CHAPTER 7

"Jesus, what a shithole." Johnny remarked as him and Robby stepped off the bus and looked around at Juarez for the first time. It was a 12 hour bus ride all the way from L.A to the US border by El Paso, Texas, and then from there another bus at the Mexican border took them to Juarez, so despite leaving first thing in the morning, it had taken all day to arrive in the border town in Mexico, and the sun was already starting to set. Carmen had been planning to give them some final help about getting around Juarez, but unfortunately she still wasn't feeling so well so she was still sleeping when they left.

"People actually live here? No wonder America has such an immigrant problem! I'd rather try to sneak across the border than live in this place!"

"You should probably keep your voice down, dad. We don't want to piss off the wrong guy and find ourselves dead on the side of the road." Robby murmured.

"Ha, what are they going to do?" Johnny challenged, addressing no one in particular. Robby shrugged.

"Well, for a start, I think I saw a gun in the glove compartment of our bus driver's bus. Didn't realise you know how to Matrix-dodge bullets." Robby commented. Johnny shrugged.

"Don't need to outrun them. I can just outrun them or catch them like the Flash." Johnny responded. Robby raised an eyebrow and looked at his father, slightly impressed.

"When have you seen the Flash TV show?" Robby laughed, shocked.

"There's a TV Show about that shit?!" Johnny exclaimed. "No, I only saw that stupid movie, Justice something."

"Didn't think that was exactly your kind of movie." Robby said. Johnny shook his head.

"It isn't. It's so insanely dumb! I only saw it because Miguel said that if I watched that, he'd watch Braveheart, an actually good movie."

Robby looked down at the mention of Miguel, old feelings of jealousy started to bubble up slightly. Listening and seeing all of the fatherly things Johnny had done with Miguel but neglected to do with him never failed to produce ugly feelings inside him, and it took all of his patience to push them down.

Johnny noticed, and he quickly stammered to backpedal.

"Yeah, uh… you know… it was just that one time and um… you know… um… you and I when we get back… uh… we can…"

"That would be nice." Robby interrupted him, swiftly bringing an end to the conversation. Things were better between the two of them, but it was still mighty awkward at times. Namely at the mention of Cobra Kai, and at the mention of Miguel. Not hostile, just really awkward as neither of them wanted to have a confrontation, but there were still unresolved feelings about everything.

The pair made it to the motel they were staying in, and after throwing their bags on the ground in their room, they decided that they would immediately begin their mission. Robby got on the phone with Sam, and as she directed him to Miguel's location, they managed to narrow down his location to one of two places: a bar or a small shop.

"You want to take the bar, I'll take the shop?" Robby suggested. Johnny knew that chances of Miguel being at the bar were pretty low given that Miguel wasn't exactly the drinking type, but he still nodded anyways, just in case.

"Sure, let's do it." He said, and the pair split up, Robby heading for the shop and Johnny the bar. Johnny quickly found out that the only place in the entire city dingier than the motel they were staying at was the bar, if you could even call it that. It was a stain on the face of the great institution that bars were. This place had paint peeling off all four walls, the structural integrity of them dangerously low and looking like they would cave in at any moment. The roof of the bar was filled with so many holes that any rain - not that there would be any in the boiling hot, sticky, humid climate - would fall right down on them. There was no AC in the bar, and when the outside temperature was about 40 degrees celsius, that meant that sweat was already dripping from Johnny's eyebrow. He glanced around the room, not wanting to stay in here longer than he had to, and at a first scan, he couldn't see Miguel. It was early evening so the swarms of people hadn't yet arrived at the bar. There were 6 people in the entire bar: three men sitting together at a back table, a couple sitting together in a pretty worn booth, and one man at the…

Johnny's jaw dropped in surprise.

"Holy shit…"

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It had been an absolutely splendiferous day for Miguel. There was no other way to put it.

After they had met last night, Miguel and his father had spent the next 24 hours getting to know each other. Manuel had taken Miguel back to his out, a gorgeous home in the more secure, or rather less unstable, part of the city. It was in a large compound, almost a bubble separated from the poverty stricken town, a jewel that needed to be protected at all costs. And it was protected well. As Manuel had pulled his car into the driveway, Miguel had spied two armed guards sitting at the front gate, eyeing them carefully. They were both bohemeths, colossal beasts that were made even more threatening by the guns laying across their laps.

"That's Julio and Jorge. I'm sure you've noticed Juarez is hardly the safest city in Mexico so they're here as the security guards." He explained, reading Miguel's mind as Miguel stared at them apprehensively. Their faces seemed to be knitted into permanent scowls, and their fingers remained curled around their rifle triggers. "Don't worry. They're not going to hurt you. Their job is to protect you and the house."

"Could've fooled me. They look like they're about to try and eat me." Miguel murmured under his breath. Manuel chuckled.

"You don't have to worry about that. They look scary but are both actually real pussy cats." Manuel stated, parking his car and getting out, leading Miguel over to the guards to introduce him, before taking him inside the house.

"Dad, I think the only thing those guys have in common with cats are they both hate water." Miguel gagged at the horrid stench coming from both men after having had to sit outside all day in the scorching sun.

