Chapter 10
What's at Stake
Disclaimer: Sands is not mine. For the time being, that's perfectly okay by me. He may be pretty as hell, but he's too warped in the head. I think the only way I would want him is chained to my bed. Hey. . .come to think of it, that wouldn't be so bad. Okay, I've changed my mind.
Rating: A very strong R for violence and disturbing imagery.
Author's Note: For some reason, after ff.net did its upgrade on Saturday, I'm no longer receiving my reviews in e-mail. So I didn't even know I had gotten reviews on the last chapter until I logged in on the site. Which is why I haven't written back to anyone like I normally do. Hopefully this will get cleared up soon, and thanks again for writing!
Note 2: Today I went to see OUATIM for the fourth time. And when that was done, I, ahem, sneaked into the last hour of Pirates. (Yes, I'm a criminal, what can I say?) I spent the entire hour grinning from ear to ear. I must tell you, I simply lack the words to describe my total love for and appreciation of Johnny Depp's talent. Someone get that man an Oscar, stat.
On the way home, I stopped at Best Buy and bought the score to OUATIM. And I am pleased to announce that I am now utterly inspired to finish this story, and quickly. Hopefully you will be getting the rest of the chapters very soon.
One final note: Please heed the warning for the rating on this one! I did not like writing the beginning of this chapter.
****
Sands is dreaming.
In the dream he is eight years old again, a short, scrawny kid hated by everyone in the neighborhood. He kills cats when he can catch them, dogs too if they are the small yappy kind. Everyone knows this but no one can prove it. This is a nice neighborhood, where accusations are considered tacky, so the neighbors just settle for glaring at him when he rides his bike past their houses. He glares right back and mutters under his breath that they had better stop and flips them off.
They hate him in school too. They tease him about his name, the way he talks, his penchant for following other kids during recess, trying to shadow them without their knowing it. He has been in several fights, but not recently. Word has gotten out that he fights dirty – eyes and crotches are fair game as far as he is concerned. Whatever it takes to win.
On this day, the day of his dream, he is walking home from school. Another boy is following him, and he knows it. Apparently his enemies have decided that tormenting him from afar is no longer fun. His shoulders hunch, his hands curl into fists.
The boy behind him calls his name. And for a change there is no mockery attached to those two hated syllables.
He turns around and sees Marcus Allen. Marcus Allen is nine, and he is short but chunky. Marcus Allen is the kind of boy who thinks it is great fun to stick his foot out and trip the little kids as they run past him at recess.
"What do you want?" young Sheldon Jeffrey Sands asks. Already at eight he is paranoid and suspicious of everyone. He doesn't like talking to people, because they say things he doesn't expect, and then he doesn't know how to respond. He wishes he could control conversations.
Marcus Allen sidles up. His hands are jammed in his pockets. The boys are walking through a neighborhood where every other house is under construction. "I just want to talk to you."
"Why?" He is instantly wary. No one ever talks to him, except to call him names, most of which insult his mother too. This doesn't bother him. His mother really is a bitch.
"'Cause." Marcus Allen hangs his head. "I wanted to say I was sorry."
"Why?"
"'Cause my mom said I should," says Marcus Allen. He holds out his hand like he expects his enemy to shake it. He shrugs. "And 'cause I want to."
He sounds sullen, unhappy to be making this apology. Young Sands is comforted by that. It makes him believe Marcus Allen is for real.
He reaches out, takes Marcus Allen's hand.
And Marcus Allen yanks him forward and punches him right in the nose.
Bright pinwheels of pain spin in his vision. He staggers backward, his hands flying up to cup his face. Marcus Allen laughs loudly as he runs away. "I can't believe you fell for that, Shellll-don!"
Red rage drops across his vision. Howling with fury, he gives chase.
The two boys run through the neighborhood. They pelt each other with rocks and clods of dirt. Somehow they end up on a small mountain of rock and dirt, in what will be the front yard of a large brick house. Bloodied and bruised, they pay no attention to their surroundings.
They fight, kicking and hitting and even biting when the opportunity presents itself. They scream at each other, swearing and using words their parents would be shocked to hear. And then somehow -- even in the dream this is never clear -- they are falling, down the mound, still hitting at each other, bouncing all the way down to the bottom, where a haphazard pile of bricks are jumbled together.
They hit the ground hard. Marcus Allen cries out, and then is still, half his head caved in by the corner of a brick.
Dazed by the impact, young Sands lifts his head. He sees his enemy defeated, and grins. Then he passes out.
****
When he woke, it was night. Well, it was always night for him nowadays, but this was real night, for the rest of the world.
El was asleep, breathing with that thin nasal whistling noise Sands hated. He gritted his teeth together and promised himself that if El didn't stop soon, he would throw something at the man. Something heavy. With sharp edges, maybe.
