Karina Halle - Bold Tricks

We continued down the hall, pausing every few steps to listen. There was some shuffling from one of the rooms at the very end. The door was open and the room faced to the back where the morning sun was spilling into it. It seemed like a place that Travis would sit and have breakfast, perhaps a sunroom where he could sit and think about all the money he was making, drugs he was distributing, people he was killing.

I wondered if Camden was going to take me straight there. Take himself straight to Travis, kill him and have it all over with.

But someone else’s voice came from that room, speaking in Spanish. Travis answered him, also in Spanish, albeit rusty. I couldn’t really figure out what they were talking about, the news perhaps, some event in Honduras. Unfortunately, that made two of them in there. It wouldn’t be so easy now. I doubted we could go in the room the way we were and take them out.

Camden paused then instead of continuing toward the voices, he carefully tried the handle on the first door to our left.

Locked.

And locked for a reason.

He looked to me questioningly. Could I do this?

I nodded and brought out the lock picker with fumbling fingers. I kept hearing Travis down the hall, knowing how close we were to him, how close we were to getting my mother out. Though it took longer than normal, I managed to pick the lock. We carefully pushed the door open and I held my breath waiting for it creak loudly. It didn’t.

And there were a set of stairs leading down into the dark.

We had found it.

Camden motioned for me to go first, the stairs were lit by a bare bulb, and he ever-so-carefully closed the door behind us. We went down slowly, step by step, my legs feeling weak, my jaw clenched hard.

We had found it but I was afraid to see what it was.

I stepped off the last step, my boots on hard concrete. There was darkness all around us, the light from the stairs not reaching very far.

Suddenly a flashback came into my vision. Me, eleven years old, walking down the stairs to Travis’s basement by accident, looking for money that wasn’t there and only finding the chemicals that would change the course of my entire life.

It wasn’t quite ironic but it was definitely something.

A moan came from the corner of the room and I realized that though we couldn’t see what or who was down here, they could see us.

I squeezed my gun for assurance and then took a step forward.

“Hello?” I whispered softly. “Mom?”

The moan got louder. I walked toward it and then Camden quickly brought out his phone, shining the weak light straight ahead of us.

My chest was shredded by what I saw.

There was a cage in the corner of the room, a large cage, like one you’d see when transporting animals to a zoo.

My mother was in the cage.

She was sitting half up, leaning against the bars, wearing what looked like the same dress I had seen her wear at Travis’s party. Her hands were gathered behind her back. Duct tape around her mouth. Her eyes were crazed, filled with tears, pleading for us.

“We need light,” Camden’s voice came through, calm and steady. He got up quickly, shining his phone around and found another bare bulb hanging from the ceiling and pulled the string.

Everything lit up. I glanced around me quickly, taking in a very familiar sight. It was like the same basement he scarred me in but worse, much, much worse. It looked like a meth lab crossed with a mad scientist’s lab. And very close to where my mother lay in her dirty cage were glass jar after glass jar of crawling black insects. Ants. Bullet ants. Este’s assumption about Travis using them for torture wasn’t just a silly hunch after all.

I looked back to my mom and immediately crouched down beside her, trying to ignore the welts she had all over her bare arms and legs. Insect bites.

“Mom,” I said, my voice breaking. “It’s me, Ellie. Your daughter. We’re going to get out of here okay?”

She shook her head back and forth, tears spilling down her cheeks, and I reached into the cage and pulled the duct tape off of her mouth in one go.

She winced from the pain and I whispered, “Sorry.”

“Ellie,” she cried softly and her voice reached down into my very soul. If I didn’t hold it together I was going to lose it.

“Mom, it’s okay.”

“You won’t get out of here,” she cried.

“Yes, we will,” I told her, my throat closing up. “Together. This is Camden. He’s going to help us.” I motioned behind me to Camden who was crouched down at my back. “Where is Gus?”

“Gus?” she asked. “What are you talking about?”

My veins had more ice than blood in them.

“Gus,” I said again, fighting to keep my voice steady. “He was taken by Travis. You know Gus, Mom, you know Gus. He came all the way to Mexico with Camden, to get me. We have to get him, I owe him this.”

“I’m sorry sweetie,” my mom said softly, shaking her head. “Gus isn’t here.”

Her words settled over me like fine, cold dust.

Gus. Wasn’t. Here.

“But Javier said …” I started. I didn’t even bother finishing the sentence.

“Javier lies,” my mom said. “How do you think I ended up here with Travis?”

I narrowed my eyes at her, the rage building up inside, threatening to spill out. “Because you’re weak. And you’re a fool. And so am I.”

“Ellie,” Camden warned me.

“No,” I hissed at him. I was about to lose it. About to lose everything. I squeezed my gun so hard I could feel the ridges cutting into my palm. Javier had lied to me. He told me Gus was here. All along I was chasing after something that wasn’t real. Where was Gus?

“Why?” I cried out. “Why did he lie?”

“Because,” she said, her eyes avoiding mine, “he knew you’d never come for me. But you’d go for your father.”

“My father?” I asked while I heard Camden suck in his breath behind me. “He’s dead. I know he’s dead. Don’t tell me Javier lied about that too?”

“Ellie, I think we should get her out of here first,” Camden said quickly. “I hear something upstairs.”

I ignored him and my mom went on. “The father you know is dead, Ellie. I’m sorry sweetie. He was … Travis killed him. To take possession of me. We never knew what we were getting into when we came here. We only wanted … revenge. For you.”