Inside, Miguel let out a massive sigh of relief as he felt the cool breeze of A.C on his back and neck. His father then gave him a tour of the vast compound, a place that made their place in L.A seem like a cupboard. There was a pool, back garden, three bedrooms despite him living alone, a fully-equipped kitchen, a TV room, and quarters for the full-time housekeeper and the two guards. After he done so, the two went back to the living room and sat down on the two reclinable barcaloungers. They spent hours talking, catching up on each others' lives. While Manuel was very open about everything, Miguel was much more tight-lipped and careful with what he revealed. He talked about things that had happened to him, schools he had gone to, his injury but he didn't talk about specifics. Nothing about where exactly he was living. Nothing about Karate and the All-Valley. Basically anything his father could use to look him up and find him if things went south between them and Miguel had to escape. He had even lied and told his father that his back injury had been from a biking accident, rather than a karate fight. As Miguel told his father about his life, his father told him about his. He didn't hold back when talking about the good, the bad and the ugly aspects of his jobs. He was part of a gang - Los X's - and Miguel knew that. Once his father had been assured that Miguel wasn't going to be too uptight about that in his thirst to learn about his dad, Manuel had talked to him about what exactly his job entailed. He was a dangerous man, there was no doubt about it, but he wasn't one of the people who would be on the front lines for any kind of violent crimes. His gang were the middle men between the major Juarez cartel and their customers in Central and South America, and as one of the leaders of the gang, he arranged for transport of guns and any other item the cartel instructed him to send for them, and got paid a hefty sum for his work. He had gained a ruthless reputation amongst his community as someone who takes no crap from anyone: during his time transporting goods, he had seen many a person both in his gang and outside of it try to steal them on the way. He had made sure they wouldn't be making that mistake again. It went the cartel at the top of the food chain, then Los X's, and then the general public. But given that the cartel only spent very little time in the city and mainly stayed in the shadows, Los X's were the men on top, and his father was the apex predator amongst them.

As Miguel learned about all of this, something extremely odd struck him… his whole life, he had been taught the definitive difference between good and evil, and his father's job would definitely be classified under the evil category. However, when he looked at the man, and after seeing the lives of all of the people around him, he didn't see some kind of evil criminal sitting opposite him. He saw that he was no longer in L.A anymore, where even the poorest had it better than some of the richer here. He saw someone who wasn't some kind of sadistic, ruthless killing machine. Instead, he saw a man who used to have nothing, but had taken the very slim number of opportunities he had in order to earn enough money to survive the attacks of the true enemy: the merciless, corrupt country where so many had so little. Manuel never hurt anyone unless he himself was threatened, or someone was trying to steal from him, as when people stole from cartel shipments, it wasn't their ass on the line for it. It was his, as a large part of his job was insuring their shipments.

Soon, their talking eventually seized as the clocks struck midnight, and Miguel's rested on the soft leather fabric of the barcalounger, his body slowly down but his mind speeding up as he recounted everything that had happened today and how big the step he had taken today was, Manuel's voice brought him out of his train of thoughts.

"Hey, Miguel. I'm going to ask you something and you don't have to answer." Manuel said. For a moment, Miguel was so at ease that he had forgotten his father was in the chair beside him, so he jumped slightly in surprise at the sudden voice.

"Sure, what is it?" Miguel asked.

"I know that you said your mom took you away from me because it was what was best for you. Now you've seen my job, seen my house, seen my way of life. I don't know much about your life in America, but I can only imagine it is very different to this. I'm not saying you had to still all be living with me, but do you really think that having me completely blocked from your life was in your best interest, or your mother's?"

The whole of the next day, Miguel and his father had spent it hanging out. Them and a few of Manuel's friends went to the bar, which seemed to be a general meeting spot for them, and they played a couple of hours of cards. Of course Miguel lost, but at the same time, he felt like he won. He felt like he had escaped the bubble of life in the Valley, where the biggest problem they had to face was some ridiculous karate rivalry. He was amongst real men, with real problems.

Manuel and Miguel hung out until around 6 in the evening, when suddenly Manuel got a call that he needed to run into work. Miguel wanted to come, but his father had politely declined, said it was a trip for another day and he would be back in less than an hour. By this point, as in the morning, Manuel had taken Miguel around the city and the people had seen the two together, it wasn't such a menacing place anymore. Sure he got a lot of dirty looks here and there, but he no longer felt physically threatened by them. So Miguel went for a walk for half an hour, learning more about the decrepit town and it's downfall into ruins, before going back to the bar and ordering a nice cold drink while he waited for his dad to return. He chatted with Elaina the bartender a little, but eventually they lapsed into silence for a while, Miguel returning to the chamber of his thoughts, only to be brought out 15 minutes later when he felt someone slide into the barstool beside him.

"Hey, dad. You're ba…" Miguel looked up, expecting to see his dad having returned, but when he saw who it was, he had to close his eyes and clench his jaw in annoyance. It was quite possibly the last person he wanted to see in this world.

"Hey, Miguel." The man said to him, smiling, the grin relieved and sincere having finally found his student.

"Hello, Johnny…"