"Carlos," Jill said softly before she pulled the truck to a complete stop, facing the first enemy vehicle that was now only 30 feet away.
Carlos glanced over at her as he pulled back into the cab from the shot he took. His jaw was clenched and the headlights shining in at them from the other vehicle accentuated the fear and stress in his features. His eyes caught on the lights behind them before he was looking once more toward the jeep where his brother and men lay.
They had laid a trap.
The second car came to a simple stop beside the first and it killed its lights beside it. The vehicles from behind were crowding in slowly but still stayed a decent distance back. All in all, there were five vehicles surrounding them now. Two ahead and three behind.
No other shots were dispatched into the night. They seemed to be waiting for something.
"Listen to me," Carlos was speaking again, and he did so in a rapid and quiet voice. "Whatever happens here, you get away if you can, do you understand me?"
Letting go of the steering wheel, Jill grabbed the magnum that had survived the truck's quick spin earlier. When she met his wide eyes, she hardened her features into the cool mask she had donned for so many years.
"I'm not leaving without all of you," she vowed fiercely.
"Jill—" Carlos started but the car in front of them was flickering their lights. Carlos swore loudly and Jill felt the despair like it was a living person that sat beside them both.
Carlos kept a tight grip on his rifle while he opened the truck door and began to step out.
A sniper shot blew through the dirt next to Carlos' door and he flinched back into the truck with a look of true rage lining his entire body.
Jill watched the spray of dirt float back towards the tail end of the truck and she noted the sniper to be in front of them. Her military mind was beginning to whirl for any solution she could attempt. However, with the unknown status of Alonzo, the other men, and their compromised position, she knew they were out of options that didn't result in someone's death.
"I would never leave you anyway and I think you know that now," Jill spoke into the bright lights that threatened them both. "Not unless it would mean saving your life, Carlos."
An understanding was weaving around them both in the silence of the cab. A pause in the darkness of the road.
They had faced enemies together before, but it was different now. They were different now.
A dying city had connected them, a ghost of a chance meeting.
And somehow neither had let the other out of their own mind since.
"You fought with me when no one else would," she spoke, her eyes stuck in the lights, stuck in the past. "And then when I was stuck again, you were there in my head. I didn't fully understand then—didn't know what that would mean but I wouldn't be here if not for you. So, don't ask me to run. Ask me to stay, and ask me to fight, because I know how to do those, Carlos."
The car in front honked once and Jill finally pulled her eyes away to look over toward him.
"To whatever end then." Carlos' hand was on her thigh while he held her look.
Whatever may come, they'd face it together.
"Rhamnusia!" a cajoling voice called from in front of them.
Jill squinted to see the door to the front vehicle open and a figure stepped out shortly after. The figure was crossing in front of the headlights and the shadow they cast elongated across the planes of dirt between their vehicle and Carlos'.
The hand tightened on hers before Carlos said, "Don't, Jill."
"Come now, Rhamnusia, I wouldn't keep us waiting. It would be a precarious situation for one of the last living Oliveira brothers, don't you think?"
Pulling her hand from Carlos', she shoved the driver's side door open with intent.
"Jill—"
"Stay here, Carlos," Jill bade softly when she stood fully and glanced back into the cab. No warning shot fired near her feet, and she knew then they meant for only her to exit the vehicle for now.
Carlos' chest was heaving, and she tore her eyes away from his fearful expression so that she wouldn't lose her nerve.
Dirt slipped up into the open space of Jill's sandals when she walked over the uneven terrain of the ground before her. The wind had picked up around them and it blew her light blue dress against her enduring frame. Blonde hair shined with a history the men before her would never understand and angry violet eyes were squinting into the headlights ahead, keeping her at a disadvantage.
"My, you do look lovely," the same voice from before called out while dirt crunched from his approaching steps.
The voice was familiar, and it made her want to reach for the magnum she had strapped to her leg in a hurry. The dress was billowy enough to hide it, but she was certain the wind was outlining it as her clothing rippled across her body.
DeAndros' dark eyes were taking shape when the shadows pulled away from his nearing form.
When he saw the scowl forming on her lips, he smiled pleasantly and said, "This would have been so much easier if you had just come to our little meeting like I asked."
"Tatiana Rani wasn't colluding with the cartel, was she?" Jill asked as she swiped a lock of her hair from her eyes and studied the crooked bridge of his nose before she locked on to his midnight-like eyes.
"No," DeAndros said softly before she watched his gaze drift down to inspect her wardrobe change. He began to walk around her. "But that doesn't really matter now."
"Why is Peru turning on Bolivia then? It doesn't make sense that you would arm and then turn on us. If you were working with the cartel the entire time, what was the point?" Jill sharply asked, refusing to be intimidated by the younger man.
"'Us'? That's interesting," DeAndros cooed. He was behind her now with his inspection. "Do you really still think we're Peruvian?" DeAndros was turning to the other car, his profile now on Jill's right. "Boys, are we from Peru?"
"Fuck no," a similar accented voice called. The accent was of northern Mexico just as DeAndros' was.
"No, Rhamnusia," DeAndros continued while he stepped up beside her. His fingers caressed the blonde hair at her back. "We're not Peruvian at all, but you already started to figure that out, didn't you? You were the closest to the mark I've ever seen anyone get."
"Get your fucking hands off of her!" Carlos' voice yelled out from somewhere behind her.
"Get back in the truck, Oliveira!" one of the men from the other vehicles snarled.
Behind her she could hear more men shouting from the flanking vehicles, and Jill turned to see the living wrath that was Carlos emerging from the vehicle. Guns were training on him from many different angles.
"Carlos," Jill warned with her breath catching in her throat.
His eyes connected with hers and it was like being back in the slaughterhouse. The worst part of war; seeing hope die in the eyes of those beside you.
