“I’ll be dead so it won’t matter,” I say, smiling.
“I’ll shoot myself in the head and find you on the other side, just so I can kill you all over again, Sophia. Don’t even fucking joke about it, okay?” There’s worry in his eyes. I don’t like that. It’s dangerous. If he’s worrying about me, then he’s not focusing on what he has to do in order to get us through this. I want to say something about it, but in the end I don’t need to. Jamie steps back, head down, checking his own weapon, and when he looks back up at me, his eyes are cold, flinty, cool as ice. He’s done being Jamie. Rebel stands before me in all his savage glory, and I know without a doubt his head is back in the game.
“Okay,” he says, his eyes passing over me like he doesn’t really see me. “Let’s do this. Let’s ride.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
SOPHIA
My father sat me down once when I was little and spoke to me about violence. Of course, him being an ex-preacher and a man of God, he quoted passages from the bible.
‘‘The Lord tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence.’
‘For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.’
‘Do not envy a man of violence and do not choose any of his ways.’
‘You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.’
He taught me to be forgiving and just. He taught me to be kind and to allow mercy into my heart. He told me that to pardon those who trespassed against me, just as it says in the Lord’s Prayer, was one of the most righteous, Christian things I could ever do in this lifetime. I’m thinking about this as we stalk silently through the back fields toward Ramirez’s farmhouse, and I’m wondering what my father would say now if he was asked about vengeance. Would he still stay the hand of justice, choosing to absolve Ramirez for the things he may have done to him, or will he have had a change of heart? Maybe he’d like to pull the trigger himself when Ramirez’s head is blown off. Maybe he’d like to be the one holding the dagger that plunges into the cartel leader’s throat. I don’t know. I just can’t picture it.
“Five men upstairs,” Cade whispers. “Three downstairs that I can see.”
“Two to the rear of the house, too,” Rebel whispers back. “There has to be more. No way there are only ten people guarding this place. Carnie, skirt around to the front. Come back with a head count. See if Julio’s Humvee is parked up there yet, too.” It should be. Julio left a clear thirty minutes before we did, and we’ve had a tricky approach to the farmhouse, too, traversing at least a mile’s worth of uneven terrain in the dark to sneak up on the cartel from the rear. Carnie nods and then takes off into the inky darkness without saying a word. If he’s pissed about Shay not coming along on this run, he hasn’t said anything about it. He’s dressed in black, the same as the rest of us. The only flash of color I can see as he disappears from sight is the small patch of skin on the back of his neck. After a second that vanishes, too, and Carnie is gone. The four of us that remain crouch low to the ground, chins tucked into our chests, weapons primed and loaded in our hands. I feel like a fraud, holding onto the Glock like I know exactly what the hell I’m doing with it, when in actual fact I’ve only fired a weapon like it a couple of times.
I’ll make it work, though. I know enough to remove the safety, aim and fire the thing, and that’s really all I need to know right now.
Carnie doesn’t come back for a while, and Cade begins to get twitchy. He bounces up and down on the balls of his feet, pulling a face, probably in pain from the circulation cutting off to his lower body as we crouch. Rebel watches him, his right index finger moving slowly up and down as he caresses the slide of his gun. “What d’you think?” Rebel asks. “Too many of them?”
Cade exhales, studying the farmhouse. He shrugs one shoulder, pursing his lips. “Fucked if I know, man. You’re the one with the gut feelings about these things.”
Rebel looks back to the building, frowning at it slightly. “I don’t know this time. There are too many variables.” Carnie returns like a ghost, barely visible, parting the tall, wavering stalks of grass as he hurries back to the group. I’m praying for good news, but I can tell right away that he hasn’t seen anything to make him feel confident about this plan. In fact, he seems kind of spooked.