Rook

It's eleven PM and the block party right in front of the apartment building where the Spawns are hiding is in full swing with no signs of slowing down. At least a hundred people, old, young, in-between, are getting loud in the street, and while it might be a good cover as far as the getaway is concerned, there's just too much of a risk that someone will see something if we move against the Spawns tonight.

We've been hanging back, sitting in the car in a dark alleyway where the partygoers come to piss every once in awhile. But we haven't even been able to make sure the Spawns are in the apartment where we think they are. Although Ice says he saw one of them at the window half an hour ago. He wants us to wait until the party's over and get it done tonight. I have a date with Ines in an hour and I'm not gonna be even a second late for it.

The square where she wants to meet is twenty minutes from here by foot.

So I'm gonna call the hit off for tonight soon. Ice ain't gonna like it, Fuse and Scar probably won't either. Hell, I'd prefer to get it over with too. But I'm not missing my date.

"These Mexican parties tend to go on all night," Scar muses, and not for the first time.

Ice grumbles. "We'll wait for as long as we have to."

"No," I say, speaking for the first time in hours and earning a sharp look from all of them at once. It's probably my hoarse voice.

"There's too many people here already and more are coming. Like Scar says, this party could go on until dawn," I elaborate. "At this rate we could be here until morning and there's no guarantee the Spawns are even here. We'll wait for a quieter night."

"They're here. I saw Scrooge in the window," Ice protests.

"We'll return in the morning to make sure," I say. "I suspect this street will be dead then, since everyone'll be hungover from this party."

As if to prove my point, an unsteady middle-aged guy waddles into our line of sight and throws up in an arc on the alleyway wall.

"I suppose you're right," Scar says, eyeing the puking guy with a disgusted grimace on his face. "We're in no rush and I'd rather do this right the first time."

And I am in a rush to go see Ines again. During the hours I've sat in this car in silence I've come up with a million things to say to her. But then again, what is there to say? She's made a life for herself, a good life, one she didn't want me to be a part of. She could've sought me out, but she didn't. She could've told me she was leaving me before she did it, but she didn't. Do I really need her to tell me why? I already know it. She wanted me gone from her life.

But another thing I’m sure of—and I've been sure of this for a very long time—is that I need to see her again.

"I'll meet up with you later," I say and open the car door.

"Where the fuck are you going?" Ice asks. He's not happy with my decision to postpone the hit, that much is evident from his tone. I wouldn't even answer him, but I have to make sure he doesn't do anything stupid like go after the Spawns on his own tonight.

"I need to go stretch my legs," I tell him. "We've been in this car all day."

"You'll fucking get lost," Scar says and chuckles.

But he couldn't be more wrong. I know Mexico City better than any other city or town in the world. I've scoured every one of its thousand streets and alleyways searching for Ines.

* * *

Ines

"I'm going for a run," I announce to my bodyguard Juan at eleven thirty, already dressed for it.

Nervous energy is the only thing holding me up at this point. After returning home, I spent the rest of the evening pacing my apartment, unable to sit still, unable to think straight, unable to do anything but count the minutes until I see Rook.

"At this hour?" Juan asks. "What about your beauty sleep?"

He chuckles at his own joke. He's been my bodyguard for almost the entire time I've been Silvio's prisoner, and we've developed a friendship of sorts. As much as anyone can be friends with their wardens.

"Running keeps me young and healthy," I counter. "You should try it sometimes."

Juan chuckles again and pulls a pack of cigarettes from his pocket as he opens the door for me. "I'll just have a couple of smokes while I wait for you, as always."

It's like all my stars are aligning today. First Rook appears out of nowhere and Juan is on duty tonight, since the younger guy who usually takes the late shift couldn't make it. That one would've insisted on running with me, since he's fit and still wants to shadow me absolutely anywhere just as Silvio instructed him to.

I'll have no trouble meeting Rook. And who knows, maybe I just won't return. But Juan will likely pay with his life if I don't. He's always been very kind to me, even brings me flowers from time to time, and he has a very sick wife at home. I can't cause his death.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I have no reason to think Rook even wants me back. He probably has a wife and kids by now, a life back in America far away from me. The same life we were supposed to have together.

Thinking about that just makes me even more nervous than I already am. So I stop thinking, concentrate on nothing but my feet hitting the pavement and timing my inhales and exhales to my steps. When that doesn't help slow my racing thoughts, I start counting the breaths. I do that all the way to the deserted square where I asked him to meet me. All the way to the water fountain in the center of it, where I finally stop, standing so close that the soft mist-like water spray is hitting my face. But it's doing nothing to cool me, nothing to calm me.

It's not midnight yet, but it will be in two minutes. And the square is still deserted. There's no sign of Rook, no guarantee that he'll even be here and that sends my nervousness into overdrive all over again.

"No car and driver this time?" Rook suddenly asks right behind me, and I feel him as much as I hear him.

He was never late meeting me, and he isn't tonight. I turn to face him, my heart no longer racing as I let his calm, steady energy envelop me. He was always so calm, no matter what, and his presence always calmed me too, even though I'm anything but.

"No, it's just me," I manage to say after a few moments of silence, during which I try to see all of him, all the ways he's changed, all the ways he stayed that same man I fell in love with for all eternity.

There are lines in his face and under his eyes, which are not clear blue right now, like they are in daylight, but two cool, dark glass orbs I can't read. His presence is filling the entire square, filling my whole body, and if he extended his hand to me I'd take it and let him lead me anywhere with no second thought.

