Yours Page 16

  BANG!

  The shot deafened me in my left ear. At first, confused, I thought that Jessica had shot me. I stumbled forward into the tunnel, clasping her tightly.

  Then I realized that Jessica had shot the gun. But not at me. The gun was aimed into El Alfa’s room behind us. I turned to see one of the guards sinking to his knees.

  “Good shot,” I said, as the metal door slid across our vision and erased the scene completely.

  We hurried down the tunnel. Behind us, a dull banging echoed down the stairs. The guards were trying to get through the door. I could only hope that El Alfa’s door would hold them off for a while.

  I had no idea where I was going, and the electric torches were dim on the stone steps. Minutes passed that seemed like hours, as we made our way down through the stone. It was only after the last bend of the tunnel opened up that I could see.

  We were outside. The moon was full, and it sparkled over the ocean water. The waves reflected the shimmering stars above. At any other time, the view would have been beautiful. Romantic. I paused, inhaling salt air as I caught my breath. Jessica’s arms hung around my neck. Her breathing was shallow.

  “Over here!” Valentina cried.

  I looked up to see the girls wading into the water. Their white gauze dresses pooled around their waists as they edged out into the ocean. At the end of a rock jetty, two motorboats were tied up, waiting to take us home.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Jessica

  “Jessica? Sweetie?”

  I blinked into fluorescent white light. White light. White curtains. I was in a hospital. There was a steady beeping noise coming from behind. My eyes focused on the blur hovering over me and the image resolved into my mother’s face.

  “Jessica?”

  I lifted my head, turning it from side to side. The blurs were all faces. My mother. My father. Another woman at the foot of the bed, holding a clipboard. Two more men sitting in chairs, in dark uniforms.

  “Don’t move too quickly,” the first woman said. Was she a doctor? A nurse? I didn’t care. I craned my neck, but I couldn’t see Vale.

  “Where is he?” I asked.

  The beeps came faster behind me. I pulled myself upright, ignoring the tubes that were taped to my arms.

  “Jessica,” my mother said, “It’s alright. We’re here.”

  “Where is he?”

  Panic rushed over me as I lifted up my arms. I couldn’t move—there were IVs in both of my wrists. I was tied.

  “Your father’s right here.”

  “Not him,” I said, shaking my head as though that would get rid of the dizziness. “Vale.”

  “Who are you talking about?” my mom asked, a worried look on her face.

  “Vale,” I repeated, trying to keep calm.

  The breaths I drew were hotter and hotter. I pulled the sheet back and examined the tubing. There must be a way to get the IV out. I didn’t want to stay here.

  “Jessica, calm down,” the woman said. “You’re going to be alright, but you have a lot of injuries.”

  “Where’s Vale?”

  I tossed back the sheet to see what they had done to me. Under the sheet, my legs were pale white. There was a white bandage across my stomach. I dropped the IV tube and touched the bandage. A dull pain shot through my stomach and I clenched my eyes shut.

  One of the men in dark uniforms stood up. A badge. Police. His eyebrows were like dark caterpillars frowning across his face. I thought of El Alfa, and my stomach revolted, turning over inside of me.

  “Where is he? Is he not here? Is he okay?”

  The air in the room felt like it was closing in on me. I didn’t know why, but I needed to see Vale. It felt wrong to be sitting here without him.

  “Please,” the doctor said. “She needs rest. Jessica, don’t get too excited.”

  I swallowed hard and made myself lean back into the hospital bed. Surely the policemen would know about him.

  “Vale,” I said. “I didn’t know his last name. He was working for the police.”

  The two policemen looked at each other. I could tell they thought I was crazy. I struggled not to tear the IV tubes out and make a scene. They had to take me seriously.

  “Where is he?” I asked, as slowly and calmly as I could make myself speak.

  “Vale, you said?”

  “Yes. His name is Vale.” I gritted my teeth as the second policeman pulled out his phone and began tapping away.

  “What did he look like?” the first cop asked.

  “The man who brought you in?”

  “Yes!” I turned to the woman doctor who had just spoken. “Did you see him?”

  The doctor looked nervous to be the center of attention. She held her clipboard tightly in both her hands.

  “He was the one who carried you into the emergency room. Tall guy, lots of—ah, lots of muscles, right?”

  “Right,” I said, my heartbeat slowing only slightly. “And blue eyes.” For some reason, I thought that it was important to tell them. “Light blue eyes. Like ice.”

  “We didn’t get his information,” the doctor explained to the cops. “I think he left before anyone asked him for an ID. If you want, we can get you the security footage—”

  “Yeah, that’d be great,” the first policeman said.

  The second policeman was staring at me with suspicious eyes, his arms crossed. I pressed my lips together. What if Vale wasn’t with the police after all? Would they arrest him?

  “Your friend told us this crazy story about a kidnapping ring. I’d like to ask you—”

  “April?” I sat up instantly, my heart pounding. “Is she okay? Is she—”

  “She’s fine. A bit bruised, and—well, if her story is true, you know what happened to her.”

  “Y—yes,” I said, replaying the horrible scene in my head. “It’s true.”

