A/N: Ever since we got those little hints from Carmen, I've been very curious about how Lorna and Marcos first got together. Please enjoy this take! :)
The second time he saw her, he thought he was imagining things. He had stopped by Murray Drive to check in with the Rios—payment day was coming up—and when he stepped out of their shop, there she was. Standing on the corner, eating ice cream.
He frowned, blinking behind his sunglasses, trying to recall if he'd had any water today. He was in a dark suit and it was hot out; perhaps he was seeing a mirage. But then he took off his sunglasses and she was still there. Standing on the corner, eating ice cream.
What the fuck?
He had half a mind to forget about her and turn around and walk away—she had her back to him, so he could escape unnoticed—but the other half couldn't forget about her, or her offer from the other month, so easily. He recalled that breakfast meeting with her and her associate uncomfortably, wondering if her presence here on his turf was a threat, and then deciding all at once that it was. It had to be. Threats he knew how to deal with.
"Are you stalking me now?"
She turned at the sound of his voice, ice cream cone still held to her mouth. "Sorry?" she asked between licks.
"I said, are you stalking me, magnet girl?" He kept his voice low and moved closer—a little too close. Most people stepped back when he did that, but she didn't. Then again, she'd already proven at their first meeting that she wasn't most people. He tried another tack. "You do know who owns this block, don't you?"
"Are you telling me your girlfriend won't appreciate my business? I paid good money for this delicious soft serve. And besides," she pretended to frown, "I thought she was all for mutants, your woman. Oh, wait," she added before he could answer, "I forgot, she only likes the ones she can control."
He held up a finger to her face. "Don't you ever come back here."
"Why not?" she started to wonder, but he'd already turned away.
He walked the long way down Murray Drive, keeping to the straightaway rather than peeling off down one of the side streets. The route was taking him out of his way, but sticking to it made his point: people cleared out as he came down the sidewalk; more than a few crossed to the other side of the street to avoid him. He knew she was watching, her ice cream probably melting all over her hand, and it felt good—as it always did—to have an audience witnessing what he could do. At least until the audience started talking back loud enough for everyone to hear.
"Was that really supposed to scare me, Diaz?"
He didn't see her the next day, or the day after that, or the day after that. When he showed up on Murray Drive two weeks later to collect on the monthly, everything seemed to be going smoothly. The Rios paid up, as did everyone else on the block. He checked the final count, and then he checked it again, even though that wasn't his job. They had people for that, a basement full of people armed with money counters and falsified ledgers, but he needed to do this one himself. He had to make sure her presence hadn't wrecked anything.
And it hadn't. The monthly close was as it should be, and no one was asking questions.
No one except Carmen.
"Matias says you were talking with a strange woman the other day," she began, late one night while they were in bed. "You want to tell me about that?"
"What's there to tell apart from that?" he wondered. "She was strange and she was on the block; I was making sure she wasn't being a problem."
"Mm."
In the dark, he could almost hear Carmen's mind settling. She wasn't measuring his answer for its truth; no, she had come to her own conclusions long ago and he knew from experience that she was not likely to budge. As ever, she was only broaching the topic because she wanted to see how he responded when questioned.
"Matias says she seemed interested in you." Carmen placed her hand on his forearm. He could feel her nails, so long and sharp and perfectly painted, resting against the veins of his inner arm. Harmlessly, for the moment. "Maybe you're interested in her, too?"
Her voice was soft, feigning hurt curiosity, and Marcos rolled his eyes at the ploy. He turned his head towards her so they were face-to-face, each of their ears flat against the mattress.
"What I was interested in was getting her off the block. And I did it." He lifted his chin, meeting her eye. "As for what Matias is interested in, now that's something we really should discuss…"
Knowing what was coming, she groaned, flopping from her side onto her back. "We've been over this, Marcos."
"I'm just saying—and this only proves my point—that that kid lives to get inside your pants. He'd do anything for it, including making up bullshit stories about me." He shook his head at the ceiling, rubbing a hand over his forehead. "I really do not know why you keep him around."
"Isn't it obvious?" She grinned her shark grin at him. "I like the attention."
His frowned. "What, I don't give you enough?"
"Certainly not tonight."
He sighed, squeezing his hand harder over his eyes. "Look, Carmen, it was a long day—"
"I know," she cut him off quietly, reaching out for his arm. She ran her fingers over his forearm gently, pulling his hand back down to his side before bending over to press a kiss to his palm. "I know it was a long day, baby."
He breathed slowly, expelling all the air in his chest as he watched her. He'd used his hands too much today; they ached from all the energy they'd expended. Knowing this, she lifted her lips from his palm and then took his hand in both of hers, massaging the spent muscles gently. He sighed appreciatively at the feel. She always knew how to make him feel better. When she finished with one, she started on the other, and when she was finished with that one too, she moved her hands up to his shoulders, then down over his chest, then lower... He groaned when her fingers closed around him.
"You did good today," she whispered, pressing a kiss to his side.
"Yeah?" he whispered back. His voice trembled a bit, but it wasn't because of how she was touching him.
"Mm-hm. Very good." She leaned closer, pressing herself against him, then throwing a leg over his waist. "Very, very good. Want me to tell you how good?"
