Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
Old shipping containers sat cracked open like giant metal tombs, half unloaded or filled with forgotten palettes of moldy textiles. Trucks dozed under sun-bleached tarps. And there, in the back corner of the freight yard, was the office—barely more than an aluminum box propped up on cinderblocks.
Lucía hesitated at the gate, sweat rolling down her spine. She adjusted her cap lower and tucked her hands into the sleeves of her top.
She wasn’t here for nostalgia. She was here because she needed one thing: a roof over her head, where no one would think to look for her.
Just a few days of shelter. Time to figure out how to get ahead of El Escriba’s men, what to do about the third fragment, and maybe—if luck decided to stop spitting in her face—how to find a way to vanish for good.
Ramiro had been her father’s friend, back before her father’s death had been written off as “accidental.” Back when this place still ran as a functioning freight yard.
Before the cartel moved into town and did what it did everywhere in México: sucked businesses and livelihoods and people dry, like a vampiric plague.
If there was one person left who might open the door without asking too many questions, it was Ramiro.
She pushed through the chain-link and crossed the lot, gravel crunching beneath her boots. The office door creaked open before she could knock.
She hadn’t seen Ramiro in more than fifteen years.
She expected him to have aged, but not this much.
His face was bony, the skin around his jaw gone slack.
His once-thick mustache had surrendered to white stubble.
He glanced at her, recognition flaring in his eyes.
He immediately looked away, as if even holding her gaze was a dangerous thing to do.
“Estamos cerrados.”
She forced herself not to slump with disappointment at his less-than-welcoming reception. “I’m not here for a quote.”
He wiped his hands on a rag, still refusing to look at her. “Lucía Duarte, sí?”
She nodded.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
Ramiro spat in the dirt and jerked his head toward the office. She followed him inside. The place was dark, cooler than outside, and smelled like dust and brake fluid.
“Your father,” he said, pouring two glasses of water from a plastic jug, “was the only man I ever knew who tried to stay honest in this business. That made him noble. And an idiot.”
She accepted the glass and took a drink. The water was warm and slightly metallic, but it steadied her. “I need help,” she said. “Just a place. Off the grid. A few days. I’ll be gone before you even remember I was here.”
“You think I don’t know what’s going on?” Ramiro set his glass down harder than was necessary. “You’ve kicked a hornet’s nest, nina. People are asking questions in dark places. Bad people. You bring that here, you burn what’s left of my peace.”
“I didn’t come here to burn anything.” Her voice was steadier than she felt. “I just need somewhere no one will find me.”
His laugh was low and humorless. “Then you are about ten years too late.”
She said nothing. The silence stretched.
Ramiro sighed, irritable, and folded his arms. “I can’t shelter you, mija.
Not this time. I have a grandson in high school.
I won’t put a bullet through his bedroom wall because I feel sorry for the girl who used to curl up in my dispatch seat and fall asleep. ”
Lucía stood, shouldering her backpack. Disappointment sunk into her stomach with the weight of a bowling ball, but beneath it was something worse—a hollow, cold emptiness that made it hard to breathe.
For a moment, she’d let herself believe he might say yes.
That some thread from her past hadn’t frayed completely.
Her mind was already racing. If not here, then where? She had no friends she could trust. No relatives. Every road she could think of ended the same way: with her being caught. And being caught by the kind of men hunting her was a fate worse than death, and one that would certainly end in it.
Her throat was tight, but she forced herself not to sound as fragile as she felt. “I understand.”
She turned for the door and had nearly reached it when Ramiro spoke again.
“There’s a trail station, up near Santiago Apoala.
” His voice caught slightly on the name, as if saying it out loud might put him on the hook for something he’d been trying to avoid.
“Old smugglers used it during the union crackdowns. No road in, not anymore. Just goat paths. It’s still standing, last I heard. ”
Lucía froze, the air rushing back into her lungs so fast it made her dizzy. She turned slowly, searching his face, making sure she hadn’t imagined it.
