Antonio cocked the hammer.
“Don’t,” I said. I had followed him intending to do no more than close the space between us. I hadn’t intended to stop him from killing the second man. “It doesn’t do us any good. And we’re on foreign soil.”
He was going to shoot, or so I thought. Instead he lowered his gun and licked his lower lip. He took a single step back as he put the weapon away. “You’re right.”
My eyes met his with an emotional click. He’d heard me and acted accordingly, as if I’d had the thought for him. Everything in that moment was right.
He took my hand and guided me toward the hostel, which had already cleared out, and through to the street. We ran across. Traffic had stopped, and dozens of people watched the flames.
I slowed. I didn’t see anyone hurt but wanted to check, just to be sure. Antonio yanked me down the block toward our white Toyota. A Cadillac with the size and paint wear of a cruise ship pulled out from behind our car. Antonio ran to it and leaned into the driver’s side window, where a straw-hatted man in his fifties turned the wheel.
“I’ll trade you this car for mine,” Antonio said as sirens got louder in the distance. He pointed the Toyota’s key fob at the nondescript car we’d come in. He pressed a button, and the car squeaked. “Title’s in the glove compartment.”
Smoke rose from the desert behind the hostel, lighting the evening sky orange. A woman cried out behind me, bolting across the street. Two teenagers brought out a man with a bloodied shoulder, and she kneeled in front of him.
Guilt. There it was. I felt it for the innocent people I’d hurt. No more explosions. That guy was in pain because of me, and I didn’t like it one bit.
Caddy Man shifted his hat, looked at Antonio, then past him at me. I smiled coyly, as if this was no more than the act of a crazy-ass boyfriend.
“Transmission’s no good,” the man said in a thick accent. “Bad.” He laid his hands flat and wiped the air with them.
“It’s okay.”
The exchange of titles and keys was made in fifteen seconds, and our bags were removed from the Toyota in another five. Antonio drove away in a beat-up boat of a Cadillac with me in the passenger seat. An ancient fire engine pulled up behind us, and four police cars passed us coming from the other direction, sirens blaring and lights flashing red and blue.
Antonio put real weight on the gas pedal when the police cars passed. He pulled onto a scraggly highway, going in a direction I couldn’t figure out. The car went into fourth gear and stayed there no matter what speed we went, lurching and jerking.
He looked ahead with an intensity that couldn’t be attributed to the dark of night, one hand tight on the top of the steering wheel and the other draped out the window. The highway was mostly empty.
“Antonio?” I said.
No answer. Nothing moved but the small adjustments of the steering wheel.
“Antonio. Are you all right?”
Nothing.
“Antonio!”
He jerked the wheel, swerving to the side of the road in a crunch of sand and rock. The car pitched, flopping gears as the sheer length of the thing kept inertia from throwing us overboard. He slammed it in park and, in the same motion, reached for me. I didn’t like the look in his eye. It looked like murder.
When his hand went around my throat, I liked it less.
“You did what?” He was stuck on some old conversation, as if rewinding a tape and playing it randomly.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, grabbing his wrist with my hands. He was holding me still, not choking me, but it was uncomfortable.
He thrust himself across the seat. Nothing stopped him. No armrest. No brake. Just a leather surface he put his knee on to get leverage. He was livid. Spitting mad. Hair in front of his face, beautiful mouth curved into a snarl.
“You drew fire to yourself?”