But we're not there yet. We're not anywhere near there yet. Underneath his calmness, I feel his anger too, dark and coiling like rolling water of the deep sea as a storm hits. And the air between us crackles with all that electricity we used to make lightning from.

"You said you'd explain," he says, his voice calm yet I hear the passion behind it. The one that used to be all for me. "So explain."

Easier said than done. I've gone over my story over and over in my head all afternoon and evening. But now words fail me, my legs won't let me stand, and I don't know if I should tell him everything. Don't know if he'll understand. Or if he'll even believe me.

But I must try. Because his eyes are swallowing me, showing me the endless waters of freedom and love that I always saw in them. He was my freedom when we met. He was my freedom during the years I spent as Silvio's prisoner. But can he be my freedom again? Does he want to be?

I sit on the edge of the fountain, since my legs won't hold me up anymore, and tap the space beside me. He shakes his head and moves to stand over me.

"Why'd you just disappear, Ines?" he asks.

He's dragging the words out of me, and it never used to be this way. Once, I'd only stop talking when it was time to sleep, and even then I'd talk for as long as I could keep my eyes open. But that's just one of the ways in which I've changed. I don't talk very much anymore. I hardly even think. I just exist.

"I didn't want to," I say in a shaky voice, looking up into his face, which is in shadow now, since he moved and the fountain light is no longer hitting it.

"I should've told you this from the start, but I was sure I'd escaped my past by the time we met," I say, and I can just barely make out the edges of his puzzled expression. No wonder he’s confused, I'm not doing a very good job of starting my story.

I clear my throat to start over. "I came to Cabo del Sol, where we met, to escape a man who was obsessed with me. I was afraid of him, and I didn't want anything to do with him. But he was a very powerful man and wouldn't take no for an answer. So I ran away. I hoped that would be the end of it, but he found me. He found me on that morning when I went to get you breakfast and he dragged me back to Mexico City. I've been his prisoner ever since."

He shifts from one foot to the other, his face still in complete shadow. But I don't need to see it to know his mood. He's mad.

"That's a neat little story, Ines," he says, and his voice cracks just a little like maybe he believes me. "But you didn't look like much of a prisoner shopping in that fancy store earlier. So how about you tell me the truth? I'm a big boy. I can take it. I could've handled the truth back then too."

I stand and grab his hand, can't help it. I need to feel his touch—I've been without it for too long—and I need him to believe me. He flinches, but his hand is as strong as it ever was and he doesn't pull it away.

"I've missed you more than I can tell you. It would take a lifetime of explaining, and still you wouldn't know how much," I say, the dam that's been holding my words from flowing all these years, opening. "I have no excuses, only the truth, the sad, terrible truth that I would never have left you, if I weren’t forced to. But your love has kept me alive. You're the only reason I'm standing here now, still breathing, still Ines. Please believe me."

The silence that follows my words is full of something I can't decipher. But it's thick. As thick as the strongest wall. I can't read his energy anymore. We haven't seen each other in ten years, we're as good as strangers now. Why should anything of what I just told him mean anything to him anymore? Oh, please don't let it be so.

"I looked for you for months. Day and night. For months. And waited for years afterwards," he says, and I don't have to see his eyes to feel the anger shooting from them. Even his hand in mine has turned to stone.

"And I looked for you in every woman I met," he adds more quietly. "But I never found you in any of them."

His voice is soft like it always got when he told me he loved me. I hope that's what his words mean. I hope they mean that he loves me still. But he's not saying it.

I'm about to speak again, but he pulls me closer, wraps one of his strong arms around me, his other hand clutching mine so hard it hurts.

"But you're someone else's now," he says. I shake my head as hard as I can.

"Only yours," I tell him when he lets me go enough so I can look into his eyes.

He doesn't believe me, that's what his eyes are telling me. So I stand on my toes and kiss him, because I don't know how else to make him believe, and I feel like I've longed to kiss him my whole life. The surge of warmth passing through me as our lips touch is as liberating as a thousand birds taking flight at once. And as sweet as it ever was. Sweeter even, because it's been so very long.

But it can't last. I'm not free to kiss him.

He releases me completely and takes a step back.

"I have to go," I tell him, and I hate saying the words. But it's almost half past midnight and even Juan will soon start wondering where I am. And if I don't return, he'll die. And my father will die. And Rook will die too.

"I don't understand, Ines."

"I know," I say, my voice hoarse, because I'm holding back tears.

"Then help me understand. I've missed you every day since you left me."

Hearing him say those words to me is a dream come true. But I'm not free to love him, not yet. Yet I plan to be. As soon as it's safe.

"I missed you everyday for the last ten years too. But I have to leave now so we can see each other again. Meet me at Santa Ana hospital at four tomorrow afternoon. On the sixth floor, room 512."

There's no missing the confused look on his face despite the darkness.

I run my hand down his cheek. "Say you'll be there. We'll have more time then. I'll explain more. And you'll see why I had to leave you. You'll see it. Please be there."

"Alright," he says.

I turn and start running before I change my mind. Before I just stay. Forget what it could cost. The lives it would cost. Ours as well. His. I couldn't survive that.

"Ines!" he yells after me, his voice echoing off the walls of the buildings encircling this square. Angry. Full of warning. But I can't stay. Not yet.

So I run faster. Run until I can't breathe. Run until I'm back at my prison. The one I still don't know if I'll ever be able to leave. Juan says something to me as I pass him in front of my apartment building, but I don't understand the words.

All I know is that Rook still loves me, that we still have a chance. And this time, I'll do it right.