Author's Note: well, this took awhile to get up, but I managed. What actually took me the most time was figuring out what kind of hell broke loose, and after that, things just kinda flowed together. In spurts. If that makes sense.
Anyway, please enjoy and let me know what you're all thinking.
Tess had just settled her skirt properly when the door she'd escaped through earlier flew open. It very nearly hit the wall, and would have if it hadn't been for a cardboard box behind it. She and Sands both assumed that the eight men who came out the door were some of Carlos' men, and that they'd been sent to find her; Sands stepped back into the shadows and Tess stepped forward to draw attention to herself. [I'm sorry for disappearing, but –]
[There she is! Shoot!]
Before Tess could react to that order, guns appeared in several hands. She recoiled, knowing she wouldn't get away before they'd manage to hit and probably kill her, but instinct demanded she do something. Her brain seemed to suddenly focus, making each event, each motion, crystal clear and twice as sharp. The men fired and she half-spun, seeking shelter or escape. Her heels wobbled under her. She fell to the ground. A hand appeared around her arm. A blaze of fire exploded into bright existence on her ribcage. She cried out at the pain and at the pain of pavement tearing at her shins as someone pulled her behind a pile of crates. A hunk of cold metal was pressed into her hands, and she dropped it.
"Damn it, conejo, take the gun."
Sands' voice and rough handling broke Tess out of her mental paralysis. She took hold of the pistol he was pressing into her hands again, and moved from her sprawl into a crouch. Adrenaline was coursing through her body, numbing the pain of her wound for the time being. Bullets were still coming at them, filling the air with sawdust and wood chips. "We can't stay here," she told him, after firing off a few rounds at the men trying to apparently kill her.
"Shoot to kill, niña, not to wound." Sands didn't acknowledge her – completely valid – concern. He knew they were going to have to move soon, but they'd have to take down a few men first. "When I tell you to run, take off down the alley. Take a left, and then a right," he instructed as two screams indicated that at least two of their bullets had found a target. "There should be another agent waiting there." He fired off another round and smiled grimly as one man went down.
Tess managed to take care of another man – purposefully wounding him instead of killing him – before asking, "What about you?" A heavy barrage of gunfire made her stoop and protect her head. The time for debate was gone.
"I can take care of myself. You're the one they're after." Sands picked off two more men, his satisfaction dying when he saw that there were now nine men standing and firing at them. The realization that they were getting reinforcements hit him hard and low. "Go, niña," he ordered, pushing her towards the back of the alley. She didn't move. "Get your ass in gear now, chiquita. That's an order."
"Give me a minute," she replied hotly. "I can't run in these shoes." Her fingers nimbly worked the small buckles. Kicking off the heels, she gathered her skirt in one hand and used the other to help her push off.
Glad now that she'd picked up jogging again, she sprinted towards the back of the alley, shoes and skirt in one hand, gun in the other. Bits of gravel dug into the soles of her feet and her side burned, but she kept running. She didn't bother to turn back and fire at the men that were sending bullets perilously close to her, knowing that the split second turning her head would take could mean the difference between being able to eat breakfast the next morning or not.
Turning the corner, she paused to catch her breath. After several ragged gasps, she heard the sound of footsteps pounding, coming after her. She didn't bother to wait and see if it was Sands or not. She took off running again, taking shelter in a recessed doorway. The man passed her, and she caught a glimpse of someone tall, in a suit. Not Sands. She held her breath as the footsteps slowed; apparently her pursuer noticed that he'd lost his prey. She could hear him turning around, searching for some trace of her. Raising her gun to her chest, she closed her eyes and waited for some sound that would indicate whether this was a bad guy or the other CIA operative. The clue she needed came in the form of muttered, unaccented Spanish. Bad guy. Peeking around the doorway, she saw that the man's back was turned towards her. She stepped out, knocking some gravel off the doorstep of her perch.
The man heard the sound, and whirled around, his arm rising to fire. She pulled the trigger of her gun without thinking, watching as the force of the bullet made the man stagger back, a dark stain spreading over the fabric of his light colored suit coat. He collapsed, and she dropped her gun, in shock. While she'd seen dozens of people die – at the hands of her family, on the operating table, in post-op, from gunshots – she'd never actively killed anyone herself. Her essential self was revolted by her actions, prompting her to approach the man and see if there was anything she could do. She was a doctor. She'd just broken the oath she'd taken when she'd graduated.
Do no harm, she thought desperately as she searched for a pulse. Her patient – Victim – patient wasn't breathing, but he still had a pulse. It was thready and fading, but it was better than nothing. Tipping his head back, she started mouth-to-mouth, one part of her mind observing, one part praying, and one part trying to make her stop.
