Page 99 of Miguel
Iscrambledawayfrommy captors as they made their way towards me. They argued with one another in their language, making wild gestures with their hands, voices raising to shouts.
I was confused and couldn’t understand anything they were saying. My fear only grew when they began gesturing in my direction.
One of them broke away from the group and made his way towards me. I rammed my back into the wall, but unless I became a ghost and fell through the solidity of it, I had nowhere to run or hide.
He reached me and grabbed me by digging his fingers into the roots of my hair. He pulled and the pain was immediate and dizzying.
I couldn’t hold back my cry of pain. My vision watered as he all but dragged me by the hair out in the open.
The men in front of him began shouting, the one with the gun–the leader of the bunch–pointed it above my head.
I wasn’t sure if I begged.
I must have, because my throat felt hoarse and my body felt cold. My head spun and the pain lanced from my skull all the way down the back of my neck.
“Let go of me!” I kicked my legs out against the ground, planting my feet firmly and lifting myself up for leverage against the pain.
My captor only held me tighter, his grip fisting my strands. A fist came flying against my cheek, effectively silencing me.
“Shut the fuck up, puta.”
The world went black for a moment. No, no, no. I couldn’t pass out. Not now. I couldn’t. I refused.
The side of my face throbbed, and I could feel my eye pulsing shut.
“Please…” I hated to beg, but the pain was too much.
“You hear that?” The one holding me switched to Spanish. “She said please. Let’s beat her ass, fuck her, and dump her on the steps of their compound to send a fucking message.”
My blood went cold.
“No,” the leader declared. “You don’t know shit about MCs, do you? They’re ride or die. We can use her as a bargaining chip to get back what we lost.”
“Fuck that. I want revenge!”
He tossed me to the ground, and a moment later the kick came. It jolted through my system, shocking me into stillness. I gasped, unable to take air into my lungs. The men above me began arguing again, unaware or uncaring that I was gasping for breath on the ground. My nerves seized, and it was excruciating.
I wasn’t sure how long I lay like that. Wasn’t sure how long the pain rendered me useless. But when it finally ebbed, I gasped, sucking greedy lungfuls of air and tears. I sobbed onto the dirty ground, tasting the tang of blood and dirt on my tongue.
Their arguing only grew louder, pushing past the barriers of white noise that echoed through my own ear drums. I looked up, squinting through the haze, my vision already blurring.
Don’t pass out,I willed myself.
For the love of God, please, don’t pass out…
A shot rang out, glass broke from one of the upper windows. The sound was so startling, I jerked, spraining my shoulders and wrists as I pulled at my ties. The men shouted, but there was no stopping the bullet that pierced through the window and hit one of my captors square in the forehead.
His corpse dropped into a heap on the ground. The suddenness of it pushed everyone else into motion. They dropped low, ducked behind pillars, and left me out in the open.
A stray thought flew through my mind; I hoped a bullet would hit me too and end this torment.
But that didn’t happen.
There was a bang as the door was pounded against. I felt a hand clamp down against my ankle and drag me across the dirty floor like I was a sack of potatoes. I didn’t have the energy to fight back anymore, so I let it happen. In my own dizziness I wasn’t even sure what was going on around me except for chaos.
And through the haze of panic and pain, I heard them.
Motorcycles. Voices.
