26. Diego
26
DIEGO
M y first instinct was to move as far and fast as possible. If Sofia had only just been hurt, if the Cartel men had only just shown up, they couldn’t have that big of a head start on me.
Ramon had been in school all day. He’d made it home with Se?ora Vasquez. The window of time that he could’ve been taken was slim, and that meant I needed to act wisely.
Every minute I lost was too much to bear.
Stopping at Sofia’s car, I tried to imagine the map of where I’d go. I was familiar with this city, and more increasingly since I’d started walking to get food for our meals, I was aware of what lay where near the house.
What I didn’t know was where this Cartel compound could be. I was sure many routes led to it, but they would be heavily guarded.
Instead…
I turned to look in the direction of where I’d walked with Ramon.
The market.
I’d seen someone from the Cartel there. Manny had been there to recognize me. He’d tried to coax me back to the compound. Surely, he’d know where it was. And if he was there, interested and seeing me back there from some kind of a break I was supposed to be considering, whatever that meant, he could lead me there now.
I ran, ignoring the rain pelting in my face. Thunder boomed and shook the earth, but I didn’t pay attention. With tunnel vision, I sprinted as hard as I could until the sheltered and tented vendor stalls came into sight.
Between the storm washing out shoppers and a low crowd with many people likely already inside and preparing or enjoying family dinners before Christmas, the market was almost empty.
But there he was. Walking out a motorbike from under a tent was none other than Manny.
“Manny!” I yelled to stop him before he could disappear. He was my lead, my only lead right now, and I wouldn’t let him escape without serving a purpose for me.
He turned, squinting to see through the rain. Before, he wore sunglasses and narrowed his eyes against the harsh sunlight, but now, he was shielding his vision from the rain.
“Manny!” I yelled again as I hurried to him.
He didn’t start the bike. He didn’t move it an inch further as he waited for me to reach him. The closer I came, he nodded as though he recognized me.
“Diego.”
I caught my breath, skidding to a stop and blinking at the rain that dripped into my eyes. “Manny. Wait.”
He didn’t reply, watching me under the tent. Rain pattered down on it, like a steady drum, but he seemed to want to wait for me to speak. He didn’t have much patience. As I panted to catch my breath, more from the rush of adrenaline than the run, he lifted his chin and eyed me carefully. “Why’d you run away from me, man?”
“I…” I cleared my throat, latching on to the first idea, the first lie, that came to me. “I was playing around,” I said, using his words from our former conversation. “I was just messing with you.”
He arched a brow.
“I was still on my break,” I added, borrowing a little more from what he’d revealed. “That break that I wanted.”
He nodded.
“I just wanted some time…”
“Cool. Cool. I get it, man.”
“But I’m done.” I licked my lips and heaved out a deep breath. “Can you take me to the compound?”
“On this?” He raised both brows as he gestured at his bike. “I was just going to move it to more shelter.”
“Yeah, on that,” I said.
“Now?” He screwed up his face with a grimace. “After the rain passes, yeah.”
I stepped forward and lifted my arm to punch him. Anger was taking precedent. I had no idea what the Cartel viewed me as, if Manny saw me as someone to listen to, fear, respect, or dismiss, but I wasn’t in the mood to stall and fuck around.
“Whoa. All right. Fuck, you’re a dark ray of evil. You always get what you want, huh?” He smirked, though, and it took some of the sting out of his comment that I wasn’t sure how to interpret. Was he mocking me? Praising me? It didn’t matter. He sighed and wheeled the bike out into the rain.
“Well, come on, then,” he muttered, already sliding his sunglasses over to cover his eyes. It wasn’t sunny, but I bet he would use them as protection from the water.
He got onto the seat and scooted up. I didn’t waste a second to follow up on it after him.
Without asking me if I was ready, he started the engine then revved it. I lowered my hands to my sides. I swayed, rolling and tilting with him.
I just knew.
More muscle memory came through for me, making me understand that I’d done this before.
