51. Helen
HELEN
I’m still blindfolded when the car comes to a stop. The engine idles as I hear a metallic scrape, slow and heavy, like a gate dragged across concrete.
A car door opens. Fingers clamp around my arm.
“Victor, where are you taking me?”
“Somewhere more comfortable.”
I’m pulled from the car. A few steps forward and the acoustics change, enclosed now. We’re indoors.
This place is different. Where Olivia was held was suffocating—small rooms, stale air, sound trapped inside the walls. This isn’t like that. Footsteps echo somewhere beyond the path I’m being pushed along. A door shuts farther away. The room must open into others. This isn’t just a house.
I’m forced down. My knees hit hard floor. Then the blindfold is stripped away.
Light stings my eyes. I blink and take in the room with its high ceiling, a single narrow window cut into the thick wall, and a chair beside the bed holding a folded blanket and a thin sheet.
Victor isn’t here. Only one man stands in front of me.
“Enjoy your stay,” he says and leaves.
The door shuts, then the lock turns.
I sit. I listen. I wait.
I can’t afford to panic. Olivia is somewhere else, alive and unharmed. I saw her with my own eyes. That matters.
When the guard’s footsteps recede, I move.
The window isn’t barred. It’s narrow, but I’ve always been smaller than I look. They should’ve measured better.
I take the blanket and sheet off the chair and drop them on the bed. Then I slide the chair under the window, lifting instead of dragging so the legs don’t scrape. It wobbles when I climb on. I push the shutter outward. The hinges protest with a dull creak.
The frame is barely wider than my shoulders. I turn sideways and feed one arm through, then the other. For a second, I’m folded awkwardly over the stone, stomach against the edge, feet still inside. There’s no graceful way to do this. I lower myself as far as my arms allow and let go.
“Shit,” I murmur.
The drop jars me, but I land upright, absorbing the impact without a sound. I crouch immediately, listening.
A light snaps on somewhere behind the building.
I freeze.
A rectangle of yellow spills across the yard. Footsteps scrape on gravel. Someone clears his throat.
For three seconds I don’t breathe.
Then the light clicks off again, and silence returns.
I cross the hard-packed yard, keeping low as I round the corner of the building. The sun has just dipped, and I use the fading light to get my bearings among the outbuildings.
A wooden gate stands ahead, set between thick stucco pillars. The planks have warped from years of heat. A chain loops through the handles, hanging loose but still locked. I can’t squeeze through.
I don’t waste time testing the lock and move along the fence line instead. The wall dips in places, uneven where age has eaten at the stone.
“Fuck yeah,” I breathe as I spot a thin section where vines have loosened the masonry, creating a narrow gap.
I turn sideways and slip through, stone scraping my shoulder as I force myself past. A narrow road stretches ahead, barely wide enough for one car.
It’s unpaved and uneven. This isn’t the entrance I came through.
I remember the mechanical whir of a motorized gate.
That wasn’t this. This has to be another access.
I follow the tire tracks where the gravel is pressed flat. After a minute, sounds carry toward me. Traffic.
The road bends and opens onto a paved highway. A pickup passes first, too fast. Then a small white sedan approaches.
I step onto the shoulder and lift both arms.
The sedan slows.
A young woman sits behind the wheel, her cautious eyes taking me in.
She lowers the window halfway. “Sí?”
My Spanish is clumsy but serviceable. “Por favor. Necesito llamar. Uh…emergencia.”
She hesitates, and I don’t have time to negotiate. I pull off my watch. It’s not Rolex expensive, but expensive enough. I hold it toward her.
Her eyes widen. “No, no—”
“Please. Just one call,” I plead.
She swears under her breath, unlocks the door, and motions me in. “Make the call.”
“Thank you.” I slide in and start dialing before the door even shuts.
He answers on the second ring. “Yes?”
“Liam, it’s me.” I could fall apart right now.
“Helena? Helena! Are you okay?”
