such love it almost broke me.

Chase grabbed my arm, and held on to me as the chainsaw cut rapidly through her neck, releasing bloody splatters all over the other people chained up next to her. Her head dropped to the ground with such a thud; I could imagine the sickening sound of impact over the noise of the chainsaw. The crowd roared with blood-fever, and when Izel turned around to face the crowd, I saw it was all over him as well as he lifted the chainsaw victoriously above his head.

Feeling sick didn’t even begin to describe the horror that filled me, seeping into every cell and pore within me. Alvarez stepped up to Izel, slapping him on the back in congratulations, and led him through the crowds, who in turn were giving their congratulations. If I leaned my head down low enough, I could see Alvarez leading Izel to a back room with glass frontage. “What’s he doing?” I whispered to Chase.

“Probably marking. That’s what the entire Cartel does.”

“Marking?”

Chase smiled indulgently at me, even though he had a hard look in his eye. “Yeah. Tattooing. The El Diablo Cartel tattoo their sign, the Jaguar, to the lower ranking members, and they brand it with a hot iron onto the senior members.”

Jaguars. Branding. Suddenly I knew why Nicandro’s and Alvarez’s cat tattoos looked different. They were branded, not inked. My attention was drawn to the scene below me once again as I heard Alicio’s voice ring out. He had another child standing beside him, but this one took me by surprise. A teenage girl stood poised and confident. There was none of the nervousness that I saw in Izel. I looked at Chase, who was staring intently down at them. “Is she…?”

Chase gave a grim nod. I realised that he didn’t like this any more than I did.

Once again Alicio formally introduced her to the crowd, giving the same speech he had for Izel. This time I didn’t need Chase to translate it for me. I already knew what he was going to say, and every part of it made me feel sick.

The girl picked up a knife, and inspected the sharpness of the blade. “Don’t tell me she’s going to cut a head off with that,” I muttered. “That really would be sick.”

Chase didn’t say anything in response; he just continued watching silently and calmly. The girl walked over to a chained up teenage boy who was probably around the same age as her. The crowd roared as the boy spoke to her. “I think that’s her brother,” Chase whispered. The girl ripped open the boy’s shirt, pulling the buttons off effortlessly, and began running the knife around some of the concave areas of his abdominals and chest area. “Shit,” Chase muttered, sitting upright. He turned to look at me. “I don’t think you should watch this.”

I swallowed. “I get it. He’s going to die, just like the rest of those innocent people down there.”

Chase shook his head and glanced down. I followed his gaze when I heard the screaming start. My eyes snapped back to Chase’s. “She’s skinning him?”

“Yes. Alive.” The screams of the boy surrounded us, as they echoed around the warehouse. The crowd cheered her on, and even though I wasn’t watching this, I could hear her progress on their tongues. I swallowed, wishing that this would be over, wishing that I could do something to help. But instead, I was on top of a roof, being protected by Chase, River and Gabe. Chase put his arm around me, holding me close. “Don’t worry. He should pass out soon from the pain, and then maybe she might have mercy on him and make it a faster kill.”

I bit my bottom lip as the boy’s screams started to die down, and the crowd’s noise swallowed it with their cheers. “I think we should get out of here,” I said quietly. “I really don’t think I can cope with this.” I wrapped my arms tighter around Chase, wishing I was Dorothy and had the ability to just click my ruby-red slippers three times to take me home. Life wasn’t like that. I understood why Chase, River and Gabe wanted to finish this once and for all, but this was not something I ever wanted to see or hear again.

Even though the night air was warm, something cold and hard had buried itself within me. This was not normal behaviour. Every single person inside that warehouse was psychopathic. These were the types of people we were told to stay away from at all costs while we grew up – and here I was with a crowd of them below my feet.

I had to do something. I couldn’t just stand by and watch a bunch of innocent people dying horrifically for sport.

Wrapped in Chase’s arms, I could hear the next announcement from Alicio. From Chase’s arms, I eyed the crowd below. Another girl was standing in front of the tools spread around the floor, ready to choose. Her target was an old man with calm, kind eyes. Of all of the people chained up down there, he didn’t look as though he was scared, or had even soiled himself in some way. He was stoic as he watched her approach him. She had a knife, but I could see that her hand was shaking, even from this distance. “She’s not going to do it,” I whispered to myself.

Chase looked sharply down at the scene, his eyes calculating every movement from her. He shook his head. “No. She may want the life of the cartels, but it seems that she hasn’t yet lost the love she has for her old man.”

I watched with fascination as tears ran down her young face, and she dropped the knife with a clatter to the concrete floor. As she turned towards the silent and stunned crowd, all I could see were warring emotions of love and remorse on her features. She shook her head.