  “We’d like to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind,” the first policeman said. “Take a statement.”

  “She just woke up!” my mom interjected.

  “Really, officers,” my dad chimed in. “Is this necessary right now?”

  “With what we’ve heard so far from her friend, yes, it is necessary,” the second policeman said. “I’m sorry, but her friend reports that this man—the one who you claim brought you in—shot and killed her boyfriend.”

  My mom wrung her hands against her chest. I could only blink.

  James. It felt like so long ago. So, so long ago.

  “And from what I’m hearing, there seems to be a connection between you and this man—ah, Vale,” the cop continued. “You have to understand that these events could implicate you in the case that…”

  He kept talking, but there was a rush of blood in my head and I was dizzy. My mom was standing up and yelling at the cop, and then both of them were yelling, and my dad was standing back silently like he always did during a fight. It was so loud, and the beeping behind my bed grew louder and louder. I pressed my hands to my ears but it didn’t keep out the sound.

  “She’s just been kidnapped—”

  Beep.

  “Ma’am, if there’s any way she can identify the suspect—”

  Beep.

  “Kidnapped! And her friend was raped! And you want to—”

  Beep.

  The door opened. Everybody stopped talking and turned to the man who was now standing in the doorway. He was tall, muscular, and had short-cropped dark hair. His suit was rumpled.

  For a moment, there was silence except for the steady, quick beeping of the machines.

  “Is that him?” Both policemen turned to me. I shook my head slowly. I didn’t know who this man was. I’d never seen him before in my life.

  “Hey, everyone,” the man said, digging in his pocket. He pulled out a badge and flashed it toward the cops. “FBI.”

  “FBI?”

  “You can go. We’ve got this covered.”

  “Excuse me,” the second policeman said, sarcasm dripping from his
lips. “We were about to question the witness.”

  The dark-haired man laughed with a confidence that cut through all of the tension in the room. It was clear that the police were no longer in charge. This guy was in charge. Whoever he was.

  “Get out,” he said.

  “But it’s our case—”

  “The city of San Diego has zero jurisdiction here,” the man said, his smile disappearing as quickly as it had come. “This is an international crime in a federal case that we’ve been tracking for almost a decade now.”

  “So?”

  “So?” He peered at the cops. “So you two can fuck along now.”

  The two policemen stood agape for a moment. Then the second policeman scoffed and turned on his heel. The first cop followed him out.

  “May I speak with Jessica alone?” the man asked my parents.

  “I don’t—”

  “It’s okay, mom,” I said quickly. There was something about this man that reminded me of Vale. At the very least, he seemed like he might know what was going on. “It’s alright. Let me talk with him.”

  My mother pinched her lips together and left arm in arm with my father. The doctor went out behind them, closing the hospital door. Then it was just me and the man who claimed to be with the FBI.

  He pulled up a chair next to my hospital bed and sat down casually.

  “My name is Ten,” the man said.

  “Ten?”

  “Yeah. Weird name, huh?” He chuckled nervously. I already liked him. The past few weeks had made me question my instincts, but in the end I knew that I could trust myself. And that meant trusting him.

  “Did you want to ask me about what happened?” I asked. “About the kidnapping?”

  “Maybe later. Right now I want to make sure you’re okay. And that you don’t tell anyone else about Vale.”

  My mouth went dry.

  “You know him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is he?”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t tell you that.”

  “But…but…” I stammered.

  “He’s on another mission right now,” Ten said. “He’s going to have to lay low for a while. He told me to let you know that.”

  I swallowed hard.

  “Will he—will I ever see him again?”

  “That’s what I came here to find out. Vale told me that he had to do some terrible things in Mexico. To your friend, and also to you.”

  My skin flushed hot as I thought about everything Vale had done to me.

  “I want to let you know that he was under orders—my orders.” The man’s mouth pinched together in contrition. “I’m just as much at fault for your friend’s death as he is.”

  Tears slid down my cheeks. I wasn’t crying, but the tears were still there. I thought of James. I remembered the way Vale had looked after he pulled the trigger. A dead man’s eyes.

  Do you think if I hadn’t shot him, he would still be alive?

  “He wasn’t sure you would want to hear from him again,” Ten said, quickly moving on. “If that’s the case, then you can just say the word.”

  “And… and if not?”

  Ten smiled gently.

  “I can give him your contact information if you want him to have it.”

  “I do,” I blurted out. “I—I want to thank him. For saving me.”

  “Of course,” Ten said. “Here.”

  He handed me a notepad. I wrote down my cell phone number. It was hard to write clearly. For some reason, my hand was trembling.

  “When will he be back?” I asked.

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “Oh. Sure. Okay.”

  “But I’ll be sure to give him your number as soon as he’s back in the country.”

  I nodded. The man stood up and straightened out his suit jacket. As he turned, I caught his arm.

  “Wait,” I said. “I have a question for you.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Vale… he’s a good guy, right?”

  “A good guy?”

  Ten’s eyes dropped to mine and the world’s weight seemed to be on his shoulders. He bit his lip, and I knew from his face that he wasn’t going to lie to me. Finally he spoke.