DeAndros lifted a hand and the shouting stopped. She watched him consider Carlos for a moment.
"Declan Oliveira," DeAndros bade into the night before he took a step toward Carlos. "Orlando Oliveira," Step. "Antonio Oliveira," Step. "Alvaro Oliveira," Pause. DeAndros was feet away from Carlos now. "And Samuel Oliveira. There's only two of you left now."
Carlos and Alonzo's brothers. He was naming the fallen brothers of the Oliveira line. Naming them as if he—
"Let her go," Carlos said tightly, not rising to the bait of the man before him. "She doesn't have anything to do with this conflict. She was only here to help me."
"Oh, that's not true at all, is it?" DeAndros glanced back at her and the light from the car's headlights seemed to make his dark eyes glow. "You wouldn't have asked her to be your wife with that bracelet if she was as casual as you say."
Jill sucked in a small breath as her fingers found the bracelet on her arm.
"You can find that out when we return home. No spoiling the surprise, Supercop." Carlos had said to her when she asked about it.
"No, she's much more important than that, and with what we've seen… even more valuable now." DeAndros chuckled.
The sounds of shouting were rising from the side of the road, and it caused Jill to whip her head toward it. The dark figures of DeAndros' men surrounding the crashed Jeep were a faint outline she struggled to make out for a moment. One man with a machine gun was yelling orders at the front of the windshield. His boot propped on the hood.
None of Carlos' men had managed to climb out yet.
"What do you want?" Jill snapped, whirling back to DeAndros.
"You," DeAndros answered simply, turning his back on Carlos.
"No," Carlos snarled.
"Yes," DeAndros responded conversationally, ignoring the threat without teeth in Carlos' voice. His eyes were on Jill again. "Tatiana Rani wasn't far off the mark when she suggested that you pissed off the family of Marcos Lehder. You did, but that's not what concerns my boss. What does concern him is the delays in his shipment when old families start withholding products and demanding justice."
DeAndros paused to sneer towards the shouts coming from the Jeep before he continued, "See, all of this just doesn't sit well with us. We could have dealt with that though, and truthfully, had it just been anyone else staging a siege on that slaughterhouse, this would have been much simpler."
DeAndros gave a wave of his hand, and barking orders were announcing itself from behind Carlos. Jill watched as men approached Carlos' back and with their thick accents, demanded him to his knees. Carlos didn't obey. Instead, his pleading gaze was locked on Jill's.
As if he knew what was coming. Begging her in silence to do as he asked in the truck and run.
Drawing her magnum, she cocked the hammer instead when the men forced Carlos down to the ground. Her crosshairs lined themselves up between the eyes of DeAndros.
DeAndros laughed.
"Instead," DeAndros continued to speak, not concerned with her firearm. "What we saw on that tape was much more interesting. One person, a woman at that, infiltrated one of our compounds, slaughtered our own men with one knife and two bullets. Unharmed." DeAndros walked back toward her, and Jill shivered when she heard Alonzo's voice begin to scream out.
And as you would expect, Carlos was responding to the sound too. Jill saw his head jerk up at the rising decibel and he began to struggle against the hands of the men who had him on his knees.
Blood calling to blood. His only surviving family member was screaming—his youngest brother and Jill knew if it hurt her, it was killing him.
"Please," Jill called softly. "Make this stop."
DeAndros whistled toward the embankment. He didn't take his eyes from Jill's when he called out, "Bring them up here."
Scuffling sounds rose from out of sight while Jill held the man's eyes. Feeling helpless for the first time in over a week when DeAndros' hand lifted and curled around the barrel of her gun. The magnum was pulled from her hand and tossed it into the dirt, the screams of her new family a shackle around her wrists.
Soon, stumbling steps were kicking up dust into the light provided by the car. Alex, Pedro, David, and Alonzo were being brought forth by the heavily outfitted men that DeAndros seemed to command.
Whereas the three aforementioned men walked into the road, Alonzo was being half carried by one of the men. Blood stained his white shirt heavily, and with a careless toss, the youngest brother was dumped onto the ground only feet away from Jill.
"I'll make you a deal, Rhamnusia," DeAndros spoke behind her now as Jill fell to her knees beside Alonzo. David was snarling out a curse when the other three were also being forced to their knees. "One that I think you'll be very interested in."
"Alonzo," Jill uttered, ignoring DeAndros for the moment. The bullet had pierced his back and gone out through the top of his chest. Half-listening, she pulled his shirt collar up and viewed what she knew to be a sucking chest wound. The soft sounds of hissing air as Alonzo panted in shock were greeting her ears. "Alonzo, look at me."
Alonzo's terrified blue-green eyes were meeting hers and his trembling, bloody hand was creating whorls on her skin when he touched her face. His mouth opened but no sound came out.
The look in his eyes wasn't one she had seen from him yet, and it would be a scar on her heart that would demand justice soon. Her hand covered the one he held to her face, and she knew he could see her own wrath gathering on her face.
"What makes you think I'll agree to any deal when you clearly have plans to wipe out any leverage you have with me right now?" Jill snarled over her shoulder, causing Alonzo's bloody fingers to trail lines across her cheek. "You want me to hear your deal? Get me some fucking tape!"
DeAndros watched her with an amused look before he nodded to one of his men behind her.
Footfalls echoed away from her in the dark.
"Prior military, was it?" DeAndros asked. "That portion of your story I find to be the most honest. You carry yourself like a soldier and it seems your negotiations while in combat aren't total shit. I did particularly love your judgement line to Marcos."
A bag was tossed on the ground beside Jill, and she snatched the handles of the bag to drag it closer to Alonzo's prone body. Her shaking hands were clasping around the medical tape she found. With violet eyes catching on the cellophane 4x4 package, she also yanked that out and began to peel the cellophane away from the wrapping.
