Orphans of Paradise Page 8

  Pascual turned to look at Jax, their eyes meeting for a second through his small parted fingers. Then Pascual drove his foot into Sam’s stomach, the force rolling him onto his back. He reared back and kicked him again, in the ribs, in the shoulder, in the chest. The boy started to cry, his mouth dribbling with blood. Pascual stood there watching him, watching the boy bleed, and then he spotted something strewn across the grass near his feet.

  He picked up the small rotting tree branch and read the weight in his hands. There were flecks of green falling limp near the base and it was plagued with rough knobs and thorns. Pascual lifted it above his head and Jax, choking on his tears, ran for the top of the hill, leaving Sam and the hollow drumming behind him.

  ***

  Jax woke in a tangle in one of the small storage closets Pascual used to watch transactions in the storefronts lining the hideout. He could still hear the drumming riding under his pulse, the only thing that ever followed him out of that dream.

  Jax hadn’t meant to sleep, not for long anyway. But if he did, he’d hoped their footsteps passing over the stairs would have spurred him awake. He listened, trying to calculate the time of day by the sounds sifting in from the restaurant just on the other side of the wall. But it was quiet. He reached for the door, not waiting for his eyes to adjust before stumbling out and up the stairs.

  The first thing Jax saw, the first thing he always saw was the light cutting across the bare floor—every thin tear rippling to the surface. He would trace it like the sharp end of an arrow, the light vanishing across the top of Rani’s shoes or settling against her knees, bent and pulled to her chest. But the light fell in a wide stream, clawing its way completely uninhibited. Voices floated up the stairs and he drew the door closed.

  “Rani?” He tossed out her name but it only sprung back to him—his voice the only thing swirling in the dark. He drew in a breath and called her again. But again it was quiet.

  The toe of his shoe skirted forward on something slick. He stopped, staring up toward the manufactured night strewn above his head, waiting for something moist to land against his skin, for the soft patter of rain to settle in a puddle near his feet. But again the quiet—solid and solitary—and he knelt down, his fingers finding the damp floor. They crawled forward into something warm, something viscid. He stopped.

  “Rani.”

  He felt strands of her hair, moist and matted to the floor, the smell finally reaching his lungs. He bit down hard, cheeks splitting between his teeth as his fingers found the soft edge of her scalp. They traced her hairline, pulling her hair from her face. But she was still.

  He slipped down onto his stomach, his face low to the ground. He could hear each breath coming to a pause against the floor, could feel it trailing out of her nose and settling against his hands. He found her mouth, lips split, blood dried in sharp trails down the side of her face. He felt them part, her lips drawing in air. Something quavering and lucid peered at him through tangled strands of hair. She blinked.

  “Jax?” The word rippled out.

  “I’m here,” he said.

  He slid his hand into the crook of her neck, fingers splayed across her scalp as blood slipped beneath his fingernails. She drew in another sharp breath and he fell still. He heard the soft scrape of her shirtsleeve sliding across the floor and then she was reaching for him, fingers limp against his open hand. His mother’s beads trickled into his open hand, warm against his skin. He held them tight, feeling that familiar shape, and then he strung them around Rani’s wrist, still limp.

  “Can you move?” he said.

  Her pulse thrummed against his own, fervent, fierce. She tried to move her legs, one knee bending slowly, and then the other. She stopped, her chest heaving.

  “I don’t know.”

  Jax’s hands inched toward her face, desperate to maneuver every injury, to evaluate them. How will I move her? Her knee slid past his waist, legs shaking. She tried again, her arm falling into his lap, her neck straining from the floor. She winced, panting breaths hovering on the verge of a sob.

  “It’s ok,” he said, fingers curling around her wrist. “I’m going to get you out of here.”

  “I can’t,” she said.

  “I can,” he said. “I will.”

