His name was Romero.
That was the first time I had ever heard someone say it. People were too superstitious to speak it, as if he were some demonic entity that would appear and slit their tender throats before dragging their fragile souls straight to hell.
We’d spent hours discussing risks and potential outcomes. With time being sensitive, we had to do the best we could, converting their months’ worth of information into a last-minute plan.
Sighing, I looked out the Touareg’s window and watched all the empty fields, vast open wasteland passing us by.
We were getting farther and farther away from anything remotely civilized.
Into the wild. That’s how I thought of it—away from petty moral barriers and society’s fragile sensitivities.
“This could all be nothing,” Tito told me for what had to be the tenth time in less than two hours.
“Or it could be everything.” I pursed my lips and narrowed my eyes. I wished we could play the quiet game until I was no longer stuck in a car with him. Our eyes stayed locked in the rearview mirror until he was forced to look away or risk veering off the road.
“I just don’t want you to end up like his last girl.”
His last girl? That instantly piqued my interest and further irritated me. I didn’t know about any girl.
“Why? What happened to her?”
“That isn’t relevant to your situation. He’s just trying to change your mind,” Grady interjected.
“Trying to chit-chat me out of this is a waste of your precious breath. This is the best lead I’ve had in four years.”
The only response he gave to that was a shake of his head. I knew the only reason he caved on this was because he knew I’d just take their information and do it anyway. I didn’t particularly like being told I couldn’t do something because my balls were on my chest and not between my legs.
For the first hour of our drive, he had told me every horror story about Romero that he could think of, not realizing what he was doing. The brutality didn’t scare me; it intrigued me. Truthfully, I wanted to see who these people were and the way they lived. Every scrap of information, no matter how disturbing, only made me want to meet him more.
I needed to get away, needed something to pull me out of the murky cesspool of the thing I called life.
Every day I felt like I lost another part of the woman I shunned in order to assimilate. I needed to do this. It was everything I’d been waiting for.
I couldn’t tell them any of that, though. They would never understand the parts of me I hid. Jinx was the only person who had ever tried, and I’d just had to leave without telling her goodbye. I sincerely hoped she would understand why.
“This is it.” Grady pointed in the direction of a treeline looming in the near distance.
Squinting, I peered through the front windshield, trying to spot what he was referring to. Tito drove a half mile further before pulling over. We sat in silence for a few moments. I couldn’t say for sure what they were thinking, but it was more than likely about how crazy this whole thing was.
I was going to solicit the lions that ruled over a land of sheep. They would either sink their teeth into me or let me in their pride.
When Tito’s brown eyes met mine again, I knew on some level that he did understand, and I knew he wanted to find David just as badly as I did.
“Alright, let’s do this,” he said, climbing out of the SUV.
I put one hand on the door to follow him. Before I could even push it open, Grady reached back and snagged my wrist.
“If things start to go south, you get away, Cali. Run like hell, and I promise I’ll find you.”
I could only nod my head. Vocalizing emotions had always been one of my weak points. He nodded back before letting me go and turning around, allowing me to get out. Shielding my eyes from the sun, I walked to where Tito stood.
“You better not get yourself killed,” he teased, attempting to break the tension between us. He rolled his shoulders and looked upwards at the clear sky. “Sometimes I forget how sheltered you’ve been. I’m going to give you one last bit of advice.”
I readied myself for another rant and received something much simpler—also, a tad confusing.
“They don’t do anything for free. They don’t give without receiving. The worst thing you could do is make a deal with one of them that you can’t retract.”
What? “You’ve been telling me for the past how many hours that I should move as quickly as possible to figure out what’s going on. Wouldn’t making a deal be doing just that?”
I rolled my eyes when he pinched the bridge of his nose dramatically before answering the question.
“Romero isn’t called the devil for shits and giggles. He’ll eat your soul and then shit it out.”
Frowning, I studied his body language and for the first time noticed how distressed he was.
“Why are you so afraid of him?”
“I know you’re not afraid of anything, Cali, but in this case, I really wish you were.” He paused for a few seconds before continuing. “I’ll find a way to contact you after a week or two. If I can’t, I’ll assume you’re dead. If shit goes bad, try and get back to the compound. Never let your guard down and don’t let them get in your head.”
“And if I can’t find them?”
“That’s not probable. You just go straight. You see that?”
I turned ever so slightly in the direction he was pointing, never seeing his other arm move. It happened so fast all I felt was the blade piercing through my skin and an odd tingling sensation, followed by an intense, searing heat.
“Why did you do that?” I instinctively wrapped my arms around my middle and backed away, glaring up at him.
“I’m sorry; it had to be done. You’re the perfect picture of health. They’d never believe you were out here on your own. I have to get back, and you need to go. We don’t know who could be out here.” He rushed past me, getting back in the car with the bloody knife in his hand and peeling off before I could fully process what had just happened.
“Shit,” I muttered, pressing a hand to my side. Blood seeped through the small hole in my shirt, running down my stomach and staining my fingers crimson.
Knowing my only option at this point was to get out of the open, I looked towards the treeline and began to move towards it.
Five minutes into my foray, I deeply regretted wearing jeans. It was so damn hot my thighs began to sweat.
I made it to a small creek and rested my sticky hand on the nearest tree, pausing to catch my breath and evaluate my situation.
Tito didn’t even tell me exactly where to go. How the fuck was I supposed to walk straight when there wasn’t a straight path? “Damn,” I hissed, pulling up my shirt so I could get a better look at the stab-wound that was starting to hurt real fucking bad.
I pressed around the tender area, trying to determine just how deep it was. If he hit something vital, I would have already bled out.
I had no damn clue if that were true or not, but I was going with it.
There was too much blood for me to see anything. Wading into the shallow water, I slowly crouched down and scooped some into my hand. I did my best to clean the area off.
So focused on myself and how unsanitary the water was, I ignored nature’s blaring warning that something was wrong.
There was no sound. No birds, no bugs, and no tiny creatures scurrying through the undergrowth. Not even the wind carried. It was utterly silent.
I was still examining myself when I heard the rapid sound of footsteps, as if someone were running. Not a millisecond later, a solid body was barreling into me from behind. The abrupt impact gave me no time to brace myself and sent us both to the ground.
“Fuck!” I screamed, getting a mouthful of murky water. I ignored the pain shooting through my side and focused on the man damn near straddling my back.
“I been watchin ya fer a good minute now,” he confessed with a thick accent.
When his weight lifted away, I attempted to move but he quickly grabbed hold of my ankles and flipped me onto my back with a little splash. Swallowing a yelp, I blinked up at a bear of a man with a head of unruly brown hair.
“What do you want?”
“Got what I want.” He flashed me a smile of stained black and yellow teeth before turning around. He started walking in a different direction than I had been going, dragging me along behind him.
“Let me go!” I yelled at his back, twisting and turning in every direction, clawing at the ground in an effort to break free.
“Calm down, darlin. We’ll be home soon,” he laughed.
Home? Where the fuck was home?