  “As far as I’m concerned,” he said, “he’s a goddamned hero.”

  A week passed, then another, then another. Impossibly, things around me returned to normal. The hospital released me after only a few days. My parents argued that I should move in with them, but I stayed in the apartment with April. She was the only one who could understand what I’d gone through. We talked about it a lot at first, then less after James’ funeral, then not at all.

  Everybody knew, but nobody wanted to talk about it. I didn’t blame them. What do you say to someone who had survived all that I had? Better not to say anything at all. I shoved back all of my feelings and all of my hurt, and tried to pretend that I had moved on just like everybody else had seemed to.

  I was on my laptop, registering for next semester’s classes, when my phone rang. I picked it up without thinking.

  “Hello?”

  “Jessica?”

  His voice hit me like a physical thing. All the air in the room seemed impossibly heavy. I sucked in a breath.

  “Vale? Is that really you?”

  “Sure is, darling. I hear you’re doing better now.”

  I touched my stomach. The new scar was still puckered and red. I could feel it itching as the skin knitted together at my back and in the front, where the bullet had torn a hole.

  “Y—yes. I’m fine. I’m okay.”

  “Are you?”

  The concern in his voice was too much. All of a sudden, tears were streaming down my cheeks. I hadn’t cried since James’ funeral, but now, hearing his voice, it was like a floodgate had opened. I hiccupped back sobs as I struggled to speak.

  “Vale, I can’t—I’m sorry—I don’t know why I’m being like this. I’m sorry!”

  “It’s okay,” he said, as I stifled my sobs back with a tissue. “It’s alright.”

  “I’m sorry,” I kept repeating. “I’m sorry—”

  “Jessica.” Something in his voice made me snap to attention.

  “Yes?”

  “Please don’t. You’re not the one who should apologize. Look, if you don’t want to talk to me, we don’t have to—”

  “No!” I nearly yelled it.

  “No?”

  “No,” I said, calming myself. “No, I want to—I want to talk. You’re the only one I can talk to!”

  “Me?” There was a note of disbelief in his voice.

  “Yes! April doesn’t want to bring it up ever, and all of my friends—when they see me, they look away. It’s like I’m cursed, and nobody wants to talk to me because it’ll rub off on them. Or they just don’t know what to say to me. And my parents are even worse and I don’t want to talk with them about it because nobody can understand, they just can’t! And I’ve been having these dreams…”

  I stopped myself.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, sniffling into the already-wet tissue. “I’m ranting. Can I—can we meet again, Vale?”

  “You want to see me again?” Again, he sounded like he couldn’t believe me.

  “You’re the only one who knows what I’ve been through. You… you saved me.”

  There was a silence on the other end.

  “Sure,” he said. “Yeah.”

  “When can we meet?”

  Hope bloomed in my chest.

  “Well, thing is, I’m in Guatemala right now.”

  “Guatemala?” Now it was my turn for disbelief.

  “El Alfa was shipping to some other compounds out here. We just closed them down.”

  Relief flooded through me. I thought about what that man had said—that Vale was a hero. I believed it.

  “That’s—that’s good.”

  “I’m not going to be able to go back to America for a while, I don’t think,” Vale said. “The West coast, anyway. I gotta stay away f
rom anywhere El Alfa knows people. Knew people. It’s dangerous.”

  “Oh. Okay.” My voice caught on the last word.

  He wasn’t going to come to see me. Disappointment welled up, tearing my eyes up again. I blotted them out roughly. I was angry for being so sad. Angry for needing Vale.

  It was a moment before I realized he was talking again.

  “Why don’t you come out here?”

  There was a pause while I parsed his question. Go out there? To Guatemala? Before I could answer, he was talking again.

  “If you don’t want to, I completely understand. But—”

  “I want to.”

  The words were out of my mouth before I realized it.

  “You’re sure?”

  I smiled through my tears. I hadn’t known what I needed until now. But hearing his voice made me realize that there was only one way for me to get past what had happened. And I needed Vale.

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m sure.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Vale

  I met her at the airport. She looked so fragile, but she smiled bravely. I followed her lead, hugging her back when she lifted her arms. The touch of her skin made my body twinge with desire, but I held back.

  It took all of my willpower to hold back, but I held back. It was amazing to me that she was even here, that I could reach out and touch her. After the mission, I couldn’t believe that she would ever want to see me again. I’d begun to think that it was for the best. So her deciding to come here to visit me took me by surprise.

  “Where are we going?”

  She looked nervously around at the crowds of people thronging out of the airport. I motioned her out to the curb. There was a silver sedan waiting for us outside.

  “I thought we could go sailing. There’s a hotel, if you’d rather not. Not that we’d stay in the same room. I could get you another room. I mean…”

  I stopped myself. For some reason, having Jessica nearby turned me into a stammering fool. Without anyone around for me to pose for, I wasn’t nearly as much of a badass. I caught her smiling at me, and I smiled back.

  “Sailing?”

  She arched an eyebrow at me.

  “You’re a sailor?”

  I let out a sharp laugh. I’d never thought anyone would ever call me a sailor. I hated boats. But I’d been trying to get rid of my fears one at a time.