Vice(72)

“Hey, brother of mine.”

I couldn’t make a sound, even if I wanted to. I just stare at her, aware of how real and solid her hand feels in mine.

“I assume you came here for me,” she asks, “and not because you wanted to attend one of Fernando Villalobos’s top secret parties?”

“I—f*ck, this can’t be happening,” I rasp. Reaching up with my free hand, I move my fingertips over her face, scanning her features, searching for some dissimilarity between this woman and my sister, trying to prove to myself that it can’t possibly be her. But it is. It f*cking is. “Natalia told me you were dead,” I whisper. “I thought you were gone.”

Laura’s eyes are full of hurt. She looks like she’s trying her best not to cry and doing a horrific job. She always did find it hard to hide her tears, even as an adult. “She couldn’t know,” she says. “She had to believe I was dead. Everyone had to. Ocho helped me escape.”

I turn my head to look at the short, aging Ecuadorian man, immediately regretting the movement when my vision begins to swim. “You? How could you…?” Ocho is Fernando’s right-hand man. He’s been watching me since I showed up in Orellana, always there, loitering in the background, observing everything with those dark, unfathomable eyes of his. How can he have helped Laura escape?

Laura smiles up at the old man like he’s an old friend. “Ocho’s been hiding me in the forest for a long time, Cade. I told him about you, of course. When you showed up here, he brought me to the outskirts of the estate to show you to me. He said you were here to buy drugs, but I knew the truth. I’ve been waiting for you to leave the estate so I could come to you, but you’ve never been alone. Always with Natalia, or with Fernando.”

I screw my eyes shut, trying to process all of this, but it feels like an uphill climb that I’m not cut out for just now.

“You think you can get to your feet?” she asks. “We have to move. It’s only a matter of time before the wolves are finished with the guests. Once they’re in a frenzy like this, they don’t stop killing when their stomachs are full. They only stop once everyone is dead.”

“I can’t leave. I have to go back. Natalia’s still inside.”

“I know, but we’re out of time. If we don’t get down the mountain before Fernando has a chance to rally his men, then we’re all dead.”

Taking a deep, agonizing breath, I push myself up into a sitting position, bracing against the throbbing inside my skull. I’m numb everywhere else. I still can’t believe it. She’s alive. Laura is alive, and Ocho has been helping her. I have so many questions. Too many. If I start asking them now, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop, though. Getting to my feet is seriously f*cking shitty. If I could, I’d lie down in the dirt for the foreseeable future, until everything quits spinning like a merry-go-round, but I can see the worry on Laura’s face and her fear is all too real.

Once I’m upright, Ocho’s grabbing at the sleeve of my suit jacket, trying to hurry me off, deeper into the forest. I jerk myself free, and then I’m taking hold of Laura, pulling her to me, crushing her in my arms. I remember the last time I cried. It was two days after Laura disappeared, when I realized that she wasn’t coming back. When I realized that she was gone, and that someone had clearly taken her.

Now, holding her in my arms, I cry again. “Fuck, Laura. Seven years. Seven f*cking years.” I want to tell her about the countries I visited, the people I’ve killed, the thousands and thousands of miles I’ve traveled while I’ve been looking for her, trying to bring her back home. Instead, all I can do is squeeze her tightly, stroking my hand over the back of her tousled hair.

“I know,” she whispers. She’s crying too, now, allowing her tears to spill; I can hear how choked up she is in her voice. “It feels like half a lifetime.”

I don’t want to let her go. I can’t. Ocho doesn’t appear to be willing to sit through our emotional family reunion, though. He yanks on my sleeve again, making yet another anxious gurgling noise. Laura releases me, sniffing.

“We have to leave now,” she insists.

She’s right. I came to find her, and here she is, found. I shouldn’t risk another moment standing around on the side of this mountain where Fernando could capture us again any second. But when I think about slipping off in the dark and leaving, I know I just can’t do it. I turn to Ocho, steeling myself for what I’m about to say. “Take her. Get her out of here. Look after her. I’ll be right behind you guys, I promise.”

Laura grabs my hand again, her grip almost painful. “Please, Cade. I—” She’s about to beg me not to remain behind, but her eyes settle on mine and something hardens in them. A kind of resolve she never possessed back in Alabama. “No. You’re right. No one should have to stay here against their will. Go and find her, Cade. Find her, and get her out.”





CHAPTER SIXTEEN





REVELATION





I took a shit load of drugs in my youth, but I never took acid. I think this is probably what it feels like to trip balls, as I sneak back onto the estate. Nothing feels, looks, or smells real anymore. I’m trying to focus on the nightmare scene in front of me, but all I can think about is the fact that Laura wasn’t buried in one of those mass graves. She wasn’t buried at all. I have no idea how Ocho managed to convince not only Fernando that she was dead, but Natalia, too. However he did it, it obviously worked. If Fernando suspected for even one second she was alive, he would have turned over every stone, and chopped down every single tree in the forest in order to find her.