There's nothing you can do, Teresa. It was self-defense. He was going to kill you. There'll be more coming, and they won't care that you're on some sort of guilt prompted mission of mercy. They'll gun you down without batting an eye. Get out of here. Go. Now.
He'll die. I can't leave. Despite her efforts, her patient was slipping away. "No, damnit," she whispered, taking another breath before once again lowing her mouth to his, desperately pushing air into his lungs. Her side complained loudly, and she could feel blood soaking a larger and larger portion of her dress, but she couldn't stop. She had enough blood on her hands without adding his.
Thinking these thoughts, she never heard the several sets of footsteps that were rapidly getting closer to her.
Sands had moved from behind the pile of now holey crates to behind a large dumpster. The metal was standing up to the constant abuse ever so much better than wood had, and he was able to take a position under it and just pick off Tessa's assailants one by one – including the men she'd left alive. In the shadows he was nearly invisible in his dark clothes, and so crammed between the street and the bottom of the dumpster that hitting him was nearly impossible. Still, he was glad he was far enough bad to avoid most of the chips of pavement that were being blown out of the street.
But even with his advantages, five men were able to slip off before he could get them. Shit, he cursed to himself, dragging his body out from under his smelly refuge. He now smelled of rotted and decaying food, and he couldn't just let those men go. He had no reason to believe that Tess had actually met up with the extra agent he'd brought with him, and those thugs had taken the same turn she had. And he didn't for one second believe that was by coincidence.
Breaking into a run, he chased them, cursing as dust from cement and woodchips stung his eyes, making them water enough to blur his vision. He didn't have a problem with running through the dark, but if he tripped over something at this speed, he'd really hurt himself. Not to mention that it might cost him the operation, and he couldn't afford another failure like that. It might not cost him his job, but it'd certainly put him behind a desk, and he'd rather resign than let that happen.
And Tess?
Tess insists she can take care of herself. He turned the corner.
Yes, but the only way for the operation to fail is for her to die or be caught.
Sands didn't reply to that. Instead he put his concentration into increasing his speed. He was gaining on the thugs, but he'd seen something else – two people huddled on the ground, one most definitely alive, but not for long if it was who he thought it was.
He'd raised his gun to fire when he saw another figure, running towards them from the other end of the alley. Recognizing the reflective strips on the person's sneakers, he yelled, "Weyhauser, Newman, get her out of here!" Three of the goons turned and opened fire, two kept running.
Sands managed to take one down before having to take shelter in a doorway. Three gunshots from farther away made him smile grimly – Weyhauser was a good shot in the dark. Almost better than Sands himself was. Ready just to get this over with, Sands closed his eyes and listened for the two that were on his tail. They were honing in on him. Shaking his head, he checked his cartridge and replaced it when he saw he was out of ammo. Then he shrugged, and stepped out into the street. Firing off two quick rounds, he watched as the two goons fell, followed by a third who'd appeared out of nowhere. He spun, flipping off Weyhauser who was giving him a cocky grin because he'd finished off his men first.
"Where's Barillo?" he asked impatiently, swearing that if Tess had gotten herself killed, he was going to make her very sorry.
Newman, a first year agent pointed over her shoulder. "She's over there trying to resuscitate a dead man. I tried to get her to stop, but she fought me tooth and nail."
Sands sighed, and holstered his gun. "Newman, keep watch and check some of these bastards for ID. This is the second time someone's tried to get rid of her. I want to know if we're dealing with the same people or someone new." He turned to the gun happy Weyhauser. "You're on body detail. Get rid of as many of the corpses around the back door to the residence as fast as you can. I don't want this looking as if Barillo has her own posse of gun-toting angels.
His two underlings grimaced, but fished several latex gloves out of their pockets. They slipped them on and got to work.
Confident that the other agents knew what they were doing, Sands approached Tess. She wasn't trying to give the dead man mouth-to-mouth anymore, but she appeared to be frantically searching for a pulse and performing some sort of butchered form of CPR on the man.
Sands crouched down across from her, wondering if he had time to wait for shock to kick in, and decided probably not. He was surprised that no security guards had appeared yet at the ruckus that'd been caused, but he didn't believe that they'd be so incompetent as to ignore it forever. He believed that even less when it came to Tessa's family. Someone was going to come searching, and they were going to have to find her, but he didn't really want to leave her like this. Who knew what she could say in this state. It'd be a risk to the security of the operation.
Grabbing her wrists, Sands hung on grimly as Tessa did indeed fight tooth and nail. She was incoherently reciting what he thought was the Hippocratic Oath – he couldn't be sure because half of it was in Latin – mixed in with various recriminations and other words and phrases he couldn't decode. Unwilling to put up with her state of hysteria, he released one of her arms and slapped her sharply across the face.
