Page 37 of Last Destination

Many attempts had been made on me in my first few years of prison. A few had succeeded, and the pain and humiliation of each incident remained. The memories were long buried but never forgotten. I’d never chosen to inflict the same pain on another — certain actions could never be redeemed.

I had not worn the helm of purveyor of justice, but today I would claim it. My fists fractured every part of his skull until his eyes sunk into his face. When the nameless bastardo lay in the result of his poor decisions, the sharp rolling click of a cocking hammer caught my attention.

“You have made a mistake,” an unfamiliar voice hissed in Spanish from behind me, pressing the weapon into the back of my skull with a forceful snap. “She was not worth your trouble.”

Raising my hands in a placating gesture, I stiffened my spine, forcing the muzzle to dig deeper into my scalp. I had grown weak since Diaz had escorted me from prison. Rage had blinded my senses and my love for my ángel had clouded my judgment. The weapon I carried was too far away in the back of my waistband to be useful. I would have to rely on my tired body to break free.

The man, stinking of old piss and fresh alcohol, breathed against my neck, no doubt relishing in what he thought to be fear. I was unafraid of such men, but regret clamped my teeth shut while I considered my solution.

The life as leader of a death club meant a life lived on constant guard. True freedom was just beyond a river boat, and I was a day at most away from its taste. A rapist would not take it from me. The detective had discovered the same.

Without a second’s hesitation, I shoved my left hand back to grab this man’s ankle at the same time I shifted to roll to the left. White hot pain shot through my infected arm to behind my eyelids as I dropped and pulled the bastardo on top of me. Both of our weights crushed the corpse below.

My hands grabbed for his gun in the dark, but it had dropped in the scuffle. My attacker’s hands found my windpipe before I could get leverage on his, and he fed his body weight into his palms, pressing down with dirty fingers. Blue sparks flashed through my skull but I ignored them, instead gripping his shoulders and digging my thumbs into the pressure points just below his collar bones.

His grip faltered, but it wasn’t enough to buck him off me entirely. The body below me was too soft to gain any traction, my spine digging into skin and bone. The absence of air burned in my lungs when I failed to draw another breath.

Fear would flood another man’s heart, but the emotion had died in me long ago. My ángel and freedom were on the other side of the trees. I would not let this cabrón take me away from them.

The wet squelch of tearing muscle tissue and blood ripped through the muffled sound of ragged gasps. The grip on my neck disappeared before the dead weight of a dead man fell on top of me.

Using the last of my strength, I pushed him off and scrambled to my feet. Jamie stood shocked just beyond my reach, the hilt of his pocket knife embedded into the heart of my attacker from behind.

The irredeemable man, the man my ángel still believed in in spite of her pain, had come back to assist me with the puny weapon I’d given him. He stared at me, at my fists and face flecked with the blood of our enemies, his jaw unhinged in wary astonishment. I did not like him, but he was not mine to forgive, this disgraced captain. His unapologetic grimace gave me pause. Perhaps he still had a soul, as he claimed.

“Gracias.” I held out my palm marred in crimson for him to shake. He took it and his solemn nod and firm shake was the silent acknowledgment of our shared kills.

If we were on prison grounds, I would hunt down the final perpetrator and torture him publicly as an example. Here, it was a fool’s errand. The skies were still too dark, the jungle too thick, and he would not return now his comrades lay dead, punished for their attempted crimes.

Yanking the knife from the rapist’s back, I wiped it on my jeans and handed it back to Jamie. It had proven useful for protection against Diaz and against them. His eyes widened at the offering, but he again dipped his head and took it, sliding it back into his pants pocket.

I picked up the gun to remove the bullets, only to find the chamber empty.

“Mierda,” I cursed, having been fooled by an unloaded gun. I stripped the red bracelet from the dead man’s wrist and turned back to my savior.

“You now have a bracelet.” I tossed it toward Jamie, and he caught it, quickly pulling it onto his left hand.

“Thanks, mate. I want to make it r—”

I held up a hand to stop him. Words would not repair his rift with the others, only actions. He was no longer my enemy, but he was not my friend. “Let’s check on the others.”

Wordlessly, we headed back to our crew, my Clube de Morte. I had once felt this jungle was my paradise, but it was its own prison. The people and animals were just as desperate to survive as those behind the bars of my previous cage.

The rest of the camp remained unnaturally quiet, as if the migrants were holding their own breath to protect themselves from attackers. No one had come to our aid, but I had no such expectations. To risk your life for a stranger when so close to freedom — no person who valued their own heartbeat was so generous.

The sight of Ambrose, Nikki, and Marley lifted my heart as we rounded the corner. Tessa was encased between Marley and Ambrose, her body shaking with sobs, the four of them cuddled against the back of a large tree. I frowned at my ángel’s sleeping form against Nikki’s shoulder, sure she would have been the one to comfort Tessa after this ordeal.

“She passed out,” my second explained in low tones before he shifted her forward to release his arm. “Like, actually passed out, Madman. I don’t think she’s okay.”

I took the position on Nikki’s other side and reached for Marley’s limp hand, stroking the warm skin with my thumb still encrusted with dried blood.

“We will make her okay,” I promised with vehemence.

But as I watched the pain flicker across her face in whatever dream held her captive, I wasn’t certain it was true.

I did not like the look of my ángel this morning. It was not the face of my Ana Patricia. She was a ghostly replacement, the fire in her eyes extinguished by the heavy rains of the day before.

She had spoken in her sleep again. For the last several nights, the name Charlie had fallen from her lips in anguish, but I did not know who he was. A lover, perhaps. Someone important. Someone whose name caused her great pain, even in her dreams. I would kill this Charlie if we were ever introduced. I would make him suffer just as he’d made her suffer.