Luckily, Javier was just as skilled at maneuvering the zodiac as he was at killing people. We crashed onto the shore only getting mildly wet and soon the men had jumped out of the boat and were quickly hauling it further inland.

Javier came over to help me but I climbed out of the boat before he had a chance to touch me again. For someone who said he’d never touch me, he’d been doing a lot more of it lately. Once all of our gear was on the beach, my duffel bag plus a few leather satchels for the rest, Javier nodded at Oscar to return to the vessel.

“I’ll be in touch,” he told him. “You keep her out there, she’ll be good even in the biggest storm. If I call you and tell you to leave, you do it. Take her to the resort near Campeche, to the marina. I have a space reserved there just in case. Wait there until I get in touch with you. That ship, she is your biggest priority.”

Oscar nodded eagerly, happy to have this responsibility on his hands. I wondered how trustworthy he was then thought trust would never be an issue with Javier in charge. The consequences would always be too vile.

The four of us stood on the beach, our ankles soaked from the sea, and watched as Oscar fought the zodiac back through the waves. There were a few times when it looked like it was going to flip over but he managed to power through and soon he was tendered to Beatriz, the ship gleaming in the distance.

We all looked at each other, and for the first time since landing, I felt the real gravity of land beneath my feet. The way it held me there. What it meant to be ashore.

Javier read my face and waved his arm. “Come on, we have to get moving.”

He turned and headed off toward a stream that snaked out of the jungle, a tributary that almost made it to the sea. We walked along the sand, my eyes drawn to the campers down the beach. They looked like a Mexican family, lighting a campfire, kids running around. I wonder what they thought of the yacht perched off shore, of our arrival, or if they thought anything about it at all.

Once we were in the forest, the temperature spiked. We were all sweating in seconds as the overhanging trees and dense vegetation seemed to hold the heat in. We came across a narrow dirt path and took that for a few minutes, all of us silent, thinking and wary.

The smell of horse shit assaulted my nose, as did a beam of sun that suddenly broke through the trees and illuminated the spot in front of us. There was a clearing with a small paddock and a shanty. Six bony looking horses stood there listlessly swatting flies with their tails.

“Hola?” Javier called out. We waited, hearing a commotion in the shanty and the door flew open. An old Mexican man with long grey hair half tucked up under a baseball cap came out, a book in his hands. He looked as bony as the horses in his care.

Javier spoke rapid fire Spanish to him, too fast for me to pick up. From what I gathered this was to be our transportation for a while. I eyed the horses nervously. I personally loved horses and had always been comfortable on one, but heading through the Mexican jungle in who the fuck knows where with a cartel was something different.

Finally the man nodded and clapped his hands together enthusiastically before heading back to his shanty.

Javier jerked a thumb in his direction. “That’s Burt Reynolds.”

“Burt Reynolds?”

He shrugged gracefully. “That’s what he calls himself. Doesn’t speak English, so don’t bother trying. He’s taking us to Montepio. Only way in or out of here is by horseback.”

“Or boat,” I mused and watched as Burt Reynolds came back out of the shanty with a bunch of bridles and packs. He moved spritely for an old, withered-looking man and in no time the horses were ready. He gestured for us to come over and started yammering in Spanish to me about a small buckskin mare.

“Her name is Churro,” Javier leaned in to me. “Try not to eat her.”

I grimaced at his bad joke and introduced myself to the horse by letting her smell my hand. She was entirely disinterested.

There was no saddle, just straps and packs wrapped around the withers and chest, where my duffel bag was now secured.

“If I’d known I’d be getting on a horse today, I would have worn jeans,” I said under my breath.

Burt Reynolds came over to me, giving me the signal for a leg up, complete with a toothy grin. I shook my head, having no interest in giving the man a peep show, no matter how badly he looked like he needed it.

Suddenly Javier’s hands were around my waist, his long fingers nearly meeting in the middle. “Here, I’ll help you.” Before I could protest he was lifting me up somehow, my legs akimbo. I pulled up the hem of my dress just in time, grateful that it was wide and flowing and stretched across the back of the horse.

Burt was on the other side of the horse, trying to help me settle in and he started squawking about something. The word “tattoo.” Javier’s head looked up sharply, his eyes flaring, mine going straight to the leg on Burt’s side. The skirt was hiked up to my knee exposing my cherry blossoms, so bright and daring in the tropical sunlight.

Javier zipped over and looked at my leg. It seemed that Burt was quite pleased with the tattoo, but Javier wasn’t.

He ran his finger down one of my scars, following a twisting stem. “What is this?”

“A tattoo, obviously. Even Burt knew what it was.” I wish I could say I felt some kind of relief in Javier finally seeing it but I didn’t. I felt nervous and I didn’t know why.

“When did you do this? It’s still raised!” His voice was hoarse. He kept looking at the tattoo, feeling it.

