TAG (32 page)

“It’s kind of like the ‘no touching’ rule, you made quite the
exception for that, as well,” he winks.

I laugh softly and curl my arm around his neck, giving him one last kiss on the cheek. “Okay. I’m ready.”

“I’m going down with her,” Kacen says, walking up to my side.

“The hell you are. You are lucky we haven’t killed you yet. And unless you’d like me to stop regretting that decision, I suggest you move away. Now.” Tango pulls his pistol out, pointing it toward the ground, showing it as a warning.

“Fine, but when she’s done, I’m going down there,” Kacen says with a bit of hesitance.

Tango laughs and turns back toward me, ignoring Kacen’s nearby
proximity. “Come here,” Tango says to me. He wraps a headlamp
around my forehead and tests it one time to make sure it turns on. “It’s going to be dark down there.”

I walk toward the darkness, which grows larger with each step, and when I reach the ledge, I see a hanging ladder descending into the obscurity.
Great.

I turn around to place my foot on the ladder and I see Tango swallowing hard, he’s shuffling his weight from foot to foot gripping
his pistol so tightly his knuckles are white. Seaver is squatting, drawing
his fingertip through the dirt, and seeming unfazed by all of this. Then there’s Kacen, who looks like an angry teenager leaning up
against a
nearby tree. I try to shut them all out as I lower myself down, feeling the claustrophobic space constrict around me. As the sun slowly shrinks above the hole, I reach up to click the headlamp on and then replace my
hand on the ladder. I feel a space open up below me, accompanied with a slight breeze. My feet touch the dirt ground and a barrel is immediately pressed up against the back of my neck. Please be Dad. Please.

“It’s me, Cali,” I say, still pleading it’s him at the other end of the weapon.

A dirt-covered hand is clamped around my bicep and I’m flung
around and into a puffy chest—
Dad
. He squeezes me so tightly I’m having trouble breathing. “Carolina,” his voice croaks out. He shoves me back with his palms and looks me in the eyes. His face is covered with red dirt, leaving only the whites of his eyes to
recognize. The
comfort of his arms around me is enough to make me break down again. “Carolina, sweetheart.” I lift my gaze to his face. “How did
you find me?” The reunion was short lived, as I knew it would be. He knows I wouldn’t have found him on my own.

“Dad, so many people are after you. They all want whatever you
have. I was escorted here by Tango—the bodyguard you hired to take care of me. You gave him your coordinates in case of an emergency.”

He pulls me back in. “What is the emergency, Carolina. Are you okay? Are you not well?”

“Dad, it’s Tango. He’s dying. He said you have a trial drug that can . . . cure cancer? Whatever you stole from China to use on Mom . . . ”

“I see,” he says.

All I can do is look at him, trying to ignore the anger and
resentment
I have toward the two of them at this moment. “I ran into Mom yesterday, or she ran into me. I saw her. I know she’s alive, and it’s
because of you.”

“Honey,” he calls out. But it’s too dark down here to see if he’s
calling out to mom. I don’t know how large the area we’re standing in is, but I hear footsteps.

“I see you found him, sweetheart,” my mother’s voice sounds from a dark corner. I can’t quite contain my anger any longer. I didn’t think I’d have the opportunity to say what I want to say to the two of them, and I have to realize I may not have another
opportunity to do so again.

“Before this reunion commences, I think there’s something you both need to know. And that’s . . . you should be ashamed of the life you’ve forced me to live for the past three years. Leaving Krissy and me to believe we were nearly parentless. You both left me to grieve her death, the death that one of your assistants caused, Dad. Reaper, I mean—Reagan, remember him?” I ask. His eyes show recognition, but he doesn’t respond to me verbally. “Not only did he swoop in when you took off after Mom died, but he made me fall in love with him. And do you know what he did after that, Dad?” I shrug my
shoulders, not even understanding why I should be informing him of the consequences of his thoughtless actions. “He tried to force your location out of me, but thankfully for you, I didn’t know where you were . . . ever. And because of that, he decided to kill Krissy.
Right in
front of me. I watched him murder her. I watched her die. And
where were you two? Living in a fucking cave somewhere?”

“Carolina,” Mom interrupts me. “Honey.”

“No. No, Mom. I’ve been grieving alone for you and Krissy for the past year, all while holding my steady pace on the run from the people who were trying to use me as bait to find Dad. I’ve been shot twice, and I still have the bullet in my shoulder—the bullet I wish would have flown through the center of my chest.”

I have been suffering, feeling like a small child in the constraints
of my own mind, wondering what I was supposed to do to carry on.
Now here I am, at a crossroads, and I still don’t know what I’m
supposed to be doing. What the fuck am I even fighting for anymore?

But as quickly as the question enters my head, the answer catches up almost as fast. I have a reason now. I want to save Tango. I want to save the one person I’ve been able to trust and to feel something real for.
To have known a person for only a few weeks and realize that they have been more honest with me than a lifetime of bloodline relationships, makes me realize I’m fighting against a brick wall with
the two people who put me on this earth.

My mother’s hands find their way to my shoulders and I want to squirm out of her grip, but for some reason I give her a chance to say what she has to say.

“Honey, what can we do to make this better?” Everything in me wants to laugh at this question. “I know we destroyed your life, and in a way your dad was selfish to save me and sacrifice you. But in the name of love, I have a feeling you might do something similar—kill, fight, and beg for the one who you care the most about. That is what your dad did for me. And it’s what you’re doing for that boy you are with.”

Tango.

“You know what you can do for me? You can salvage the last person in this world who wants to be a part of my life. Tango is
dying. He has maybe days left, if that. I want you to use whatever the hell you stole from China and cure him.”