  Jax stared into the darkness, eyes straining for that thin sliver of light. But it was dark outside, the window as invisible as it had been that first day. There was no way out on the first floor through narrow stairwells, narcs, and plant rooms. That window—thick, and narrow, and hanging from the second floor—that was their only way out.

  He could free the glass—the room downstairs was lined with heavy objects: chairs, tables, scales, wooden crates. But not without anyone hearing him, not without someone following the sound. He’d thought about their escape route, about using the flames as a blockade at the base of the stairs rather than torching the entire hideout. There were business owners, employees, people out with their families having dinner, college students thumbing through vintage LPs in the record store just below them, the constant thrum of the music swallowing every sound before it could reach the street—interrogations of rival narcs and their subsequent torture.

  These people who were a part of Pascual’s machine whether they liked it or not, whether they knew it or not, Jax couldn’t hurt them. He shouldn’t. But as he felt Rani, curled up on the floor, trembling against his knees, her blood thick beneath his fingernails, he suddenly didn’t care.

  Chapter 16

  Jax

  Jax crouched there in one of the narrow passageways, a flask full of gasoline clenched between his fists as he watched the other men from between the slats that formed the makeshift wall. They were bent over packing boxes, weighing the supply, writing it down, their voices low as they talked about some congal where Pascual was selling his mules.

  Jax slid the flask out of his pocket, careful as he twisted off the cap. He sprinkled some on the floor in front of him, taking silent steps backward as he doused the walls. He held tight to the rest, keeping his thumb over the opening as he reached for the matches and then he scraped a handful of them along the neck of the box, tossing the flames onto the gasoline stained floor.

  The lights sputtered to the ground and Jax could feel his hands starting to sweat as he waited for the small space to catch fire. For a split second the flames seemed to vanish and then a giant blue tongue began to lap against the walls, clawing its way toward the ceiling.

  He was so mesmerized by the colors, a stark blue winding into a plum, the ends whipping out in a bright citrus flame, that he didn’t even register the rising heat. It pricked at his skin, the hair along his arms sticking to his hands as he turned toward the stairwell. He heard their voices drawing toward the flames and when he emerged in the main room of the hideout it was empty.

  He lugged a heavy chair to the stairwell before emptying the rest of the flask on the bottom steps, a few drops landing on his shoes. But when he moved to light the matches, they exploded in his hand, the flames licking at his forearms before he tossed them on the ground.

  He ran up the steps before they could collapse beneath the heat and threw open the door to Rani’s cell, dragging the chair in behind him. Light flooded in, the silhouette of the rising flames fluttering and manic along the bare walls. He found Rani on the floor, arms braced behind her as she tried to stand.

  “We have to hurry,” he said, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her to her feet.

  She stumbled, her legs numb as Jax maneuvered her toward the wall. There was a loud crack as the stairway collapsed, sparking embers littering the doorway. Jax hoisted the chair, slamming it against the glass, but it was thick and the wood recoiled with a deep hum. He struck it again, a small crack rippling up from the center. Rani slumped to her knees, hands clutching her waist as Jax drove at the window again and again, tiny fissures splintering across the surface.

  The flames swelled, cutting a halo around the doorframe. Jax stepped toward them, gripping the
chair, and then he took off running, the legs aimed at the glass. They collided, the surface splintering, the dull red glow of a streetlight flooding the empty space. The door gave way, crashing in a blazing heap on the floor as the flames continued their ascent. Jax could feel the smoke grating past his skin and billowing out through the open window.

  He knelt. “Rani I’m going to pick you up. Can you hold onto me somehow?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  He stared at her, trying to maneuver his hands. He slid his left arm under her legs and she winced as he gripped her thigh. Then he placed his right arm around her waist, her shivering guiding him to the uninjured parts of her.

  He moved them both toward the window and then he stared over the ledge, her arms tightening around his neck. She let out another moan as her body settled into place and then, inch by inch, Jax dangled them from the window’s ledge. And then he jumped, landing in a wide stance and almost losing his hold on Rani’s legs. She started to slip and he tightened his grip.