"Please," he whispered, and she smiled, sliding on top of him as he closed his eyes. He always closed his eyes at this part. It was so much easier to believe her praise when he kept himself locked in the dark.
The next few months came and went smoothly. Business was doing well, and it looked like the rounds of intimidation he'd put their competitors through over the winter months had paid off: Guerra territory was expanding every week, and there were few people daring to stand in their way anymore.
And yet for all the good days they had, there was always a dark undertone betraying the bad.
He tried to avoid the news. He didn't read the papers and he tuned out the talking heads on the cable stations, but still, he knew what was going on. It was impossible to avoid now: the fight wasn't only over bills in the Senate or protests down the National Mall, it was in the streets. Their streets.
Children were being stolen from schools and adults were being dragged out of workplaces and everywhere, there were cops. They outnumbered the populace, it seemed like, three to one. And they were armed to the teeth.
Of course, the cartel protected their own. Children didn't get snatched from their neighborhoods and parents didn't get accosted at their jobs. The local cops knew better than to encroach on Guerra territory, and it seemed they'd warned the feds off, too. Even if they hadn't, even if the feds were just biding their time, Marcos knew a confrontation was inevitable and he knew it would turn out well for the cartel. It always did. They had enough firepower within their ranks to start an all-out war and sometimes, watching what was happening in the world, Marcos wished they would.
The spring intensified into summer, and with it, so did the raids. Of homes, of businesses, of schools, of playgrounds. Marcos stood by and he watched it in furious and fearful silence until finally he couldn't anymore, and then he did something he'd never done before: he asked Carmen for more work. She didn't hide her surprise, and neither did she hide her pleasure. She brought him every competitor they could find within a ten-mile radius, and then when he was through with those, she moved to a fifteen-mile radius, and then twenty, then twenty-five.
He had an anger in him, one that he couldn't get rid of no matter how hard he tried. It grew every day, every hour, that people just like him were being hunted down in the streets and thrown in prison for no reason other than they were something a little more than human. His anger grew and grew until it was so all-consuming that he could do nothing except unleash it on others. With no other options, he took his fear and his fury out on the men Carmen gave to him, burning them until the marrow boiled in their bones, and for a little while, that was enough.
But just for a little while.
By August, he was going out hunting.
He hit the convoy because he wanted a challenge. He'd been picking off the newly minted Sentinel Services' agents one by one for weeks, and with so much practice, it was becoming too easy. Too mundane. He wanted to burn through more than just one man's heart and another man's lungs. He wanted to slaughter the lot of them, and so when he saw a motorcade pass through the outskirts of the Atlanta metro area, he followed it.
Hitting the first car was easy. He burst the gas tank; watching from the side of the road as the car exploded, flipping in midair as its driver lost control. The others were decidedly harder to subdue—no armed force on earth mobilized faster than Sentinel Services agents—but he had had a lot of practice, and he hit the other cars in quick succession. By the time he'd put down the last of the armed agents, he was soaked through with sweat, and almost dizzy with adrenaline, but he didn't stop. He didn't walk away. He'd chosen this motorcade for a reason, and that reason was the truck at the center of the line.
There were fifteen people crammed inside, chained and collared. Half of them, including two of the kids, boys barely older than fourteen, were bruised and bloody. He could feel the rage rising again, but he made himself control his fury: he directed it at their collars and their cuffs, and in a few minutes, all those would-be prisoners were free. They clambered out and then stood on the pavement outside the truck and stared up at him like he was some sort of savior.
They thanked him—in English and in Spanish and in other languages he couldn't identify, let alone understand—but he said nothing. Instead, he hustled them to the one remaining SUV still intact, making a mental note not to destroy so many vehicles next time. Once they were all inside, squashed in tighter in the SUV than they'd been in the truck, but smiling now, hopeful instead of fearful, he pointed them west, and then curved his arm southwards.
"Frontera," he told the driver, one of the men who'd thanked him in Spanish.
The man nodded, but before he could say thank you again, Marcos slapped the roof of the car and stepped back. The SUV pulled away without another word at the signal, and Marcos watched it until its taillights disappeared into the night. He kept watching, even as his vision blurred and nose ran and he struggled to breathe.
When he could move, he turned around and walked back the way he'd come. He left those people's race to freedom and his own destruction behind, and he took the long way back, making sure his face was dry long before he hit the edge of Guerra territory.
Two more days passed before he saw her again. She was on the same corner as before, sans ice cream this time, and he knew the moment he saw her that she wasn't a mirage. She had planted herself there, where she knew he would see, and she was waiting for him.
He took his time walking over. He checked in with the residents on the block, finishing up his rounds with the shopkeepers. The sun was starting to set when he finally joined her on that corner patch of pavement.
"I seem to recall telling you never to show your face on this street again."
"And I seem to recall telling you that you're not very intimidating."
She wasn't looking at him, choosing instead to stare out at the street, and though he tried not to, he couldn't help staring at her. She looked exactly the same as she had that day so many months ago. I felt like years in the past now, with all that had happened to him in between. He watched her as she watched the street and he wondered if she could see it all written on his face. Maybe that was why she couldn't look him in the eye anymore.
"You did a good thing the other night," she said quietly, keeping her eyes trained across the street.
