Layla’s head was pounding.

She was cocooned, suffocating, and for a moment she thought she’d managed to get herself wrapped up in her blankets again. Any minute she expected to hear her father downstairs in the kitchen, making a racket as he cooked up his signature bacon and eggs or her mother coming up the stairs to pull her out of bed. It wasn’t until she felt the world shake that she remembered what had happened.

She remembered being dragged out of La Hacienda, screaming and fighting to get free of her abductor’s stony grip. Jesse had been shot, blood pouring out of the hole in his jacket as Gareth let out a vengeful roar, bullets flying through the air, tables and chair bursting into clouds of splintered wood. Over and over her mind kept going back to the last moment she saw Jesse staring at her just before the entire world went dark.

His eyes, so vivid and green, fading into a shade so pale it made her sick to remember.

Was he even still alive? Was Gareth?

Were any of the Marauders, anymore?

Another bump shook Layla from her reverie. As her eyes slowly adjusted the darkness around her, she realized that she had been shoved into the trunk of someone’s car. The engine hummed and sputtered as they made their way along what she could only assume was a dirt road, given all of the bumps and jostles she felt as the car made its way along.

In an attempt to get a better look at her surroundings, Layla tried to squirm herself from her side and onto her back, only to suddenly feel the pounding on the back of her head once again, flaring to life the moment she moved.

She wanted to reach up and touch the wound, but her wrists were tied. She knew her hair was wet, and that it was probably blood. Her mouth ran dry as she wondered how bad it was.

How long was I out? Do I have a concussion? You’re not supposed to sleep if you’ve got a concussion. There was a long pause in her thoughts, and her mind blanked before a single question burst to the front of her brain like fireworks in the night sky.

Am I gonna die?

The trunk wasn’t especially roomy, and Layla was forced to keep herself scrunched into a ball for the majority of their journey. But worse than anything else was the heat. The Arizona sun blazed down on her metal prison, turning it into an oven. Sweat covered her body, soaking her clothes as they made their way to God-knows-where.

The thirst was the most excruciating part of any of it. Silently, Layla prayed for unconsciousness. At least then it didn’t feel like her whole body, inside and out, was consumed in flames.

It felt like hours went by before they showed any signed of stopping. Layla strained her ears as a muffled voice reverberated through the divide that separated the trunk from the back seat of the cab. At first she couldn’t make out a word that her captors were saying, her head still swimming from overwhelming thirst and pain, but as time went on she began to recognize a few of the words—enough to tell her that the men in the car were speaking Spanish.

“Nos estamos acercando a la frontera,” one of the men in front said, though Layla couldn’t recognize his voice, she could at least pick out a few of the words he’d said. With the moderate Spanish she knew—thanks, high school—she could tell they were getting close to something. But to what?

Where the hell are they taking me? What the fuck is la frontera?

She wracked her brain, knowing somewhere she’d heard that word before.

“¿No se van a inspeccionar el coche?” another voice asked, this one much deeper.

Inspect the car? Layla thought, frowning, Why would they—

The realization hit her all at once, her breath catching in her dry, aching throat as the pieces finally snapped into place. El frontera—the border.

They were going to take her into Mexico, somewhere Jesse and Gareth and the rest of the Marauders—if they were still alive—would have an almost impossible time getting to her. Frantically she at the latch that held the trunk closed, only to find it stuck.

“Help!” she screamed as the car finally came to a stop. She could only hope that they’d finally reached the border crossing, and maybe—just maybe—this could be her way back home. “I’m an American citizen! I’m in here! Help!”

With all her strength, Layla kicked the top of the trunk, hoping to catch the attention of one of the customs agents that manned the crossing.

“You sure do make a lot of noise, little lady,” came a slow, Texan drawl through the hatch above her. “Can’t have none of that, now can we?”

“Please! Help me, they’re taking me—”

“You’re gonna have to shut her up before you can get through,” the Texan continued.

“What, your compadres gonna do something about it, esé?” came another, more familiar voice. It was of one of the men who’d been in the cab through her drive over. “Just get us through and you’re gonna get your money. Easy, right?”

“I can’t get you anywhere if you’ve got some dumb bitch screaming for help in your goddamn trunk!” the American raged, keeping his voice low so that only Layla and her captor could hear. “Shut her the fuck up and then you get through. I’m not risking my goddamn job just because you can’t do yours. And I know Señor Nuñez won’t be happy to lose one of the few customs agents who is willing to take a goddamn bribe.”

Layla heard the sounds of footsteps retreating from the car, along with any hope she had of getting free.

Of course Nuñez has border workers on the fucking take.

But before she could begin to feel too sorry for herself she heard the sound of the latch clicking and the squeal of the hatch up above her swinging open.

Light poured into the trunk, assaulting her eyes and forcing her to hide her face. But there was air—delicious, perfect, amazing air, and she took in as many gulps as she could. Even through her closed eyelids she could tell a shadow loomed over her. Someone reached down into the trunk and twisted a handful of her hair, and Layla let out a sob.

“Don’t hurt me. Please, don’t—”

Pain and darkness again. She was beginning to believe that from now on, that was all she would ever know.

* * *

“¿Crees que ella va a despertar?”

Layla awoke to the sound of muffled voices, distant, almost like she was listening to them from underwater. But something was most certainly different about these voices.