Tess froze at the stinging pain that blossomed on her cheek. Her eyes focused on the dead man she was bent over, and she realized that there was nothing she could do for him. Moving slowly and carefully, as if she were an old woman with old, arthritic joints, she sat back on her heels. "I didn't mean to kill him," she whispered, more to herself than to Sands. Sands wasn't even sure she knew he was there. "I didn't mean to kill him."
"It was you or him, niña, and I for one am glad to see that all my extra training kicked in. If it hadn't, you could have single-handedly ruined my career." Tess looked up at him then, her eyes full of revulsion. "Don't give me that look, pequeña; you know I'm a selfish bastard."
She jerked her hand away from him. "This was a person," she hissed. "This –"
"This was a man who was trying to kill you. I understand how hard the first kill can be, but you can't afford to go to pieces right now. We've got to concoct an explanation for this, and then you've got to get back inside." In Sands' opinion, the best way to defeat shell-shock was to ignore it altogether. But he could see that Tess refused to do that; her eyes kept darting down to the face of the man she'd killed.
Pulling her to her feet with a sigh, Sands led Tess away, steadying her as she wobbled drunkenly on her feet. "Damn it, niña, you're much too stoic," he cursed her as he felt the warm patch of dampness on her side. "Newman, gimme that flashlight." The woman handed it over, and he shined it on Tessa's side. He was relieved to find that she didn't have a bullet lodged in her side, but the wound was bad enough. A passing bullet had torn a chunk of flesh from her side, and it was bleeding enough to be described as profusely.
"Go tear a piece from that man's jacket – and try to make sure that it isn't covered in dirt," Sands directed his agent. To Tess he said, "New plan. You're going to the hospital to get that looked at, and Carlos will receive a mysterious tip as to where you are."
Tess glared at him; he was being overbearing and he'd made her acutely aware of her bloody side. "Bad plan. I go back to Carlos and you disappear. That's how this is all supposed to play out anyway." Without flinching, she took the cloth pad from Newman and pressed it against her side. "Now, be a good little agent, and scurry off before you can get caught. I'll be fine." As if to second her, raised voices came echoing down the narrow walls of the alley. A search party, she thought. "Go on. I do know a thing or two about keeping myself out of trouble."
Sands heard the voices as well, but he was reluctant to leave for some reason. "Niña –"
"Leave, Sands."
Her voice and her eyes were level, the same tone she'd used to calm him once upon a time when he couldn't see. He hated her for using it now, but common sense overruled whatever it was that was keeping him here. He motioned to his companion, and they left. If Sands glanced back, it could simply have been because he wanted to check for pursuers.
Not that he'd heard any.
"Teresa?"
Tess heard her name being called, but she didn't pay attention. She was sitting on a doorstep in the alley still, her eyes locked on the man she'd killed. Since Sands had left, she'd been trying to convince herself that she'd shot in self-defense . . . but she knew how to disable a man if she had to without killing him. Everything in her revolted against the thought that it had been an accident.
There were no accidents, she'd never believed in them. She'd seen her father engineer accidents to benefit almost any sort of agenda. If she'd killed this man, it was through some weakness of her own. "The blood will out," she muttered. "La sangre hacia fuera." That's all there was to it. She'd sought redemption in Sands, but it hadn't been enough. Back under the influence of her family, she understood that the only way to set herself free was to either accept what her blood made her, or to somehow kill the life that had made her what she was. And she didn't know what choice she would make.
"Teresa?" Carlos' men had found her, and he'd rushed to her side. He didn't know what she was doing out here, if she'd been the target, or if she'd simply stumbled over factions of dueling gangs, but she certainly wasn't well. Reaching down, he took her hands and started chafing them when he felt how cold they were. "Teresa, what happened here?"
She heard the question, but her eyes were still locked on the dead body. "When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical may be madness. To surrender dreams, this may be madness. To seek treasures where there is only trash. . . . Too much sanity may be madness, and maddest of all is to see life as it is and not as it should be." Pulling away, she got up and walked over to the corpse. With gentle fingers she closed his eyes. She then crossed herself, knowing she was doing it more for her own comfort than as any last rites for him. "Ahora ruegue para nosotros y sobre la hora de nuestra Muerte." Pray for us now and in the hour of our death.
Turning away, she let Carlos lead her away, back to the limo that was waiting at the entrance to the alley. Her cousin apparently knew a cartel or gang hit when he saw one. She just wished that she would stop being the focus of such attention.
She hadn't asked for this, but she couldn't simply turn away now. One way or another she had to see this through.
"Here, drink this."
