Furiously, Hunter slammed his fist against the side of the farmhouse in anguished defeat.

The rest of us listened in unified silence to his frantic shouts and vicious cursing. Several of his Dragons glanced between each other, and one of them took a few steps forward to try and sympathetically clasp his leader on the shoulder.

One swift, meaningful look from Grizz stopped the biker in his tracks.

With no other movement in sight, we watched Hunter compose himself. The furious biker president pulled himself back together rather quickly, all things considered.

“Burn the bodies,” he growled.

Grizz nodded towards the nearby bikers, and they began to fan out to collect the dead. Hunter stood silently, gazing towards the spot where the van had arrived.

I walked up to his side, following his statuesque stare. “There wasn’t anything else that you could do,” I tried to reassure him.

Hunter scoffed to himself before turning away, and it was at that moment I thought about just how screwed I was.

I was surrounded by death.

I’d shot a man dead.

Cherry on top, I was way out of my fucking jurisdiction… and I knew that the Lieutenant was going to have a goddamn field day demoting me down to janitorial duty if I didn’t end up on the inside of a prison cell first.

“I must have missed something,” Hunter growled to himself. “These assholes were waiting for us. There’s no reason why the cartel would have been in such a hurry. They’re more careful than this. They don’t like drawing attention. This wasn’t careful – this was hasty. Something rattled their cage…”

“You sure that something isn’t you?” I asked, hands on my hips. “You’ve not exactly kept it a secret that you’re out for fucking blood when it comes to these people. Maybe they saw you coming and ramped shit up.”

“Maybe,” he thought aloud. “Although…”

We were cut off by the surprised exclamation of one of his men. Hunter and I turned towards the source of the noise, walking towards the back deck and up the stairs, into the house.

“What is it?” He demanded.

“We’ve got a live one!”

Hunter and I stopped in our tracks, sharing a quick but meaningful glance. “Hold him!” He demanded, rushing to find the biker and his hostage.

We turned a corner and spotted a wounded cartel member slumped in the corner, clutching his leg and uttering a string of incoherent profanities.

Descending with cold, calculated movements, Hunter knelt down beside his enemy. The Víboras Verde gunner glared back up at him with venomous eyes, holding onto his wounded limb for dear life. In a final act of defiance, he spat in Hunter’s face.

The biker didn’t even flinch. He removed a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the saliva from his eyes and lips, and rose back up to his feet. I could almost swear that he was smiling, which sent a shiver down my spine.

“It would seem that fortune smiles down upon us,” Hunter thought aloud. “What we have here is a bonafide prisoner.” He turned to his biker and commanded: “Bring him into town. Take him to the Desert Owl.”

The biker swallowed, but did as he was told. He checked the wounded cartel member for weapons, and then started to lift him under the shoulder.

Another one of the Devil’s Dragons turned the corner, noticed the sight, and helped escort the wincing, cursing gunman outside.

Moments later came the sound of a firing engine, and then a departing motorcycle.

“The Desert Owl?” I inquired.

“A skilled interrogator,” Hunter offered offhandedly. “He’s one of my Outlaws in the area. He has a reputation for extracting information… which means that we may have just found our way into the cartel after all.”

“That man’s wounded. There’s a goddamn bullet in his leg. He’s not going to offer you anything if he’s dead from an infection. After all, you’re dragging him around in the desert.”

Hunter shook his head. “The Desert Owl is a former combat medic,” he replied. “That little asshole will survive… although he’ll probably prefer death, if he proves to be stubborn… Now it’s just a waiting game… I’ll have my contact pull whatever information we can from the cartel gunman. I’m hoping that we can find out where those girls are being taken. Hell,” he added quickly, “he might even know where your missing cheerleaders have gone.”

I tried to swallow down the pit in my stomach. Not only had we attacked a cross-border cartel operation… not only had I shot and killed someone, villain or not… but I had stood by and watched this faction pull a man from his deathbed to be grilled for an interrogation?

Shaking my head, I stepped back outside for some fresh air.

Unfortunately, the immediate sight was of a pile of cartel corpses thrown into a pile. A biker was presently dousing the heap in gasoline, and another had a flip lighter at the ready.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I groaned to myself.

But no, the bikers stepped aside, and the lighter was flicked and thrown. Within seconds, the mound of dead cartel men was roaring in a hot, heavy blaze.

“You look surprised,” Hunter murmured from behind my shoulder. “You chose to accompany us on a midnight expedition to stake out a cartel operation. You’re in goddamn law enforcement, Detective… what exactly were you expecting?”