“A quién le importa?” came another voice, definitely a woman’s. “Cuantos más de estas nuevas perras existen, más el Señor Núñez no nos quiere. Espero que ella muere de mierda.”

“Vete a la mierda, Linda,” another, younger voice chimed in, this one much closer to Layla. She heard a few more retorts in Spanish, but after a moment, the sounds of footsteps echoing away from her gave her the courage to open her eyes.

“Don’t mind them,” said the same young voice. “Fucking putas think they’re hot shit.”

Layla forced herself up into a sitting position, turning her head to get a good look at the other woman. To her surprise, the girl couldn’t have been more than fourteen, barely a woman by any stretch of the imagination. She had long, frizzy brown hair that needed a good brushing and eyes too dull and flat to belong to a child. She also had a scar over one side of her puffy lips, like someone had run a knife across them.

“Where am I?” she asked.

“This is Señor Nuñez’s, villa,” the girl said, flashing Layla what looked like an attempt at a smile. “We live here.”

Very slowly, Layla looked around. Her vision was still fuzzy and her head still spun, but she could make out the basics. She was in a bedroom with a big, queen-sized bed, a few chairs, a television, and an en-suite bathroom. The TV was on and playing cartoons and Layla had a blanket over her lower half. There were a lot of soft things like that in the room, but nothing unique or personal. Kind of like a hotel room, only not nearly as welcoming.

“Who’s ‘we?’ ” Layla asked. “I heard another woman before…”

“Linda and her putas,” the girl said, shaking her head. “You’ll meet her eventually. She thinks she’s the top bitch around here, but…” She trailed off, her gaze cautiously floating toward the open door.

Layla nodded, though it hurt. “I’m Layla,” she said, holding out a hand.

“Marisol,” the girl said, reaching out and taking it. “You don’t look like the usual girls that get brought here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Señor Nuñez usually gets his girls from families who can’t pay for getting across the border. Like me,” Marisol said.

“He takes you from your families? As payment?”

“Si, Señor Nuñez likes women. Young women. And most of the families who he sneaks across have children.”

Layla felt her stomach turn over. As if these bastards couldn’t get any worse.

“That is so fucked up,” she whispered.

“Si.”

“But, you don’t sound like…”

“Like what?” Marisol asked.

“I guess you’re not what I pictured when I think of someone trying to cross the border.”

“What am I supposed to sound like?” Marisol asked with a laugh that made her seem a child again. It was the happy sound Layla hadn’t heard since Camel died.

“You just…” Layla began, but halted, trying to find better words. “Your English is better than I would have thought.”

Marisol let out another laugh, shaking her head.

“Mami, they teach English in Mexico. We got schools, too.”

“That’s not what I—”

“I know what you meant, no te preocupes. You expected a wetback who didn’t know no English,” Marisol said, brushing a strand of her dark hair from her face. “We think the same way about you, chica. Mentecato American tourists who no habla Español. But look where it got us both, right?”

“What does Nuñez do with the girls here?” Layla asked after a moment, searching Marisol’s face for comfort, but finding none.

“He uses us—él nos folla. He fucks us, gives us to his men and all his friends. And when we’re not being fucked, we’re shoving his drogas up into our coños to get them into America.”

Layla feel the bile rising from her empty stomach, choking it back as the reality of what was going to happen set in. Nuñez had taken her all the way to Mexico so that he and his men could pass her around. She’d get raped over and over again by the likes of el Coyote and all the other members of Los Muertos. It was meant to be the ultimate victory against the Marauders—even after he’d done away with all of the boys, they’d still have Layla alive, using her whenever they wanted to.

“Layla?” Marisol asked, her brow furrowed. “You don’t look so good.”

“I have to get out. My friends, they’re coming for me—”

“There is no getting out, mami. Other girls have tried, and now están todos muertos.”

“Jesus,” Layla whispered, resting her head in her hands, fresh tears streaming down her cheeks. “Goddammit, Jesse. Where are you?”

“Jesse’s your… boyfriend?”

“No—kind of? I don’t even know, honestly. He might be dead. Not that it matters.”

Marisol gave a shrug, “What you had before you came here is all you’ve got now, mami. Once they start to use you in here, you stop feeling like you’re a real person anymore.”

“What do you have out there?”

“Outside of this place?” Marisol smiled fondly and her eyes grew distant. “A mother and a baby brother. I was going to school before we ran out of money. And mamá told me that America had all the things we could ever want—food, money, good schools… But then we had to do business with Señor Nuñez. Now I don’t even know if they’re still alive.”

“I’m sorry,” Layla said, reaching out to lay a hand on Marisol’s leg.

“What about you? You got anything out there besides Jesse?”

Layla had to think about it. Who could she count as hers now? Who was still alive? Her parents had always threatened to give up on her. Had they? She’d probably never know.

“Some friends,” she said hollowly. “And Gareth. Maybe.”

“One of the good things about being in this place,” Marisol said, squeezing Layla’s hand, “is that sometimes not knowing keeps you going. So long as you don’t know they’re dead, they can still be alive—there’s hope.”

Layla smiled, squeezing back on Marisol’s hand before taking a deep breath. She didn’t know how just yet, but she was going to get the hell out of there—and Marisol was coming with her.