“Park it and get out,” I told her.
“I’m in my underwear.”
“And your nose is broken. Does it look like I give a fuck?” In my tired, delirious, adrenaline-ravaged state, I had no patience and no time to care. I wanted Camden back. He was the only thing on my mind, the only thing that put one foot in front of the other, the only thing that gave me strength to pull the trigger if I had to. “Now get out.”
She opened the door and looked at the hard earth of caked sand and rocks. “I don’t have shoes,” she said pitifully. She eyed a beach bag I had in the backseat that had a towel and flip flops spilling out of it. “Can I wear your flip flops? Otherwise it’ll hurt too much to walk.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake!” I leaned in the back to grab the bag.
Big mistake.
Stupid, foolish, Ellie.
Sophia slammed her arm into my head and I dropped the gun in the backseat. I cried out and quickly grabbed the gun, twisting back in my seat to see her running off into the distance, a small cloud of dust trailing her. Hurts too much to walk, my ass.
I jumped out of the car, my gun trained on her as she went. But I couldn’t just shoot her. I needed her. I quickly started booking it after her as fast as I could go. I pressed down on my shot leg, grunting through the pain until I didn’t feel anything anymore. I would get her. I would do anything.
Because she was barefoot and the terrain was anything but friendly, she was running slow enough that I was gaining on her. What a sight we would have been for any spectator to see; a girl in a tee-shirt and underwear running barefoot through the Mojave Desert followed by a limping chick with a revolver and a psychotic look on her face, dust rising up around us and floating to the blue sky.
It wasn’t long before I had her.
I did a running tackle and brought her straight into the dirt, slamming her face into the ground. She cried out in pain but I did not give a shit anymore. She used the last bit of humanity I had left against me and now I had nothing.
I yanked her up off the ground, so fucking tempted to smash my gun into her temple and drag her to the boneyard. But somehow, I don’t know how, I kept it all in and started marching her forward.
“Nice try,” I said, my nails digging into her arm until she winced. I looked down at her bleeding feet. “Even a pedicure won’t fix that.”
She whimpered and I paid no heed. We quickly scuffled ourselves along, trying to disturb as little sand as possible while still moving quickly. The sun hammered down on us, my eyes burning from the glare and dust, my throat raw and dry, but we soldiered on, step after step, until we reached the edge of the perimeter fence. We stopped and looked up. The barbed wire at the top was rusted to shit and tumbleweed blew past on the other side of the chain links, heading to a scrap pile of jet engine parts. They wouldn’t have scaled it and from the looks of the condition of this part of the yard, there was probably an easier way in.
I brought her around to the back and we walked down the fence, around Joshua trees, cacti and wild shrubs and heaps of scrap metal that didn’t quite make it inside the bone yard. Finally we spotted an area where the chain links had been cut. Our ticket in. Maybe our only way out.
I took a deep breath and walked us through the opening.
We were inside.
It was fucking eerie.
Up close the planes looked like an armada of plane crashes. Some of them were charred, some were broken into bits. There were flotation devices scattered around, oxygen masks hanging off of shrubs. Many commercial jets were decapitated, their severed heads lying about, stripped inside of all furniture and instruments. Some planes looked like they were about to fly away and some just had the seats left. Broken wings were stacked in piles.
No wonder they picked this place. It scared the shit out of you just being there.
We walked carefully out into the middle, between the giant wheels of a jumbo jet’s landing gear, standing up-right like a giant metal tree, and the severed tail end of a Cessna.
I stopped and pulled her back once we were in the open again. Planes surrounded us, each window an eye, watching our every move. I badly wanted to run and hide, to get out of harm’s way. But if they didn’t see me with Sophia, they wouldn’t know how damn serious I was.
“Hello?” I called out, my voice bouncing back from the motionless aircraft. I cleared my throat and yelled, “I have your sister. You know what I want.”
I looked around in circles, searching every creepy corner of the boneyard, as far as I could see. They could be everywhere.
And nowhere.
I put the gun to Sophia’s head. “If you’re lying to me …” I ground out.
“I’m not,” she moaned, obviously in distress. Good. “I told you the truth. They said planes. You brought me here.”
Shit. Fuck. Shit.
Was I wrong about this place? Were they somewhere else entirely?
Was Camden already handed over?
Already dead?
I swallowed hard and rubbed my lips together. I couldn’t lose it now. Not now. Not until I knew.
“Look,” Sophia whispered. I followed her gaze over to one of the airplanes.
There was a face at the window.
I let out a gasp and then started looking closer. There was someone crouched behind a lone passenger seat. There was another person behind a wing.
We weren’t alone.
There was a shuffle by one of the decapitated plane heads and someone that could only be Vincent Madano came out, gun held lazily to his side. Like Javier, he was fond of slick suits and he looked like a complete Mafia stereotype, from the Roman nose to the jutting chin and greasy hair.
