I paused by the door, watching Javier exhale a cloud of smoke.
He looked at me once, just briefly, and though I couldn’t see clearly through the haze, I picked up on the pain in his eyes. Camden was right. I was mess.
“I’m sorry,” I said, wiping my hands anxiously on my jeans. “About Violetta.”
He stared at me and it was almost as if I could see whatever sick ties he once had to me were snapping one by one. The freedom was exhilarating. The uncertainty was terrifying.
“Get in,” he said, his voice rough as sandpaper.
I nodded, taking what I could get, and got in the car after Camden.
We drove through the night and after we passed through the border into Guatemala, our passports all checked and cleared, I fell asleep. I didn’t wake up until the dawn was breaking and the Escalade was pulling into the city.
We came to a stop outside of a small white house with a terracotta tiled roof and waited for a few moments.
“Any way we can stretch our legs, maybe get a coffee?” Camden asked.
Este was in the driver’s seat now with Dom snoring beside me, completely out. He eyed Camden in the mirror. “In a bit. We don’t want to stay a second longer in this city than we have to.”
Camden nodded with a sigh and sat back in his seat. Javier unbuckled his seat belt and stepped out of the car, walking up to the front door of the house. Before he had a chance to knock he was met with an extremely buff man in a wife-beater with a shaved head and ripped camo pants. He was white, with piercing blue eyes I could see all the way from where I was.
“Who is that?” I asked.
“His name is Derek,” Este said. “He’s American.”
“I can see that.”
“He was in the Afhganistan war. Married a Mexican woman. She died on the streets, caught in the gunfire of two cartels. He decided to stay behind and clean shit up.”
“I see,” I said slowly.
“He’s good at getting in and getting out,” Este went on. “He’s fearless and ruthless. Souless.”
“Like Javier,” I found myself saying. My eyes darted to Este, catching my mistake but he only smiled.
“He’s got training that none of us have. And as long as you pay him well, he’s loyal to the bone. If anyone can get your people back, it’s Derek.”
Derek and Javier came over to the back of the Escalade, Derek with only a small backpack. Javier opened the trunk and Derek quickly slid inside.
I smiled at him but he didn’t smile back. Instead, he nodded curtly and then lay down, still as death, staring up at the ceiling.
I exchanged a nervous look with Camden. Our little team was growing bigger, each new person adding an uncertainty that wasn’t there before. But worrying wouldn’t do me any good. This was out of my hands. If I wanted to get Gus and my mother back, we had to go through with it. I laid myself bare last night – no use being guarded now.
We drove for a bit until the city was far behind us along with its overgrown trees and layer of smog. Este finally stopped at a small diner where we all got coffees and churros to go. It was stinking hot out, waves of heat rising from the road, the sun bearing down relentlessly.
“We’re closer to the equator now,” Este had said, watching as I wiped the sweat off my brow as we stood around the car, waiting for Dom to get out of the restroom. “It will be cooler in the jungle.”
“So how is this going to work exactly?” Camden asked, shoving the last remaining bit of the churro in his mouth.
Este looked to Javier who was on his cell phone, talking to someone in Spanish. Javier ignored him and turned around, slowly walking to the other side of the car. Este shrugged at Camden. “Well I have the coordinates on my iPad, picking up from Satellite feed, it will take us straight there.”
“iPad?” Camden asked, almost laughing.
Este gave him a look. “Why mess with a good thing? You’d be amazed at the apps that the cartels have floating among them. You can’t buy them on iTunes but they can save your life. And your money. I’ve made a few myself. The one we’ll be using, we can almost watch our own selves going through the forest in real time.”
Este went on about the mission, how the six of us would go in until a certain point and then split up. There were the people who would need to go in silently, and the ones who would go in blazing. They weren’t quite decided yet on who would go where. I guess that remained to be seen.
While he chatted to Camden some more, Derek listening and staying silent, I decided to go and look for Javier.
He had just hung up the phone and put it in his pocket, facing away from me. I walked over to him, carefully, like he could attack at any minute. He seemed wounded and like any animal, ready to defend himself against predators. In this case, the predator was me.