“The father I know?” I asked, suddenly recalling Javier wording things very similarly.

She gave me a sad smile. “Ellie, I’m sorry. Gus is your real father.”

“What?”

What?

This was too much. My brain started to shut down on itself.

Gus. All this time. Gus. The man I was looking for, the man who was like a father to me more than my real father was in fact my real father. This shit couldn’t even be digested. My mother had an affair with Gus. Who the fuck didn’t she have an affair with?

“Fuck,” Camden swore under his breath. “I had a feeling.”

I whipped my head to look at him. “You had a feeling and you didn’t tell me?”

“I didn’t know for sure and I didn’t know how,” he said quickly. “I knew you wanted to get him back badly enough as it was.”

“And Javier knew that too,” my mother went on, trying to adjust herself. I was both so angry at her and her lies and hurting because she was hurt. “He knew you’d come here for Gus if he told you that Travis had him.”

“But why?”

“To kill Travis.”

I shook my head, trying to get some sense into it. “Still? Again? Why doesn’t he just do it?”

“Because if you do it, he cannot be blamed. It won’t be a coup. And he’ll just take right over. Everyone’s allegiance will be to him. Cartels, my girl, are archaic.”

“Don’t call me that,” I hissed at her. “I am not your girl. I cannot put up with any more of your lies. Everything you’ve ever told me is a lie. You’re just like him.” Whether I meant Travis or Javier by that it didn’t matter.

“We have to go, now,” Camden said louder.

As if on cue, the building rumbled and shook slightly, the light bulb swaying.

“What the hell was that?” I asked, automatically looking to my mom.

She looked bewildered. “I don’t know.”

“Javier,” Camden said.

My mother’s mouth dropped open. “Javier is here?”

“He brought us here,” I told her. “How else would have we found you? How else would he have insured that I would keep going after Gus?” My voice cracked over his name.

“He ditched us in the jungle on the way here,” Camden filled in. “Obviously knowing we would keep coming. I guess he was waiting for us to make the first move. Either he’s gotten impatient or they somehow know we’re down here with you.”

“Well, fuck this,” I said and quickly took my lock-picking tools to the cage she was being kept in. Once I had gotten that open, I crawled in beside her and got her handcuffs off.

She rubbed her raw wrists and looked at me proudly. “I taught you well. You always were the best at picking locks.”

My lip automatically curled. “You shouldn’t be proud at me for being a con artist, for being like you. You should be proud that I’m bothering to get you out of here after everything you’ve done to me.” I grabbed her by her arm and pulled her up and out of the cage, ignoring the look on her face, like I’d slapped her. “Can you walk?”

She swallowed hard but nodded. “Yes. I’ve only been in there for a few days. I … I talked back to him the other night and …”

I raised my hand. “I don’t want to hear it.” I looked at Camden. “You’ll take care of her okay?” Before he could answer, I snatched the other gun from his pocket and ran toward the stairs just as I heard gunfire breaking out upstairs.

“Ellie!” Camden screamed at me, full-on horror.

But I kept running, gun in each hand, taking the stairs two by two to the top.

I was getting Gus back.

And I was going to make everyone pay.

I slammed the door open into the hall and was surprised to already see a guard running toward me. I quickly raised my gun and shot him in the head before he had a chance to aim at me. Then I kicked the door back shut, my gun already pointed straight forward and saw Dom at the opposite end of the hallway. I figured the guard was running toward someone.

Dom froze where he was, his gun also drawn.

“Don’t you fucking move!” I screamed at him. “Don’t you fucking move.”

To his credit, Dom stayed put. I had a feeling it’s because he wasn’t allowed to kill me. I was going to have to make that work in my favor.

I ran down the hall toward him but when I crossed the foyer I was met with glass breaking and bullets riddling the walls. I kept running, noticing there was fire coming up from behind where Dom was, filling the end of the hallway.

I stopped in front of him and immediately pistol whipped him across his nose. He cried out, grabbing his face and dropping his gun. I scooped it up, sticking it in my boots. Now I had three guns. I had a feeling I could never have enough.

More bullets and shots came from the foyer. I quickly grabbed Dom and swung him around the corner into the laundry room, shutting the door behind us. I slammed his head against the door, stuck the end of my gun against his temple, and yelled, “Talk! Tell me every fucking thing you know or I will kill you.”

He looked at me in utter fear, at my eyes which must have shown the rage that was flowing through me. What had Javier said earlier about depravity? Well he must have known I had that in spades, just waiting for the right moment for me to snap.

And I had snapped.

“Talk!” I screamed again, my spit flying into his bloody face.

“You were set up,” he said, panicking. “From the start.”

“You fuck! And you said you liked me.”

He blinked several times. “I do like you. But I love my family.”

I pushed the gun harder into his head. “What was the plan? Where is Gus?”

“You were supposed to be a diversion. You’d kill Travis and we’d swoop in, secure the compound. I don’t know where Gus is, I don’t. Javier said he was being kept somewhere for future use. I don’t know what that means. He’s alive, though.”

“Take me to Javier,” I told him, pulling him off the door and jamming the gun into his lower back.

He looked over his shoulder. “He’s in a firefight.”

“No,” I said, “Derek and Este are in a firefight. Javier is somewhere else, biding his time. Waiting for me. Take me to him. Now.”