Tessa's nostrils flared at the strong, acrid scent of alcohol. She tried to turn her head, but couldn't escape the glass that was pressed against her lips. Annoyed that she wasn't being left alone, Tess shoved at the hand holding the glass. The liquid sloshed and splashed into her lap, but she didn't care. This wasn't her dress anyway. "Stop," she muttered.
Encouraged by the fact that his cousin was finally speaking, Carlos set down the small goblet he'd been holding. "You had me worried, querida," he murmured, taking the seat across from her in the limo. "I thought you were just going out to powder your nose." He'd been furious when he hadn't been able to find her, but that emotion had quickly turned to worry when she hadn't even been in the building. He knew his cousin was feeling trapped and was testing her boundaries, but he also knew she wouldn't run. It wasn't her style. Well, there had been those attempts when she'd been a child . . . and right after her disastrous four-hour marriage . . . but those were extreme circumstances. She didn't run out on dinner parties.
"I needed some fresh air," she mumbled. Her fingers twitched at the memory and she gasped in pain.
Carlos reached over and pulled her hand away from her side. Her hand was covered in blood, and the wound itself was raw and angry looking. "My god, Tessa, what happened? How did you get involved in a gunfight?" He glared as she turned her face away from him. He needed answers from her. An attack on her was an attack on him.
Tessa gasped as her chin was seized in a strong grip and her head was wrenched around until she was facing Carlos.
"What the infierno happened out there, Teresa?" he demanded, giving her head a small shake.
"I-I don't know," she said, her voice shaking at this display of temper. She'd known that Carlos had one, but this was the first time he'd ever been rough with her. "I went outside to get a breath of air and t-to compose myself before I shamed myself . . . and before I knew it, a bunch of men came out the same way I had. I assumed they were your men, but they started firing at me. One of them must have hit me," she whispered, trying to pull away to look at her wound, but Carlos held her firmly.
"And then what happened?"
Tess was silent for a moment, trying to think of how to explain herself without revealing herself. "A-another gang came out of nowhere. A r-real gang, not people who looked like cartel. They started firing at the men who . . . who were trying to get me. I think they – the other gang – were upset because the h-hitmen," the word was hard to say, "were on their territory."
Carlos let her go, convinced for the moment that she was telling the truth, or at least the truth as she knew it. "How bad is your injury, jóvenes?" he asked, his tone now soft since he'd gotten some of the answers he'd wanted. "I think that it's best that we get you to my home in Guadalupe, but if we need to take you to the hospital, we'll stop."
"Can you turn on the light?" she asked, subdued and somewhat cowed by his display earlier. He did, and she twisted awkwardly to look at the rent in her side. It was still bleeding, but not as quickly as it had been. "Do we have a first aid kit?" she asked, her voice still soft.
"Then you can tend to it yourself?"
She nodded, and efficiently did so, even though her hands were trembling. When she was done, she just sat in her seat and watched her hands tremble like leaves in the autumn wind. Fall in New York is beautiful, she thought irrationally. That thought brought to mind mental snapshots of her makeshift family. How are they doing without me, she wondered desperately. I should ask Sands to find out for me. Homesickness slammed into her hard enough to make her entire body shake. She wanted to be home. She wanted to be teaching. She wanted to be reading bedtime stories, and finding lost shoes, and picking up stray toys.
I don't want to be here. Anger accompanied that thought. It grew swiftly. Quickly and gleefully it found a target – Sands. This was all his fault. She didn't belong here – she never had. He'd betrayed her after all she'd done for him.
You still trust him though, you little fool.
You're right. . . The anger turned to self-loathing. I do.
And that's not going to change is it?
No. Our fates are too closely entwined for things to be any other way.Her voice raged against that statement, but Tess bottled it up. It was true. She'd let herself be tied to Sands, and she couldn't free herself until this mission was done. And even then she didn't know how she would. If she could. She had the distinct feeling that Sands was going to be the one calling the shots . . . always. It was a dismal realization, one that made her eyes start to water.
Carlos had been watching as Tess had fallen silent, apparently thinking. When she started crying though, he decided that the night had been too much for her. He moved to sit beside her, and wrapped an arm around her. "Shh, querida, shh. You're safe here. Just get some rest. We'll drive through the night and tomorrow we'll be home."
Tess accepted his comfort, leaning against him heavily, even as she hated herself for it.
Don't trust another man! the voice screeched.
I won't . . . but for tonight I need to pretend, she thought back, her eyelids closing. Pretend that her family actually cared for her. Pretend that they always had. She sighed, knowing she was still fooling herself. That's not what she really wanted to pretend. What she wanted . . . .
What she wanted was for the arms around her and the chest underneath her to belong to another man altogether.
A secluded villa outside of Guadalupe:
It'd been a long week for everyone.
