I push it open barely a crack. The mirror over the sink just outside the door is in view. All that’s left of it now are three large uneven shards of broken glass barely hanging onto the wall.

I can see the American’s back through the reflection.

“I should tell you,” he says. “There will be a new deal now.”

“You’re not the one to be making deals,” Izel spits out the words.

“I believe that I am,” he replies. “First, you will tell me what Javier’s plans were in bringing me to the compound.”

“I’ll tell you shit!”

A muffled shot makes a quick fuddup sound and then Izel screams out in pain. “You f**king shot me!”

The American moves over and out of sight of the mirror, leaving me to glimpse Izel sitting on the chair next to the wall. Her face glistens with sweat and blood drains from the gunshot wound on her thigh, her hands pressed over it trying to stop the flow. Her bronzed face is contorted in agony and anger. She spits at the floor defiantly.

“Merely a flesh wound,” the American says.

I push myself farther against the door. A pair of hands lay open near Izel’s feet: one of the men the American just killed. I swallow hard and try to calm my breathing. The door moves as my hip brushes against it and I suck in sharply that breath I just took. Izel’s head darts sideways as she faces the mirror. She knows I’m hiding in here. I try to step away from the door and move back into the darkness of the restroom, but she sees me. A grin spreads across her face.

“Come out, Sarai,” she says harmoniously. “Javier misses you.”

I don’t move. Maybe if I remain still, what she sees in the reflection of the mirror she’ll start to believe is just the light playing tricks on her eyes.

She turns her gaze away from me as if the American has done something to regain her attention.

“Javier wants Guzmán dead,” Izel says. “He wouldn’t have hired you and let you leave with that money if he didn’t.” She sneers and shakes her head at the American and adds, “You’re a fool.”

I hear the bed creak as if he just sat on the end of it, facing her. While she’s distracted, I position myself farther back from the edge of the door, but in a way that I can get a better view of the room through the reflection in the mirror. I glimpse another body lying haphazardly against the wall on the other side of her.

“And if I kill Guzmán,” the American says, “I will have no trouble getting the other half of my money.” It was a statement, but at the same time, a question.

Izel grins. “Of course.” She tilts her head to one side. “She’s gotten to you already.”

No answer. I know Izel is referring to me.

“The girl wasn’t bought or sold, just so you know,” she adds.

“I didn’t ask.”

“You didn’t need to.”

Izel looks toward the mirror again, without moving her head.

“Going to be the hero?” she says this with sarcasm lacing her voice.

“Hardly,” the American says. “I’m going to use her as leverage.”

I swallow hard.

Should’ve kept my mouth shut….

“That won’t sit well with Javier. She wasn’t part of the deal. You keep the girl and Javier will not be happy.” A strand of black hair falls away from her face. She reaches up as if to move the rest of her hair away, but her hand stops halfway and she places it back down beside her. Anger helps to hide the fear in her face somewhat. She knows that he’ll blow her brains out the back of her head.

“The girl stays with me until I kill Guzmán and then we will make the trade: her for the rest of my money.”

“And what if Javier doesn’t give a shit?”

“You wouldn’t be here now if he didn’t.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Izel rounds her chin defiantly, the skin around her dark eyes peppered with tiny flecks of blood-splatter.

“You’re making a mistake,” she spats, defeat in her voice. “If you want a girl, Javier will give you one. Just not that one. You’ll only make him your enemy by doing this.”

I know that worry in her voice all too well. When Javier is unhappy, he tends to blame it on Izel. If she doesn’t return to the compound with me, he’ll beat her senseless. As much as I hate her for the things she’s done to me, I can’t help but pity her sometimes, too.

“Your offer offends my intelligence,” the American says. “She is the one I want because she is the one he treasures the most. If Javier has no ill intentions then he should have nothing to worry about.” Izel glances toward the bathroom door quickly while he speaks. “I keep the girl until I kill Guzmán. Javier pays me the remainder of my money. I give the girl back. We all leave with what we want.”

I want to dash out of the bathroom and try for one of the cars outside, but I know I won’t make it. My palms are sweating and stinging. I cut my left hand somewhere at some point. I can’t remember when it happened.

Izel curses him in Spanish and presses the palms of her hands on the seat beneath her and begins to rise into a stand.

The American very casually raises his gun and she freezes, anger and resistance in her face.

“Fold your hands together behind the chair,” the American says.

“Go f**k yourself.”

Thwap! Izel’s body jerks sideways, almost knocking the chair over with her in it. “Motherfucker!” she cries out, holding her hand over a fresh bullet wound on the opposite thigh to match the other one.

The American never moves, his expression and posture always casual and controlled.

