Axalia screamed, “Axis!”
Captain Pierce cut her loose, but he didn’t have to push her. She jumped into the water. He leaned over the railing and yelled, “If you make it to shore, get to a hospital! There’s flesh-eating bacteria in these waters. That is, if the sharks don’t get to you first! Adios!” He started the engine, turned theExodusaround, and sped away, churning white water behind him.
“I hope you drown, you murderous pair of monsters.”
“I’m s…s…soc…cold.” Axalia’s teeth chattered as she tread water. “Not…not gonna make it, Axis. G…g…go on…without me.” She slipped beneath the chilly waves.
“Lia!” Axis inhaled a deep breath and dove under water to search for his sister.
Though tired and weak, he summoned the energy to drag Axalia to the surface after he spotted her floating a few feet away.
“C’mon, Lia! Stay with me. We can do this!”
Axalia coughed up the water in her lungs and gasped for air.
Axis held her head above water with his remaining strength. “Look, Lia! The shore is no farther than the length of a football field. We can do this, but you have to help me. Please. We’re so close.”
“I… c…can’t.”
“You have to!” Axis cried. “If you don’t, we’ll both drown. Remember what Mama and Papa taught us. We’re Andersons. We’re strong. We were born to the revolution. And we don’t quit.Ever!Now kick your legs and help me!”
Drawing upon their last reserves of energy, the siblings thrashed and kicked their way toward land. The Gulf spit them out, and they lay on the warm sand of the beach, heaving and gasping from their exertion until they lost consciousness.
Axalia’sfurious screams roused Axis to wakefulness. Rough hands hauled him to his feet. His head spun, and his stomach roiled with nausea. Sharp foreign voices snarled something at him in Mexican. A hard fist connected with his jaw.
“Leave him alone!” Axalia shouted. She squealed when one of the men backhanded her.
As if part of a hive mind, something snapped inside Axis and Axalia. Adrenaline flooded their veins. Their psyches clicked with dark, violent images from their intense brainwashing, and their bodies reacted. They struck swiftly. Silently. Unexpectedly. As one entity. In less than a minute two of the four men who had accosted them lay dead, the third was bleeding out through his carotid artery, and the fourth, seriously injured but not near death, found himself in a chokehold. Axis could break his neck with ease.
The terrified man faced Axalia. She punched him in the gut and declared in Spanish, her voice calm and leaden,“We’re going to fucking kill you unless…you take us to General Jorge Escobar.”
His eyes grew wide with abject fear. He trembled.“No! No!”
Axis cut off the man’s air supply.“Try again.”
“Sí! Sí!”
“That’s better.”
Axalia picked up a pair of handguns that belonged to the dead men. She gave one to her brother who jammed the barrel into his hostage’s back.
“Move!”Axis commanded.
They shuffled toward an old dune buggy. All the men wore uniforms that indicated they were Mexican border patrol officers. Axis forced the man to climb behind the wheel and took the seat next to him. He kept his gun pointed at the officer’s side. In the back seat, Axalia pressed her gun against the man’s head.
“Don’t try anything,”she warned him.“Or I’ll blow your brains out.”
“How far is General Escobar’s compound?”Axis asked.
“R…rough…thirty-five k…kilometers,” their hostage stuttered in broken English.
“So, youdounderstand English.”
“Sí.”
“Then take my sister’s warning very seriously. Any tricks and you’re a dead man. As you have seen, we don’t need guns to kill you.”
“Who…who are you?”