After driving for twelve hours straight, Tess and Carlos had reached his home in the dry foothills around Guadalupe. They'd made a brief stop in larger Zacatecas where one henchman had bought her some clean clothes and another a large amount of the more common medical supplies. If she was going to be stuck out here with just Carlos and dozens of men on the payroll for awhile, then she wanted to have something to do.
But despite this planning, she'd had several days of sitting around and waiting for Neva and the rest of the group to catch up with them. Carlos ignored her for the most part except to insist that she join him for dinner each night. Otherwise, he was busy making plans that she knew nothing about and with trying to find out more about the attack on her.
In the absence of anything constructive to do, Tessa caught up on her sleep and a pile of long unread medical journals. When she wasn't making inventories or reading, she was locked away in the small office that was attached to the in-house infirmary, busily typing away on her computer. She sent requests for information about the town she was now in, for who might be a likely contact for her for government and black market purposes, a request that someone check in on her family and tell her how they were doing . . .
Each e-mail was met with silence. She talked to herself, muttering under her breath at whoever was on the other end of her bugged jewelry. She sincerely hoped it was Sands, since he was the one running things and if her handlers were being uncommunicative, it was on his orders.
When Neva came, Tess was glad for that at least. The two cousins didn't really speak to each other, but at least Tess now had her belongings and her supplies. She set up the infirmary the way she wanted it – uncluttered and pristine – and unpacked her bags.
She re-read several of her favorite books that were in Carlos' library.
She ate dinner with her family, completely silent as Neva and Carlos discussed business.
She sat around and argued with herself for hours on end out of pure boredom.
She got more and more irritated with Sands.
Sands on the other hand, was beyond busy. He'd set up shop in a dirty, but otherwise unoccupied tenement on the edge of town. He and the five agents he had with him in Guadalupe worked around the clock, setting up surveillance systems, securing phone lines, and writing reports.
For three days he was called to Zacatecas to meet with a CIA liaison officer to account for the shoot-out in Durango. All evidence had pointed to another cartel – the Merída cartel – that happened to be in control of the drug trade in Guadalajara and its surrounding areas. Somehow they had gotten wind of Carlos' plans to take over their territory and they'd gone on the offensive. The reports of the agent in Guadalajara said that Neva had originally been the first target since she was in charge of security for the Barillo cartel, but she'd been judged too inaccessible. Then someone had suggested the newest member of the inner circle – Teresa Barillo was weak, exposed, and valued by Velasquez. She made the perfect messenger to get their point across.
Sands didn't know whether to count himself lucky that he'd been there to bail Tess out or disappointed. Such a strike against Velasquez would have prompted immediate retaliation, an action they could ill afford since they were still too weak to come out of any confrontation without seriously weakening their infrastructure. It would have been easier for other cartels to pick them off. But despite the logic of this train of thought, Sands couldn't really stomach it.
For a single heart-stopping, knee-weakening moment, he realized just how stupid he was being. Since when had a single woman become more important than his career? Than his goals? Than his well-being? He'd cursed, accepting that Tess had become a weakness he needed to keep close until he could get rid of her. She'd become a liability, a blind spot. He needed to deal with her. He needed to control her.
On the eighth day since arriving at Carlos' villa, Tessa woke up, aware of a soft buzzing noise. She looked around her room, trying to figure out where the noise was coming from. She didn't like it, it was annoying her.
After several minutes of searching, she discovered the source of the annoyance. Someone had messed with the settings on her cell phone so that when she got a text message, the phone would vibrate. It'd been rattling against a small wooden box on her bookcase. Picking it up, she scowled at the small color screen. Oblivious to her glare, it reflected nothing more than an address back at her: 3850 calle Arena. It was more than enough to let Tess know whom the message was from.
Mumbling to herself about what the rules of polite society dictated, she got dressed quickly in jeans and an ivory blouse. She pulled her hair back into a pony tail as she left the room, doing her best to avoid notice. If there was one thing that she didn't want, it was to be followed to her meeting. She had a meeting with Mr. Arena himself.
Sands, she thought disgustedly. Only Sands would arrange to meet on a street that bears his name. Arrogant prick.
She had a bit of a hassle getting off the grounds. Carlos men didn't want to let her leave without double-checking with him to make sure it was alright. Tess on the other hand didn't want Carlos to know she was leaving, or he'd insist that she take body guards. Since the attack on her the week before, he'd become even more protective, and while that was nice, it was also extremely inconvenient.
After a bit of fast talking and some random quotes thrown in just for the confusion, Tess managed to convince the men that she had Carlos' permission to go out by herself.