He didn't say anything at first, his heart momentarily seizing before he remembered that it didn't matter if she knew what he'd done. Who was she going to tell? She was no threat to him, never had been. She was a nobody, same as her long-haired friend.
"I could tell you about next steps, if you want," she continued softly. "How things work in Mexico, how John and I place them with families—"
"I don't need to know about next steps," he cut in. "I have my step, and that's enough."
When he turned and left this time, she didn't call after him. But he walked the long way down Murray Drive anyway, just hoping she would.
The next time he hit a convoy headed out of the city, the people he saved were not grateful. They did not shower him with praise and thanks; instead, they panicked. The moment he broke the door off the back of the transport vehicle, they were on him: two men jumped him, still handcuffed and collared, while the rest streamed out of the back of the truck like an animal horde set free.
He tried to explain, tried to tell them what he was doing, how he was helping them, but instead of listening, they ran. The two men kept him down while the others got a head start, and once they were certain the others were far enough away, they got up and ran too. He tried to follow, but it was dark and the forest was dense. The best he could do was stumble after them, screaming that he was trying to help, that he had saved them.
"Go south!" he bellowed at last, when he knew they were too far away for him to catch up with them. "Go south, at least! The city's a trap!"
He prayed his voice reached them where reason had not, but by the next morning he knew it hadn't. It was all over the news: the biggest public capture of mutant fugitives in years. They were all in federal custody, every last one, including the ten-year-old girl clinging to her mother in the footage they aired on TV. There were appreciative murmurs from the talking heads, smiling rumors that the lead officer responsible for the recapture of the pack of violent fugitives was going to receive a medal to go along with his promotion.
Marcos barely held himself back from putting his foot through the TV. Instead, he camly shut it off, walked outside, and he ran. He ran for miles and miles and miles, telling himself he didn't know what direction he was headed in.
But he knew.
It took a couple hours after he'd arrived, but eventually they showed. He'd taken a gamble on the diner where they'd first met being more than just a place for the Underground to meet prospective employees, and it paid off. The big one, John, came in first, wary, immediately zeroing in on the stranger at his local haunt, while Lorna, dark-haired and unsmiling, followed in his wake.
They sat down across from him without a word, as if this were all prearranged somehow. He waited for one of them to ask why he was here on their turf, but neither spoke, and so finally he had to. He looked right at Lorna.
"I want to know about next steps," he said.
And so they told him.
He didn't tell Carmen about the meeting. He didn't tell anyone. He went back to his work with the cartel, and he blinded and burned the people they told him to blind and burn, and when he was done, he went out and blinded and burned the people he wanted to blind and burn. He wasn't careful about it, even though John had told him to be, and he wasn't picky about his victims, though Carmen always was about hers. He killed what feds he came across and he freed what prisoners they had locked up.
But instead of yelling vaguely about cardinal directions and the semi-porous border of Mexico, he now had detailed directions for his refugees. He had maps. On occasion, he even had food and water and a rudimentary first-aid kit. But most of all he had authority, and he saw in those lost people's eyes what it meant to see someone like them in charge. He saw the hope there, and he held onto it through all the rest. Through the hours he spent torturing snitches for the cartel and through the hours he spent mutilating mutant catchers for himself. He held onto that little bit of hope: not that he'd get away, but that others would.
Once, he might've run with them. Once, he might've stolen off into the night like he had when he was a boy. Once…
But he had other things to think about now. He had the cartel and he had Carmen and he had a life here, as bad as here was. And he was doing good work—John and Lorna updated him every couple months on the status of those he'd helped over the border. Not all of them made it, sometimes not even half, but enough reached safety that he knew he couldn't stop. Innocent people would die if he stopped.
So he kept going.
Carmen's increased work schedule only let him devote more time to his rampaging rescues. She was spending more and more time out of the house, shadowing her father on everything from casual dinners out to formal meet-and-greets with prospective clients. She was taking a personal interest in every single aspect of the family business, and they all knew what that meant. She was her father's only surviving child; one day, the empire would pass onto her. And given how well she was managing already, one day might come sooner than any of them had planned for.
He didn't mind.
Once, he might have. Once, he might've felt slighted by her ambitions and by the fact that there was clearly no role for him in them except as a high-powered muscleman and a familiar body in the night. But now he had something of his own to focus on.
He had an empire too, and it was growing each and every day.
The next time Lorna appeared, he didn't know she was there until she chose to step out of the shadows. He'd gone on another night raid, this one exhaustive, with double the amount of SS agents as usual (perhaps they were finally learning, he thought), and he was just pausing to take a breath, staring at all the wreckage around him, when she stepped out from between the trees.
It was a new moon, and so the night was darker than most, and yet she shone in the darkness like something out of another world. He didn't even need to use his lights to see her, and he smiled to himself at the thought, wondering how many other nights like this had passed by, with her watching from the sidelines and him too busy to notice. Funny that he'd never thought about having an audience before. His nights out on the road always seemed so private to him, like it was some secret shared only with the prisoners he freed and the captors he killed. But of course the Underground would want to keep an eye on its newest employee, making sure he was up to snuff.
"Like the show?" he called out.
She didn't answer, and nor did she move from her spot by the pavement. He lifted one of his hands, keeping it dim, so he could see her face better. She was white—so white he thought she might be about to collapse.