"Here's my deal, you're going to come with us and in exchange, I'm not going to kill your intended, his men, or that pitiful excuse for a village he calls home." DeAndros continued. "And just so we're clear..."
Jill found herself glaring hatefully back toward the younger man as he spoke.
"There will be no searching for you, and no further attempts to strike down our operations… As a matter of fact, your boys are going to be quite compliant."
"And what makes you fucking think that?" Carlos hissed out from his position on the ground.
"Because I'm going to give you your main markas back," DeAndros answered.
Jill heard Pedro suck in a breath from across the dirt and her mind whirled for the information that had been shared with her in the village. An ayllu was what their current village was, and it was a smaller version of where they had come from. The markas was the larger village that had been seized near Lake Titicaca.
Their home.
Processing this while she used the hole in Alonzo's shirt to rip the fabric across his chest, she yanked the ruined garment out of her way. Alonzo's mouth was still moving as he desperately tried to speak.
Finding no antiseptic of any kind in the bag, Jill grabbed the corners of the squared cellophane in hand and looked down into his eyes while she prepared strips of tape on her leg.
Alonzo would die if they didn't get him to the hospital that was only a few miles away.
"Let them leave first," Jill bid out then.
"No!" Alex yelled. "Rhamnusia, no!"
"Be quiet, Sosa!" Jill ordered in the tone she had used to address him when they had first met.
"Don't trust my word?" DeAndros' voice lilted in a patronizing way.
"He's going to die if they don't get him into the city, and if he dies here, DeAndros, you'll wish you never heard my fucking name," Jill's voice had become cold in her anger as she attached the tape to three sides of the cellophane.
"Very well," DeAndros had paused to consider her penetrating tone. "Get the rest of them in the truck."
The military styled looking men were grasping the arms of David, Pedro, and Alex and hauling them up quickly.
"Ji—" Carlos yelled but cut himself off when he remembered to protect her name. "Don't do this! Don't fucking do this for me. You can't—you can't do this again. Not for me!"
Carlos wasn't talking about taking a bullet for him. No, he understood now that she would survive that. What he spoke to now was being a captive again by someone else.
"To whatever end," she whispered aloud while she stared down into Alonzo's eyes.
She would protect him and that village to whatever end.
Jill's hands shook and her eyes had begun to cloud before she returned her focus on Alonzo's chest.
"Breathe out, Alonzo," Jill whispered with her voice quavering. "Do it now."
Alonzo squeezed his eyes shut and did as she asked by letting out a forceful breath. As soon as he did, Jill slapped the three-sided dressing to his skin and pushed down as hard as she dared. The fourth side of the cellophane remained untapped and would allow for air to escape when he exhaled but no more air would enter his chest when he inhaled.
The cellophane suctioned into his wound when he inhaled next, and it remained stable while she watched the cellophane shake slightly when air released on his exhale. With the air in his chest managed, she rolled him onto his side and worked quickly to repeat the action on his back.
"Jill," Alonzo's voice was so soft while he lay on his side, peering up at her. Jill barely even heard it when he spoke. His hands were grasping hers again while he continued in small bursts of breath, "Don't let them take you. You can still run. We don't want this. All of us would rather die."
Each word was delivered with such difficulty that Jill felt herself crying harder while she gripped his hands back forcefully.
"I would never allow that," she answered him softly while their short history seemed to stretch out years between them. Footsteps were nearing them in the dirt behind Jill and she reached out to clasp his face before she laid her lips at his forehead "Justice looks different for people like us, remember? I'll find a way to punish them all, Alonzo. I will punish them all."
Alonzo's eyes dove into the grooves of her face like they had when they had first met. Jill realized then that she loved him too. He was a much a part of the life she wanted with Carlos and now—
"Alright, up you go," A gruff voice called above, and Jill was whimpering when they pulled Alonzo up harshly and his hands were torn forcefully from hers.
"Rhamnusia," she heard him wheeze when they dragged him away.
Carlos was still yelling, and Jill could barely hear it while she tried to pull herself together. She couldn't let him see, couldn't let him know how terrified she was because if she did, he would never leave. Had she been in his position she wouldn't have either, but there was one option of leverage left and it was going to save all of their lives.
"Resourceful, beautiful, and deadly," DeAndros called out to Carlos who was still struggling with the three men near the side of the truck. "Maybe I'll just keep her for myself, Oliveira. Would you like that? I'll think about sending you a video."
With her tears wiped, Jill's now bloody knees from kneeling in the dirt flexed when she rose to her feet. Blonde hair slipped from her face when she lifted it. The wet, bloody finger-streaks of the youngest Oliveira brother lined her right cheek and was reflecting like a promise in the light.
Jill could see the few men who paused to watch her rise. With the headlights at her back, the sharp figure of Jill Valentine rose on the dark stretch of road in Peru and the look she cast on DeAndros was a threat laid bare.
"'A clever man builds a city,'" Albert Wesker's voice was curling around her senses once more while she recalled the tyrant who often watched her in his lab. This time around, his memory was not wholly unwelcome. "'A clever woman lays one low.'"
"Fuck—" Blood was pouring from Carlos' mouth when one of the men hit him again. "—You!"
War was a dance in Jill's blood and her mask was in place once more when she lunged for DeAndros' gun and yanked it from his holster.
The man was well trained, and the defense movement he used to try and restrain her hand was lost to the mechanical way she evaded and twisted his wrist out from his body. Lifting a sandaled foot, she delivered a kick to his kidneys that sent him sprawling into the dirt.
With a whirl of her arm, Jill aimed, fired, and the man hitting Carlos went down with a spray of blood from his caving face. Her aim centered back down to DeAndros who was attempting to climb back to his feet.
