“Come out, come out, Mr. Preston. We’d like to have a chat with you,” a male voice says. Mr. Preston. So they know exactly who I am. Fuck. How many of them are there? I can’t see anything from my vantage point, so it’s impossible to assess how bad this situation really is. I’m guessing it’s really fucking bad. The footsteps grow closer, and I smell the faint burn of cigarette smoke on the air. “We just want to talk to you,” the voice says again; it’s thick with a Spanish accent, though the English is next to perfect. I’m guessing whoever this guy is, he was born in the states, but Spanish is his first language. “If you make us come looking for you, we might change our minds,” he says.
I’m hardly likely to hand myself over to them. That would be suicide; I’d put money on it. I stay very still in the brush, holding my breath, trying to calculate if I have time to rip the rifle from its bag and assemble it in time to shoot this motherfucker in the face.
“You’re being very foolish,” the voice advises me. “Mr. Ramirez is a reasonable man. Sitting down and having a conversation with him might actually be beneficial to you and your friends. You surely can see the wisdom in this?”
But I can’t. Ramirez is a psycho with zero morals. If I let this guy take me back to the farmhouse to ‘talk’, I can guarantee there won’t be any talking. There will only be torturing. Torturing and bleeding.
The sound of footsteps draws even closer. Jesus Christ. No, I definitely don’t have time to assemble the rifle. I’m such an idiot. I should never have taken it apart—or at least not until I was well clear of Ramirez’s land. I’m going to have to use my bare hands to get myself out of this. Good job I’ve been trained extensively in how to murder an opponent that way.
“All right. Have it your way,” Ramirez’s man says. “Don’t say I didn’t give you an alternative.”
The brush next to me explodes as a loud cracking sound fills the night air. He must have shot into the ditch by the side of the road, hoping to hit me. Anger bubbles in my veins—that’s such a shitty way to kill someone. Such a cowardly way to take care of business. There’s no honor in blindly shooting into the dark, hoping you hit your mark. You’re supposed to look a man in the eye when you kill him. You’re supposed to be present, so you can face him, own what you’re doing. Take responsibility for it. Take pleasure in it sometimes.
Another gunshot rings out, and a shower of dirt rains down on me. That one was much closer, maybe less than twelve inches from my head. He’s getting warmer and there’s nothing I can do about it. If I start moving now, I’ll be giving my position away. If I don’t, he’s going to have to come down here and find me personally. The fucker had better pray he doesn’t have to do that, ‘cause I’m going to fuck his shit up good and proper if I lay hands on him.
“Sure you don’t want to change your mind, Mr. Preston? Hector will be far more lenient if he knows you chose to come and see him voluntarily. Maybe he’ll leave you most of your fingers.” He’s goading me now, trying to get me to respond so he can figure out my position. I’m not falling for it. My heart rate has leveled out, slowing to a normal rate. I’m in control. I’m not some unseasoned kid who’s gonna start begging and pleading for his life the moment things start to look a little sticky. I can lay here and hold my breath forever. Unless he comes and finds me, he’s going to have to get real lucky with that handgun of his. Even then, he’s going to have to shoot me in the heart or the head, because taking a gunshot wound to any of my extremities, my shoulders, or my stomach isn’t going to kill me, and I’ll still be more than able to kick his ass, no matter how much blood I’m losing.
Silence returns for a long while, drawn out and tense. I have plenty of time to work myself up, allow myself to get angrier and angrier. This stupid fuck has no idea what he’s getting himself into. If he knows my name, then that kind of indicates that he knows me. And if he knows me, he knows that I don’t go down in a fight. For anybody, no matter how big, small, tattooed, or pierced. He could be a professional UFC fighter and it wouldn’t matter. He’d have to knock my head clean off my body in order to stop me from coming for him.
A short burst of gunfire rattles out, and bullets strafe the vegetation to my left, closer toward the car. He’s getting further away now—much further away. Relief is a sweet, sweet thing. Looks like I’m going to get my mini hand-to-hand battle soon, after all. I risk ducking up for a split second, checking to see where the guy’s standing now, but it’s hard to see anything with the night so heavily upon us. Out here there’s no light pollution. The moon’s barely a slip of silver in the sky, a very tiny crescent. I can just about make out the shadowy outline of someone moving around up ahead, but I can’t judge distance. Not like this.