Finally she said, “I don’t know. I’ve wanted this for so long, this retribution for myself. That if I kill him, I’ll be free of everything that’s held me down and told me where to fit in this world. Told me what I am. That if I kill him, the man who made me bad, I’ll be good. Sometimes …” a tear rolled down her cheek, the dam breaking, the release. She sniffed, “Sometimes I’d do anything to be good.”

Damn it. God damn it. My heart was breaking all over again, just when I thought I didn’t have anything inside me to break.

“Come here,” I said, leaning forward and bringing her down onto me. She lay with her head on my chest, sobbing quietly. “Hey, remember when we were kids and we’d lie like this on my trampoline?”

She sniffled. “I don’t remember crying back then.”

“No. No we never cried in front of each other. We were too cool for that. It didn’t mean we weren’t crying inside. Or for each other.” I cupped my good hand behind her head and held it there, took in a deep breath. “Ellie, I will help you with whatever you need to do. You won’t have to go through this alone. If you want to kill Travis, for whatever reasons you have, I will be there for you. And when you’re done, if you let me, I will take you back home. And if you want to back out of it now, if you want to disappear tonight and never look back, Gus and I will help you with that too. Whatever you’ve done or thought or planned or given up on, it doesn’t change the fact that we came here for you. We came here to help you, Ellie, in whatever way you choose.”

She stiffened on top of me, her limbs going rigid.

“You can start by hiding back in the closet.”

“What?”

She sprang up, eyes flying to the window. “Go now, to the closet, under the bed, hide. Somewhere! Go!”

There was no way I would fit under the bed quick enough, especially with my arm, so I quickly ducked myself back in the closet, sticking my good fingers through the slats and pulling it closed just as there was a knock at the door.

“Miss Eleanor Willis?” came a muffled voice.

I held my body as still as possible, my breath quiet and tried to look through the slits without bumping into the hangers again.

From the angle of my view, I could see Ellie getting up and going over to the door answering it.

“Hi, Enrico,” she sounded drunk, a little too drunk. An act.

“Miss Willis,” Enrico said. A large pause. I could tell he was looking at her oddly. “Can I come in?”

“Am I allowed to say no?”

Another pause. “No, miss. I’m sorry.”

“Fine, come in.” She walked away lazily and plopped down on the bed.

The door shut and he stopped in the middle of the room.

“What happened here?”

“Girls just want to have fun.” She punctuated that with a giggle. She was going on a bit too strong and I had to wince, hoping Enrico bought it.

“Are you alone?” He started to walk to the patio entrance, the one I came in through. He tried the door and I was glad I remembered to lock it.

“Of course I’m alone,” she said. “Least I was until you showed up. Can’t a girl have a few drinks in peace?”

He turned around and came back, stopping at the foot of the bed. Through the serrated slivers of my view, I could see his shoes and pants were both immaculately white. Enrico seemed like a nice enough boy when checking in, but he was obviously a friend of Javier’s which vetoed all innocent appearances.

“Miss Willis, your neighbors reported people yelling in here.”

Pause. “So? Was I keeping them awake? It’s not even nine o’clock.”

“You were the one yelling?”

“Yes, so what? Free country, isn’t Mexico?”

“Who were you yelling at?” he said, pleasant customer service patience being tested.

“Well obviously myself. What, you never had a good yell, a good cry, a good fucking mental breakdown when you’ve been pawned and screwed over by various drug cartels?” Her voice was rising sharply near the end and I could tell this wasn’t an act at all. Despite always being shit on, I was starting to feel a bit sorry for her.

The truth was, I knew Ellie didn’t do any of it to hurt me. Call me a fool, and I was, but I knew that deep down she’d do what she could to spare my pain. She cared enough about me for that. It still hurt, knowing that she believed I’d never come. I knew she never trusted anyone and I was just another lover to her who would one day break her heart and forget her name, but she should have known I wasn’t like that. I wasn’t like them. I wasn’t like everyone else. She should have known what she was to me, that the only reason we were ever separated was because we didn’t have a choice. I guess she did have a choice, though both of them were shitty ones. Her sacrifice didn’t help us much in the end. It was all for nothing.

“Miss Willis, Javier wants you to know that you’re completely safe here.”

Javier. I almost put my fucking fist through the closet door but composed myself in time. That nasty, terrible blackness wanted company. I couldn’t think about him, or her and him together, or how she could still do that to me, even if she never did it on purpose. I hated, hated, how easily he was able to win her back over, to make her doubt herself, to coerce her into doing such things. Sex was sex and I understood that. What I couldn’t understand was his power over her. Or maybe I didn’t want to. She was better than that. I believed it. I knew it.