"Sosa," Jill barked, the death warrant in her gaze seemed to make DeAndros pause from his position on the ground. She could hear the guns training on her now.
"Yes, ma'am," she heard the weary call off to her right.
"You're in command now, get your captain into the truck and leave."
"Take me instead," Carlos called. "Fuck, don't take her, I—I'll do whatever you ask but don't take her!"
Jill didn't dare to take her eyes from the man below her, but she broke all the same from the guttural sound of Carlos' pleading voice. She could hear his men talking to him now.
"Get in the truck, Carlos—Now! He's going to die; we have to leave—We have to!" David pleaded with tears in voice.
"Carlos," she let her voice ring out and she heard when he stopped struggling.
He had saved her from that tyrant, had watched her back when she was too angry by the injustice served to the home she failed to protect. He had sat in that hospital and had found a way to bring her back.
Carlos Oliveira had lived on in her mind for years after. An avatar no more, he had still saved her last when it meant the most.
In the last week, he had provided her with the space to heal and to her surprise, she had begun to.
"I would have married you," she continued to speak out into the night. "I would have done it tomorrow had things been different. I need you to know that. I also need you to know I meant every vow I gave you prior to even knowing you would ever want me that way. I promised to protect you, to protect these people, and I meant it."
Her voice did not shake, nor did the gun in her hand this time while DeAndros sipped from her pain and smiled at her from the ground.
"Get in the truck and don't look back. Get in the truck and save your brother. Get in the truck and take our people home, Carlos. Take them home and don't ever let someone take it away again." Jill's voice grew in the night and strengthened while she said her goodbye in the only way she could.
A debt had been repaid at the slaughterhouse but that hadn't ever been what it was about.
A slave no more, she would return to those kinds of shackles just to know he could survive. Survive and go back to the home which he and his family had fought so hard for.
"No," she heard him utter before she heard clothing ruffling. "No, I—" The truck door slammed, and Jill almost let her mask drop when she heard the rumbling start of the engine.
Tires skittered on the gravel, and she made the mistake of turning her head to get one last view of the family she had chosen.
David was driving, Alonzo sat in the middle while Pedro and Alex seemed to be attempting to address the bleeding wound on either side of him. Carlos sat against the passenger door and his eyes met hers through the windshield while the truck turned to continue down the road.
I love you. Bring them home, she mouthed and she couldn't see his response as the truck turned further away.
The gun was yanked from her hand and a fist to her cheekbone knocked her off her feet when the truck was finally heading in the direction back to Bolivia.
Jill lifted her head and spit blood onto the ground while she turned her gaze to the receding taillights of the truck now gaining speed. Lips were pulling over bloody teeth when Jill turned her attention back to DeAndros who stood over her now.
"Won't be needing this anymore, will you?" DeAndros said beside her ear.
Cold steel slid against her wrist before she felt the jaqichasiwi braceletfall away from her skin. Her eyes found it in the dirt when hands began to haul her to feet. Quick steps led her away and toward the vehicles that had flanked them.
With nothing but her fate before her, she could see one vehicle was a truck and attached behind it was what appeared to be a dirty straight load trailer. It was designed the same way people loaded horses for transport, but this unit held no windows or ports for air except for one with an arched grate at the top.
The heavy door was pulled back by one man. Soon the door was swung out and Jill was being shoved forward until her shoulder crashed into the hard metal surface of the ground. Feeling more than hearing the heavy door begin to shut behind her, Jill curled her knees up to her chest and looked up into the back end of the trailer.
Multiple pairs of eyes stared back at her as people from all different age ranges and states of injury sat against the walls of the trailer.
The stale smell of human urine and excrement reached her nose, Jill curled her body up into a sitting position when the truck roared to life.
"Where are we going?" Jill asked thickly around her cut lip.
No one answered her for a moment.
"To Mexico," a harrowed voice from another captive finally spoke from her deep right in the dark. "They're taking us to Mexico."
Jill was silent for the next few hours. By her calculations, they would have quite the way to go.
For the next three days, the trailer bumped along the road before Jill could finally smell the salt from the nearby ocean.
DeAndros didn't show his face again until they were loaded on a boat still within the trailer. His men did check on them once a day though. Mostly to empty the waste bucket that all nine of the inhabitants attempted to use without any dignity left to care for. Sometimes the men would remember to feed them all, but a few pieces of bread and a hastily tossed jug of water wasn't always enough for each of them.
Jill knew that tactic well enough too.
Keep people hungry and dehydrated and you could keep them weak from fighting when it matters most.
With her knees pulled up to her chest, Jill sat against the corner of the door and the far-left wall while she let her mind do what it did best when she had first become a captive. She let it roam and she let it curl around the men and women she still protected.
Her hands were still covered in Alonzo's blood, but as the first day came, the sweat that would pour from her would smear it away until it became nothing more than discoloration on her dirtying skin.
Unfortunately, the dips and bumps of the terrain sometimes also caused their waste bucket to spill. By the third day, Jill couldn't quite smell the difference anymore. It had become a blur along with the rest of horrors that belay captives for human trafficking.
In the daylight hours, the overhead sunlight would leak through the topside vent, and she could get her first real glimpses of the faces around her.
Four men and three women were all pressed in different points of the trailer's wall. An older man sat holding one of the young women who appeared to be somewhere around 17 or 18. The trailer had remained mostly silent but sometimes she could hear the older man whispering to the girl. The reassurances the man tried to provide seemed to sink into the very trailer itself and flatten under the tires as they were all taken further away from their homes.
It had become noise just along with everything else, but Jill let them sink beneath her skin as she always did.