Ramiro still wouldn’t look at her. The rag in his hand was twisted tight, his knuckles white. His gaze flicked instead to the window, to the empty freight yard beyond, like he was checking for someone who might see him doing this.
For a moment she didn’t move. Part of her was afraid that if she stepped closer, if she spoke too quickly, he’d change his mind and the door would slam shut on her. So she stayed still, her voice measured. “How do I find it?”
Only when he opened a drawer and pulled out a grease-stained map did she let herself believe he might actually mean it.
He unfolded it on the desk and traced a finger north. “Here. You’ll need to hike the rest. Watch for the switchback. It’s easy to miss.”
“Anyone else know it’s there?”
“If they do, they haven’t used it in years. No cell towers. No neighbors. Just wind.”
Lucía folded the map. When she spoke, the words felt like they emanated from somewhere lower down in her body than her throat. “Thank you.”
“You’re your father’s daughter, Lucía. Just try not to die like him.”
She stepped back out into the heat, slipping the paper into her pocket. Her jaw set hard.
She wasn’t planning to die at all.
Lucía’s thighs were on fire. The air had thinned somewhere near the last switchback, and every breath now felt like inhaling through fabric.
The trail—if it even could be called that—was little more than a fading animal track, threading through weeping pines.
Mercifully, though, the heat had fallen away as soon as the road climbed.
She paused to catch her breath, hands on her knees, the sound of blood rushing in her ears louder than the wind in the trees. Above her, the pines stretched in jagged silhouettes against the sky. Below, a sheer drop vanished into mist and shadows.
“This is insane,” she muttered.
She had a compass. She had Ramiro’s map, which she was grasping like it was the last page in a holy book.
But what she didn’t have was balance, or trail sense, or boots that didn’t feel like they were trying to eat her toes.
The pack on her shoulders was too heavy, the ghost laptop inside thudding against her back with every step.
She started moving again, slower now, scanning the rocks for anything that slithered.
The last village was miles behind her, and she hadn’t seen another person since leaving the narrow dirt road where she’d stashed her motorbike under a fallen tree.
It hadn’t been much, just a battered red Italika with one good brake.
She’d paid a teenager in the village a few hundred pesos for a “test ride” he didn’t expect her to return from.
But when the trail got too steep, she’d had to abandon the bike and tackle the rest of the way on foot.
She stumbled. Her foot caught on a root, pitching her forward. She twisted just in time to avoid face-planting into a patch of thorns and slammed her hip into the dirt instead. Pain flared. She hissed through her teeth and stayed there for a moment, heart hammering.
Then she saw it.
Not a meter away, in the dappled light: a snake. Curled at the base of a rock. Copper-brown, thick-bodied, motionless, but very, very awake.
Lucía froze. She wasn’t an expert, but she knew enough. Not bright-colored. No rattling. Silent, serious. Maybe a pit viper. Maybe just a local species sunning itself. But she wasn’t about to take a vote.
Slowly, inch by inch, she shifted her weight back, using her elbows to push herself upright.
The snake never moved.
Neither did she, until it finally slipped, silently, back into the underbrush, as if dismissing her.
Lucía stood, shaking now for a different reason. Her legs itched with sweat and nerves. Her hands were dirty. A pine needle was stuck to her cheek.
“Tech support, my ass,” she muttered. “I’m not built for this.”
She kept going. Cicadas pulsed somewhere high in the branches, a constant metallic hum that rose and fell with the wind.
Another half-hour passed before she saw the roof.
It peeked through the trees like a mirage, corrugated metal, rusted in patches, sagging slightly to one side.
The cabin was half-hidden in a natural crease in the hillside, a blessing from the terrain.
She approached slowly, watching for signs of recent activity. There were none.
The door creaked when she pushed it open. Inside: one room, musty and dark. A wood stove. A rickety table. A cot with a mildewed mattress. Spiderwebs in the corners. No light, no running water. But it was a shelter.
She shut the door and slid the bolt. Dropped her pack. Sank onto the cot. The ache in her legs had gone bone-deep. Her palms were scraped. Her ankles swollen.
But she’d made it.