Page 25 of The Godhead Complex
“You’ll be fine,” Minho said.
“I don’t know about that. We could get to the Villa and it could be empty. Or worse, it could be filled with Cranks.”
Minho leaned over to see what Isaac had carved into the log. Isaac used the sharper knife to improve it. Now his message could stay marked in the tree forever. Minho motioned to the left side of his neck with one finger. “You go for this spot, here. Any man, Crank, or animal will be gone in a second.”
“And what if I can’t get a good go at the neck?” Isaac thought about the half-Cranks he and Jackie had faced.
Minho stood up from the log and walked around to Isaac’s back, tapping spots on the lower back to the left and the right of his spine. “Then you get him here,” Minho dug in with his knuckles, “or here.” Kidneys. They’re full of blood. You hit that spot, either side, and they’ll be dead within minutes.”
Even the knuckles had hurt in those two spots, so Isaac couldn’t imagine getting stabbed there. He committed it all to memory. “Okay, so if things don’t work out for either of us, we’ll meet back here?”
“Sounds fair.” Minho sat back down on the log. Although it wasn’t a promise like Sadina had made Isaac, he’d take it.
“Thanks for this,” he said as he tucked the knife into his pocket.
“No problem.” Minho leaned over again to see Isaac’s fresh carving. “Now, what the hell is this supposed to say?”
Isaac traced the deep grooves he’d made into the wood with his fingertips. He didn’t expect Minho to understand the symbol of water below a sun, with an arrow pointed in both directionsfrom the sea to the sky.
“This is my promise,” he said.
CHAPTERTWELVE
Words of Wisdom
No hay dos sin tres.
Ximena’s Abuela had sayings that became like prayers to their small family. Always repeated with an urgency that felt like a stern, ominous warning. And even though her grandmother was far back at the village now, Ximena heard the wonderful woman’s words echo in her mind as she stopped in her tracks on the desert. Heat rained down on her and Carlos like hot, invisible rain.
No hay dos sin tres.
There is not two without three.
Something can happen once and be not of worry, but if something happens twice, it will surely happen a third time. All bad things happened in threes. Ximena wondered if good things were the same—if maybe good things happened in a sequence of threeall the timebut we were too distracted or too unimpressed to notice. Ximena looked for the good and the bad in everything, but the echo of her grandmother’s adage at the sight of another dead and bloated jackrabbit landed the omen square in her stomach. Within the next day or two of walking, she’d surely stumble upon another one.
“Shame we didn’t get here sooner, we could have had supper.” Carlos jabbed at the tiny corpse with the pointy end of his walking stick but she’d have rather eaten rat meat. She could never eat rabbit without thinking of its pounding heartbeat. Anytime she managed to catch one back in the village, the poor little thing’s heart raced faster than it could hop.
“What do you think is killing them?” she asked Carlos.
“Could be anything. Snake. Bird of prey.” He continued walking, but Ximena stopped to examine the rabbit on its back, moving it to its side with a rock. No visible blood. No holes or cuts to its body. Just dead.Muerto.
“A snake or a bird eats its prey after they kill it. Looks like it’s been here for maybe two days.” She shook her head and wondered what her Abuela might say about two dead, blackened rabbits. All things in nature held a language, a symbolism that her grandmother seemed to have memorized. Ximena stared at the ratty fur waiting for some bit of information or wisdom to come to her.Was this a warning from Creation?
“Sometimes animals kill just to kill,” Carlos said from ahead and Ximena pulled herself back to her feet to catch up. She hadn’t minded not having kids her age to play with growing up, and even now Carlos as heronlyfriend didn’t bother her, but her only friend was often wrong. It wasn’t that he was stupid, it was that he let hope outweigh his critical thinking. Hehopednothing mysterious had killed these rabbits, leaving their carcasses to rot, so he reasoned it away.
“Animals kill to eat. They kill out of instinct to survive. Killing just to kill—you’re thinking ofhumans.”
“Ah, Ximena, always the wise one.” He smiled as if neither of them knew how truly murderous humans could be.
“People are inherently evil. You know that.” Carlos was trying his best to ignore reality, but she couldn’t let him. Not anymore. Not while they were out in the middle of the desert all alone. She pushed him to confront what those in the village tried so hard to cover up. “TheHollowings.” Ximena insisted, “People are doing that, not animals.”
She waited for Carlos to reply, but he only responded with the same rehearsed thing that all the adults seemed to love repeating. “The Council of Elders said it’s wolves. Wild wolves.”
“Wolves are wild. You don’t have to say ‘wild wolves,’ it’s redundant. And I think you know wolves couldn’t slice a human open with a clean square cut.Wolvesdon’t have thumbs to pull out organs. And they wouldn’t leave all that meat behind.” Ximena waited for Carlos to respond, but he didn’t. He walked like a man on a mission, and she hoped he was just trying to protect her. She had enough doubts without having to distinguish the truth from the lies. She didn’t need protection. She needed the truth. “Do you really think we’ll find them? It doesn’t feel in my heart as though we’re getting any closer to them.”
“You and your feelings. Of course we’ll find them.” He added no additional reasoning.
Ximena had thought that once they started the search for her mom and Mariana that she’d feel better. Like all of Creation might play a game of Hot or Cold with her and shout through various signs,caliente, caliente.