When the trailer was loaded onto the boat, Jill could hear the faint conversations of some of the deckhands around them. Their nautical terms clued her in fast to their next method of transport. Instead of traveling toward Colombia, they would head around to somewhere near Mazatlán, Mexico.
Mazatlán, which was a portion of Sinaloa.
The former B&E specialist let her head thump dully onto the back of the trailer door. She truly hadn't been off the mark when it came to which Mexican cartel had started to gain and maintain power even during her years of capture.
The locking mechanism clanged on the door behind her, and Jill scrambled forward to avoid falling backwards before the door was ripped open.
As they usually did, two men stood with their guns trained inside the trailer and a third man stood with thick, elbow length gloves. Usually this was done even for the waste bucket exchange and for food, but today something seemed off.
"Get out," the man with the gloves and a large aquiline nose snapped while his eyes were distinctly on hers.
"Where to?" Jill made her rasping voice tone conversationally, and it seemed to piss the man off further.
"If I have to drag you out, you're not going to like what happens next." He pointed to the ground while he spoke as if she was a dog to bring to heel.
For now, Jill decided that's precisely what she would be.
With blacked feet from the bottom of the dirty trailer, Jill slid forward with her hands propelling her legs over the edge of the trailer. After not standing upright for nearly three days, she teetered slightly when the soles of her feet met a damp boat deck.
Her once lovely blue dress was a smattering of sweat, oil produced by her unwashed body, and a little blood left over from the initial encounter in Peru. When she lifted her head, she looked up into the eyes of each man, and decided that shame wasn't to have a place for them to see. They wouldn't know the horrors that were her thoughts, nor would they know the resolve that still lingered beneath.
To whatever end.
The man to her left wore an Interceptor multi-threat body armor system vest, and it marked itself as something more sophisticated than she had seen Marcos' men wearing. Whomever the men surrounding her were, they were either funded well or truly did have ties into whatever military that had been mentioned through Peru or even Mexico.
The man in the vest also threw her a class-A level sneer while he held her eyes. Jill let her eyes drop down each of their forms while they began to seal the trailer up once again.
She would be the only prisoner coming out.
"Move," the man with the gloves snapped.
The rubber gloves were cold against her dirty skin when he shoved her to the side and toward the weather deck of what she now observed was a container ship.
Multiple differently colored TEU stacks littered the deck and were curiously formed around the vehicle trailer she had just emerged from. If she had to guess, whoever was running this current operation would have to have some sort of clearance with the border security between the shores. Otherwise, she wasn't certain how the trafficking was quite being laid out yet.
The three men remained behind her and the man with the gloves would bark out orders for her to follow down the stairs of the weather deck and eventually toward a long hall.
Several of the crewmates on board would see her coming with her current procession and would either turn away or keep their eyes down as they passed.
Her eyes were a living brand to their guilt and when one man dared to look into her face just as she passed, Jill made sure he saw what wrath remained for his cowardice.
Gloves had her stop when the third man began to speak. The third man had been wearing all black and wore only a few portions of armor that was in direct opposition to what his other mates wore. He had also been silent since she had emerged from the container. His voice was deep and rumbled throughout the now quiet hall.
"She needs to be cleaned up first," the third man ordered.
"I'm not a fucking baby-sitter. Let's just get this over with," Gloves hissed in annoyance.
"Do you want to explain to him why she smells like shit and piss?" the third man continued.
"He should already know," the man with the vest broke in. "He set his conditions a while ago and he's never deviated from it."
"He's also never requested one mid-transport either." The deep-voiced man didn't relent.
"Fine, but it's full in there already. You going to give her a scrub and keep her compliant, Garza?" Gloves laughed after he spoke, as if the thought was truly out of the question.
Garza, the third man, grabbed her still-bound arm, and led Jill forward. He didn't bother to answer while they walked. Jill could hear as the man with the gloves and vest became distant voices with each corner they rounded.
She remained silent and waited for her commands. Ever present of their directions, even with the headache that constantly lived behind her eyes now and the empty pit that had become her stomach.
"Branch?" Garza asked beside her.
Jill turned her head slightly over her shoulder to catch the hazel eyes that lead her forward. The man appeared to be a few years older than her, and his hair was swathed in dreadlocks he kept neatly pulled back at the nape of his neck. Tattoos that lead up from his chest were poking slightly out of his shirt collar, but they were hard to make out.
"Doesn't matter now," she answered with her parched throat.
"Yeah," he answered back, holding her eyes until she turned her head forward once more. "It still does."
"U.S. Army," Jill had considered a moment before she answered. DeAndros already knew of her military service. "Garza was it?"
The man didn't respond this time, but Jill didn't need the confirmation.
"And you then? Where did you serve?" she pressed with a slight tone of curiosity entering in her tone.
"Mexican Naval Aviation,"
"Hmm," she hummed thoughtfully. "And what does your military think of those who strike against their civilians as you have?"
"The people of South America aren't mine," his deep tone turned into something much sharper. Much more honest in Jill's silent opinion.
"Certainly not," she confirmed when they stopped outside of a large door that needed a passcode. "However, we're both not stupid enough to assume what you're working toward in Mexico doesn't affect your own people."
"You think you already understand what we do then?" He punched in the code behind her.
"I don't need your operations list to know what kind of history follows men like you." Jill grunted slightly when he knocked her forward with an elbow.
"And what kind of man is that?" he asked.
"One that allows human trafficking, imprisonment, humanitarian breeches in captivity, and much much more, I presume."
"And I'm also the only one standing between you getting raped in the showers." The words were harsh, but the tone didn't follow.
She glared over her shoulder once more. The look they shared seemed to awaken an irritation in the man but also seemed to work something through him as he broke the stare first.
"Why are you doing it then?" she questioned.
"Because that's…." The next door opened, and a blast of humidity hit Jill in the face before the man trailed off. The chattering voice of men flowed out past them.
