“Nancie. Mommy ish home.”
Krista touched his lips. A stab of fear arced through her every time he mentioned his aunt.
“Shh, baby. Don’t talk about Nancie.”
His eyes rolled again, widened, then closed.
Jack was stretched out along the wall in their spot beneath their window. The guards had brought Jack back to the room, and placed him by the piss bucket. They had given her ice wrapped in a towel for his head. That was the extent of their aid. Kwan dragged him to their rightful spot under the window. The ice had melted, so she folded the damp towel, and placed it under Jack’s head as a cushion.
Kwan sat nearby. No one else in the room had approached. As if they feared the guards would give them the same.
“Talks more. Good.”
Jack was mostly unconscious yesterday after the beating, and Krista thought he would die. His skin grew pale and clammy, and he would tremble violently between periods of calm. He began mumbling earlier that morning. Krista thought this was a good sign, but didn’t know. Jack was hurt badly. She hoped it was only a concussion, but her head swirled with thoughts of cranial hemorrhages, brain damage, and flat-lined monitors.
Kwan said, “How you?”
When she glanced up, he pointed to her shoulder. They had called her mother yesterday. Medina held her while Rojas placed the call. When her mother was on the line, Medina bit her shoulder to make her scream. He bit hard, and grinded against her.
She answered quickly, and pushed the memory away.
“I’m fine. It’s nothing.”
Kwan grunted, as if he approved of her bravery.
“I kill.”
She glanced at him, and Kwan smiled, but it was dark and shadowed.
“Soon.”
He settled against the wall and closed his eyes, but the smile remained.
Two more Koreans had been released in the hours following Jack’s beating. Rojas made the same speech, claiming they were released to their loving and generous families, but Kwan had once again smirked.
“No pay.”
Krista said, “You think they were killed?”
“No pay, you die.”
“You’re still alive. Who’s paying for you?”
Kwan had only smiled, and said nothing more.
Twenty minutes later, Rojas and Medina had forced her to speak to her mother, and Medina had made her scream.
She touched Jack’s head now, and concentrated on him to distract herself from the memory. She focused on Jack. It was all about keeping Jack alive until they were saved.
She was totally focused on what she might do to help him when the door opened, and Medina, Rojas, and Miguel strode in. She thought Medina was coming for her again, but the three men began kicking the people who were lying in the middle of the room, driving them to the sides. The tall man with the ponytail waited in the door until the floor was clear, then came directly to Krista. She was sure they had come to take Jack away, and shoved to her feet.
“Don’t hurt him! He needs a doctor!”
The tall man pushed her aside, and squatted by Jack. He examined one eye, then the other, and felt Jack’s forehead. Then he stood, and turned to Krista. He spoke excellent Spanish.
“He is strong. How long until his mother returns?”
Krista steadied herself. She was so scared she wanted to throw up, but her panic eased. If the man was asking questions, he could still be convinced.
“He tell me a week, but I am not sure. He does not speak good Spanish, and I do not have the English.”
“You are from Sonora?”
“Si. Hermosillo.”
“How do you know he has money?”
“My mama, she tell me. She worked in their home.”
“She says they are rich?”
Krista tried to answer the way a village girl would answer.
“They have many houses and cars. His mother, she takes trips to wonderful places. The boy, he does not work. None of them work. This is why she ask him to bring me to her.”
Krista did her best to look shy, and a little embarrassed.
“She hopes he will like me.”
The tall man made a tiny smile, and Krista felt a rush of power.
“What kind of cars? Mercedes? Porsches? Bentleys?”
She stared as if he spoke a foreign language, and shook her head.
“I do not know what these are.”
He smiled again, but this time at how stupid she was. This encouraged her even more.
“But she says they are rich.”
Krista knew he was buying her lies because he wanted to believe, so she had to give him something believable without sounding outlandish.
“She told me his father was killed in an accident. They got much money from the insurance. So much they are now rich.”
The tall man grunted as if this made perfect sense, then glanced at Jack, and grunted again.
“He is strong. He will live.”
“He needs a doctor.”
The tall man smiled, but now it was cruel.
“You are his doctor. Save him, and perhaps you can marry his money. I will give you more ice.”
The tall man turned, and Krista watched him go. When the door closed, she sat beside Jack, and touched his head. He was alive. They had survived another day. People were searching.
She leaned against the wall, and considered the tall man’s greed.
She thought, I am smarter than you. I will beat you.
Then Kwan murmured something she did not understand.
“I didn’t hear you.”
He stared at her.
“They die soon. They die very soon.”
“How do you know?”
“My people will come.”
Krista touched Jack’s head, and tried to hold on to her hope.
“Mine will come, too. They are on their way now.”
Jack Berman moaned, and shivered from a cold no one else felt.
Elvis Cole: taken
35
Wander Lawrence Gomez told me we were about to stop, but to leave on the pillowcase. We slowed, turned, crunched over gravel, then braked again.
A door rattled as it lifted, the van eased forward, and the door rattled again. Wander pulled away the pillowcase as the van’s front passenger door and side door opened. A black man was pointing a shotgun at me. A Latin guy in the passenger seat had a pistol locked out in a two-hand combat grip.
I blinked at the black man.