Alvarez pushed his way through the crowd and addressed her. She held out her hands, crying. He then walked up to her, pulled out a Glock from a holster, and shot her point-blank, the back of head spraying out behind her onto her loved one.  The man slowly lifted his eyes from the girl’s body on the floor and met Alvarez’s with such vehemence, my heart stopped. Another shot was let off, and the man’s body slumped forwards into the chains. “No…” I whispered. “No…”

River walked up to us and started talking in hushed tones to Chase, but I didn’t hear a word. I was too busy, my eyes fixed on the bodies of the old man and the girl. People undid the chains of the old man, letting his body fall to the floor next to hers. A few people dragged them off out of sight, no doubt to dump them into a pile with the rest of the people they’d murdered in there tonight. The girl had shown such strength in not killing the man, and she’d faced down the cartel – if only for a moment. To me, that was a stronger show of commitment and loyalty than publicly killing someone. The longer I stood up here with Chase, River and Gabe, the more people would die. I just didn’t know if I could stand by and let that happen.

I pushed myself out of Chase’s arms, and walked over to Gabe, whose lips were pursed in disgust and frustration as he peered through his own skylight.

“Gabe?”

He looked up at me, eyes hard and focused.

“Alvarez… when he was initiated into the Cartel – who did he kill?”

Gabe thought for a moment. “Well his parents were dead by that time. He has no siblings…” He thought for a moment. “That’s right. I believe it was the nanny who raised him.”

It was like a slap in the face. “Thanks,” I murmured, my mind whirling back to the night I was officially introduced to him at the ball. The same woman who raised him and taught him English, one day hoping that he would be smart enough to get a good and decent job. Probably away from the cartel life. And he’d murdered her in cold blood. And then I remembered Chase’s words earlier about how the more horrific the murder, the higher the position they got in the Cartel.

This was a man who wanted to get friendly with me. A man, that somewhere inside of him I had believed to be good. But in reality, he’d just invited me to a slaughter house to be strung up alongside the rest of those people down there. I knew that if it wasn’t for Chase, River, and Gabe, I would have been dead a long time ago. I would never make it out of Mexico.

And if I wasn’t going to make it out, I was going to go down with a hell of a fight.

Chase watched me curiously as I stood still, trying to figure out what to do. There had been enough innocent deaths since I had been in Mexico. All those beautiful women that Carmen had hunted down, hoping that each head brought to her was mine…the women that were used as drug mules, who would probably die across the borders from wherever they were sent…and the people in the warehouse below me. No one was holding the cartel accountable.

Sure, I didn’t know if I was the right person to do it, but I would make a damn good start. I just couldn’t believe this was happening, and why River, Chase, and Gabe were just standing by and watching it take place. The only way I could think of stopping the slaughter beneath us was to surprise them. Surely if that happened then they would at least postpone their initiation… right? Something told me that the captives now had a death warrant on their heads regardless.

Unless we took out all of the cartel members in the warehouse right now… then they might at least have a chance of survival. Me included. And as much as I loved and respected these men I was with, I didn’t think waiting around on a roof was going to help us.

And in that moment, I made a completely irrational decision against all my better judgement. I pulled out the two Glocks from the small of my back, and shot through the skylights.

Glass splintered and shattered to the floor below, and while the mayhem started, I trained my sights on Alicio Mendoza first since he was the closest cartel member that I knew. He smiled as his eyes met mine, but it wasn’t warm. It was cold. And I pulled the triggers, letting off a couple of rounds, before River and Chase both slammed into me, pulling me down onto the iron of the roof.

Shots rang out in the evening air around us. “What the hell are you doing?” River shouted at me. I struggled to get up, but they had me pinned.

“What you should have done ages ago.” Heat flared in me, and I knew that we didn’t have much time.

“She’s right,” Chase shouted to River over the noise. He pulled out a gun and a grenade from his jacket pocket. “She just took out Alicio Mendoza for us. Now’s our chance to take the rest of these fuckers down.”

River shook his head. “So be it.”  He extended his hand to me, helping me get up, and gave me a tired smile. “I hope you know what you’re in for.”

I shrugged. “I don’t have a choice.”

“No, you don’t,” he said to me just before I watched him fling himself through the shattered skylight, and onto a number of stacked wooden pallets before he expertly rolled off and joined the fray below.

I didn’t have time to dither about now, but I also didn’t exactly know what to do. I had basically called an all out war on the El Diablo Cartel, on their turf, and I seriously wasn’t qualified. Chase had already shot through the next skylight, and was taking calculated shots at people. I watched him shoot one of the innocents in the head, as they dangled from their chain, having been half gutted. It was the most humane thing to do. I was grateful that they wouldn’t have to suffer any more than they did.