The images of the bloodied corpses she witnessed as they left the house echoed inside her skull; men Alejandro had killed. In brutal fashion - she saw slashed throats and cracked limbs while stepping over them in the hallway. It explained the blood she had spied on his clothes.

She suspected that his cartel friends' had, in fact, not been too keen on a U.S. federal agent in their midst. -Or maybe too keen, considering what her specialty had been and what information she had been privy to. He had killed them for her, to protect her from certain horror and eventual grisly death.

Sticking close together, they moved through an expansive foyer with a curved marble staircase. Kate managed her breath as she had during missions, inhaling through her nose and exhaling out of her mouth. The gun felt unsteady in her grip as she covered their rear position. But she kept herself together, listening for others and stepping quickly and lightly. There were no sounds in the large house, only the silence of the dead.

They slipped into the black SUV waiting just outside with its motor running.

"Listos," Alejandro stated quietly as soon as both were in the back seat.

The man at the steering wheel moved to slide the gear shaft into place and step on the gas pedal. They sped over the stone drive and under the arching gate to the road beyond, wheels spinning and headlights decidedly absent. Alejandro watched the road behind them as the house disappeared into the dark of night, his gun still ready. She tried to keep her breath from overwhelming the small bit of control she retained over her own body, her sanity.

"Fuck," she hissed to herself.

Alejandro glanced in her direction but remained silent and again trained his eyes out the rear window. There wasn't much to see outside except the inky jungle trees and brush encroaching on their path. Her heartbeat was thundering against the paper-thin skin of her eardrums.

He eventually spoke.

"We had to get you out of there. Events were going to transpire that I could not be a part of anymore."

Immediately, she felt her whole body trembling. And heard her teeth chattering in her jaw. Her sight was fixed on the blackness before the front windshield.

A long series of minutes passed in which neither said anything, jostled by the movement of the vehicle over the uneven gravel road. Then she realized that he had taken the gun from her loose grip at some point. She found his face with her gaze once again in the shadowy SUV cabin.

"Put me in a car or a plane back to the States," she whispered, imploring him with her eyes. "Please, just let me go."

"Kate, they're looking for you." He met her look and answered without hesitation. "They will be at the airports. They will be at the border entries."

"Get me to an embassy."

"You know what those are like down here."

She swallowed. "They'll be trying to find you as well."

"Yes," he replied flatly as he re-holstered his weapons.

Watching his actions, she remembered the broken bodies of the men he had just slain.

"What do we do?" her voice was a croak.

"We will go south."

"Where?"

"As far away from here as we can get."

A tense silence overtook the vehicle cabin again. Kate closed her eyes tightly. This was nothing like any scenario she would have imagined for herself. None of it. She had stepped so far outside of the life she had been clinging to back in the States. And so far outside of the person she had been clinging onto living as. Then maybe it was alright not to recognize herself from moment to moment anymore?

He touched her shoulder and she flinched, eyes opening wide.

"Kate," he murmured softly and took hold of her hand now. "We will be okay."

Her teeth were chattering again as she looked at him in the shadows, "Will we?"

"We just can't go north for a while," his fingers traced delicate lines in her palm. "So south it is."

She felt him drawing her closer, and she allowed this. The blood on his jacket was dry and dark so that it was nearly impossible to see. Alejandro put his other hand on her cheek.

"Is there anywhere you've always wanted to go in South America?"

"Not really," she almost laughed, surprised and somewhat amused at the notion of leisure travel in their current circumstances.

He gave a small smile. "Come on. We can go wherever you want, to the edge of the world."

"Will they find us there?"

"No, they won't find us there."

Finally, Kate nodded. "Then let's go."