lightbulb hanging from the ceiling filled the room with light. The place was cramped and smelled faintly of mold, barely big enough to fit two cots, a folding metal chair, and a small card table with an old television—complete with bent rabbit ears—on top of it. Whether the television actually worked was anybody’s guess. She wasn’t in the mood to find out.
Two backpacks, one olive green and the other black, sat on the floor between the cots. A door to the left led to a tiny bathroom of questionable cleanliness. No curtains hung over the single barred window, just a tattered roll-down plastic shade that might have been white at some point.
Part of her couldn’t help but wonder what Tiny would want in return for his help. She had no money, nothing of value to trade aside from her medical bag, which she simply refused to part with. And she had no intention of bartering her body for favors.
In a nutshell, she was screwed, and not in a good way.
Perhaps he was just a nice guy who wouldn’t expect any kind of payment, though she doubted that was the case. In her experience, everybody wanted something; the trick was figuring out what it was and whether the cost was worth it.
Her heart leaped into her throat at the sound of voices outside. Two men, and they sounded an awful lot like the cops from the bar. Spanish wasn’t her strongest language, and she struggled to keep up with how quickly they spoke, but when she heard “la güera,” she knew they were talking about her.
Her gaze darted to the back of the room, hoping to find an exit that she’d somehow missed earlier. No such luck, of course. That would have been too convenient. She was trapped, with only one way out. Pulse racing, she searched for something to use as a weapon, but the only thing she saw was the television remote.
As the voices drew closer, her pulse pounded faster, until it got so loud it was a wonder they couldn’t hear it outside. There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. From what she could tell, they were right by the door, and when the doorknob jiggled, she nearly let out a shriek.
Time slowed to a crawl as she stared at the door, her hands shaking, senses sharpening with the sudden surge of adrenaline. She slipped one hand into her medical bag and unzipped the small leather case that contained her surgical scalpels.
Without looking, she drew out the No. 10 blade, with its curved cutting edge. She’d used it in surgery so many times she knew which one it was by the feel of the handle. If given the choice, she’d rather not fight, but she would if she had to. One way or another, she was not going back to that compound. Because if she did, she was as good as dead.
But then the voices started to move away, growing fainter and fainter until she couldn’t hear them any longer.
Relief slumped her shoulders. Leaning back against the wall by the door, Hope closed her tired eyes and blew out a heavy exhale. Her whole body trembled and her skin was slicked with sweat, both perfectly normal physiological responses, given the situation. Eyes still closed, she concentrated on her erratic breathing until it finally slowed to normal.
Now that the excitement was over, a dizzying wave of fatigue crashed over her. Five days without a full night’s sleep had a way of wearing out a woman. The shot of tequila on an empty stomach wasn’t helping matters. While on the run, rest had come in small increments: a half hour here, fifteen minutes there. Whenever she’d felt safe enough to let her guard down, and that hadn’t occurred very often.
Food had been just as scarce. The supplies she’d brought had only lasted two days. After that, she ate what she scavenged in the rainforest. No meat—she would’ve had to build a fire for that—just greens, fruits, roots, and nuts that she’d deemed safe for human consumption. Thankfully, she hadn’t accidentally ingested anything poisonous, but she was looking forward to a real meal. With real silverware. Maybe a cup with a straw—or better yet, a cold, fruity drink with one of those tiny colorful umbrellas.
But before any of that could happen, she needed to set foot on American soil. And that wasn’t going to happen until she figured a way out of…wherever the hell she was. She never had the