Kyla
The mirror had looked strange from the moment she saw it. Standing next to her in the bathroom, shortly after they’d arrived at the motel, Fernanda said, “Did the twins not leave us any towels?”
He was looking for her. He knew her name.
Oh no, Miss Hewitt.
It is I who shall have audience once more.
Kyla awoke a little after seven fifteen to the sound of a toilet flushing. Her heart was hammering, the pressure driving her headache to new heights. The pain was so bad she hardly noticed the way the toilet, after its flush, failed to refill its tank.
“I do not mean to worry you,” Fernanda said, stepping into the main room. “But I believe the motel might be running low on water.”
Without thinking, Kyla said, “He wants to control it.”
“Who? Frank? Control what?”
“Frank O’Shea is the least of our problems.”
Fernanda tilted her head, blinked like she, too, was coming out of a daze. “What are you talking about?”
Kyla had no idea what she meant. No idea why she’d said it either. No idea why she would have sworn she heard a tight smile echoing through the silent air of their room: those teeth, grinding together like stones.
Are you ready to play again, Miss Hewitt?
Kyla gave her whole body a jerk. She was forgetting something, something hugely important, but she had no idea what.
Get your head in the game, she thought. Kyla rose and pushed back the mattress of her bed. The green backpack was still there, exactly where she’d left it before she dozed off. Unzipping the backpack, digging through the wads of money, she found the prize inside.
Fernanda hurried to the front window to make sure the curtains were closed. “Careful. The cartel won’t raise a finger to help us without that film.”
Kyla only nodded. In her hand was a roll of Kodak Gold camera film, thirty-six exposures, stolen this afternoon from the Fort Stockton safe house where Fernanda had been taken to die.
The girls had killed a man for this film.
Granted, Lance had been sent to the safe house to kill Fernanda, so Kyla supposed it was fair game.
You live by the sword, you die by the sword.
Lance hadn’t seemed like such a bad guy, despite his line of work.
And it wasn’t like Kyla could talk. She’d spent the better part of the last six months serving steaks to men who’d made a small fortune shuffling all sorts of contraband back and forth across the border.
Guns. Drugs. People. Kyla could have gone to the FBI ages ago with what she knew. She could have probably saved lives.
But why think about the past? Time didn’t go backward. Kyla turned the film canister in the light, marveling that with all the blood that had been spilled for it, all the violence it contained, the yellow of its casing could still look so pristine.
If Kyla could help Fernanda get this film across the border and into the right hands, she could ensure that at least two lives had been saved: Fernanda’s, and Fernanda’s brother’s.
She dropped the yellow canister back into the bag and tugged up the zipper and did her best to drag the mattress back into place.
She stepped into the bathroom and closed the door, hoping to wash her face, but when she turned the tap, only a thin trickle ran from the sink’s faucet.
Fernanda had been right. The motel really was running out of water.
A soft breath of air brushed her cheek. A warm draft.
Kyla looked up. Call her crazy, but it almost felt like the draft had come from the crack in the mirror.
The moment the thought occurred to her, the crack expanded an inch, right before her eyes, with a soft tinkling chime like a wash of bells. A great black gulf loomed within the seam, and even with the light burning directly above her head, Kyla saw nothing inside the mirror but darkness.
Another draft touched her cheek. The air of the draft was warm and dry. It seemed to tingle on her skin with a latent power.
Where had Kyla felt air like that before?
A man whispered in her ear, just behind her shoulder.
“Touch it.”
Kyla whipped around, her heart hammering, vision dilating, certain she would see the man from her dream standing right behind her, but there was no one. She exhaled a long breath. She scratched her neck.
She turned back to the mirror, to the great black crack. It had grown again.
The man whispered in her ear again. “Touch it, Kyla. Hurry.”
She’d been wrong: that wasn’t the voice of the man in her dream.
This man was someone else. She hadn’t met this man before, she was certain of it, yet he felt oddly familiar.
When this new man spoke, a strange itch writhed along the back of her neck, but her headache seemed to abate.
A strange trade. A porous seam in the weave.
Call her crazy, but this new man sounded almost—but not quite—like her father.
Kyla raised a finger to the crack in the mirror. Brought her hand close. Shivered.
There was no mistaking it: the crack was leaking hot air.
“Touch it, Kyla,” the voice said. “Touch it and see.”
Kyla told herself she was going crazy. Told herself she had so much more she needed to worry about. Told herself to get back to the bedroom and figure out some plan for the disaster of her night.
“Trust me, Kyla. It’s important.”
As gently as she knew how, she touched the mirror.