"What's wrong?" he asked, starting towards her.
She immediately stepped back, shaking her head.
He stopped, frowned, then looked around. He didn't see anyone else: no cops reaching for guns behind his back, no Sentinel Services agents on the move.
"What is it?" he asked, peering at her. He wanted to move closer, but he knew instinctively that she would back away. He just didn't know why. He waited through a few fitful starts and stops before she finally got the words out.
"Do… Do you always torture them like that?" she whispered.
"What do you mean?" He looked around, taking note of the bodies around him for the first time since he'd dropped them a half-hour ago. He snorted, turning back to her. "Please. If you think this was torture—"
"They were screaming," she whispered. "They were begging for mercy while you… you… burned their limbs off."
He crossed his arms. "I'm sorry, are you trying to tell me they didn't deserve it? You've seen what they do. How they rip apart families, indiscriminately imprison people—these so-called men are hardly better than slave catchers, Lorna."
"That doesn't mean you have to…" She swallowed her words at the look on his face, and looked down at her shoes. "I'm just saying," she whispered, "that I think there are other ways to deal with—"
"This is a war," he interrupted. "Isn't that what you said? What you and John keep telling me? Well, people die in wars. People get tortured."
"I know, I just… I mean, I think…"
"What?"
She shook her head, already turning away from his sudden fury. But he heard her parting words anyway.
"I think you enjoy it too much, Marcos."
They didn't speak much after that, not that they'd spoken much in the first place. In the rare instances that he needed to communicate with the Underground, it was John that met him at the diner, not Lorna. John never said anything about that night, but Marcos knew Lorna had told her partner about what she'd seen, what he'd done. John didn't seem to treat him any differently, but then, the big man had always been a little distant. Above the fray, somehow, even though he was right in the middle of it. Marcos both envied his calm and pitied him for it. One day all that control was going to get the big man killed, no matter how strong he was.
As for Lorna, well, he didn't know what was going to get her killed. But there were more raids every day. There were more bodies and more prisoners, and no matter how many he freed and sent on through the Underground, it never seemed like enough. There were always more. There were more casualties and more soldiers and more prisoners.
That's war, he told himself. All you have to do is survive.
That was the plan: he would make it through, no matter what. He would stay with the cartel, acting as their lead interrogator in exchange for the protection they offered, and in his downtime from that, he would save as many mutants as he could.
That was the plan, and he was sticking to it—until he day he opened a shipping container in the railyard and everything changed.
At first, he thought they were just junkies. The Guerras trafficked most of their cocaine and heroin via cargo trains out of Atlanta, and though they made a point to keep a lid on their national operations, many of locals knew where to get a hit if they were desperate enough to barter with the devil for one. The Guerras had a habit of taking in those that came to them for drugs and turning them into employees—it was a way to drum up loyalty, and besides, if they killed every smackhead who came to them looking for a little extra, it'd be impossible to keep the cops of their backs.
So he assumed the two men locked inside shipping container 525 were in there because they'd snuck in somehow, gotten high, and been unable to get out. Marcos nearly applauded himself for inspecting the container when he did; they did spot-check inspections intermittently, and if he hadn't bothered to waste a few minutes poking his head in today, those two would likely be dead by the time the product shipped out at the end of the month. But when he opened the door to let them out, they didn't budge. When he tried to force them out, they fought back, and then he knew.
They weren't regular junkies. They weren't regular anything.
They were mutants, and they'd been locked in that shipping container for a reason.
It took Carmen three minutes and fifty-four seconds to get to the railyard. It was an impossible amount of time to travel from the Guerra house downtown all the way out to the railyard, but of course she wasn't at the house. She was out on business, and as luck would have it, she just happened to be nearby. Or so she said.
The longer he stood and stared at those two mutants trapped inside that shipping container, the longer he wondered. He wondered if she had somehow been waiting somewhere nearby, knowing he would come across this today, knowing he would call. He couldn't wrap his mind around it. He couldn't understand why she kept these people here just like he couldn't understand why she had allowed him to find out.
But then she arrived and they started talking and in seconds, he knew.
He knew she knew about everything. About his hunting. About his massacres in the night. About the two mutants from the Underground he'd met at the diner, and all their little friends scattered east and west and north and south all over this country. About their contacts on the other side of the Rio Grande. She knew about everything, and yet she didn't need to explain a word of it to him. All she had to say was, "I'm surprised you called me instead of the magnet girl," and that was enough.
He didn't pretend not to know what she was talking about; they were past that. They had always been past petty games like that. His head was spinning and he wanted to sit down on the ground and take a beat, but those two mutants were still trapped in amongst those crates of cocaine and he couldn't let himself relax until they were set free. He didn't even understand how they were trapped; he saw no chains of any kind, no collars; there were no force fields or invisible restraints. They were staying inside those containers by their own choice, and he knew from the way their eyes tracked Carmen that only one person's word would allow them to step back out into the world. He'd barely gotten the words out before she started shaking her head.
"I can't do that, Marcos."
"Why not?" he demanded, wheeling on her. "Why can't you just let them out?"
"Because they have a job to do," she answered. "And their job isn't over yet. So they will stay in that shipping container and they will protect my livelihood until it gets to its intended recipient."