"Everyone out in three minutes," Garza commanded into the tiled hall of the larger bathroom.
Pissed off remarks flowed out, but Garza didn't seem to care nor react before Jill was turning toward him once more.
"Rape is too far for you? Everything else goes though?" Jill snipped, watching his body language.
"Respect is earned through the cartels, and you've earned a noose. Your previous service though? That makes you different for us. We saw what you did in that building and that makes you dangerous. I personally don't think this is going to work out, but I don't make the fucking decisions." Garza kept his eyes over her shoulder, but his gun was held at the ready.
"Who's 'us'?" Jill pressed on as men in different states of dress began to filter out of the bathroom.
Garza said nothing more while the hall was filling up around them. When they were finally alone, Jill tilted her head toward the entry to the bathrooms to listen for more company. It appeared they were finally alone.
"Move," Garza's deep voice toned directly behind her.
Jill wasted no more time and walked forward in the shower area. The steam was still rising near the top of the ceiling and the dripping of the previously used shower heads were a steady tempo in the cavernous space.
Hands were touching her bound ones behind her, and Jill flinched slightly while Garza continued to cut the zip ties. When her hands were free she heard him step back quickly and the shifting fingers on his gun were loud in her ears.
"You have five minutes," he said.
Not wasting a single moment, Jill stepped forward and easily pulled her ruined dress from her frame. With a push of her fingers, her undergarments easily slipped from her hips, and she was bare while she padded toward the showers.
"Who the fuck are you?" Garza's voice reverberated off of the walls around her.
With a glance back at him without turning her front, she found his eyes were scoping the many scars that lined her body. The ones on her arms and legs were easily seen with the dress on, but Jill knew her prize of scars lived on her back.
Thankfully his gaze wasn't that of a man who admired a woman but instead was one soldier assessing the damage of another. The eyebrows were pinching together when his eyes snapped back up to meet hers.
Instead of answering, Jill simply jerked the handle for the shower on and turned away. The warmth of the water was lukewarm at best, but she snatched up the community soap bar and made quick work of quickly washing the grime and oil of her skin.
When she was as clean as she was going to get, she wrung her blonde hair out and turned to grab a towel and return to her clothes.
"Don't put those back on," Garza was slightly turned away while she toweled off.
"They're my clothes," Jill said evenly.
"They smell like shit," Garza said slowly.
"The fuck do you care? You put people in a trailer, make them shit in a bucket, and cook them like a stew in the heat." Jill pulled the blue dress from the ground when he turned to set his gun down.
"You make one stupid move—"
"If I wanted you dead, Garza, you'd be gone already." His eyes met hers before he fully let go of his gun.
Garza huffed a breath and gave a jerk of a nod as if he believed her. He was pulling his own black shirt from his frame. A white tank top was still across his shoulders when he handed her the T-shirt.
"I don't need your pity," Jill said through her teeth. "You all brought me here, best not let me get used to simple luxuries. Especially because I'm a woman."
Jill pulled the ruined blue dress back over her frame and pulled the undergarments back over her hips. She stood waiting for Garza to put his shirt back on.
The large man in front of her seemed to study her for a moment before he simply tossed the shirt over his shoulder and grabbed up his gun.
"Things are about to get a lot worse for you," he said after a moment.
She let him see the teeth in her smile.
"It's not me I'm worried about," she responded softly.
A flash of Carlos on his knees along with Alonzo bleeding in her arms was before Jill's eyes once more. As it had been for the last few days in transport. While she stared at Garza she thought he may know it too.
Only one piece of leverage stopped her from doing what she needed to be free.
The shackles were different from the last time she had been a victim.
"Carlos," the voice called for the second time above him and finally he lifted his head and blinked up into the bright hall.
David stood next to him now, looking as ruffled as Pedro who was still passed out in the chair beside him.
"He's awake," David continued next to him. "They won't let me in. It has to be you, alright?"
It had been just over a day since they had taken Jill. Alonzo had been in surgery for 9 hours until one of the tired looking nurses had told them that he'd be in observation until he woke up. They had placed a tube in his brother's chest to get rid of the excess air and fluid. The doctors would begin to suture him back up soon to prevent infection, but no one had been able to answer when that would be due to the drainage time.
Carlos found his body rising from the chair without true thought. After the rage had settled, a hopeless despair had taken up residence in its place, and it seemed to sap every bit of strength he had.
He had let them take her. He had let them take Jill.
Although his hands had been tied with Alonzo bleeding out and his men in the dirt beside him, Carlos was no fool. He knew what she had done.
She had saved them all. Again.
His jaw was clenching while he walked toward the man in scrubs that was waiting for him beside the door to the treatment rooms. When the male nurse began to speak, Carlos tried to hold onto the words, but he felt slow on the intake.
"Do you understand?" The nurse paused next to the door.
"What?" Carlos asked, finally lifting his eyes to the other man's.
"I said, don't excite him. He keeps asking for someone named Jill. I don't know what happened to you boys, but he needs to remain calm before his second surgery. Tell him what he needs to hear and keep him calm or I'll restrict your visits until he can be discharged." The nurse pushed the door open, and Carlos barely had time to process any of that before he laid eyes on his baby brother in the bed before him.
Alonzo's eyes were streaking toward him in delayed clicks. Whatever pain medications they had dripping into his arm were strong. The oxygen mask on his face pushed his cheeks up slightly but Carlos could still see the relief of a familiar face in his expression. The mask also muffled his next words.
The door closed behind him, and Carlos glanced back to see the nurse had left them alone.
"Where—" Alonzo called but began to cough. The monitor beside him was beeping out the warning for his vitals.
"Hey, calm down," Carlos uttered, finally moving from his position near the door.