Free at last, Tess sped down the road in the coup she'd borrowed. It'd been awhile since she'd driven a stick, so she didn't drive any faster than she thought she could control the vehicle . . . which was still fast enough that she felt as if she were actually leaving her problems behind.
She didn't bother thinking about the one she was face.
Or the one that would be waiting for her when she got back to the villa.
Driving into Guadalupe, she found a public parking lot. She paid the small fee to park the car, then started walking. She walked for a good half hour – some petty part of her wanting to make Sands wait as long as she could make him before turning up on his doorstep – but the thought that Carlos might come after her or send men after her eventually prompted Tessa into motion.
Some mile or so from where she'd parked the car, she stepped off the curb slightly and hailed a cab. They were surprisingly numerous for a smaller town, but she didn't bother wasting brain power thinking about it. She had other things to think about.
As she'd walked, her anger at Sands had grown. She didn't appreciate being treated like an unwanted but ultimately useful tool. Of course, Tess knew better than to expect something like respect from Sands, but she did expect him to at least make his attempts at using her a bit harder to see. She knew from long experience that he was manipulative and untrusting, but . . .
But it still hurts that he doesn't at least think I'm smart enough to know when my intelligence is being insulted.
A ventriloquist doesn't respect his dummy, her voice sniped at her. It was equally as pissed off as she was, but it seemed to be upset with both her and Sands.
Well excuse me, she thought harshly. But I've come to expect a higher level of underhandedness from him. This is just sloppy.
[Senora?] Tessa looked up from her musings. [We're there.] She looked out her window and saw a rutted street lined with disreputable apartment buildings. [Are you sure this is where you want to be dropped off?]
[Yes, thank you.] Digging in her purse, Tess managed to find enough money to pay her fare.
Tess got out of the car, her sneakers crunching in the gravel beneath her feet. Slowly she walked towards the building marked with the address she wanted. A flea-bitten cat walked out of a nearby alley, and upon seeing her, ran the other way. For some reason Tess identified with that mangy feline . . . but the part of her mind spoiling for a confrontation with Sands was stronger.
Her anger renewed as she remembered it, Tess boldly walked up to the door of the building and let herself in. She looked around the deserted lobby, and spotted an attendant, or the manager, or whoever, locked away behind what was probably bullet-proof glass.
Stalking over, her face perfectly emotionless, she told the man, [I'm looking for Giovanni Tirado. Can you tell me what room he's in?] Her tone didn't leave any room for the man to say that he couldn't just give out information like that to strangers, and the look on her face warned him against stalling. He quickly gave her the room, and she nodded her thanks.
Within a minute or two, she was on the fifth floor of the tenement. She'd taken the stairs since she didn't exactly trust elevators not to break and send her hurtling to her death. The exertion made her heart speed up; her blood pounded in her veins, her anger automatically reacting. She knew she should probably allow her temper to cool before finding Sands since her grip on her emotions had never been that strong, but she didn't. She wanted to yell, and rage, and say what she felt. She hadn't for weeks and weeks on end, not even to a diary since that could be found by Carlos or one of her overly attentive guards.
Pausing in front of the door that the manager had said belonged to Sands, she knocked harshly. It took several seconds for anyone to answer the door, and her foot tapped in impatience as she heard voices on the other side of the door. This was not improving her temper.
Finally the door opened a crack, and part of a face she didn't recognize examined her. She fumed. The person turned to consult what sounded like an entire group of people, and Tess got fed up.
Letting her temper flare in a rare show of strong emotion, Tess shoved the door open and stepped into the room. Several pistols immediately appeared in several hands, and just as immediately lowered as the agents realized who she was. She glared at them disdainfully, her eyes moving from figure to figure until she found the one she wanted.
The object of her rage was standing by the windows, cell phone attached to his ear. Her eyes narrowed.
"Ms. Barillo –"
"Adame," she snapped at the unfortunate person who tried to address her.
"Ms. Adame," the young man corrected himself. "Can we help you?"
"Well, you can tell that híbrido to get off the phone for starters," she said, her voice silky smooth and threatening.
Sands looked up from his conversation. "There's no need for name calling, niña. Don't get your panties in a twist." Whoever was talking to him grabbed his attention again, he returned to ignoring her.
Tess felt something inside her snap, sending icy heat washing through her body. She leaned against the door and waited for him, well aware that if she got him in a room alone with her she'd probably kill him. As far as she was concerned, it would be worth the trouble she'd get into for it.
Sands took his time talking to the lead agent in Guadalajara, having noticed that Tess seemed to be overwrought. He had no desire to be around a hysterical female, so he allowed her the time she needed to cool down. When he finally hung up, he noted with some satisfaction that the strain that'd been on her face earlier was gone. There was not a wrinkle of emotion anywhere on her face, so he deemed it safe to talk to her. "Niña, I wasn't expecting you until this afternoon at least."
