While she was gone Sands had time to consider the situation he currently found himself in. He was still in excruciating pain, as much as he tried to hide it from Sam, and now he would have to be on alert and able to move and defend himself if necessary. He couldn't see anything but the blackest black of nothingness and he didn't know if he would ever be able to see anything again. The thought of that was overwhelming. He forced himself not to think about it. His thoughts turned to Sam instead.
She had said the men who had attacked her were American. Were they CIA or something else and why were they looking for him? He couldn't help but feel like he was missing a piece of the puzzle and if he just thought about it hard enough he could figure it out.
Either way, it wouldn't be long until they found him if he didn't move right away. He hoped it didn't take Sam long to get back. He would be at a distinct disadvantage if they found him when she was gone.
As much as he hated to admit it, he needed her right now, as pathetic an agent as she was, at least she had eyes and knew how to shoot and apparently get herself out of sticky situations. Together they might be able to make it. He couldn't do it alone and she would help him get around and get the essentials to life, like food, which would otherwise be quite a task for him right now.
He thought about her for a moment. She seemed to be getting rather attached to him which would serve him well in the future. She really was a sweet innocent girl, wasn't she? She seemed to actually like him. He snorted. He had done everything to get her NOT to like him, yet she was still here waiting on him hand and foot.
He wondered how people got to be so easy to manipulate. Didn't they ever learn? He was sure by the time she was out of his company she would be much more jaded than when she met him. He felt a tinge of regret at that thought but he quickly dismissed it. He had to do what he had to do to survive and if that meant using a naïve little girl, then that's what he would do. He didn't get as far as he had in life by being weak and giving in to emotions. No, that only served to confuse and weaken a person.
He needed to keep his objective in mind and that was that he needed to make sure that he was not double crossed by the CIA before he could come out from under cover and go home.
Home…he had been in Mexico for so long that he didn't even think about home much anymore. Mexico had become his home, but what was the CIA going to do with an eyeless field agent? He frowned when he thought about his future. It wasn't going to be what he had planned. What would he do in the future? He didn't want to think about that.
His thoughts were interrupted by Sam's return to the room.
"I've got a car," she said breathlessly as she gathered up their things and toted them back out to the car.
Sands slowly sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed.
She returned and said, "Here, put on these sweatpants. You can't wander around in pajama bottoms."
She helped him change his pants. He winced in pain as her hand brushed one of his bullet wounds. Then she helped him up, his shoulder over hers and helped him make his way slowly to the door. Every step was painful for him but he didn't let her know.
They finally got to the car and she helped him into the passenger seat. She stuck his sunglasses over the gauze covering his eyeholes.
"There, now you almost look normal," she said as she got into the driver seat and started out of the parking lot.
"Rather than the freak that I really am, you mean?" he said.
"Sands you do not look like a freak. You're still you. They've got all kinds of things they can do these days to fix this, you know, and.."
"Stop! I don't want to talk about it, OK?" he said in an irritated voice.
He didn't want her to feel pity for him. He needed to stop making comments like that. It revealed his fears and he didn't want anyone to know how he really felt about his situation. It made him seem weak and well, pitiful, and that was the last thing he wanted to be.
"Where should we go?" she asked.
"Just drive…" he said darkly.
They drove around for a while in silence until Sam spotted a hotel near the edge of town.
"We're almost out of Culiacan and there's a hotel. Should we stay there?" she asked him.
"I need to stay close to town to do my investigation, so yeah, that might work for the time being. Check us in, but remember not to use your real name, OK?"
"I'm not that stupid!" she retorted.
"I'm not so sure," he replied.
She huffed at him and got out of the car to check them in. He sat in silence and darkness. Whenever she was gone it seemed as if he was in a bottomless pit of nothingness. He didn't like that feeling at all.
She finally returned with a room keycard and tossed it at him hitting him in the forehead with it.
"The only room they had was the honeymoon suite. Don't get any ideas," she warned as she pulled their things out of the trunk and shut it again. He opened the door and got out and stood there having no idea where to go. She grabbed his arm with her free hand.
"You'll have to open the door for me. My arms are full," she said as she led him to their room on the ground floor.
He stood in front of the door. He didn't want to have to fumble around to figure out how to open it and it was one of those keycard things that you had to put in the right way and watch the light change and he could feel frustration building up inside of himself.
"I can't see the darn door to open it!" He hated to admit this to her. It ate away at him.
She snatched the keycard away from him and shoved their stuff into his arms, put the keycard into the slot and opened the door.
He walked in behind her and dropped the stuff in the middle of the floor.
"Do you want to trip over that later?" she asked bluntly. "Cause you surely will. Why'd you just drop it there?"
"I couldn't see where to put it. Why do you try to make me do things I'm not capable of doing?" he said angrily.
"Well you're going to have to learn. I'm not going to be here to do everything for you forever."
He raised his eyebrows at her. "Are you going somewhere?" he asked suspiciously.
Maybe now that someone was looking for him she was getting cold feet and would run away from him. It made him uncomfortable to think of being alone and blind and pursued by people who obviously meant him harm. He couldn't do the simplest things anymore. It made him feel so helpless and angry. He had never been so vulnerable in his entire life and it was beyond his control which made him feel even angrier.
She sighed, "No, I'm not going anywhere. I wish you would trust me," she said under her breath.
"Why?" he asked "So you can stab me in the back when I least expect it. I already did that with Ajedr…" he paused realizing what he was about to say.
"Ajedrez?" she asked. "What does she have to do with any of this?"
"Nothing!"
"No, it was not nothing. Tell me!" she demanded.
He sat down on the bed suddenly feeling really tired. He sighed.
"She's the one that took my eyes. She sat there and watched while the doctor drilled my eyes out of my head and she laughed," he said quietly. "She laughed…"
Samantha sat down beside him and put her arms around him and held him close to her. She didn't say anything, she just held him, and he let her. It felt like she really cared, but he shook the feeling off. Nobody cared in this world. Everyone was out for themselves. He had learned that time and again, the hard way, he told himself.
"She'll pay for what she did," she said after a moment.
He pushed her away. "She already did. I killed her," he said emotionlessly.
"I need to rest," he said and he laid down on the bed.
Sam pulled the covers back and helped him get his shoes off and got him situated under the covers.
"You rest," she said and kissed him on the forehead. He fell into a fitful sleep with visions of Ajedrez laughing and Sam crying running through his head.
