“This is where my father disposes of the people who stand against him. The people who try to sell cocaine in his country. And the women who say no too many times. The women who won’t submit.”
As I’m staring at the grave, my eyes skipping over countless bodies, I try and estimate how many people are here. The skeletons are scattered and in pieces for the most part. I give up trying to see them as whole people and instead move onto counting skulls.
Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen…
Twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight…
Fifty-two, fifty-three, fifty-four…
Oh god. So many. I can only count how many are resting on the top of the pile. Who knows how deep the hole is, how many bodies are stacked underneath. And who knows how many holes Fernando Villalobos filled before he has this one dug and filled. Something tells me this can’t be the only one.
This must be how it felt for the soldiers who rolled into Auschwitz, expecting to be liberating prisoners of war, only to find the dead piled high on either side of the road.
Something occurs to me, then. Something awful and so horrifying that I can’t even comprehend that it might be true. The women who won’t submit.
Laura was as stubborn as they come. Laura wasn’t a woman to submit, no matter how black the situation. I look at Natalia, and she can already see it on my face.
“No. No, she’s not here, Cade. He didn’t put her here. I’d know if he did. He promised me…”
Too late.
It is far too late for me to be reasoned with. The idea’s in my head now, and it won’t go away. That fucker could have thrown my sister’s still-warm body into an open fucking mass grave? Oh no.
Just. Fucking. No.
I take off down the mountain, and I’m not walking anymore. I’m fucking running. I’m charging. I’m on the warpath, rage pumping through my veins, and I won’t be able to get a hold of myself until Fernando Villalobos is lying in a pool of his own blood. I’m going to pull every single last one of his teeth out with a pair of pliers. I’m gonna dump acid on that motherfucker. I’m gonna hurt him so bad, he’s gonna beg for me to just give in and let him fucking die.
There will be no mercy for him. There will be no forgiveness. There will be only pain and suffering, and finally, when I’ve had enough and my body is tired and I physically can’t torture him any more, I’m going to shoot him in the fucking head and put him down like the fucking dog he is.
“Cade! Cade, please wait!” Natalia is behind me somewhere, running after me, but now I’m faster than she is. I’m not careful. I barrel through the forest, barely missing tree trunks, barely ducking under low hanging boughs in time.
“CADE!”
Natalia’s cry echoes around off the high mountainsides around us. A chorus of shrieks split the air apart as dozens of birds take to the sky. I don’t look back. I am single minded in my purpose, and that purpose is to cause Fernando indescribable agony. My journey down the mountain is a hell of a lot faster than it was going up. My legs are singing with pain, though, my knees and ankles throbbing from my headlong sprint downhill.
The sun is going down. Little more than a burned orange crescent remains hovering on the horizon. It will sink soon, disappearing altogether, and then I’ll be running in darkness. Natalia probably had a flashlight in that backpack of hers. She probably had water and all kinds of other supplies, but I don’t need any of them right now. I just need to get back to the estate. I just need to—
A low, eerie howl deadens the sound of the forest. One minute everything is alive, bugs chittering, birds zipping between the trees, crickets chirruping, and then it’s as if the forest sucks in a deep breath and holds onto it, refusing to let it go. Another howl, long and plaintive. It’s damned close. I stop dead, waiting, listening. Sound travels so well in the mountains. So well. It could be that the wolves are actually miles away, and their song is simply being carried on the wind, but…
Again, it comes. And this time, a cacophony of sound follows after—yipping and chattering that wouldn’t be audible if the animals weren’t very close by. Goddamn it. Fernando said it himself. These animals are brazen. They’ve taken people from outside the fucking house before, which means they won’t have a problem taking a single person out in the forest by themselves. I’m not worried about me. I have my balisong. Plus, I’ve fought off crazed drug dealers and psychotic Columbian women in the past. Plus the odd Taliban extremist here and there. I can handle a bunch of wolves. Natalia, on the other hand? Does she even have a weapon with her?
Fuck.
My brain changes gear with all the finesse and power of an F16 fighter jet. I turn and run back the way I came, my muscles screaming, my lungs burning, my heart on fire.
“NATALIA!”