  There was shouting as a few men stumbled out of the building and into the alleyway. One of them was doubled over and coughing into his shirt.

  “We have to hurry,” Jax said.

  “I can do it,” Rani whispered.

  “Are you sure?”

  She nodded, her cheek grazing the stubble along his chin. He lowered her to her feet before leading her to the edge of the building. They reached the fire escape and Rani clutched the railing, watching as Jax lowered himself down. He stood on the bottom step, hands fitted around her waist as he led her toward the ground. She slipped, almost losing her footing, but he caught her, hands grasping the railing on either side as he led her down.

  When they were both on the ground Jax peered around the side of the building to see how far up the block the men still were. He finally found their silhouettes in the dark, highlighted by the blur of their motion. They were running.

  The sirens of a fire truck came whirring around the corner, sending Rani tumbling back onto the curb. An ambulance followed, the two of them caught in the stream of the headlights as they ran to the other side of the street. They heard footsteps and not knowing whether they belonged to Pascual and his men or the EMT, Jax pulled them down an alleyway and through the rod iron gates of a park. Rani sunk behind a cluster of trees. She was shaking.

  In the dull glow of the moon Jax saw her face, the violence of it for the first time. The skin was raised and swollen, every feature knitted by the first breaths of a scar, and Jax couldn’t look away. He watched her face, her pulse drawn to the surface, every inhale splitting her skin. He felt sick. He felt like they were still back in that building, flames climbing his skin.

  Sirens echoed down the street and he reached for her.

  “We can’t stop.”

  She tried to pull herself up, tears carving down her face, cutting into every wound. He leaned over her, offering her his neck, and she latched on. He scooped her up by the waist, less delicate than before and carried her over the top of the next hill. Then the sirens came, the red and blue lights spinning lower this time. There were police cars, two of them, and they climbed up onto the grass.

  They arrowed in on Jax—one in front and one on his right. A man stepped out of one of the cars, his gun resting on the edge of the door, the barrel poised on Jax.

  “Put her down,” the man said.

  Jax didn’t move.

  Franco Medina stepped out from behind the car door and made his way toward Jax.

  “She needs to get to a hospital.”

  He was right but Jax couldn’t bring himself to let her go. Not because he thought he would be arrested but because it would be too easy for Pascual to find her again. He’d done it before, paid off a nurse so he could slip into someone’s room and finish what he’d started. And this time Pascual hadn’t been eluded by just one sister, but two, something his pride would never let him forget, something he would never let either of them get away with.

  “Did you do this…to her?” Medina asked him.

  “No,” Jax exhaled, arms shaking beneath her weight.

  “Then, please, let me help her.” Medina inched forward, hands raised, the gun pointed toward the sky.

  Jax took a step back out of the gleam of the headlights.

  “It’s ok,” Rani whispered to him.

  “No.”

  “I want to go with her.”

  “He’s a man, a cop Rani. You can’t.”

  “Not him.”

  “Who?”

  “My mother.”

  Part II

  Chapter 17

  Veronica

  Argentina

  The waves lapped at Veronica’s waist, its foam shadow warm against her skin as the tide tugged at her. The spray seethed like a song—the push and pull against her chest like a drum, the breeze cutting between her limbs like her mother’s voice against her ear. She waded there, the sand beneath her shifting, the water fashioning a sinking riven around her feet. But there was something else on the wind. Veronica turned to see Isa standing in the tide, a small hand raised over her eyes. She watched her sister, standing on her toes, calling her name.

  When her voice finally broke through Veronica could feel the beach rising beneath her feet and the water tearing from her in folds, the waves receding into the horizon. She stood there, just watching it go, Isa’s fingers tugging on her wrist and then she finally gave in and opened her eyes.

  “You fell asleep,” Isa said, her chin resting on Veronica’s arm.

