Juan Carlos manipulated the painful joystick one more time, Hatch felt it, winced at its sting, but managed to stay beside Savage just a few moments longer as the sunset danced colors of purple and red across her mind's eye, replacing the bruises she'd endured. And this time, her recall had no rattlesnake to interrupt their kiss.
Her lips were pressed against Savage’s. She could still taste the licorice on them when she opened her eyes and looked down at the water below. Blood stung her eyes, further blurring her vision. The water held her reflection for the brief pause between red droplets. In its momentary stillness, Hatch saw herself. And for a moment, she was that twelve-year-old-girl again. It held for the briefest of moments before the next drop shattered it, further muddying the stagnant water with her blood.
Juan Carlos released the fire poker and sat back in the chair he had first taken up when he arrived. He looked at his employer. "She's not going to break. I've never seen it. A strong woman."
"Your mother was a strong woman." Hector Fuentes was talking to someone else in the room. She blinked to clear her vision. During the torture, and her altered mental state, somebody must've entered. The man standing next to Hector Fuentes was a younger, leaner, version of the drug kingpin. "Wouldn't you agree, my son?"
His son, who looked more like a boy, nodded. Hector Fuentes now spoke to his son and not to Hatch, as if she was not in the room, suspended in a chair, moments from her own death.
Hector put a hand on his son's shoulder. "Men of power wield their power firsthand. Strength comes in those moments when the unthinkable must be done. I know death does not sit well with you, my son. It never has. But if you are ever to hold your place at the head of this family, you must make death your ally. You will need to use it your advantage. And with that, today you will prove your worth in that regard. And in that demonstration of strength and will, you will show me you're worthy to be my heir."
He pulled out a long machete with a twelve-inch blade and black handle. Hector shoved the handle into his son's right hand, firmly, and then squeezed the shoulder he held, and pulled his son tight. Then he looked over at Hatch. "This woman here has stolen from us. And you know how I feel about thieves within my organization. Not only has she taken from our family, she has burned down one of our nightclubs. Even now we're looking for the girl that she freed.
“This cannot go unpunished. Rafael, I give you my blade, just as my father gave it to me. I offer it to you with the same message he had before commanding me to use it.
“Our blood is our oath. May we spill our enemies’ first. Use this blade to take this enemy before you. Look into her eyes. See into her soul. In there you will see the answer. And when you do, use this blade to bring honor to the Fuentes name, and take your rightful place beside me."
Hector Fuentes stepped back. Juan Carlos Moreno connected the battery to both ends of the metal pool. The rusted clip clacked loudly and sent a spark through the air. Then Juan Carlos moved back a few feet, standing beside his boss.
Rafael Fuentes stood to the right of Hatch. He gripped the machete with two hands, both of which were trembling. He raised the machete high in the air like a lumberjack ready to swing an ax.
Hatch furiously worked at the bindings of her right wrist. Millimeter by millimeter she worked to release her right hand and had gotten it to her first knuckle when the machete began to fall. Hatch refused to close her eyes.
Instead of severing Hatch's head, Hector Fuentes' son had shifted direction at the last minute and pivoted to the two men looking on. In a flash of movement, Rafael crossed the distance and swung at his father with the machete in his hand and buried it into the side of his father's midsection, just below the rib cage.
The attack had been more of a slash than a thrust. Juan Carlos moved forward, knocking the blade free, and plunging one of his own under the chin of Rafael Fuentes. It was a long blade, maybe eight inches long, the point of which came through the top of Rafael Fuentes' skull at the same time Hatch freed her right hand.
The machete had helicoptered to a stop underneath the right side of her chair and was within arm's reach.
Juan Carlos Moreno was busy tending to his master as Hatch quickly cut herself free of the remaining bindings. There was no way she'd be able to cross the distance between her and Moreno before the cartel enforcer would get the drop on her.
With Moreno momentarily distracted, Hatch was already in motion and running for the door. She'd just passed into a short hallway which led to a kitchen. One of the bodyguards was leaning against the ordering counter and flirting with a waitress when he noticed Hatch.
She slammed the machete down, severing the man's gun hand at the wrist. The blade impacted with such force it stuck into the wood of the counter. The handless cartel man staggered back in shock. With his only hand he held the severed wrist up. Blood sprayed into the face of the waitress he'd been flirting with. She screamed, drawing attention from the crowded restaurant. Hatch grabbed a frying pan, still hot with the sizzling spiced chicken, and used it to finish off the guard with a blow learned from Ayala and Ernesto.
The bleeding, and now unconscious, guard fell aside as Hatch ran out into the street when the second shot hit the wall next to her. Shouts of angry men accompanied the smell of onions chasing Hatch out of the café and into the morning’s light.
A moment ago, she was with Dalton Savage on top of a Ridge line in Hawks Landing, Colorado, preparing to say goodbye in her mind to the man she loved most. Now she was given a new breath of life. And she used it.
Hatch sprinted into the street, trying to put as much distance between her and the café as possible. Tires screeched nearby. Yellow filled her blurred vision.
As her eyes cleared, Hatch saw the beat-up yellow Nissan Sentra.
"I like your choice in weapons." Miguel Ayala gnawed on the end of his cigar while wearing the same Hawaiian shirt with the same yellow pineapples. And Hatch couldn't be happier to see all of it.
Angela sat in the passenger seat. Hatch pulled the door handle, and it came off in her hand. She heard Ayala muttering something about meaning to get it fixed as Hatch raced around to the other side.
Hatch's body hadn't even hit the seat when bullets began to strike the back of Ayala's sedan. She pulled the door closed as she landed on the frayed leather bench-seat covered in the shattered bits of glass from Ayala's back windshield.
The little yellow Nissan, old and tired and now bullet-ridden, pushed forward by will of its driver while Hatch remained low in her seat as she took stock of her injuries.
"Where to now?" Hatch asked.
“The river.”
Thirty-Five
Ernesto took solace in the fact that he had gotten Letty to his doctor friend, who'd agreed to meet them at the same mission where the black van had been dumped. He'd thought it would've been safe since the cartel henchmen had already been through the lot.
It hadn't taken the good doctor long to find the small microchip, no bigger than a cellphone sim card, embedded in the girl's calf, just above the ankle. After patching her up and cleaning her properly, another member of their team, a man who was known locally throughout Nogales as Azul, met them at the mission.
She departed in his blue ambulance ten minutes before they returned, and thirty seconds too long for the doctor, who was in mid-embrace when the bullet passing through his skull showered Ernesto in the good doctor's brain matter before slipping from his grasp to the gravel lot.