I’d been on bikes before. I’d driven them. Seated on the vibrating growl of the engine beneath me, hearing the roar in the wind, I found another missing piece of myself that had been out of reach.
The further Manny drove into the outskirts of this poor area, I saw more and more. And I recognized the terrain. I fell into the ease of familiarity, and I understood that this was land I’d been in before.
It came back to me faster and faster. With every turn and bend Manny took, cutting us through the rainfall, I saw more evidence of land and stretches of places I’d visited before. Seeing it all was the link to unlock the memories in my mind, and my mental map was filled in, not blurred or hazy, but sharpening with detail.
I’ve driven on this road.
I’ve been in this area many times…
Once he reached the gate, he lifted his arm in a gesture to someone—or a camera—to be granted access into the area walled off and separated from the rest of the world with tall, wired structures.
The compound.
I was stunned, speechless and in awe. Not of the sight of the large area with many buildings. But in awe of the process of finding more missing and locked-up pieces about myself.
This is the compound.
I’d been here many times, yet I didn’t know why. I couldn’t be an enemy, not if I was granted passage through the gate with Manny. I couldn’t be a friend, not if I harbored a resentment toward that other man, Antonio.
Too many things didn’t add up, but the more I passed and the more I saw, I felt stronger and more confident that I was being triggered to recognize all these details.
The tall warehouse. The smaller housing units. The palatial mansion.
Manny circled the front drive that spanned around the mansion’s front. When he turned toward a parking shelter, I knew exactly where I wanted to go.
If Ramon was taken by the Cartel, if he had been brought here, he’d be in the…
Dungeons.
They weren’t dungeons in the sense that no castle was standing here. They weren’t dungeons like dug-out holes in the earth. But I was aware that holding cells and enclosures waited here in that low building toward the back.
Manny stopped the bike and shook his head. Water flung everywhere, but I wasn’t sitting around and waiting for a tour or explanation. I had to understand my connection to the Cartel, but that would only matter after I found Ramon and got him out of here. I ducked out of the spray of water from Manny’s shake and stepped to the side. I ran my hands back through my hair, shoving the water away so it wouldn’t drip in my eyes.
Then I turned, intent on doing what I’d come here for.
“I think you—Hey—Diego. Man, where you going?” Manny’s calls hit my back. I didn’t look over my shoulder to address him, and I dared him to chase me down.
He didn’t, seeming more interested in dealing with his bike.
Knowing where to go, I strode out of the garage and stuck to the shadows to reach the low building in the back.
With every step I took, it all rushed back to me. It all swarmed in like a million figments of past experiences. I’d been here before. I’d walked into that building. I’d run across that area of grass…
It didn’t link into any meaning yet, but I was firm in the belief that I’d been here before.
No one stopped me on the way. It was dark, with the afternoon turning to dusk and the rain clouds hanging low and heavy. People were inside. I heard them all beyond the walls. In the distance, guards patrolled, too far from me to stop me and ask me what I was doing.
When I reached the low building, cries, moans, screams, and wails assailed me, but I tuned them out. I had to, because if I let myself think for one second that Ramon could be in here and crying or begging for mercy, this dark urge to kill and inflict pain would take over me.
I walked up to the man in the front.
He shot to his feet, eyes open wide and brow raised high. I didn’t have the time to figure out why he seemed surprised to see me.
“Where is Ramon?” I demanded.
“Wh—” He shook his head. “What?”
I gripped the front of the young man’s shirt, picking up on his deference to me like I was someone he knew he had to listen to. “Where is Ramon?”
“I don’t know. I don’t?—”
They might not even know his fucking name. I tried again. “Where’s Sebastian?”
“Oh. He’s with the man taking someone to the back. Last opening at the end of the hall.” He swallowed hard, losing his tough-guy credo, and pointed in the direction.
I dropped him back to his feet and shoved him away. Striding in the direction of where he’d pointed, I didn’t glance at all the closed and locked doors I passed.
Seeing a large man with a huge gut lumbering along ahead, I picked up my pace. One man strolled with him, and I didn’t have to guess that they’d just put Ramon into a cell.