“When I was in Vegas. Camden did it,” I told him. My eyes shot to Burt to see what he was making of all of this. He was watching the both of us, smile locked, until he met my eyes. Then he went off to busy himself with Raul and Peter who were bringing their horses over to the fence post in order to mount them.

Javier didn’t seem to be able to take in that information. He looked confused, lost, off-guard. This was so rare to see and yet I felt no pride in making him that way. I just wanted to forget about it.

“Why did you do this?” he asked, swallowing hard. “Your leg was fine before.”

“It wasn’t,” I said, feeling irritated now. “And now I’m proud of it.”

“This is the first I’ve seen it. Why aren’t you wearing shorts now, instead of jeans when it’s a hundred degrees outside?”

I hated that question – I’d dealt with it my whole life. I gathered the reins in my hands and lightly clucked to Churro, Javier being pushed out of the way by the horse’s shoulder. “I think we have more important things to discuss than a damn tattoo.”

Javier reached up and grabbed the reins, yanking the horse’s head back.

Burt Reynolds cried out, admonishing him but Javier didn’t care. He glared at me until I could feel the heat, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the leather.

“You let that boy mark you?” he sneered.

Oh, of course this was a jealousy thing.

“Yeah,” I said deliberately, leaning forward on the horse’s neck, “I did. I felt like I needed more. One tattoo just wasn’t doing it for me.”

I hoped that made him angry. Really angry. In a sick way I wanted him to hit me. Just so I could forever throw it in his face and make him feel like less of a man. Another part of me was afraid that it might actually happen. Because the way he was looking at me was like a snake about to strike, a face that was both ice and fire, someone that wanted blood and vengeance and to prove just how fucking powerful he was.

We were locked like that in a showdown of pin-prick pupils and venomous hearts until Raul got our attention.

“I hate to break up … whatever this is, but we have to make it to Montepio by noon, is that right?”

Finally Javier broke the staring contest, letting go of the reins with a sharp inhale. “Yes, thank you. We do. Let’s get a move on.”

He mounted his horse with ease, springing up like a gymnast and Burt led us out of the corral. I straightened up off the horse’s neck, feeling dazed, like I had been caught in some dream and looked down at my fingers, only now noticing that I had them balled up into fists. I opened my palm and saw blood where my own nails had dug in.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CAMDEN

“So, Camden,” Gus said, his hands squeezing the wheel like a stress ball. “When did Ellie first break your heart?”

We were right outside of San Antonio and heading toward the border crossing at Nuevo Laredo. Apparently the border there was pretty lax and Gus didn’t expect us to get questioned much, if at all. The Mexicans didn’t really care who came into the country, even though the border line-up on the other side promised to be a nightmare.

We couldn’t take chances, though. I was all poised to cross over as Connor Malloy, a regular Joe and not at all a wanted fugitive.

“What makes you think she broke my heart?” I asked, looking at the flat, dry scenery skirt past us. Ranches, ranches, ranches.

I saw him shrug out of the corner of my eye. “Only a hunch. Not many men turn into the tattoo artist version of Lawrence Olivier in Marathon Man. Just swap torture with a dentist drill for a tattoo needle.”

“I’ve seen the movie,” I muttered. I looked down at his watch on my wrist, feeling heavy and foreign. It was four in the afternoon and we’d been driving non-stop since we left Ocean Springs. We were lucky enough to get out of Javier’s house without anyone seeing us, taking the beach around to the car, but we didn’t want to push our luck anymore. The Mexican border seemed extremely inviting for both of us, now that Gus had killed two people.

I shook my head, trying to make sense out of what happened and as before, no sense came. I completely lost every sense of right and wrong and good and bad. I became this black, suffocating thing, everything I feared in others. I became Javier. I became my father.

That wasn’t me. I didn’t want to see that person again. He was getting locked in my head along with everything else I didn’t want to think about.

Or maybe that person was what happened when all the things I hid deep inside finally came out to play.

“Don’t want to talk about it,” Gus pondered. “I understand.”

It was true, I didn’t want to talk about it. But Gus talking and asking me shit was the first time in days he’d shown any interest in me at all. He was treating me with a bit more respect now. Maybe he was impressed. Or scared that I’d tattoo his balls in his sleep.

I sighed and sat back in my seat, hands in my lap, fidgeting. “I fell in love with Ellie in high school.”

“Sweethearts, huh?”

I smirked. “No. Just friends. And only for a short while. We were the resident freaks of the school. Ellie with her limp and scars. Me and my penchant for wearing makeup and a lot of vinyl.”

“Makeup?”

The way Gus said it, I knew what he was thinking.

“Don’t worry,” I explained. “I’m not gay. At least, that’s what everyone jumps to as a conclusion. Even my father. I was a goth, an artist. The Art Fag, as they called me. Whatever, I had a lot of names. And I was beat on often as you can imagine. Ellie was my only friend.”