“You must be Ellie Watt,” Vincent said as he stopped a few yards away, tumbleweeds rolling between us like we’d been placed in a Western TV show set. “Nice to finally meet you. I’ve heard many great things, all second-hand information, of course.”
“Where’s Camden?” I asked, my voice shaking against its will.
“Camden McQueen,” he said, his eyes darkening. “I don’t know. I expected to see him here, not you and not my sister.”
I pressed the gun into her head. “I don’t want to kill her but I will if I have to.”
He nodded as if he were impressed. “I can see that. Hopefully you won’t have to make such … tough decisions.” His eyes darted to the side. “And there’s the man of the hour.”
I whipped my head to look. Camden was walking toward us, Javier behind him with the gun aimed at Camden’s back. He was wearing a denim shirt, black shorts, hands raised above his head. I took in the details like I’d never see him again. Because maybe I wouldn’t.
We locked eyes and in his beautiful blues, he was telling me to stay calm. To stay focused. To not worry.
That made me worry.
Oh, god that made me worry.
Because Camden was the kind of person who would give his life for yours if it meant you getting out alive. And I didn’t want that. I didn’t want life if he wasn’t in it. I wanted he and I, with the waves crashing at our feet.
“Here he is,” Javier announced, pushing Camden forward, just for fun it seemed. Camden stumbled but righted himself, dust and rocks scattering at his feet. The sun continued to sear us, making the whole scene jump in contrast. Surreal.
Yet, this was reality.
Harsh, cold truth.
He stopped a little ways away and looked over at Vincent. “I brought him for you, the peace offering. Now I hope we can do business.”
Vincent nodded and wiggled his hand. “Send him over.”
“No!” I screamed, losing all control, like the devil was being ripped out of my throat. “Camden stays there, no one fucking hurts him or I will kill Sophia!”
Javier shrugged and pushed Camden forward until he was walking. “I don’t care if you kill Sophia.”
Sophia stiffened against me, feeling the fear. I stared at him, pleading with his blank, reptilian eyes for an ounce of humanity, of love, of compassion toward me. “Please, Javier.”
“What? I don’t.” He motioned to Vincent. “Does he?”
I looked to Vincent. He smiled sympathetically at me and tilted his head downward.
“I’ll get over it,” he said.
My world froze.
Sophia cried out in indignation, anger and betrayal spilling from her lips, and I was too dazed to even hold onto her. She ripped herself out of my grip and ran toward Vincent, fists in the air, screaming her head off, ready to pound on him.
He raised his gun and shot her in the chest.
She crumpled to the ground, dust flying around her.
My collateral was dead.
The planet slowed on its axis. Every second stretched longer.
I looked at Camden who had stopped in the middle of it all, hands still above his head, halfway in between Javier and Vincent. Camden looked back at me.
He smiled sadly.
“Take care of Ben for me,” he said.
I blinked, trying to understand the implications of what he was asking while my heart sunk as hard as rock, blasting through me until I knew it wasn’t beating anymore.
“Camden!” I screamed, an out of body experience.
Vincent aimed the gun at him.
Pulled the trigger.
Shot Camden straight in the chest.
In the heart.
In his beautiful, lovely, endless heart.
He flew backward, all 6’2” of him, tats and muscle and love.
Fell hard to the ground, making it rumble at my feet.
Motionless.
A bullet whizzed past my head and I had a split second to react. Not that I wanted to react, not that I was trying, not that I cared.
Because I was already dead. I died out there with Camden.
I didn’t even care anymore.
But the body’s will to survive is strong. Humanity’s instinct to preserve itself lives on. I was acting without knowledge, without thought.
I ducked low to the ground and rolled until I was by the giant landing gear and then popped up behind it, using it as a shield.
I leaned against it, trying to find my heart but it was gone.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I sobbed uncontrollably, once, twice, loud, my soul being seared open by the pain, the debilitating pain. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t even be.
Camden.
My moon.
Shattered.
Lifeless on the floor of the Mojave Desert.
Another bullet rocketed off the landing gear making me snap to attention. To the reality that was going on. There was a firefight. I was in the middle of it.
I peered around the gear, my eyes straying to Camden who was still lying there on his back, head facing straight up. Vincent was shooting at me. Javier was retreating behind a wing and shooting at Vincent. Este was there, jumping off the top of a plane and onto one of Vincent’s men. Guns were going off in all directions.
Vincent started running toward me and I fumbled for my gun, ready to finish off the man who had killed the love of my life.
But Javier popped up, aimed, fired, and shot Vincent in the side. He fell to the ground and Javier took off running behind the body of a 737.
I quickly got up and walked straight to Vincent. I turned him over with my boot so he was looking up at me, barely alive, and stepped on his chest.
I didn’t even have words. I just pulled the trigger. Aimed at his head.