It shattered, and Kyla saw the city on the other side.
The sight didn’t last long: a few seconds, the span of a long gasp. Kyla saw the white towers and the silver streets. She saw the everblack sky. She saw the column of silver light in the distance, rising from the city’s heart.
The column released a pulse of light, a blinding flash. It sent a fresh wave of pain slicing through her head, it blinded her, and when Kyla could see again, the city was gone.
There was nothing behind the glass but a cinder block wall.
Fernanda was at the door. “Are you all right?”
Kyla took a step back, studying the glass that had fallen into the sink. She’d cut her finger. She sucked blood from the wound, wrapped it in a wad of toilet paper. When she spoke, her voice didn’t sound like her own. “I’m fine.”
The voice from over her shoulder was silent. It was no use pretending she’d hallucinated the sound or imagined the sight of the city; whatever going insane felt like, she doubted it felt like this. She’d seen what she’d seen. She’d heard what she’d heard.
Something very, very strange was going on here. But what?
When she opened the bathroom door, Fernanda shook her head at the shattered glass. “I hope the twins do not expect us to pay for that.”
“We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it. I’m starving.”
“I’m not sure I want to go to the cafe. The two boys from earlier went that way a moment ago—I heard them on the porch.”
“We’ll be fine. Let’s go. We still need to speak to Sarah Powers.”
Fernanda hesitated. “Sarah was speaking to a man in her room a moment ago. It sounded like they were having an argument.”
Kyla looked at the clock on the nightstand. It was almost 7:35. “We need to get to dinner.”
“But why? Would we not be safer here?”
It’s important, Kyla wanted to say, but she had no idea why that was so.
She just grabbed her gun and shrugged on her coat and plucked up the key to their room.
After a long hesitation, Fernanda followed her out onto the back porch.
Penelope came up the porch from the direction of Stanley’s room.
Kyla watched as Fernanda took the key from her hand and stepped back into their room.
“I’m sorry,” Fernanda said. “I need the toilet.”
Penelope tilted her head when she caught up with Kyla. “My sister says you look crazy tonight.”
Now, a few minutes later, Kyla stared at the bandage Hunter had wrapped around her fingers, watched the blood seep through. All of the pain and trouble they’d left behind in Fort Stockton, the fear and anxiety of what awaited them in Mexico—it seemed so pointless now. So small.
That man whispered again, just behind her ear. The man who sounded almost like her father.
“You can’t let him reach the city, Kyla.”
Can’t let who? she almost said, but didn’t bother. Somehow—and this sounded crazier than anything—Kyla knew what the man meant without knowing it.
She passed time in the booth with the boys, all of them lost to their own silence. Ethan kept rubbing his head, sipping his water. He looked even worse than she felt, if that was possible.
Penelope sat alone in the booth near the buffet, clearly lost in her own anxieties. She whispered, “Why are you so upset? It’s just a headache.”
Kyla and Ethan both looked up, glanced around the cafe. Ethan said, “Who are you talking to?”
Penelope chewed her lip. “I’ve been trying to figure that out all night.”
A few minutes after seven forty-five, the bell above the cafe’s door chimed.
Fernanda came inside. She joined Kyla at the booth, looking uneasy, flustered, and clearly not excited to be sharing a booth with two men she didn’t know.
Kyla ignored her. In the kitchen, Tabitha was banging pots and pans.
A little while after that, Stan Holiday arrived: sweat on his brow, a busted lip. He’d had a scrap with someone.
The big man grabbed Penelope by the arm. “Get up. You’re coming back to the room.”
“Back?” the girl said.
“To the room. Now.”
“Why?”
“To keep you safe.”
“Safe from what?”
Stanley hesitated, just a moment. The time was almost eight o’clock. “That bastard’s here. He cut our tires.”
That got everyone in the cafe sitting up a little straighter.
“Who did?” Penelope said.
“Ryan. Ryan Fucking Phan.”
Tabitha appeared, pushing a trolley full of food. Thomas said, “Don’t forget, Miss Powers asked that you bring a plate to her room.”
Penelope and Stan kept talking about some man named Ryan. Kyla experienced a strange tingle in her mind: she knew the name, and yet she didn’t.
Stanley said, “Frank can deal with Ryan when he gets here. You’re coming with me. Now.”
Fernanda went very tense. Without even thinking about it, Kyla murmured, “Don’t worry. Frank isn’t coming.”
Stanley whipped around to stare at her. “Excuse me?”
Kyla blinked. She wasn’t entirely sure what she’d just said.
And then, outside, Tabitha started screaming.