"Where is she?" Alonzo asked slowly before his blue-green eyes were on his again.
The fear living in his brother's face echoed in Carlos' chest and he paused for a moment before he answered.
Beep, beep, beepbeepbeepbeepbeep.
His teeth were straining from the ever-present clench of his jaw, but the nurse had been right the last thing Alonzo needed—
"She's fine," Carlos finally said, sitting on the bed near his brother's legs while he lied. "Relax, little brother, she's okay."
"Is she here?" Alonzo looked so young and hopeful then.
In the dirt surrounded by her enemies, Jill hadn't balked when her hands had cradled Alonzo. The woman who had been through active combat for the U.S. military, served a small town as a special operations officer, and who had survived countless bioweapon encounters had looked up into the faces of the cartel and bared her teeth while she bargained for Alonzo's life and theirs.
Alonzo had been whimpering her name over and over again in the truck before he finally passed out. It was all Carlos could do to keep himself from leaping out of the truck and acting on what he wanted to do most.
Protect her.
In doing so, he would have killed his brother's chances at life and doomed his men to a fate he shouldn't have any say in.
"Not yet, okay?" Carlos finally answered. Alonzo was nodding while he continued to lie to him. The monitor beside him was beginning to resume its normal rhythm and Carlos still felt like the worst brother in the world. "She'll be here soon but until then you need to relax."
"I would've died before I let anyone hurt her again," Alonzo slurred. "She's happy here with us. She's happy with us. Don't let them hurt her, Carlos."
Carlos turned his face down to his lap and he felt that horrible building pressure in his chest but still he nodded all the same.
Alonzo had fallen asleep not long after and Carlos knew he needed to leave.
The door to Alonzo's room closed harshly behind him before he passed by David who stood waiting for him in the hall.
"Is he alright?" David asked, keeping step beside him.
"Stay here," Carlos answered instead. He paused in the hall and pinned David with a look that caused the younger man to freeze. "I need to—I need to go back and get our shit from the jeep. I'll take Alex with me."
"Don't go back there," David said with his expression transforming. "Don't do it, Carlos. There's only—"
Carlos didn't hear much else before he turned on his heel and left his men to watch over his brother. He had returned to the jeep just as the sun was rising once more on the land.
The dirt around the area beside the overturned jeep was crusted with his brother's blood.
A few feet away, a familiar bracelet lay in the soil.
Carlos had allowed himself to lose his composure then and only Alex bore witness to what was one of the deepest wounds to his soul.
It was on the eighth day that they had finally decided to discharge Alonzo from the hospital. Carlos hadn't been back into the room since, but he knew he didn't have to be. The rest of his men took their turns seeing his brother and the cutting expressions were enough for Carlos to know how much trouble he would be in for following the nurse's order of lying to his little brother.
With only one vehicle available to them, Carlos had set up a camp not too far on the outskirts of the town. They would take turns resting and making calls back and forth to the base on the border of Zepita, Peru and Bolivia. The remaining men that still patrolled the perimeter had informed them all of the movement that was happening around Bolivia recently.
The cartels were moving, and the last transmission detailed the empty hills of their village near Lake Titicaca. True to his word, DeAndros had pulled the men out and what remained of their home stood open now.
The matching expressions of David, Pedro, and Alex told Carlos of what it truly was. An empty victory paid for in blood. A generation-long fight that had been dropped for the trade of Jill Valentine's servitude.
"What are we going to do?" Alex asked Carlos at their camp on the morning the hospital announced Alonzo could return home.
"What I should have done a long time ago," Carlos answered quietly. "But it's not up to me to make that decision."
"What decision?" Alex was holding the blue bowler hat he had previously given to Jill. It was one of the items that had been sitting with her pack in the truck.
"We need to move our people away," Carlos lifted his eyes to the curly haired man then. "Hide them. Take away the leverage."
"You're going to find her," Alex lowered the hat down to his knees while he spoke.
"They want her for something; something they saw in that feed. Whatever it is, Jill will follow the command if it means keeping us all safe. They can't hold her if they can't fucking find us, can they?"
"Where do we go? Peru would have been my natural assumption but with DeAndros' betrayal—" Alex began.
"Elden is dead," Carlos reported the fate of the previous Peruvian resistance leader. "They found his body in his hotel the night after we met for the meeting."
"Fuck," David said beside them both. The quiet man had barely spoken at all since they had taken Jill.
"So, did Peru betray us, or not?" Alex asked with a harder voice.
"My gut is telling me no. Jill told us that DeAndros mentioned the deaths that had been occurring on Peru's side. I haven't seen DeAndros in years and with all of this—" Carlos lifted the map he had shown at the meeting previously. The map that showed the drop off points to Mexico. "It's my assumption that he's been Mexico's contact with South America for a long time."
"Where do we start?" David asked while he rubbed a hand over his scarred forehead.
"We need to hide our people—if that's what they want," Carlos answered. "Call Robert over at the base and get back to our side of things. When Alonzo is released, we need to confront everyone at the village and lay it at their feet. Whether they want to stay or hide, I need to leave soon." He shook the map in his hand again.
"Got it," Alex said standing. "And Carlos?"
The younger man had approached his side and grabbed his shoulder. The action made Carlos flinch, but he looked up at his man despite the crushing weight in his chest.
"You did what you had to," Alex said. When Carlos felt his face transform to shame, Alex cut him off before he could open his mouth. "No, you did and so did she. We'd all be dead without her. Surveillance of her or not, the cartels knew we were in that slaughterhouse. Even if it had been someone else who had rescued us, they would have come either way. Jill gave us a chance to fight back after years of not knowing which way to go."
"We're going to get her back," David's cutting response had both men looking over at him.
Carlos let out a breath and that rotting shame eased in his chest only slightly.
