“I do not know how to help you. Tell me, please.”
She could not respond, only suck in quick shallow breaths through her bruised throat, the pain of the broken bones of her leg, the humiliation of rape and beating, overwhelming her.
Armando’s head fell between his shoulders. He needed to help this woman. She had saved him. He went back to the dead man’s body, pulled his shirt off, and dropped it within reach of the woman. Then he went to the nearest knapsack and pulled out the supplies. He found another pack nearby and took a quick inventory, then divided everything as evenly as he could.
He went back to the woman and set food and water near her. Her hair had fallen over her dirty face. She gasped in and out short, sharp breaths. She resembled a wild animal caught in a trap. “This is for you,” Armando said, motioning to the food and water. “You cannot walk. I cannot carry you. I must go and find help while I can.”
The woman sat still, breathing raggedly, and said nothing. Armando tried to find her eyes. “When I find help. I will come back for you.” Armando sat back on his haunches, preparing to leave.
The woman leaned forward, grabbed his shirt, pulled him to her, and mumbled words in his ears that would haunt him until the day he died. She let go of him and fell back, grasping the pack he had prepared for her.
Armando stood and stumbled away from her and into the woman tied to the tree. At first he cursed, but after seeing the wretched condition of her body up close, he slumped his shoulders and resigned himself to cut the woman free. He pulled her away as far as he could and covered her with some rocks. Then he dragged the Cackling Coyote’s body away from the campfire out toward the dead guards, hoping it would draw predators to them and away from the woman.
Before Armando left, he looked up at the rape tree one last time, grotesque in form, holding the permanent ornaments—each a fading story of someone’s ruined life.
𓂓
Armando had often pondered the fate of the woman who had helped him kill the Cackling Coyote. He had every intention of going back for her, but after spending days lost in the desert, he became sure an awful fate had befallen her. Had she died of thirst? Shock? Had she been eaten alive? Bled to death? Torn apart by wild coyotes or vultures?
Wandering in the wild, he had seen her death unfold in his mind’s eye, seen her suffer and despair and die 10,000 different ways. She had befallen this fate because he hadn’t fulfilled the promise he made. The guilt of abandoning her had always weighed heavy. It rotted the last of his innocence from the inside. Along with what the Shaman had shown him upon returning to the village, it had been enough to push him over the edge and embrace the offer of a demon in trade for his soul.
“What did she say?” Elena demanded.
“Why did you stay?” Armando replied. He could sense that the connection with his demon had been weakened in the light of her sacrifice for a stranger—in the light of the psychic hold Carmen had on him. He now understood that he had become what he originally loathed. The Shaman, the demon, they had seduced him with power, tricked an innocent child, preyed on his weaknesses, and betrayed him. He had been a puppet. “Why did you remain here instead of running away?” He knew the answer but needed to hear it.
“This man saved me,” Elena replied. “I would not abandon him for that.”
Armando softened, his eyes reflected inward, searching for a soul he had traded away long ago.
Her head tilted to the side, strands of dirty hair shifted in front of orange eyes as she spoke. “You remember compassion, don’t you, Armando?”
He saw himself in this girl. He saw his lost innocence in her. She had the same innate response he had so long ago. To stay and try to help the one who saved her, just as he had wanted to do for the woman in the desert. Ashamed, he now knew he’d taken the wrong path, as the woman said he would. ‘You will become one of them. Savage. You may even be persuaded to relinquish your soul. But do not fear. One day, you will have a choice and you will make the right decision.’
Armando motioned back up the tunnel with his handgun. “Go,” he said. The reds of his eyes dimmer, the fierceness dissipating.
Elena hesitated, orange eyes sparking brighter now. She looked over to Dewey cowering in the dirt.
“I will not harm him. We will escape through the tunnels. He will be freed once we get to the other side.”
After a moment’s pause, Elena nodded, then moved away.
Armando motioned toward her with the gun again as if to shoo her along.
𓂓
Michael had heard the scuffling from his position in the tunnel. It wasn’t far ahead. He slowed when he heard people speaking, trying to make out what they said, but he could not. He moved as slowly and as silently as he could, gun leveled, looking for a line of sight. As he rounded a bend, Elena’s form materialized from the darkness of the low-lit tunnel. She appeared to be moving slowly toward him. Michael paused. There was something different about her. He thought he could make out a soft orange glow. He crept around and saw a gun being waved in her direction.
Without hesitation, Michael moved around the bend and saw ABCs. A snarl came over The Alphabet King’s face, red eyes suddenly popped with rage as he lifted the gun toward Michael, who already had his gun leveled.
Michael simply had to squeeze the trigger of his Glock. With an elemental snarl, all the rage, all the resentment, all the hopelessness Michael had ever felt because of men like Armando Cardentias flowed out of his body and into that bullet as it roared toward its target. ABCs’ head jerked back when the bullet struck the center of his forehead. The Alphabet King stood motionless, seeming to float in disbelief for just a second as a red mist oozed from the hole made by the bullet.
Michael watched the limp form of The Alphabet King fall to the dusty floor of the desolate tunnel. A sense of deep satisfaction washed over him knowing the cruel reign of a truly depraved man in this forlorn hub of the underworld had come to an undignified end.
That sensation, however, was short-lived.
𓂓
Elena stood before The Alphabet King’s fallen form—a dim orange glow in her eyes. Dewey risked a glance around the corner of the tunnel wall to confirm what he already knew. Michael saw him and turned the gun toward him. “Stay right there,” he shouted at Dewey.
Elena stepped to place herself in between Dewey and the gun. She brought the countenance of her glowing eyes to bear on Michael. “No. Let him go.”
“That is not up to you. Move out of the way,” Michael said.
Without breaking eye contact with Michael, she spoke to Dewey. “Go. Now!” When she didn’t hear anything, she turned her head back to look him in the eyes and spoke as a child would. “Go. I’m okay.”
With that, Dewey slid back behind the wall and vanished into the shadows of the tunnel system.
Michael lowered his weapon in a huff and moved past Elena so he could chase down Dewey. “Why did you tell him to go?”
Pointing to ABCs’ corpse, she said, “It was his last wish.”
“Why do you care about that?”
“Because it was the right thing to do,” Elena/Carmen replied.
“That man did not care about right or wrong.”
“Long ago, he did. He just never had anyone do right by him. At some point, we must break the chain of cruelty.”