“Fold your hands together behind the chair,” he says once more with the exact amount of calm as before.

This time, Izel is compliant. Reluctant and defiant as always, but compliant.

“Come out of the bathroom,” I hear the American say.

I don’t want to. I quietly push my back against the wall, thrusting my bound hands over my chest and lock my fingers together nervously in front of me. I sniffle back the tears, the taste of salt draining down the back of my throat. What should I do? If I just stand here like this it’ll only prolong the inevitable. There’s no way out of this bathroom except through that door.

Finally, I do as he says.

Trying to push the door open the rest of the way, I have to shoulder it hard because of the body lying on the floor on the other side. I try not to look when I step around the man’s left arm, contorted unnaturally behind him, but I glimpse enough that it makes my stomach churn. Especially when I see his eyes. It’s always the eyes, lifeless and empty and glazed over, that makes me sick to my stomach. I take a deep breath and step over him. Izel smiles across at me, not as affected by two gunshot wounds as I imagine anyone else might be. Her breathing is labored and she strains to keep her composure for the sake of taunting me.

“Come here,” the American says and I do.

He pulls the knife from his pocket again and his eyes avert to my wrists briefly. Assuming—and hoping—it’s what he wants, I hold my shaking hands out to him. He slides the blade behind the fabric and cuts me loose.

“Did you tell him that you’re a whore?” Izel asks.

I swallow what saliva is left in my mouth. I’m no whore, but she has always had a way with somehow making me feel ashamed by her accusations. I pretend to be more fixated on my wrists, now that they are no longer tied together.

Izel turns to the American, her hands still folded loosely behind her back. She says with a spiteful smile, “If you’re feeling sorry for her, don’t. That little puta is treated better than anyone, even better than me and I am his sister. Javier has her anytime he wants her. And he doesn’t have to take it.”

I feel my fingers digging into my palms down at my sides now, but shame eclipses my anger. What she says is only halfway true, but right now isn’t the time to defend myself. Nothing that I say will matter. Not to the American and certainly not to her. I only care what the American thinks because I need him to help me. If he thinks of me as a whore, he’ll surely be less inclined later on. If I can ever convince him to help, that is, which is doubtful.

Showing absolutely no interest in Izel’s obvious attempt to mar my character, the American points to his bag on the table by the window and says to me, “Left zipper, inside pocket you’ll find a rope.”

I walk across the room carefully, my heart pounding violently against my ribs when I go between the two, the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stand on end as I pass them. I halfway expected Izel to use the opportunity to reach out and grab me, but am relieved when she doesn’t dare move. Making my way through more bodies and debris scattered about the small area, this time I’m too afraid of the two still alive in the room to let myself notice the dead eyes staring up at me from the floor. I smell the blood. At least, I’m pretty sure that faint metallic stench is blood. There’s so much of it all around me. The curtain on the broken window blows inward as a small gust of warm wind pushes through. I reach inside the American’s black bag and shuffle around looking for the rope. I’m too nervous to look inside the bag. There’s no telling what he carries in this thing.

With the wad of rope in my hand, I briefly wonder why he didn’t use this tougher stuff on me instead of strips of fabric from the bed sheet. I turn around and look only at the American waiting for whatever he might tell me to do next, trying to make as little eye contact with Izel as possible. It never takes her much to intimidate me.

The American nods toward Izel.

“Tie her hands behind the chair at her wrists,” he instructs.

My heart leaps. Still trying my best to keep from looking at her, the attempt is thrown out the window with his words and look at her is exactly what I do. She’ll surely grab me if I’m standing that close.

The conflict in my eyes tells the American everything that the words I can’t get out, can’t.

He moves the gun in his hand subtly at Izel, his wrist still propped on his leg. “She will not touch you,” he says, looking only at me. “If she so much as flinches in a manner that I feel is threatening, I’ll kill her and she knows it.”

From the corner of my eye, I see Izel’s nostrils flare and her mouth twist in anger.

The American nods toward her again to indicate that I should proceed.

Fumbling the rope in my fingers, I step over the bodies again and slowly make my way toward Izel, finding it impossible not to look at her the closer I get. Her smile spreads. My hands are shaking so conspicuously she takes notice; her brown eyes skirt them briefly without moving her head.

“You really did it this time,” she taunts. “How did you get out of the fence? Did Lydia help you?”

I’m almost behind her when she says Lydia’s name and I stop dead in my tracks. Izel notices my reaction exactly for what it is: worry. And she runs with it.

An even more sadistic grin tugs the corners of her lips. “Ah, I see,” she says. “So she did help you.” She clicks her tongue. “Unfortunate for poor Lydia, she will be punished. But you already knew that, didn’t you, Sarai?”