My chest caves and finds its rhythm in the same breath. “Where are you?” I ask.
“I’m near Mexicali.”
Relief breaks through me. “You found our trail? Have you found Olivia?”
“No. Helena—”
“There’s so much I need to tell you,” I say, my voice fighting the grip I have on it. “But right now we’ve got to find Olivia.”
“I know. Tell me where you are.”
I swallow and press on. “She’s being held somewhere else.
Before they blindfolded me, I saw a huge billboard.
It looked new. Blue background, white letters.
Something about insurance. Then we made a right turn.
About forty minutes later, we arrived. It felt like a recording studio—padded, soundproof. ”
A voice murmurs in the background, it sounds like Max.
Liam comes back stronger. “We’ll find her. Now tell me where you are.”
I look through the windshield. Residential houses line the street, low walls and bougainvillea spilling over fences in bursts of color.
“There’s a pharmacy at the end of the street. Farmacias del Ahorro.”
“Stay there,” he says instantly.
But something hits me—Victor’s words about a long game. My life isn’t in danger yet. Olivia’s is. If he walks into that room and I’m gone?
Air stalls in my lungs. I force it out. “Liam, I should go back.”
“What are you talking about?”
“He’ll hurt Olivia if he realizes I’m gone,” I say. “I was taken to some kind of compound about half a mile from here—”
“Helena, stay where you are, I’ll find you.”
“I heard a mechanical gate when they brought me in,” I continue, talking over him now. “But I got out through a different side. There’re stone pillars. The wooden plank doors are chained shut—”
“Helena!”
“—there’s a break in the low wall. Vines pulled the stone loose. It opens onto an unpaved service road. I was held in a room. High ceiling, narrow window.”
“Stay there. Do you hear me?” His voice drops into command, then turns away as he speaks to someone else. A muffled reply comes back: “Thirty minutes.”
I don’t have thirty minutes.
“I can’t. I’m going back.”
The young woman in the driver’s seat glances over, worries mar her expression.
“Liam, listen to me. Now that you know where I am, I’ll wait for you there.”
“That’s insane.”
“It isn’t.” I draw in a breath. “I trust you. Do you trust me?”
For a few beats all I hear is traffic on the road and my pulse in my ear.
Then he answers. “Yes.”
“Find Olivia,” I say. “And then come for me.”
The urge to say I love him hits hard. But I hold it back. He doesn’t need anything that will cloud him.
“Liam,” I tell him, “you’ve got this.”
I end the call, press the phone into the woman’s hand, and close her fingers around the watch despite her protest. I step out of the car.
My legs carry me back down the road. I follow the fence line and find that gap again between the vines without difficulty.
The window is still open. I jump and catch the sill with both hands, my shoes scraping against the rough plaster until they find enough grip to push.
My arms strain as I haul myself up, dragging one knee through first, then twisting to pull the rest of me in.
I land on the chair I used before. It rocks under me, but I’m ready for it. I adjust and keep it quiet.
The room feels smaller now that I’ve been outside it. I spread the sheet across the bed and lie down, hugging the folded blanket.
Victor enters not long after, wearing a casual polo and Bermudas with leather sandals, as if he’s on a proper Mexican holiday. “Dinner will be ready soon.”
Behind him stands a young woman who looks local, holding a dress in one hand and a pair of colorful shoes in the other.
“What’s that?” I mock. I don’t even like the color of the dress let alone the silhouette.
“Do you think he’s the only man who can buy you nice things?
” Victor gestures toward the dress. “Handwoven silk.” It’s a strapless mini cocktail dress.
“Your size, or…perhaps a size too small.” He chuckles.
“And these,” he points to the shoes—medium heels with intricate straps, “are from the local artisan.”
The woman drapes the dress over the back of the chair and sets the shoes neatly beneath it before exiting the room. I turn on the bed, giving Victor my back.
“Fifteen minutes. Try to look nice for me,” he says before stepping out and locking the door behind him.