11.
I raced across the garden, jumped a fence, and ran through some dried up mangroves. They were here which meant we had to leave. I prayed that Charles would behave when I bolted out the back door.
He was a trained soldier.
He could take care of himself.
I on the other hand was not a trained killer. With my son in my arms I hauled ass down the main street on the island and ran into Wazina's house. She was out but her house was always open. I ran into the two-room shack and into her kitchen/dining room/living room to the town phone. I dug in my pocket and dropped a dollar into the jar of change. Then grabbed the phone and dialed the home, all while Charlie whined and complained about the sweltering house.
"Hush Charlie…Sarah! They're here! Time for Plan B."
There was a pause.
Followed by, "Plan B? What's Plan B? Girl we have to get out of here before your Baby-Daddy finds us, or the moody red-head."
She was so right.
But where would we go? Dad hadn't called back and I was now getting worried about him. Really worried about him. Plus I couldn't go back to the apartment and call him.
I heard something and looked up, just in time to see Mack come in the room, gun drawn, pointed at me. "The moody red-head is with me. Dye your hair and get our emergency bag. Then go move our boat. Meet me at the Caye in two hours."
"One hour," she countered.
Mack looked around the room. As if there was someone hiding somewhere. Yeah right.
"Fine, but I'm at Wazina's so don't freak if I'm late."
She began to say something but I hung up on her and looked to Mack, who held a hand up to silence me. I listened. He was the professional after-all.
"Mommy," Charlie whined.
I held a finger to my lips, "Hush sweetie. We're playing the hiding game again."
Charlie groaned.
Obviously my son was tired of playing the game. Well he wasn't the only one. I hunkered down as someone else walked in the house. I placed my hands over Charlie's little ears and pressed his face into my shoulder. That was just what my son needed, to be deafened in a gun battle.
Just as I had suspected gunfire erupted. It came from the other room and through the walls! Gunfire from more then one gun. I hid behind a chair. A wooden chair at that and by the grace of God alone none of the bullets hit me, while I shielded Charlie from bullets. And Charlie was not happy. He screamed and cried.
Mack grabbed my arm and literally dragged me. He hauled me across the room like I weighed nothing! Did he know there was no backdoor?
I felt the need to share this with him as the other people continued to shoot at us. Had to be the Ukrainians. No one in Belize had guns. I looked up at him to share this fact with him. But he was busy. He shoved me behind an old huge refrigerator from the eighties and peeked into other room, firing a few rounds, until there was only one gun shooting at us. A great improvement in my book.
When he had shot the last shooter he looked to me.
Motioned for me to follow.
Since the Ukrainians had never been this close to killing me before, I followed Mack and prayed that they hadn't found Sarah. I briefly thought about asking, but my tongue would not work.
Three hours later…
It took us three hours to go six blocks.
Not that I was complaining, I was alive and Charlie was safe. Mack had made sure we weren't followed as he took us to a motel on the beach known for drugs. He ushered me into a room where Charles was packing and Sarah was in the bathroom, complaining about a body in the tub.
There could have been three and I would have been fine with it.
Charles looked up at us beyond relieved. But he stayed where he was which was more then fine with me. I didn't want to be touched and I wanted my son in my arms.
I held my terrified son in my arms and leant against the wall.
When Mack closed the door Charles told him, "It's done, the conference was called off. I lost reception after that due to the storm. I say we head to Panama with the girls."
Mack pursed his lips.
I had no idea what they were talking about. Nor did Sarah who came from the bathroom, still in her nightclothes, a complaint on her lips. However at the sight of me she ran across the tiny room and wrapped her arms around me. She held me tightly and Charlie began to complain, "No. No. No. Go way."
She let go of me and I noticed blood on her arm.
Charles and Mack were arguing over something, oblivious to us. "Are you bleeding," I asked her and she shook her head, which meant I was bleeding. I had been hit. I silenced her with a look. There was no way my shirt was coming off with Charles in the room.
So I followed Sarah into the bathroom.
Sure enough there was a body in the tub. A dead Ukrainian body. Wasn't that just grand? She closed the door and I sat Charlie down on the floor. After I closed the shower curtain, he really didn't need to see a body before the age of 5.
Sarah then lifted the back of my shirt up.
"How bad is it," I asked.
"A scratch," she breathed, then added, "Your shirt is soaked though. Good thing it's black…what are we going to do? We have to get off this island before the storm comes."
That was obvious.
While she mopped between my shoulder blades with a hotel towel I seriously thought about what we were going to do. While we had to haul ass away and fast, it was nice having protectors for once. Nice not being the protector. Being able to relax and let someone else worry about everything.
Sarah shoved the shirt up farther and there was pain. Searing pain that laced across my shoulder. But I didn't scream. I clenched my teeth and dealt with it like a big girl. After all I had delivered Charlie on the rooftop of a building in Italy alone, well Sarah had been there, but she had fainted. Then there was the time I had been caught briefly by them, I still held the scars from the knife, until Sarah showed up and hit the man over the head with a glass blender.
"Take your shirt off. I think you took one on the shoulder."
Obediently I listened, I was glad I had worn a bra. I pulled my shirt over my head and heard her sigh. "Yup…how did you not feel this one? It nicked your neck. It's bleeding all over and down your back."
Adrenaline?
What I told her was more along the lines of, "I was busy running at the time."
Which was also true.
Sarah muttered some profanities beneath her breath and Charlie sang them perfectly out loud. That was just wonderful. "Charlie Thomas Ryan," I warned and his eyes lowered, suddenly sad. He could go from emotion to emotion in a matter of seconds.
Then the bathroom door opened and Charles peered in. His eyes fell on the four perfectly healed stab wounds and then my eyes. Outrage obvious in his brown eyes, which seemed to darken.
Also outraged from behind me, Sarah spat, "Do you know how to knock? It's not hard! Make a fist and tap it against a door!"
At the sound of his aunt's raised voice Charlie ran to me and clung to my leg, hiding. He reached up for me. He wanted up, he wanted to be held. "Mommy. Mommy. Mommy, up, up. Me up."
I knelt down to avoid letting him see all the blood and picked Charlie up. His little arms and legs wrapped around me.
In a voice I wasn't going to argue with Charles growled, "We need to talk. Now."