Last Breath (Hitman #2)(71)
Author: Jessica Clare

“Yeah.” I don’t sugarcoat it. “You may have nightmares.”

She gives me a sad smile. “I’m already going to have those. Maybe this won’t be a nightmare. Maybe this will kill some of my fear.”

I shake my head. “I’m no psychologist. I’m a soldier. I don’t know if this will lessen your fear or make a mark that you can’t shake off. Some things . . .” I pause and think back to my time outside the wire in Afghanistan, some of the secret operator missions I’ve been on, and all the haunted eyes I’ve seen in the girls I’ve rescued. “Some things can’t be unseen.”

“But you’re going out there?”

I nod. “I’ve got nightmares, too. He’s one of them. I’m not sorry to see him die.”

“Me neither.” She puts her hand in mine, and I feel the foam between us. “Let’s go.”

Twenty-eight

Regan

DANIEL WARNED ME THAT IT would be bad. But I should have guessed that if he was trying to shield me from it—after all we’d been through together—it would be really, really bad.

I see a cross in the center of the compound’s courtyard, and that’s enough for me to flinch. “Are they going to—”

“Yup,” Daniel answers flatly.

“Oh.” My stomach feels a little weak at the thought and at the kindling I see people stacking at the bottom of the cross. There are people gathered, people everywhere. It’s like the entire favela has turned out to see this. Mendoza’s men are armed and grim-faced as they make a protective ring on the outskirts that no one will cross.

Hudson is standing nearby, stiff as a board, gazing off into the distance. There are two armed men standing next to him, but he’s calm. He’s calm even when they begin to lead him forward. There’s another man kneeling near the base of the cross. His hands are bound behind his back, and his head is bowed. I think he must be crying because his shoulders are shaking.

Mendoza stands over him, a fire behind him illuminating the whole macabre scene. “Recite his crimes,” he instructs the man on the ground.

“Carl Hudson has committed acts . . .” the man half speaks, half whispers. The words dribble out between heaving sobs.

“Louder,” Mendoza commands.

The bound man starts again. “Carl Hudson has committed acts of depravity for which he will be punished. He has stolen thirty-four women, raped them, and passed them around to his helpers until they were dead. Two of those women belonged to Tears of God. Those people belonged to Rafael Mendoza and had his protection. Touching any of Mendoza’s people means death. But for the other thirty-two women, we require more than an execution. Mendoz and the Tears of God require judgment.”

Mendoza raises his arms to his people. “Do we agree that Carl Hudson should die for his sins and be judged by Cristo Redemptor of his final destination?”

“We do!” the crowd shouts back.

I hate the man, but I’m not sure I can see him nailed to a cross and burned. I swallow hard, and my hand sneaks back into Daniel’s.

He pulls me against him. He drags me against his body and tucks my face against his neck, holding me there. In my ear, he murmurs, “You don’t always have to be strong, fighter.”

I nod, inhaling his scent and clinging to him, my arms around his neck. I stay there, because I don’t want to be anywhere else.

I’m there when the sound of a hammer strikes and Hudson starts screaming. I’m there as the hammer falls over and over again, and then the screaming gets louder and the crackle of a fire starts. Smoke fills the air. I inhale Daniel’s scent, trying to drown out the smell of burnt flesh, and hide my face against him, letting him be the tough one here.

After a while the screaming dies down, and Daniel touches my cheek. “It’s over. Let’s go inside, fighter.”

I don’t look back. I don’t need to see—it’s going to be in my nightmares plenty.

We go in and return to Daniel’s room back in the infirmary. Daniel sits on the edge of the bed, and Mendoza follows us in. I sit in a chair close to Daniel’s bed, but I don’t want to hover. The last thing he wants is a clingy girlfriend all over him while he talks to his old army buddy. But I want to be clingy. I want to burrow into Daniel’s side and have him hold me while I try to process what happened.

Hudson won’t be bothering us anymore. He won’t be coming after me or wanting to check my teeth. He won’t be waiting for me to be broken. No more girls will disappear into his dungeon and never reappear. By doing this, we’ve saved so many, and gotten justice for that many more.

And I should feel relieved about all of this, but all I can think of are his screams as he was nailed to the cross. And I don’t feel good about it. I can try to be tough and be a fighter, but I don’t know that I’ll ever be as tough as Daniel needs me to be if we’re going to stick together.

This thought worries me as Mendoza adjusts his belt loaded with guns. It’s nothing to him to walk around armed to the teeth, to live in a favela where people don’t bat an eye when an enemy is nailed to a cross and burned alive.

To them, it says safety. To me, it says torture porn.

“How are the bullet holes?” Mendoza asks as Daniel pats his side, grimacing.

“Well, they’re not magically better yet,” Daniel retorts.

“Maybe it’s because you’re a little too vigorous in your sickbed, eh?” He grins at Daniel and my face flushes. “She was kissing my boo-boos,” Daniel says easily. “Don’t be a hater because one side of your bed is cold.”

“Hell, yeah,” Mendoza says, and I get embarrassed all over again. I curl my legs under me in the chair and try to pretend that Mendoza and all his men haven’t seen me naked recently. They’re not safe, like Daniel, and they still make me anxious, even if they’re nice.

“So,” Daniel says casually, glancing at Mendoza and then at me. “When’s someone going to tell me what happened to my sister?”

I freeze in my seat, anxiety rising to the forefront. Daniel’s voice is calm and even, but he’s been looking for his sister for two years. How is he going to feel once he knows I let Vasily take her? I don’t know what I’ll do if he looks at me with cold indifference. I need Daniel. I need him the way I need air, and I know that’s not healthy and I don’t care.

My hands drag through my hair anxiously. I’ve been hiding the secret of where Naomi has gone for the past few days, and every time Daniel starts to look around his sickroom, or ask questions, I distract him with kisses. It’s not that I hate the kisses—God, I love the kisses so much—but I know I’ve fallen back on my old bag of tricks that Daniel hates.