"I snuck out," she said, her words short and crisp. "If you wanted to talk to me, let's just get it over with."
Sands shrugged. "Fine."
He crossed the room and opened the door, gesturing for her to precede him out. His display of manners only made Tess suspicious, but she did step through the doorway. He was about to follow her out, but an agent stopped him, her hand full of a sheaf of papers. Tess saw that, and immediately thought, Oh no you don't. She laid a hand on the other woman's arm, and softly said, "Scram." And while her voice may have been soft, her eyes were anything but.
Sands on the other hand watched in amusement as Tess drove the older woman off. His amusement only grew as she turned her icy gaze on him. His silence had upset her, had it? Well good. She needed to be reminded who was in control of the game, and ultimately of her. He needed to stop her rash decisions – like the decision to get a breath of fresh air without someone around to keep an eye on her – and while his methods over the past week had been crude, they'd also been effective apparently. The temptation to offer Tess his arm to escort her into the room next door was strong, but he managed to resist. There was a difference between making someone mad and pushing them over the line. The difference was control, and he intended on keeping control of the conversation.
Tess walked in icy silence to the room down the hall that apparently belonged to Sands. She waited as he unlocked the door, and stood her ground as he took a seat. Not bothering to ask if she minded or not, he lit a cigarette, then looked up at her indolently. "Are you going to have a seat?" he asked, eyebrows raised.
"No thank you." The words came out of her mouth as sharp and brittle as shards of glass.
Sands shrugged as if to say, "Suit yourself," and took another lazy drag on his cigarette.
Silence reigned heavily in the small room as Tess fumed and Sands waited for her patience to break. For her to break.
However, she was more stubborn than he'd counted on. After five minutes had gone by without either one saying in anything, Sands opened conversation with a gambit that was sure to make her fume. "Was there something you wanted, pequeña? Or did you just want to see me?"
The voice of her anger screeched in frustration as he pretended ignorance to why she was here. She wanted to voice the exclamation as well, but managed to get a grip on herself. "Why don't you tell me?" she asked. "For some reason I thought you were the man who had all the answers. Unless of course, your silence over the past week was due to ineptitude and not a perverse need to control every one and everything in your general vicinity."
Critically, Sands observed that her little speech had sounded rehearsed. "Been thinking about what you would say to me when you finally got summoned?" he asked, more to himself than to her. "Perhaps I let you sit for too long."
Kill him. The thought appeared in her head almost as simply as an observation about the time of day. Kill him and have done with it. No one would actually miss him. Part of her whispered that she would, but she ignored the traitorous suggestion.
"Perhaps you can't get off without making yourself feel as if you actually control what people do," she retorted.
The bite in her voice surprised Sands. "Regretting letting me close?" he asked.
"No. What I'm regretting is bringing you home for me in the first place. I could have avoided a good deal of –" heartache, "– complications if I hadn't."
That was hitting low. "You've got no one to blame but yourself, niña. It's not my fault you have a heart."
I won't for much longer at the rate you're going. "I hate you," she hissed. "I should have let you bleed to death. I should have never taken you back to the states. When you were blind –" Faster than she could have believed possible, Sands had leapt up from his seat and thrown her against the wall.
She fought the urge to let her legs crumple beneath her and stubbornly stayed standing. Shaking her head, she cleared the stars that'd been the result of the back of her head slamming into the wall. Able to see again, she looked at Sands, seeing that she'd managed to provoke his temper to the point where he was controlled by it instead of things being the other way around.
Sands stared at her, feeling his control evaporating. This was why he didn't let others to get close to him. No one knew better than he did how cruel people could be, and while Tess was remarkably restrained when it came to hurting others with her words, she'd just demonstrated that she could contend with the best of them.
It only took two steps for him to reach her. One hand wrapped around her arm, the other around the hand she tried to use to defend herself. Stepping close to her, enough that their bodies were touching from top to toe, he whispered in a low voice, "Must I remind you just how much you are at my mercy, Tessa? That I could kill you before you were aware I was even in the room with you? That I could send an anonymous tip to your cousin?" Her blue eyes stared up at him. He could see her rage building again at his treatment. "You wouldn't the only one who had someone's life in their hands. I could have killed you before, chica, and I could easily do so now. Don't press me."
"You're despicable," she hissed. "You're nothing more than a brute with a badge. You're just like my father."
He couldn't help it. Without a single thought, his grip on her slender wrist tightened enough to make her bones creak. He could see the pain in her eyes, but she kept it out of her voice.
