Chapter Three

Jesse was going to kill them all. He really, truly was. If he had to stay in this godforsaken trunk one more second.

This had been happening way too much for Jesse's comfort recently. If he wasn't getting bound with duct tape by his ex-partner and his cousin, he was being held hostage by crazy-ass Tuco.

And now this. Jesse could barely breathe. Every breath seemed a herculean effort, and he couldn't even move. If it was only him, it might not have been so bad, but he could hear Mr. White's labored breathing and Gale's own attempts, and that made him have the not-quite-irrational worry that one or both of them would kick it and he'd spend the rest of the journey sandwiched between two corpses.

Eventually, the car stopped, after a buttload of false starts. Jesse didn't know what he'd do when the trunk opened this time… probably not lunge and try to attack whoever was there, given that that hadn't worked very well with Tuco.

So when the light streamed down on him, he simply slumped further into Mr. White – at least, he was pretty sure that was who he was lying on top of. A few moments later, a strong grip on his arm was pulling him out of the trunk and slamming him on the ground.

Beneath him was… sand. Or asphalt. Or sand on asphalt.

He didn't get time to figure it out before he heard Mr. White and Gale hit the sand next to him.

There was a long barrage of Spanish, before Gale mumbled to them, "He told us to get up slowly."

Jesse did so, as well as he could with his hands bound, that was. It was like trying to do the worm at one of his high school dances or something.

There was another series of instructions in Spanish, which Gale again translated.

"Uh, he said we're going to walk to a car. That if we struggle, we're dead."

Jesse began to really regret never paying attention in high school Spanish, other than the day everyone had decided to look up different expressions for masturbation. Somehow he suspected none of them were going to come up here.

Walking to the car bound was difficult. Walking to the car, bound, with a gun shoved against his temple was considerably more difficult. He began to wonder why he hadn't just rejected Mr. White's offer, partners or not.

Sure, one and a half million dollars seemed a totally sweet deal. But he'd have traded it in a second to wake up without having to wonder who might shoot at him today. He'd especially give it up in a second to wake up next to Jane, to tell her how much she meant to him and just how beautiful she was. To really ditch the heroin and start over in New Zealand, live in a nice little house and be anonymous.

But that option didn't exist any longer, and, frankly, Jesse's options in general were getting considerably more limited by the moment.

The car door opened, and Jesse was shoved inside roughly before one of the others (he turned his head and saw it was Mr. White) collided into his side and then Gale slumped into the last seat.

His vision was cut off, suddenly, by some kind of cloth. A blindfold. That was a good sign, at least – Jesse remembered from watching a crime show that a blindfold usually meant that they were planning to let the person live. Or was that if the person was wearing a mask?

Same concept, right? Jesse thought desperately. We're all gonna live. Please, let us all live.

He didn't know how long the car ride lasted. The sensory deprivation messed with his head and he wanted nothing more than to call out, complain and hear Mr. White tell him to shut up. Anything, just to remind himself that he wasn't alone in this. But he had no way of knowing how close their captors were.

He had to find another way to pass the time. He started singing "round" songs in his head.

Kookaburra sits on the old gum tree, merry, merry king of the bush is he…

But wasn't that Australian or something? That got him thinking about Jane, about their plan for New Zealand, and that wasn't any good, any brighter.

The head bone's connected to the neck bone, and the neck bone's connected to the…

Fuck. He ought to have paid attention in Biology. Was the neck bone connected to the collarbone? Maybe, but that didn't seem like the next line. What the fuck, anyway?

The car stopped and Jesse heard a door open.

There were ten in the bed and the little one said, roll over, roll over – so they all rolled over and one fell out, there were nine in the bed and the little one said –

Jesse felt someone grab his arm hard, and he stumbled out, before someone undid the blindfold. He was standing in front of some kind of huge metal building, maybe a factory or warehouse.

"Where are we?" Jesse asked. Mr. White looked at him, his face projecting a kind of smug self-satisfaction.

"Must be our new place of employment."