"Intended recipient? 525 is going to Seattle, Carmen! They're going to die in that shipping container well before the train ever arrives. The heat alone—"
"The heat isn't an issue," she interrupted crisply. "Those two are more than capable of keeping themselves alive. After all, the deal they made with me proves that."
"What deal?"
She merely smiled at him, and he started towards her, anger overriding him, only to have seven guns leveled in his face, keeping him at bay. She waved her protectors off with a sigh, dismissing her minions with a flick of her hand before stepping forward and linking her arm through his. He didn't want to move—didn't want to leave those mutants alone—but he let himself be pulled a few paces away, if only because he knew it meant she was going to tell him what he wanted to know.
"It's very simple, Marcos. You've been doing a fine a job keeping our competition at bay within state lines. We've gained enormous amounts of ground in the Atlanta area thanks to you. But we're still being hit on the national scale. Our competitors are unhappy with how we've pushed them out—understandably, I suppose—and so they are lashing out when we're most vulnerable."
"You're never vulnerable," he muttered under his breath.
She smiled and squeezed his arm: good answer.
"I may not be," she agreed, "but my product certainly is. There are many, many miles of lonely railways in this country, Marcos. We can post sentries at state borders and in particular trouble spots, but there is no way to protect our wares every step of the way. Until…" She slowed, her voice rising proudly as she pivoted them around so they were facing the shipping container once more. She tipped her head towards it with a soft smile.
It took him a second to grasp what she was getting at.
"I really have you to thank for the idea, you know," she continued. "I'd been puzzling over this issue with my father for months. We have a stranglehold over Atlanta, we have our outposts in L.A. and Miami, and we have our growers back home in Colombia. We have an army at our fingertips, and yet… Why do we keep getting firebombed on the road? Well, the answer's simple, of course: we don't have enough men to patrol our moving borders. We can hold Atlanta, we can keep a presence in Miami and Los Angeles, and we can protect our farms in Colombia, but we cannot possibly patrol every inch of every rail line we use.
"You might think the solution's simple: just hire more men. But we don't have time for that. We don't have the manpower or the money it will take to train so many new kids, and most importantly, we have no way to be assured of their loyalty to us."
"And you think those two are loyal?" Marcos interrupted. "After how you've treated them?"
"I've treated them very well, actually," Carmen replied, ignoring his tone. "They're given food and water and clothes, and there are air holes drilled into each container." Over his protests, she raised her voice: "As for loyalty, I have bought theirs."
"It's a suicide mission you're sending them on! There can't possibly be enough money—"
"There isn't. I didn't buy them with money, Marcos. I bought them with secrecy." She turned to him expectantly, and Marcos knew this was the moment he was supposed to realize the underlying conceit of it all, supposed to understand the machine at the heart of her plans, but he understood nothing.
She almost looked annoyed.
"They do their jobs and they do them well," she explained slowly, "or I tell the SS exactly where to find them."
Time stopped for a moment, as his ears heard her words and his mind digested them. Time stopped, and then it sped up all at once as his heart plunged into his stomach and every nerve in his body seemed to vibrate with fear.
"You can't do that," was all he could whisper.
She smiled at him. "Of course I can. I can do anything I want. Anyone can do anything they want these days, as far as the self-preservation of the human race is concerned. They have hotlines for concerned citizens now, did you know that? All I have to do is dial 7-1-5 and—"
"You can't do that, Carmen! They're people."
"Technically, they're—"
He pulled his arm out of hers. "Don't fucking talk to me about genetics."
"The world is changing, Marcos. We need to be prepared to deal with new threats—"
"Jesus, you sound like a politician."
"I'd hope so. I have a city to run, after all."
He turned away, staring back at the shipping container he'd unlocked. The doors were still open, but the two mutants inside hadn't taken even the smallest step towards the exit. He couldn't see them, but he could bet they had hidden themselves in the deepest recesses of the container, safe from prying eyes. All I have to do is dial 7-1-5—
"I want you to let those people go," he told her.
"Or what?" Carmen asked, sidling up beside him. "Are you going to burn me like you've burned everyone else who upsets you?"
He shook his head, swallowing hard. He tried to speak but couldn't. He didn't want to hurt her, and yet he did, very much, and that scared him. He wanted to hurt everyone. He closed his eyes and he made himself take a couple deep breaths. He could feel his hands warming unconsciously, and he made himself concentrate so he could cool them off. When they were back to normal, he reached out and took her hand. He turned away from the shipping container and instead he focused on her. It wasn't hard. It never had been. He bent his head down so they could look each other in the eye.
"Carmen," he whispered, taking her face in his hands. "You have to understand. Those people are just like me."
She shook her head slowly, never taking her eyes off his. She moved closer, until her mouth was separated from his by just a breath. When she spoke, he could swear he felt her lips moving against his.
"See, that's where you're wrong," she whispered. "No one else in the world is like you."
Carmen wasn't surprised when he left, and Lorna wasn't surprised when he appeared. They hadn't spoken in months, not since she'd accused him of being a sadist, and yet when he showed up on her doorstep, she let him inside as if nothing had happened.
He told her everything straight, and didn't leave a word out. He needed an honest opinion on what he was supposed to do next, and he knew she was one of the few people in the world who could give him that. When he was finished with his story, he sat and he waited for her to speak. He expected that he'd have to give her time: time to digest all he'd said, time to come up with a plan, time to—
"Well, first off, you need to dump her."
