Defy (Brothers of Ink and Steel Book 3)(7)
“?Hablas espa?ol?” Do you speak Spanish?
I don’t move. My blood chills. He’s asking me if I speak Spanish. Somehow I don’t think it’s wise to admit I’m fluent. Let them think I don’t understand a word they’re saying. I silently thank my mom for enrolling me in a dual language program when I was in school.
“?Hablas espa?ol?” he repeats.
“No espa?ol, I don’t know what you’re saying!” I cry out and struggle against the shackles. “What am I doing here? What do you want from me?”
He laughs before I hear the sound his boots make against the floor as he walks away.
I’m brought back to a memory of the why . . .
At Tulane University, it’s always Mardi Gras. Students leave as much time in their schedule for evening parties as they do for daytime classes.
I was all dressed up—gold glitter around my eyes, a short halter dress covered in metallic sparkles that looked amazing in the evening light. My best friend and dorm roommate assured me that Thomas Monroe—class president and political science major—would be there. Thomas had been asking me out for weeks, but I was playing hard to get. That night might have been my night to get got.
Because I had so much homework to finish up, I was late getting to Frat Row where all the fraternity parties happen. So I took a stupid shortcut through a few back alleys. It was dark; the moon was nothing but a thin tear in the sky. And I was alone at eleven thirty. It was the kind of thing my mom would come down on me hard for, and I’d be grounded for a month.
Straight-laced, straight-A student. I never do anything this stupid, I reasoned. I’ll be okay this once.
That’s when arguing voices reached me—one in Spanish, the other in English with no hint of an accent. No big deal.
Except for the conversational content.
“Estás muerto, chico blanquito lindo.” You’re dead, pretty white boy.
Pretty white boy started begging for his life.
I pressed the number 5 on my iPhone to speed dial campus security and poked my head around the edge of the alley. Maybe I was overreacting and the situation was really less dire than I imagined. But as my eyes adjusted to the bright headlight beams from an idling car, I saw the Spanish speaking guy standing over the pleading English speaking guy—who I knew as a classmate and fellow Tulane student—with a pistol pressed against his forehead.
As I hitched in breath to scream, a sickening sound deafened all thought, freezing me in place. Blood and bone, milky-white chunks of brain and sticky strands of hair splattered against the brick wall behind them.
My phone plummeted from my hand and bounced hard off the blacktop.
The guy whirled around to face me, aiming the same gun he’d just exploded the other kid’s head with.
“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON OUT THERE!?” a masculine voice shouted, cutting through the last echoes of the gunshot.
“THE FUCK!?” another brayed.
“WHO IS BACK THERE?”
A chorus of voices spilled out into the night as doors and windows opened up all around us and people started heading towards the alley. Festive music followed them with ill-timed irony.
The gunman met my eyes then lifted his finger to his lips to tell me to be quiet.
Bile rolled through my stomach. If I ran, would he kill me? How about all the people coming? How far would he go?
“I’M HERE—I’M BACK HERE!! HELP ME!” I screamed.
The gunman wasn’t happy. There would probably be a lot of dead bodies to clean up. He pointed at me—like he was marking me—before he made his way back to his car and drove off fast.
As people surrounded me and the dead body, that moment’s-ago bile came up from my stomach, and I spewed all over the ground.
The next few weeks were a whirlwind. Hours spilled into days as I was questioned endlessly, reliving the scene again and again for police, lawyers, sketch artists and important government officials. I found out the name of the suspected shooter was Eduardo Miguel after I positively identified his photo.
I was told my testimony—the DA and the DEA hoped—would cinch his going away for good.
While Eduardo Miguel was locked away, they had no real fear for my safety, but still two special agents were parked outside my apartment, assigned to watch over and protect me until after the trial.
But then he disappeared during transport. That’s when the agents made me drop everything I was doing and go with them to a hotel. They wouldn’t even let me call my family or let my professors know I wasn’t coming in to class. All I could think of when they checked me into the room was that my mom and little sister must have thought I was dead.
It was only temporary, they said.
We weren’t there for more than four hours before the taller one went to get us some food from the diner across the street—the heavyset one watched him out the windows with binoculars.
When the agent came back with takeout containers, I downed half my lemonade before I even took the wrapper off my sandwich.
All of a sudden I started feeling lightheaded and queasy. I broke out in a cold sweat and wondered if maybe there had been some type of bacteria in the drink I’d just guzzled.
Next thing I knew, I woke up here . . .
He’s going to kill me. I have no doubt.
I don’t know why it hasn’t happened already, why he didn’t just get it over with and dump my body in some roadside ravine. Good God, I don’t have any information to bargain with.