Page 12 of V-Day
“So you grabbed your bug-out bag and left,” she concluded. She glanced at the camp, a hundred feet below. “And you took Pascuallita with you.”
“What was left of Pascuallita—everyone I could connect with safely,” Cristián amended. “We stood on the cliff up behind the town and watched a dozen Insurrecto trucks roll through the main street.” He shook his head. “Whoever tipped me off, they’re on the inside. Theyknew.”
“They knew more than you. Did you hear about Calli, Cristián? Adán Caballero? The Ambassador of Mexico?”
He frowned. “My laptop is dead. So is my cellphone. No one has a live battery left in the camp. It’s been four days.”
Chloe told him about the rash of hostage taking and extortion Serrano had launched. “They were coming foryou, Cristián,” she finished. “You and your family, so they could pressure Duardo. Sweeping up the entire town was just a pretext.”
“No one in the town would have pointed them to our house, anyway,” Cristián said thoughtfully. “They would point in the opposite direction, if they pointed at all. They had to round up the town to find us. Instead, I took the town away from them.” His expression hardened. A light came into his eyes. “I didn’t know they were looking for us in particular, although it hardly matters. I wasn’t going to wait to find out and I wasn’t going to leave anyone behind for them to trample on.”
The ringing note in his voice reminded Chloe of a conversation she’d had with Téra only a few days ago. “I wish your sister could see you now,” she said softly.
“Pia and Trini are both down there,” he said, sounding amused. He pointed to the camp below them. “They just have to look up.”
“I mean Téra. She told me you were the quiet brother. The mellow one.” She laughed. “If she had seen you just then, she would have known exactly what I meant when I said she was completely wrong about you.”
Cristián didn’t laugh. He didn’t even smile. His gaze was on the camp, below.
Chloe studied him again, troubled. Her heart ached. This was not the Cristián she thought she knew so well, either. This was not the man she had spoken to for…well, years, if she included the Group conversations.
Cristián was an introvert while his elder brother, Duardo, was not. Cristián had always known that difference and accepted it. Duardo had covered himself in glory—military honors and promotions, physical exploits and more. Cristián had chosen the opposite path in every respect. He had even refused to go to the local school. His education had been self-directed. Because of his gifts, he had focused upon intellectual pursuits and left the physical accomplishments to Duardo.
When the Internet came along in the 1990s, Cristián begged his mother to buy him a computer and modem. She gave him both for his ninth birthday. Cristián had been on-line ever since, a world-traveler in his mind.
The Internet broadened his horizons in ways no one in his family— most especially Duardo—could possibly understand.
Chloedidunderstand, because she was a part of the world Cristián found. It was why she understood him better than anyone else.
Only…a kernel of doubt gnawed at her. They knew each other intimately, in every little detail, yet they were strangers.
“Tell me what you are thinking,” she begged him, her heart squeezing.
Cristián nodded down at the camp. “I’m thinking that I have my sisters and my mother here. A whole village of people. I can’t just break off and dash across the sea on a whim as you did.”
“Is someone asking you to do that?” She certainly had not.
He shook his head. “I’m telling you what I’m thinking. For so long…for years, I have thought we were the same, you and me. Only…we’re not. Not really. You have freedom.” He looked down at the camp. “I don’t.”
Coldness prickled the length of her spine, making her shiver once more.
She had risked everything to get here. She had readied, fired and now she must assess her aim. Had she aimed wrong?
*
THE EMPTY BED ON THEother side of the room was an accusatory finger. Every time she glanced at it, Calli’s guilt rose a little higher.
Surely there must have been something she could do to save Roldán from the fate she was facing right now? Only, every time Calli thought of what happened in the bordello in the basement, with the white-haired and freaky Ibarra, she could detect no moment when she might have chosen to do anything differently. Nothing could have changed the outcome.
Roldán made the choice which put her where she was.
Calli had been locked in this bland room for two days since, with nothing to do but stare at the walls, the empty bed, or look out the window and wonder what Nick and Duardo and Flores were doing now.
The lack of information was crippling. It made her heart beat harder, as she tried to guess what might be happening out there.
The turn of the heavy lock on the door, at least three hours before the standard arrival of the minimal meal which would be her supper, made Calli sit up. Her heart was already racing. Now her pulse leapt with it as she watched the door open.
This was different. This was a break in the routine. Something had happened. Something had changed to cause this break.