He blinked, caught off-guard by the advice. For a minute, he sputtered, unprepared to argue this particular side. She sat back and she crossed her arms and she watched him jump from one excuse to the next as to why he couldn't.
"Are you done?" she asked finally, and he reluctantly nodded. "Good." She sat forward again. "Now, let me say it again, because it apparently didn't sink in the first time: you need to dump that crazy bitch."
"I just told you—"
"She's taking mutants captives and making slaves out of them," Lorna interrupted. "I don't care if you're in love with her, I don't care if you two were going to make some drug-running happy little family. She's selling our people down the river and she's smiling at you while she does it. You need to cut ties—for our sake, and for yours."
"And if I don't?"
Lorna snorted, getting to her feet. "Then have fun living with your conscience, pal."
"You don't understand," he pressed, following after her. "I can't just leave. She's not just my girlfriend and what I do for them isn't just a job."
"Oh, are you two married now? Congratulations."
"You know what I mean," Marcos hissed. "The cartel is my family. It's my home. It's all I have; I can't just—"
"You've left home before, right?" At his accusing stare, she merely shrugged. "What? Don't think John and I don't do our research. The Guerras haven't always been your family—"
"My biological family isn't even worth mentioning in the same breath as the Guerras. My parents threw me out when I was a child. My father threatened to call the police on me when he saw what I could do; I had to leave in the middle of the night so I wouldn't be rounded up like all the others. When Carmen's father found me, I was starving on the street. Carlos could've let me die, but he took me in—"
"Only after you showed him your worth in lights, I bet," Lorna muttered.
"Hey!"
She turned around at his shout, but her face as expressionless as ever, as if he weren't standing in the middle of her home, willing and able to burn it down. His hands were already warming; he could feel his blood rushing in his ears, egging him on. She eyed him with the dullest bit of contempt.
"You want to go back, go back. I'm sure as hell not stopping you."
She turned away, heading back into her kitchen, and he watched her, feeling furious and powerless, even as he felt the ground start to warm around him. He didn't understand. He stared at her back and he waited for her to explain, but she did no such thing. Instead, she moved around the kitchen, preparing dinner that was clearly going to serve only one.
"Why?" he asked finally. The anger had drained from him suddenly, leaving behind only defeat. "Why… Why aren't you trying to stop me? Why aren't you trying to convince me to stay?"
"Stay where? Here?" She snorted. "I don't recall offering to let you sleep under my roof, Diaz. As for the Underground, you won't ever hear me guilting someone into serving. Anyone who works with us does so of their own accord. We do dangerous work; we can't have anyone with a faint heart or a loose screw on our team. If the stress becomes too much, people are always allowed—and usually encouraged—to leave."
"That doesn't sound like a very good business model."
"Yeah, well, unlike your girlfriend, I'm not a businesswoman, Marcos. I'm an endangered species. And I'm doing my best to protect my kind."
The doors to the house were still unlocked when he got back home. He wasn't stopped at the front gate and he wasn't led into a side room for a kneecapping and when he went to bed, she was already there. She didn't say anything, just looked at him from her spot in bed. He waited a moment to see if she would banish him, and when she did nothing, he walked over to the dresser and stripped. He thought about showering but shoved the urge away. He'd already turned coward and ran once today; he wasn't going to do it again.
So he lay down and he stared at the ceiling and he waited.
"So did you come to a decision," she asked finally, "or did you just come back home?"
He opened his mouth to answer, but found he didn't know what to say. He thought and thought, trying desperately for an answer—for her and for himself and for the Underground—but his mind only went in the same circles it had been treading for months.
"Well," she sighed after many minutes of silence. "At least you're being honest."
He avoided the railyard after that. He knew Carmen hadn't stopped using mutants to protect her shipments, but when he didn't have to look the trapped people in the face every day, it made trying to forget about their existence a little easier.
The increase in mutant crackdowns helped to distract him, too. Every week, there was news of another busted Underground station, or of a police raid gone awry, with the majority of casualties being non-human. There were a couple victories here and there—Mexico opened its borders wider and wider to refugees every day—but the losses were so heavy that sometimes he wondered if it mattered. He still went out on his own private raids, but now he was seeing the same faces. People he'd freed once were getting caught again, and no matter how fast he burned those collars off, he knew there would only be new ones to replace them. They were opening up new factories all over—and even one outside Atlanta.
He thought about hitting it—dreamed of it some nights, until Carmen had to shake him awake so he wouldn't burn holes in the mattress—but he knew it was impossible. He knew it was a suicide mission.
Some days, that reality appealed to him. Other days, he had too much work to do to even think about offing himself.
Carmen was keeping him busy close to the vest, and though he knew she meant it as a punishment, he actually appreciated the routine and all the watchful eyes that came with it. They kept him in line, kept his head on his shoulders.
But that was only during work hours. When he was alone, he couldn't help thinking: about those mutants in the train cars, about the ones being rounded up endlessly on TV, about all the thousands dead or trapped in detention centers.
I'm an endangered species, Lorna had told him.
With each day that crawled past, Marcos wondered just how close they all were to extinction.