I walked head-on, watching the older man who had to be Sebastian lift a bottle to his lips. The younger man next to him laughed, smiling and shaking his head at whatever bullshit the drunk said.
I was yards away. Feet away.
Then I was there.
“Where is the boy?” I asked it with all the fury I could barely contain.
“Huh?” He eyed me up and down, not seeming to recognize me as quickly as everyone else seemed to. The younger guy next to him did, though. He frowned, as if he doubted his eyes.
“Where is the boy?” I repeated for the last time.
“You mean my boy?” Sebastian replied, chortling.
I reached up to grab his bottle, smashing it on the wall. In the same motion that I used to break his drink, I spun and kicked him in the face.
“Diego—”
His buddy shut up too, falling back from a hard double hit of my fists, shoving his head from side to side until he knocked his brow on the wall.
If I hadn’t come here as the Cartel’s enemy, I would be leaving as one. I’d leave a wake of all of them lying on the ground if I had to.
Instead of leaving them in the hall, I dragged them to the nearest door. One push showed that it was empty, so I left them both in there to wake up as prisoners. I grabbed the key from Sebastian’s pudgy hand, then shut the door.
A small series of numbers showed on the top corner of the key, so I ran in pursuit of that room. It was the last one, like that other man said. It was at the end of the hall. With one quick check of the corridor to ensure no one would see me, I slotted the key into the hole. My heart was lodged in my chest. My lungs couldn’t open fully to let air in.
Please, please be in here. Please, please be okay.
I opened the door and stepped inside.
A growl sounded, and Ramon launched at me in the darkness, pounding his fists on my stomach.
“Ramon!” I lowered before he’d even stop with his little fists. Wrapping him into a hug, I inhaled a deep breath of his boyish scent.
“D—” He sobbed, unable to get out my name at first as he wrapped his little arms around my neck. “Diego!”
I held him, rubbing my hand over his back and letting myself know that I hadn’t failed. I hadn’t failed him. He was alive. He was breathing and talking and hugging me back like he never wanted to let go.
“You came,” he said with wonder and gratitude. A sniffle sounded next, and I urged him to step more into the ray of light that shone in from the door I hadn’t closed.
I brushed his hair back, checking over him. “Did they hurt you? Did they do anything to you?”
“One man slapped me for being a crybaby. I shut up after that.” He shook his head. “They just put me in here and left me in the dark.”
“Thank God.” I hugged him again just to reassure myself that this was real and not a dream.
“I want you to go. You’re going to get on a bike and run home to your mother.”
He nodded, ready to get out of here. “Did they hurt her? Is she okay?”
“Yes. She’s alive and will be fine. She just needs to see you and all will be okay.” I held out my hand for him to take it. “I’m going to bring you to a bike, and you are going to ride it home.”
His eyes opened up wide.
“I heard you and Juan talking about bikes. He’s let you borrow his in his yard.”
He nodded quickly. “Yes. I can do it. I’ll do whatever I need to if it will get me home.”
He held my hand all the way out of the building. The post at the front wasn’t there, and on the walk back to the garage area where Manny parked his bike, we stuck to the shadows. The rain stopped, and that would work well for the escape route that I knew would work for Ramon.
After I found the smallest moped, one Ramon said he’d used before from another boy in the neighborhood, I led him to a spot with a secret cutout in the fence. “You walk this out, and once you find an old antenna tower, head south and follow the line where wires used to be. That will take you to a road, and you stay on it.”
He nodded. “I saw the way they took to get here. I can find my way home.”
“Go.” I leaned down to kiss the top of his head. “I love you, Ramon. You and your mother. And I will come back as soon as I can.”
He hugged me tight. “I love you too, Diego. Thank you.”
“Go,” I repeated. “Go straight to your mother.”
He walked away with the bike, sending me one last worried glance over his shoulder before he did as I instructed.
I had unfinished business here.
It was time to figure out who I was.
So I could move on with my future.