They both look at me with saddened eyes. “Carolina, if I do that . . . he will become the bait,” Dad says, breathing heavily. “You were never the bait, Carolina, you were always the fish. Tango is the bait,
and he can have it, because once he does, I’ll be free.”

TANGO

I SHOULDN’T HAVE
let her go down there first. It’s been five
minutes, and I haven’t heard a sound. I pull my pack over my shoulders and secure it around my chest. I’m going in.

“Dude, do you think her dad knows about you?” Seaver asks.

“Yes. He hired me to be her bodyguard.”

The little amount of information Seaver has is pissing him off, and I can’t say I blame him. But this is where we part ways. This is the part where I find out whether I will live or die.

I offer my hand to Seaver, and he reluctantly shakes it. “Wish me luck, man.”

He nods his head. “Good luck with whatever, dude.”

I remove my pack and lean it up against a nearby tree. I need to look non-combative when I go down there, so I hide my pistol under
my shirt. I look down into the hole and I don’t see anything but a faint glow of a flashlight. I close my eyes briefly and pull in a tight,
sharp breath before lowering myself onto the ladder.

This is it.

CALI

“Carolina,” Dad whispers through his heavy breaths. “I was trying
to save your mother from dying.” He places his hands over his wobbly knees and pushes himself upright. “I wanted to save my
wife—the love of my life. I couldn’t just let her die.” He walks over to me and places his hands around my elbows. “As you apparently already know, I
was protecting an unregulated drug which was being developed by
some Chinese scientists to cure cancer.” He pauses for a moment,
swallowing hard enough that it sounds like sandpaper going down his throat. “My morals stopped working and my heart took its place. Whether the treatment was controlled, tested or unregulated, I didn’t
care. I wanted to try and save her, Carolina. I didn’t want to leave
you without a mother.”

 “Guess that was a lose-lose situation,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest. “Instead of just losing my mother, I lost you and
Krissy too.” Dad buries his head into his hands, looking defeated—as he should. “Did you ever consider that Mom didn’t want to be saved?”

“Carolina,“ she interrupts me in a scolding manor. “Your dad did what he thought was right.”

He nods his head, saying no, and slowly backs away. “It was me who couldn’t stand the thought of losing her. It was me who
committed an
international crime in order to try and save her. It was me who
didn’t give her the option.”

 “What exactly is this stuff you have? Is it down here with you?”
Please tell me he has it. I walk closer to him. “Why are all these
people after you? Why have people tried to kill me for this? Why are you hiding in a hole in the middle of a canyon in Mexico?”

Dad lifts his face slowly from his hands. They fall to his side and
he walks back over to me, placing his soot-covered fingers over my
shoulders. “I didn’t think past the implications of saving your mom,
Carolina.”

He removes his hand from my shoulder again and drops it into the cargo pocket of his brown pants. His hand fishes around for a moment and then he pulls it out. A Ziploc bag with a syringe?

“Is that
it
?” I ask.

I hear thuds tapping against the ladder. I whip my head around toward the hole in the ceiling, watching the ladder clatter against the
stone wall. When I see a pair of shoes appear within the dim light, I immediately know they belong to Tango. Dessert-sand colored boots, soles nearly worn flat, and laces so tight I’ve been wondering
about the circulation in his toes. I don’t speak his name. I’m not sure what his intentions are. I’m not quite sure what to expect at this moment.

Dad looks worried. Mom looks knowing.

“Do you know this man, Carolina?” Dad whispers as Tango’s face glows under the light.

Tango’s expression is inquisitive, and I’m sure he wants to know
what I’ve heard without having to ask me. I’m sure he wants to
know if everything is okay, and if he has a chance at survival.

“Yes, Dad. I know him,” I confirm. “This is Tango, Dad. Mom,
Tango,” I point between the three of them.

“I can see why you like him, Carolina,” Mom says exuberantly.

My face blushes. “Mom,” I say, making an attempt to stop any
further observations on Tango’s looks.

Tango snickers in return, probably trying to work the light-hearted mood. “I’ve become quite fond of your daughter, sir, ma’am. “ Tango
approaches Dad without nerve and offers him his hand. “Sir, I
apologize for showing up here, but I’m a desperate man. And as I’m sure you already know, desperate times call for desperate measures. I’ve been given a death sentence. I most likely don’t have many more days left, and I’ve looked at this situation as a selfish opportunity for another
chance.” I want to call a timeout and tell Tango what Dad said about him becoming the bait, but I know he won’t care about the
repercussions.

 Dad closes more of the space between him and Tango, careful not to move his icy stare from his face. Dad plunges his hand into the dangling Ziploc bag and pulls out the needle. He looks up at Tango, the half-foot tall gap between them making Tango’s six-foot-two size prominent compared to Dad’s five-foot-seven height. “Do you care about my daughter, son?”

The question catches all of us off guard. Dad has never asked
anyone this question. He hasn’t been around to meet anyone of any interest. Maybe if he had been, Krissy would still be with us.

Tango doesn’t shift his body. He doesn’t blink. He doesn’t flinch. His stare lowers to Dad’s eyes, and the look on his face is alarming. Tango usually says exactly what’s on his mind, and he never seems
to
plan out his words. But right now, he appears to be carefully
thinking about a response.
T
he pause is silent and is stressing me out.

“Dad, leave him alone.” I place my hand on Dad’s chest and try
to push him away from Tango, trying to create a space I want
between them. Maybe I’m only interrupting this because I don’t want to hear the answer. I don’t want to hear if he doesn’t have an answer. I don’t
want to watch his face contort with sympathy when I find out he
was only using me—that I shouldn’t have trusted him.

Dad takes my hand away from his chest, removing me from this situation between him and Tango. “Do you care about my daughter or is this only for a cure?”