CHAPTER 23: INTO THE FIRE

Xitllali 

I stood in the middle of the room. My fingers were wrapped so tightly around the heavy black gun that my knuckles ached. The only sound left in the room was the ticking of the old clock on the wall.

I watched the minute hand slowly move. Five minutes. Ten.

The silence was torture. Every time the wind rattled the windows, my heart jumped into my throat. I paced across the wooden floor, my boots making soft, dull thuds against the boards.

I kept looking out the window, but the morning mist was so thick it was like staring into a white wall.

Twenty minutes passed. Then twenty-five.

My mind wouldn't stop racing. I couldn't stop thinking about Guillermo. He was a dangerous man, and I knew he could win a fight, but right now, he was badly hurt. I kept picturing the fresh scars across his chest and the way his face had tightened in pain just from moving his injured shoulder.

He, Valdo, and Mateo were walking blindly into a fight against an unknown number of armed men.

If they died up on that ridge, Severo's men would eventually sweep down the mountain and they would find this cabin. If I stayed here like a good, obedient girl, I wouldn't be safe, I would just be waiting for my enemies to find me.

At the thirty-minute mark, I couldn't take the wait anymore. Sitting in that quiet room, completely blind to what was happening, terrified me more than whatever was waiting outside.

I made up my mind. I walked to the front door, unlocked it, and grabbed a dark green rain jacket from the coat hook, pulling it on over my sweater.

I looked down at the weapon in my hands. I checked the safety with my thumb, feeling the cold, rigid metal, just like Guillermo had taught me years ago in the estate gardens.

Then I pushed the door open and stepped outside.

The freezing mountain air hit me like a physical blow. The cold stung my cheeks and burned my lungs the second I took a breath. The morning mist hung heavy between the pine trees, carrying the sharp smell of wet soil and approaching rain.

I had no idea where I was going or where exactly Guillermo was, but I knew I couldn't stay behind. I went around the back of the safehouse and found a small, overgrown path through the trees that led straight up the mountain. It looked like a shortcut to the upper ridge, but it was narrow, steep, and covered in wet leaves.

The climb was brutal.

Thick mud pulled at the soles of my boots, trying to drag me down with every step. I had to grab exposed tree roots and slick rocks with my free hand just to pull myself up the steep slope.

Every breath felt like swallowing broken glass. White clouds plumed from my mouth in the freezing air. The rain started to fall harder, plastering my hair to my face and turning the ground into a muddy slide.

After what felt like hours, the ground finally started to level out. I was getting close to the dirt road at the top of the ridge.

Then, the agonizing silence broke.

CRACK.

A gunshot rang through the trees. It was so incredibly loud that my ears instantly started ringing.

I dropped to my knees in the wet dirt, my heart hammering against my ribs.

RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT.

Automatic gunfire tore through the quiet morning. I heard the terrifying sound of bullets ripping through bark and wood just fifty yards away. Men were shouting angrily in rapid Spanish.

"They're by the trucks! Pin them down!" a rough, unfamiliar voice shouted.

It wasn't Guillermo. It was one of Severo's men.

I crawled forward on my stomach. I ignored the freezing mud soaking straight through my jeans and jacket, clutching the gun to my chest to keep it out of the dirt.

I pushed through a thick patch of wet ferns until I reached the edge of the tree line. From there, peering through the bushes, I had a clear view of the dirt road.

Two massive black pickup trucks were parked sideways across the road, completely blocking the path. Four men in dark tactical gear were crouched behind the thick tires, firing blindly toward the trees on the opposite side.

I searched the forest desperately. Where is he?

Then, I saw him.

Guillermo was moving through the trees on the far edge of the clearing. He wasn't hiding. He was hunting.

Even injured, he was terrifying to watch. He moved with cold, deadly purpose. He stepped out from behind a large oak tree, raised his weapon, and fired two quick, precise shots. Both bullets hit a man hiding behind the front tire of the nearest truck. 

But then I saw the blood on Guillermo's shoulder. It was soaking completely through his dark shirt. His face was pale and his jaw was locked tight against the agonizing pain.

"Flank him!" someone shouted from the road.

Instantly, Valdo and Mateo opened fire from the opposite side, forcing the remaining men near the trucks to turn and take cover in the other direction. The distraction was working perfectly. Guillermo used the covering fire to move even closer to the trucks.

I let out a shaky breath, a sudden wave of relief hitting me. They were winning.

Then, I saw something move from the corner of my eye.

Down in the muddy drainage ditch, only twenty feet from where I was hiding in the ferns, another man was crawling through the tall, wet grass. He had a long sniper rifle strapped across his back, but he was gripping a handgun. The tall grass hid him completely from Guillermo, Valdo, and Mateo's line of sight.

And he was crawling straight into Guillermo's blind spot.

Guillermo was distracted. He was slamming a fresh magazine into his gun with his uninjured arm, keeping his back pressed against a wide tree trunk. He had no idea the man was slowly rising from the muddy ditch right behind him.

The man raised his handgun and pointed the barrel directly at the center of Guillermo's back.

My blood ran ice cold.

There was no time to scream. No time to warn him. If I made a sound, the man would pull the trigger before Guillermo could ever turn around.

My hands shook violently as I lifted the heavy black gun Guillermo had given me. The metal was freezing and slick with rain, feeling impossibly heavy in my muddy hands.

I pressed my cold thumb against the safety and pushed it down.

Click.

I raised my arms, stared through the wet leaves, and aimed right at the side of the man in the ditch.

Then, my finger tightened around the trigger.