Their shadows grew long underneath the morning sun while they quietly packed up camp and made their way back to the hospital to check in with Pedro who had stayed behind.
However, there was one thing Carlos hadn't expected and that was Tatiana Rani's men to be waiting for them down at the hospital parking lot. Alex had murmured to Carlos and had gone inside to check on things.
"We've been trying to reach you," The man whose name he didn't know cast out. He was Rani's right-hand man and was easy to pick out with his left eye covered by the patch.
"You'll need to keep waiting, I got my own shit to handle right now," Carlos answered before he glanced over to see his men pushing from the double doors of the hospital. Alonzo perked his head up at the sight of them from his wheelchair.
"I'm Victor Quispe," the man introduced himself while his own men stood near the hood of their vehicle. "Your Rhamnusia. Do you know where she is?"
Carlos didn't answer. The bracelet he had picked up from the road on the day he had returned to the crashed jeep was burning in his pocket.
A newspaper was tossed down at Carlos' feet. He held the gaze of the man's eye for a moment before he let his vision dip down toward the ground. The headline caught his eye before the picture did.
"Mictēcacihuātl Sighted!"
The picture below was a familiar one if only slightly different. He'd know that frame anywhere. The hood hid most of her face, but the angry sneer was as cold as it ever was. He had seen her look like that only once in the slaughterhouse. When she emerged from the darkness of the vent and killed Marcos Lehder.
"A wave of violence in a Mexican city on the border with the United States left 11 people dead, including a radio presenter, and businesses torched, authorities said on Friday.
In the first incident in Ciudad Juarez, two prison inmates were shot dead and 20 injured in a riot involving two rival gangs, Deputy Security Minister Ricardo Mejia told reporters. Local media said both groups were linked to the Sinaloa cartel.
One figure has been seen fighting back in the cusp of the city's struggling communities while the ongoing war between the local cartel and the Sinaloa cartel continues. Police said Thursday that the woman, who remains unidentified except for what locals have begun to name her, has been spotted several times in the last 24 hours. Due to ongoing violence in the area, police are slow to respond to all calls placed to its distressed city under siege as of February 27th, 2010.
"She is Mictēcacihuātl," one resident, who also refused to be identified, told us. "We call her Mictēcacihuātl and they fear her—the cartel fears her. No matter what they do to her, she doesn't stop."
"What she's holding," Rani's man continued while Carlos continued to stare. "Do you know what that is?"
"Where did you get this?" Carlos demanded, finally lifting his eyes back up to the man. The rest of the men were beside him now. From the corner of his vision, he could see Alonzo sweep low in his chair and grab the newspaper.
"It's the Sword of Bolivar," Victor continued with his features tightening. "The very sword that has been stolen from us twice and she's wielding it. The sword of Simon Bolivar, who freed much of South America from Spanish rule, and died in Colombia in 1830. The sword that was stolen from Colombia by the guerrilla army M-19 rebels. Do you know who they stole that for, Oliveira?"
The paper was shaking in Alonzo's hands and Carlos could hear the painful wheeze beginning to start in his brother's chest.
"She's free," Alonzo rasped. "She's free and she's hunting them."
"Have we checked in about the village recently?" David asked with a slight panicked tone rising in his voice.
"All has been quiet," Alex uttered with a hand digging through his hair.
"They stole it for the Medellín cartel and even when that cartel fell from power, the sword was never recovered. That is South America's sword and it's now hunting the true men responsible for many of the horrors befalling us now." Rani's man continued slowly.
Carlos' eyes fell back to Jill who stood in the picture with her sneering mouth.
The picture had been taken in the dark on a dirty street with multiple bodies that lay in the road around her. The glint of the blade in her hand shined red from the nightclub's neon lights that were behind her in the image. The point of the old, solid-gold saber was aimed at the neck of a man sitting against the wall of a bullet torn building. The sword's profile was highlighted brightly in the image and showcased the encrusted diamonds, rubies, and other precious stones in the hilt.
"'War fashioned the sacred blade with jewels but was done so that it might shine the symbol of law and light in the land. Dropped down as a star from heaven, to flame in a hero's hand.'" Rani's man seemed to be quoting something now as he stepped closer to them all. "The creed of the forged blade."
"Why are you telling us this?" Carlos asked carefully, his mind racing.
"Colombia looks to serve Bolivia and the woman who hails from it," Victor said in return. "Colombia will stand by Rhamnusia. You haven't seen what's happening in our capitol, have you? This image was sent to our president, and it's been all over the news. Only Tatiana recognized who the woman was after we heard the reports of DeAndros' betrayal. Your Rhamnusia has awoken the people with this very image alone. They hunt the cartels in Colombia now too." Victor was smiling slightly. "Oliveira, we have the cartels running scared in our streets."
"I'm going with him," Alonzo spoke up toward Carlos now.
"No," Carlos uttered, turning away from Rani's bodyguard. "You're still healing, I'll—"
"You don't get to tell me what I do get to do anymore, big brother," Alonzo's voice shook with the lies Carlos had bid stretched between them both. "You stay here and do what you need to do for our people. But me?" He held the paper up. "I'm going to get our fucking woman back."
The two brothers held eyes and the forgiveness was barely visible in Alonzo's gaze, but Carlos saw it all the same. The smile was faint at his own mouth, but he let his younger brother see it when they both silently acknowledged what was both technically theirs.
"Alex," Carlos spoke while he held Alonzo's eyes. "You know what to do."
"How do you feel about refugees, Victor?" Alex asked Tatiana Rani's man.
"I'd say that the soil makes us all brothers, but talk is cheap," Victor answered after a moment. A smirk was pulling at the edges of his own mouth. "What do you got up your sleeve?"
"War," David breathed beside Carlos.