“How am I safe?” she asked snidely, adjusting herself on the bed. “Because I just had drinks with Travis Raines and I didn’t feel the slightest bit safe.”

“You are safe here,” he said, gesturing to the room. “He has people stationed all over now. There are two men just beyond the courtyard, on the other side of the river. If anyone comes in through there, they will find them. There are people at the front of the hotel too and of course I am here. You can call me at all hours of the night. You are protected, wherever you are.”

What Enrico, what Javier, was really trying to tell her was that she was stuck, held prisoner in her hotel. There was no way she could run off with me and Gus tonight or any other night. She was protected from one man and a captive to the next.

“Well, I guess that should make me feel safe,” she said. “Until tomorrow night.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yes, Travis wants to take me out for dinner. 6PM.”

“I see. I will let Javier know.”

“You can tell Javier that I don’t want to do it.”

Pause. He walked over to the other side of the room. “I will tell him that. I do not know what his answer will be.”

“His order you mean.”

“Yes, his order. I’m sorry if I come across a bit unfriendly, but I have to follow them and that may mean making you go out for the dinner tomorrow. Do you understand?”

The girl couldn’t seem to go anywhere without someone threatening her.

“I understand,” she said with a dejected sigh. “Listen, Enrico, can you do me a favor and get me another drink?”

He walked over to the mini bar and opened the door. “Tequila is all gone.”

“Then I’ll take the bourbon.”

“You Americans like to mix it up.” He tossed the bottle to her and she caught it.

“I like to keep my liver on its toes.”

“Well, good night, Miss Willis.” Enrico walked over to the door. My breathing started to slow in relief. “I hope you can sleep well knowing how safe you are.”

She cracked open the bottle of JD and drank it back before she said, “Good night.”

The door closed. She waited a few tense moments before she went up and locked it. Then she went around to check the patio door again and closed the curtain to that. She came back to the bed and lay down, her legs dangling off the edge. I could see the start of the cherry blossom tattoo snaking its way up her calf. It looked a bit rough and for one crazy second I became concerned that she wasn’t moisturizing it enough.

She went into the bathroom, apparently forgetting that I was there. I wouldn’t have put it past her. Then she came out, undressed, her top and skirt sliding to the floor and pooling around her ankles, reminding me of the obsidian shape of my dreams, then pulled on a t-shirt, turned off the main light, then the lamp and climbed into bed. Darkness.

I waited for ten more minutes, wondering if I should take a chance and say anything or if I should just hunker down in the closet and prepare for the night in there. I wasn’t going to chance leaving her room now, not when she was being guarded and heavily watched.

I pulled out Gus’s cell from my pocket, checking it. He said he was going to see about getting a cell phone from a store in town, but so far I only had the line to his room. I’d have to call him in the morning and fill him in. I hoped he wasn’t sitting up worrying about us too much.

Finally I decided to risk it and I slowly pushed open the closet door. The room was dark except for the faded orange light of the illuminated walkway outside that came in through the flimsy curtains. I made my way over to the other side of the bed and got in, on top of the covers.

She rolled over to face me, her legs curled up in the fetal position, her hands clasped under chin. We looked at each other for a few seconds and in that time I wondered how I was ever going to get past this. I wondered how I was even going to try. She could give me her excuses but it wouldn’t make much difference. It didn’t take back what was done and what was done didn’t take the love away. It only made me want to try and compartmentalize it, to tuck it away somewhere deep inside, a hint of hope shining among all the wicked and soulless things. That was the only way I was going to be able to get through this – locking it up and hoping it stayed in there.

Normally I would have kissed her, felt her body beneath my hands, do all those things to her that I had been dreaming of. I had wanted it, needed it, craved it. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t touch her now, not now. I don’t even think she knew who her body belonged to at the moment. It certainly wasn’t me. And the sooner I got over that bit, the better we would both be.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” I whispered softly. “They may be out there, but you’ll be safe right here.”

I could see in the gleam of her eyes that she needed me to come close, to put my arms around her and make everything alright. She was as vulnerable as I’d ever seen her. But I just turned over onto my back and let the tequila and heartbreak take me away.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

ELLIE

I woke up right before sunrise, when the room was a purple grey haze, the air was decidedly heavy. It was a weird atmosphere and it took me a few seconds to figure out where I was and who the man was next to me.

Camden. He was sleeping on his back, his glasses still on, lips parted. He was like a fragment from my dream, a faded portrait of masculinity, heart and ink. My heart, that beating organ that had been so elusive to me as of late, thumped loudly in my chest as I gazed at him, stirring me awake. How could I have been so careless with him?