In the end, it was not Lorna who tipped the scales, but John. The two of them had been meeting, on and off, and without Lorna, for about three weeks. They didn't talk about strategy at the meetings. They didn't talk about the roundups. They didn't talk about anything except the way things used to be. They each had a glimmer of it, kept safe in the very back of their minds. Life hadn't been easy—not in Bogotá, and not on the reservation—but the more they talked, the more happy memories came to mind.
Tiny things: Marcos racing his little sister in the park near their house, going out of his way to let her win before realizing that she was going to win whether he wanted her to or not. She was growing up right in front of me and I didn't even realize. I thought she'd stay a baby forever. John in the kitchen with his grandmother, learning the family recipes from her, the two of them giving voice to the family language together. Useless now, with so few of us left. But I talk to myself in it sometimes, just to remember her, and everyone else.
As always, the happy memories led into sad memories, but for once, Marcos didn't mind remembering the bad times. John seemed to understand their weight somehow, more than anyone else Marcos had ever met before. He had his own demons from the past to deal with, and Marcos supposed in that way they were kindred spirits, right down to the mutations in their DNA.
It was about two months after they began meeting that John first mentioned her. It was said in passing, as the two were parting ways after settling a miniscule check for bad coffee and some late-night french fries, but it stopped Marcos in his tracks nonetheless.
"Lorna says hello, by the way."
Marcos froze for a moment, not knowing what he meant and yet all at once feeling betrayed. These meetings with John weren't meant to be about business; they were meant to be private, and Marcos had even gone so far as to think of John as a friend, regardless of all the uncertainty around their other arrangement. And yet...
"You told her?"
"Told her what?"
"About how we've been meeting."
"No. But I know she'd want me to say hi if she did know we were meeting. Hell, she'd yell at me for not inviting her. She misses you."
"Misses me?" Marcos almost laughed. "What's there to miss? It's not like we were close."
"Maybe not," John allowed. "But I know you guys spent some time together. I know she talked to you a lot about our mission. I know, uh…" He cleared his throat and, for the first time Marcos had ever seen, he actually looked embarrassed. "I know she really hoped you'd join us full-time."
Marcos frowned, seeing all their nighttime meetings in a new, less genuine light. "So has this all been about you trying to recruit me on her behalf?"
John shook his head. "No, no. We don't twist arms, remember? I'm just saying…" He ran a hand through his hair. "Look, she didn't give me any specifics, okay, but from what she said, it sounds like you maybe ran into some trouble with the Guerras, and she's—" He broke off, sighing. "God, I hate playing matchmaker. This isn't my damn job."
"Excuse me?"
"Look, suffice to say she's worried about you. And because she's worried, I'm worried." He tried for a smile. "And you know me, when there's some mutant out there in trouble…"
"Yes, you come running to the rescue, I haven't forgotten."
Marcos thought about leaving it there. After all, what more was there to discuss between them? But when he looked outside, he saw that the earlier drizzle had turned into a deluge, and with a sigh, he sat back down. Without having to be asked, John did the same. For the next hour, Marcos repeated everything he'd told Lorna about the railyard, plus what had happened in the interim.
"Look, I hate to say it," John said after Marcos had finished, "but Lorna's pretty well in the right here. Trust me when I say I understand family ties; I know how hard it can be to leave the only home you've got—"
"It's not just a home," Marcos interrupted. "And this isn't just about Carmen anymore. I can't leave the cartel. Not unless I want to get hunted down in some alley…"
"I've got a solution for that."
Marcos eyed him warily. "And what's that?"
John smiled. "Same as ever: join us. We've got a whole new setup now. We never told you about it, for obvious reasons, but we're housing refugees ourselves now. We've got a secure compound outside of town; it's already holding about a dozen mutants full-time. If you want, you can be one more on our roster. No questions asked."
"Maybe not from you," Marcos muttered.
John chuckled. "Look, I can do a lot of things for you, but one thing I can't do is break up with your girlfriend for you."
"Pity. Then maybe you'd be a real superhero."
It took him a month and a half to leave. He spent the better part of it on logistics: squirreling his meager belongings away, putting aside cash in various last-resort accounts, and making nice with those who might one day be sent out to run him down. He found himself creating task after task until even he had to admit that he was stalling. He was ensuring a safe departure, yes, but he was still holding off on actually departing.
He told Carmen's father first.
It seemed… right, somehow, to tender his resignation with the man who'd brought him on. Carlos wasn't pleased, but then, he also wasn't surprised. Perhaps they had been talking about him again; Marcos knew Carmen used to have meetings with her father about him when they'd first gotten together. Only made sense that they would discuss him again, now that things were falling apart.
"I won't lie," Carlos told him, sitting comfortably behind his desk as Marcos stood, uncomfortable, before it. "I'm disappointed."
Marcos managed something like a smile. "I'd be disappointed if you weren't disappointed."
Carlos had a real smile for him, sharp teeth and all. "You ever want to come back to this family again, you will need to speak to me first."
Marcos nodded, keeping his head low. He couldn't imagine any future in which he would come back begging to the Guerras within the next four months, but he kept his mouth shut. No one except his now-deceased doctors talked to Carlos Guerra about how much time he had left on this earth.