  Veronica was curled up on the corner of the couch, the blanket twisted around her legs. She found the clock, neon numbers burning atop the nightstand next to the bed they shared. It was almost eight. She waited, listening for the sound of their father’s truck as it came up the road, but it was quiet, save for Isa’s labored breaths through her stuffy nose.

  Their father had been working late for the past couple of months, taking on double shifts at the mine whenever someone called in sick or was fired. He came home beaten and burnt-out, halfway to a deep sleep before he even made it through the front door. But the harder he worked, the more tired he was, and the more tired he was, the easier it was for Veronica to slip out of her window without waking him—something she’d been doing for weeks.

  She and Tomas had also been working double shifts making small domestic deliveries for the cartel. They traversed the city on foot, reading the night’s alleyways and rundown apartment complexes until they could manage them with their eyes closed. It was slow work, quiet work. For the first time in her life Veronica learned what it meant to really listen—to the cars idling in a dark garage, to the low hum of a television set on mute, to the soft click of a gun.

  It took four months to save for their passports even though they’d earned twice that—they still had to pay Dolfo for his services. Rodolfo Gutierrez was an expat who lived out of a carry-on, travelling back and forth to the States always with some new prodigy in tow. He claimed to have discovered Rosa Sepulveda and introduced her to an agent in Mexico City. Now she was on Veronica’s favorite telanovela—well until last week when she was murdered by her sister who also happened to be married to the man she was sleeping with. The locals were practically boycotting in the streets as if some Mexican American actress with a bad accent had really killed her.

  The residents of Monte had always been too proud and they clung to their own with a terrifying fervency that made Veronica feel like a traitor every time she thought about the Empire State Building or looked at her dark skin and hair through narrowed eyes that wished they were blue. She was made for another place and even though that revelation had made her decision clear, it didn’t make it easier.

  There were other mules travelling to the states, other ways to trade for a passport or a pair of tickets. But Veronica knew what that would mean—swallowing three pounds of coke filled tablets, turning into some nameless ghost in a foreign country the moment one of them ruptured. No. She could be patient. She would be.


  When Veronica’s father finally got home from work they ate dinner on the couch, the buzz of the television filling the familiar silence since their mother died. Veronica cleaned the kitchen before putting Isa to bed, tracing her fingers along her back until she fell asleep, her hand lingering against her soft hair line longer than usual.

  She finally got up and dressed for bed, leaving her jeans on underneath her nightclothes before helping her father strip the couch cushions and unfold the thin spring mattress. She watched him, moving slow in the dark, back bent, bones weary. He pulled off his boots and kicked them by the door, the lips landing upright, ready for him to slip back into them in the morning.

  Veronica thought about the amount of seconds it took for her and Tomas to make a drop, how each night they earned more than her father did in an entire week. Money they could use to fix the plumbing, to turn on the heat. Money she could use to leave. But there would be more, she told herself. A mantra she hummed when her fingers grew numb, when Isa grew out of her shoes and needed a new pair. Those were the things that made her want to run—not in search of an escape but of a remedy.

  Her father finally flicked off the light and Veronica watched the shadows swell until she couldn’t see the way her mother’s ghost had carved her absence into his face. She lay under the blankets next to Isa, her father’s dark contours still shifting in the corner of her eye, and then in the still, dark, quiet he spoke.

  “Goodnight Nica,” he breathed.

  “Goodnight,” she answered.

  She rolled over, waiting for him to fall asleep. But then he drew in a breath.

  “I love you,” he said.

  She felt the words warm on her skin, trying to remember the last time she’d heard them. She tasted tears and she wanted to look at him, to say she loved him too, to say anything. But she was afraid.

  He finally stopped waiting, his breathing lapsing into sleep, the hard desperate kind she was hoping for. But as she slipped out of the window, stealing one last glance at her sister’s shadow in the middle of the bed, it was those three syllables that chased her through the night, helping her maneuver the shadows to where Tomas was waiting, and hammering in her veins until she saw him beneath that streetlight, their bags slumped over his shoulder.