"You both bully, and intimidate, and manically have to control every aspect of any life you find useful." Her eyes were hot with anger. "And neither of you give a damn for the people who might care for you under other circumstances. You poison every relationship you start, but you blindly declare yourself a loner . . . a leader . . . a visionary. You're pitiful and I pity you both."
There was nothing Sands could say to that. To deny it would mean he was upset by her words. To hurt her further would admit that they'd hurt him. Disgusted by her words and his reaction to them, Sands released her, taking a grim pleasure in the way she dropped to the floor without his support.
Tess looked up at him from her position on the floor, amazed that he'd simply let her go. But his next words destroyed any belief that she had that they might have been done.
"And what does that say about you?" His tone was calculating. "I shrink would have a field day with the knowledge that you were fucking a man who treated you like the man who terrorized your life for two decades. And they'd probably come to the same conclusion I have; you like being abused."
With a cry of pure rage, Tessa launched herself at Sands. She didn't know what she intended to do, but she knew that she wanted to hurt him. How dare he say that? How dare he level that accusation in that smug, confident, superior voice of his?
Sands caught her around the waist, wincing as her head slammed into the underside of his chin. With her as a hopeless tangle of arms, legs, and hair in his arms, he overbalanced and fell hard, landing awkwardly with his shoulders and back on the bed and his legs holding him up. Tess was still struggling against him furiously, although it was hard to tell if she was trying to fight against him or his words. Whichever it was, she was managing to injure him with a regularity that got on his nerves.
Managing to twist around while Tessa's full weight was resting on him was a bit difficult, but he managed. Pinning her wrists was even more difficult because now that she was underneath him, she was fighting with desperation. She knew she'd gone too far, said too much. She didn't know what he'd do to her as punishment; that she would be punished was a given. She always was.
Looking down into her face – or what parts weren't veiled by her hair – he felt a brief pang of regret, but he brushed it aside impatiently. He couldn't take his words back any more than she could. What was said was said.
"Calm down," he ordered the still struggling woman underneath him. "I'm not going to rape you, so just calm the fuck down." She did, as if startled by his words, but her body still trembled underneath him as if she had a hive of bumble bees under her skin. He cautiously released one hand, waiting to see if she'd try to free herself again, but she didn't. Content that she would stay put for the time being, he loosened his grip on her other hand, but didn't let go. With his free hand he brushed her hair out of her face, unpleasantly surprised to find tears leaking out from under her eyelids.
I knew she was hysterical, he thought as he looked down at her. But that realization was nothing to he one he had when she opened her eyes to look up at him. All her anger was gone, replaced with a defeated light. He'd broken her alright . . . but now he realized that he didn't want her broken. What fun was that?
Gently, persuasively, he started to put her back together.
Quotes: Lirael, by Garth Nix and Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
Author Thanks: thanks go to, Merrie (Hell finally broke loose, and I am very relieved. As for a continuation of this chapter? I dunno, Sands is being oddly private, which leads me to believe he's up to no good.); normal human being (Aww, I'm glad that not having as many quotes hasn't damaged the level of the story. I'm trying to get them in here as much as I can, but I obviously don't have the right ones, because none of the ones I have fit. Oh well. And the From Hell fic is going to have to wait because I want to get the plot of this one and of FS hammered out before I start a fourth story.); Lieke (No, I'll automatically mail my 'extras' out. Cliffies are here to stay, and I don't include a lot of the sex out of consideration for those who don't want to read it.); Shannon (Thanks for the compliments. I do my best to keep tension humming through the story, and sometimes I think I do better than at others. And Sands? He's kinda a hard guy to write, simply because he's got too many facets to be able to write him the right way for all people. I've kinda chosen the ones I want, and use those.); CaptainJackSparrowsGirl (Well, I hope to have Sands in here more and more as the story progresses. I think I've set up the characters enough that I can do so. I worry about some of my OC's being flat, so I've wanted to develop them, but I think I'm getting close to having done that well. And I hope the wait didn't drive you too insane.); Kontara (Real life sucks at times, especially when it gets in the way of fanfic. And something tells me that Tess and Sands will be fighting for a long time to come still.); Dreamgirl21147 (I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Hell broke loose, but no one saw fit to inform me what kind until the dust had settled. : P I hope this satisfied your curiosity.); Raven (the keyword is yet, but I don't think he'll ever have to resort to that. I don't mind writing angst, but that's a little too far for my tastes. And I try to update on AFF, but I often forget.); SS (You can call me anything you please, SS. Well, almost. I can think of a few names I wouldn't like. ; ) Oh, Merrie's fics are great, and I'm glad you kinda stumbled on mine. Or at least this chapter. And like I said, I forget to post on AFF sometimes. I don't know why. I'm there often enough with our collaborative fic. Thanks for the compliment, I really do try to make this a good story.)