I shook my head in anger.

“Not this.”

Hunter stepped aside, crossing his arms as he leaned back onto a support beam on the back deck. His stern face turned to watch me carefully.

“What in the hell are we going to do?” I asked fruitlessly, throwing my hands up in exasperation. “You’re just expecting me to stand idly by and let you torch bodies… let you torch evidence?”

Hunter nodded without an ounce of regret or consideration on his face.

“That’s not how we do things!” I groaned with mounting anger. “How can you just act so blasé about this shit? Who the fuck thinks that torching bodies is normal?”

Hunter’s eyes darkened, even in the low visibility under the moonlight. “Someone who has lived on this side of the law for as long as I have, Detective… someone who has done this for a very long time.”

I stuck a finger into his chest.

“I thought you told me that this life wasn’t going to change you, Hunter. But it was nothing for you to give the order… and when the police catch wind of this… I’m going to be implicated–”

“Calm the fuck down,” he commanded.

Oddly, I felt myself obeying the order.

“Listen, Sarah, this is exactly what’s going to happen,” he growled. “The police aren’t going to care about some little skirmish near a break in the border fence. They’re going to put this down to cartel infighting, and leave it at that. Do you know how many headless assholes they find down here every single week? We’re just going to finish up here, head back, and wait to see what our new friend has to tell us. We might have lost the battle… but the war is just starting. Now it’s just a matter of time…”

“A matter of time until what?” I asked.

“Until we have a better grasp of what we’re up against… and figure out how to approach the problem properly.”

“But what about the goddamn girls?” I demanded. “What’s going to happen to them now that we’ve interfered?”

“Trust me, Sarah, I know these people,” Hunter reassured me calmly. “Víboras Verde isn’t going to take those girls far… we’ve disrupted their operations, and they’re going to sit on this a day or two… hole them up somewhere safe.”

“And you’re just going to, what? Ride into goddamned Mexico to get them back?”

Hunter turned to face me, his eyes filled with burning, solidified faith. I felt a slight shiver down my spine when he met my weakening gaze.

“That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

“You… you don’t understand,” I pleaded. “I can’t be a part of this. What you’re proposing is… it’s insane.”

I waved towards the burning pile of bodies nearby, coughing at the smell. “This little fight tonight is one thing… but going into Mexico to fight this cartel? Just loading up men and guns, and bringing the fight to their turf? That might have worked nearly a decade ago, but you can’t get away with that now!”

Hunter pushed off of the support beam and walked over to my side. He brushed a few strands of hair from in front of my eyes, and smiled softly in the moonlight.

“Sarah… I don’t expect you to understand. All I ask for is your trust… Have faith in me. I know what I’m doing, and my men believe in me. Can you do the same?” He whispered, pressing his lips lightly to my forehead.

I shook my head. “This is crazy.”

“It’s not as crazy as you think…”

I pulled away from him. “Whatever you’re planning, you’re going to get a lot of men killed. Heads are going to roll for this.”

Hunter crossed his arms, looking as confident as ever. “I’m counting on it… but none of them are going to be from the men on my side. My Devil’s Dragons will shed blood over this, and I fully expect all of them to come back with me.”

I sighed in exasperation. “Do you even have a plan, Hunter? Do you really know what you’re doing here?”

“I’m working on it,” he chuckled. “And in the morning, I suspect that I’ll have enough to push forward. Just give me a little time.”

I thought of my Lieutenant, back in Phoenix. “Time is not a luxury I really have, Hunter…”

He leaned forward, lips planted against mine. “One day. Give me one more day to figure things out, and then make your decision. But if you want to find those girls, there’s your chance.”

I pulled away from him and shook my head. “That’s what you said about tonight… how many chances do I have to give you?”

Hunter turned away, his face unreadable.

When I started walking away from the burning pile of cartel corpses, he called after me. “Where are you going?”

“I’m getting out of here, and I’m praying that I can still salvage part of my career when I get back to Arizona…”

“So, that’s it?” He asked calmly. “You’re just going to give up and go without seeing this through? You go out of your way to convince me that you’ll stick it out this time, and now you’re just going to freeze up again and take the easy way out?”

I paused in my tracks.

What if that was exactly what I was doing?

When it became clear that I didn’t have an answer for that, I slumped against the side of the farmhouse. My inner strength gave out, and the tears started to stream down my face…