He felt unsettled, uncomfortable in his own skin. He knew that was the result of the dream. It had been a while since he had dreamed it – lately his nightmares consisted of sharp tools and blinding pain, get it, blinding? ha ha, so funny – but tonight it had been the same old dream, no different than before.
He had lied to El when he had said his first kill was three men who tried to mug him. His first kill had been Marcus Allen.
Marcus Allen, who had liked to wear football jerseys with the number 3 on them.
Sands absently rubbed the tattoo on his hand. That day in his eighth year had changed everything. He had spent the rest of that spring in a cast, hobbling alone down the school halls, perpetually late for class because he could not walk fast enough to make it before the bell rang.
Marcus Allen had lived for two weeks in a coma, and then he had died.
No one had blamed him. He had manufactured a few tears, said they had just been playing, and things had gotten a little rough, and he didn't remember what happened next, falling down the pile of construction slag. Everyone knew he and Marcus Allen had been enemies, but no one had remarked on the oddness of the two of them suddenly playing together as buddies. There had been a few questions, some frowns, and then it was over.
He had gotten away with it. Killing Marcus had been an accident, but Sands didn't believe in accidents. Things happened for a reason. Marcus had died in order to show him what he was capable of.
Tomorrow morning would be the final revelation, the final unveiling. Tomorrow morning they would sneak through the woods and come out in front of Escalante's house. Tomorrow morning there was going to be killing. Lots of it.
Sands couldn't wait. Earlier he had acted like he had been sleeping, just to make El feel bad for playing the guitar, but he hadn't been asleep. No way could he sleep on a night like this.
Tomorrow was too important. Everything was at stake. If he failed tomorrow, then that was it. Game over. See ya, good-bye. He had failed at the drug house, and El had had to bail his ass out. That wouldn't be happening tomorrow. If he failed tomorrow, and the cartel didn't kill him first, he was going to eat his own gun. Because he had never really liked this life much anyway, and he could think of no reason to pretend to like it when he couldn't even see what was so shitty about it.
Somewhere on his left, El began muttering in his sleep. Sands sighed, a dramatic, martyr's, "why me?" sigh. Always it was the same, every night. Every night El dreamed of his wife's death, reliving it. And every night he woke and tried to pretend it had not happened.
Everyone had their demons.
El startled awake, his wife's name on his lips. He sat up and muttered to himself in rapid Spanish.
Like he did every night, Sands pretended he didn't hear. One advantage to not having any eyes was that no one could ever tell if you were awake or asleep. He wasn't protecting El's pride out of any false loyalty to the mariachi. He stayed quiet for his own reasons. He worked – had worked – for the CIA, and that meant he was in the information gathering business. He had no idea what good it would do him to know that El dreamed of his wife every night, but he knew the information would stand him in good stead at some point in the future.
So he stayed quiet.
El got up and walked away. Sands lay still. He knew El was disappointed in him, and he took a certain pleasure in that. But – and this was the strange thing – he felt bad about that, too.
He had told the truth, though, for once. He had only protected El because he had been protecting himself. Not just because the men would have killed him once they knew the truth, but because without El, he would have no way of making it to Escalante's house. Without El, there would be no killing, no bloodbath, no vengeance.
Life would be so much easier for El, Sands reflected, if El simply understood one thing about him. Everything he did, everything, was about himself. It always had been. Even something as grand and chaotic as the coup by Marquez had been about himself. It had been about money, and the opportunity to finally turn his back on the CIA and everyone who had ever laughed at him.
It had been his chance to escape.
And all that had been destroyed. Barillo had taken more than his eyes. He had lost his freedom on that day.
All he had left was what he had now. A few guns, lots of ammunition, a sullen partner he couldn't stand, and a chance to prove that he wasn't out of the game.
That was why tomorrow was so important. He had to succeed. Afterward, knowing that he could stand on his own, he would leave. Fuck El. He had meant to disappear after the coup and make a new life somewhere on his own. Well, he still meant to do that. He would just have to do it a little differently now.
El came walking back. "Are you awake?"
Sands thought about saying nothing, then gave a mental shrug. "Yes."
"Then get up. It's time to go."
He sat up. The night was warmer, and the breeze had dropped, anticipating the arrival of morning. "So then. Tell me the grand plan. How are we doing this?"
He heard El hunker down, and then there came the sound of rattling, the sound of guns being loaded. "First promise me one thing."
Sands shrugged. He had never kept a promise in his life. "Sure."
"When this is over, I want you to show me how to play the guitar like you did."
He laughed. He couldn't help it. El really was too goddamn funny sometimes. "El my friend," he said grandly, "when this is over, I'll show you anything you want."
Something was tossed his way. He raised his hands and caught the gun a second before it would have smashed him in the face.
"Good," El said. "Then listen." He snapped the chamber of a pistol shut.
"This is my plan."
****