For a minute, it was silent in the room, but Marcos knew better than to leave. No one left Carlos Guerra's presence unless ordered or dragged out. Marcos still wasn't sure which was this was going to go.
"I have to say, I am relieved you're not in here presenting me with a ring for approval."
Marcos raised his head a fraction to meet Carlos' eyes.
"I never wanted you for a son-in-law."
"No, sir."
"I did like having you in the family, though."
"Yes, sir."
Carlos leaned back in his chair, eyeing his soon-to-be ex-employee with a careful eye. "How did she take it?"
Marcos cleared his throat, feigning confusion so he wouldn't have to answer. "Sir?"
"Ah." He leaned forward in his chair, steepling his hands on the desk. "You haven't told her yet, have you? You came to me first." He stared at Marcos for a silent, unreadable moment, and then his face broke in a smile. "For that, boy, I won't send the dogs out after you."
"I appreciate it, sir."
"Can't promise the same for my daughter, however."
Marcos nodded. "Wouldn't expect you to, sir."
Carlos looked at him for one moment more, then waved him to the door. "Out."
Marcos didn't breathe until he'd passed through the front gates. He listened to them clang shut behind him, but he didn't turn to watch. He knew better than look towards the past; there was nothing to be found there but misery and regret. So instead he stepped out into the street, heading towards his last appointment with Carmen.
She knew what was happening before he'd even sat down next to her at the bar. In lieu of saying hello, she ordered two tequilas from the bartender, drank hers and his both, and then shoved a gun in his face. It was a fair welcome, all things considered.
"Papa has four months, so you have four months. After that—"
"After that, all bets are off," he finished for her. "I understand and I agree."
"I don't need you to understand and I don't need you to agree," she spat. She pressed the barrel of the gun harder into his forehead, but he didn't flinch at the pain. "This is how things are. You have four months—less if his pancreas gives out early—and then you are mine to deal with as I please."
"I'm not arguing."
"You're being insolent."
His mouth twitched in a brief smirk. "I thought you liked me insolent."
"I don't like you at all, not anymore."
"I don't blame you."
She held the gun against his forehead for a moment more, then slammed it down on the bartop. She snapped her fingers at the bartender, and in a minute, there was a drink in her hand, and she was knocking it back. Another quickly followed, this one she nursed. Marcos didn't bother trying to order something for himself; he knew he wouldn't be served here. Instead, he sat and he waited for her to finish. She went out of her way to savor the drink on purpose.
When she was finally finished, she put her gun in her purse and she walked to the door. He trailed after, knowing what was expected of him. There was a car waiting outside, with one of her boys holding open the door. She got in, and to his surprise, the door did not close behind her. The one holding it open stared at him until he moved. He said a quick, silent prayer and then got inside.
They drove for ten minutes without speaking. Though he knew he should be focusing on the route, he could do nothing but stare at her. He had a hard time believing she was driving him out to his death, and yet, perhaps she was. He'd underestimated her before, and he'd lived to regret it. Maybe she'd put one in the back of his head herself. Or worse, maybe she would let her competition do it. His stomach turned at the thought, and he remembered all at once just how many people were out there, howling for his blood.
They passed briefly through Guerra territory, and then out again. They picked up two followers on the way; Marcos saw Sergio and Diego behind each of the respective wheels. He didn't know what that meant—neither were exactly gravediggers—but before he could think on it, the car slowed to a stop. He looked around, but was unable to recognize the neighborhood through such thickly tinted windows. It didn't matter; Carmen was demanding his attention once more.
"We will operate by three simple rules from here on out. One, you will not get in my way. Two, you will stay out of my sight. Three, you will do your best not to make me regret not pulling that trigger."
He nodded, accepting her ultimatums without complaint. It was fair, he thought. Too fair, actually. But before he could ask why she was being so lenient, his door was being pulled open, and he had no choice but to step out. He stood there and watched as her car, and its two followers, pulled away and left him behind. As his eyes adjusted to the bright afternoon sun, he realized that he did in fact recognize where he was. How could he not? He had made a private pact with himself to come here later in the day, once he'd settled everything else.
But as he stood there on the street and stared up at Lorna's building, he couldn't help but wonder if it would be better for everyone if he simply walked away and never came back.
She looked to be on her way out when he finally gathered enough courage to go up and knock on the door. Her face opened in surprise at the sight of him; for a moment, they stood face-to-face, neither sure anymore who they were looking at.
It had been months since he'd last spoken to her—right here in her apartment—and he couldn't be sure what John had told her in the meantime. He hoped not much, and yet part of him hoped John had passed along everything. He felt tired suddenly, so tired, and the last thing he wanted to do was to have to explain himself and all of his bad choices to her.
Perhaps she sensed this. Or perhaps she had decided they'd save that discussion for another day. No matter her motive, she did not ask him what he was doing on her doorstep and she did not tell him to leave. Instead, she simply pulled her front door shut behind her, locked it, and stepped past him onto the landing. She was halfway down the stairs before she so much as looked back over her shoulder.
"You may be slow on the uptake, but you have good timing," she told him. "I was just heading out to meet John and the others."
When he didn't respond, she held her car keys aloft.
"You want shotgun or what?"
A/N: Reviews would be lovely, friends! Thank you so much for reading, and I so look forward to hearing your thoughts. :)