TAG (33 page)

I watch Tango’s Adam’s apple dip into the crook of his neck and then bounce back up. “Yes, sir.” Tango’s eyes flash over to mine. They slowly gaze over my face, and his expression softens. “Sir, I
care very deeply for your daughter, and yes, as I said, I’m sick.”

 “Well then, it gives me great honor to do this . . .” Dad takes the
needle and grabs Tango’s arm, pushes his sleeve up and looks him in the eyes once more. But as he’s looking at Tango we all hear gunshots from above. We all freeze.

Seaver and Kacen?

The ladder descending from the hole above rattles against the wall. “Just do it,” Tango demands, trying to ignore who might be coming down here.

Two Asian men drop from the middle of the ladder and stand
before all of us. “Give it back, Eli,” one of them says.

Dad doesn’t look at either of the men. He keeps his focus on the injection spot. Dad quickly plunges the needle into Tango’s arm as the men try to stop him. But I put myself in their way. I use myself as a shield even though I’m quickly thrown to the side. I hope it was
enough time, though. I’m not sure if the substance transferred into his body completely. “Sorry men, I don’t have the drug anymore,” Dad says as one of the men snatches the needle from his hand.

The two Asian men are yelling something in a language I can’t decipher, but I can tell how very angry they both are, and I can tell things are going to turn bad quickly.

I consider drawing my weapon as the men stop yelling. It almost
sounds as if the two of them came up with an idea to settle their
anger. And now I’m worried about what that idea might be.

Dad releases Tango’s sleeve and pats him on the back. “Well, son, you are about to make my life a whole hell of a lot easier. It gives me great pleasure to say: tag. You are it.” Dad looks over at the two men and places his hands in the air. “I’m not holding this drug
anymore. You don’t have a reason to be after me.”

“You, come with us,” one of the men says to Tango. “We’ll need to find out for sure if the substance is really a viable cure.”

“No need, men,” dad says proudly. “You can leave knowing the treatment does in fact work. He points to Mom. “I used one of the two injections on my wife here three years ago. Look at her. Healthy as a horse.”

The men look to each other, both smiling proudly. They say something to each other and turn back to us. “Good, you both come with us.”

The words become real, instantly. This isn’t going to end how I hoped. The two men draw their weapons and I try to pull mine, but before I can, a barrel is pointed directly at my face.

“Cali, don’t,” Tango says with desperation. “I’ll go. And I want you to leave.” I won’t leave him. Not for anything.

“You will not take my wife,” Dad says loudly, and the barrel turns toward his head instead.

“We will return them if they survive when we are done. Deal?” Each man offers my dad and I a hand to shake.

“Cali, do it,” Tango says, gritting his teeth together.

“What do you mean if they survive?” I ask before I make any deals.

“We won’t kill them ourselves. The cancer though, that can still kill,” one of them says. “You two are the first people who have been inoculated and we need you for analysis. This drug was not ready
for human testing, but since you’ve both nicely offered to be our guinea pigs, you can give us the data we need to prove whether or not this drug does in fact work properly.”

“Cali, this could help other people too. If I make it through, I will find you. It’s okay.”

This is far from okay. How can I sit here and watch these two
men
take Mom and Tango, leaving us here to wonder whether they might kill them or not. I don’t trust that they won’t do that. I don’t trust anything, certainly not the words from men with guns pointed up to our heads.

“Please let me have a minute,” Tango says to the men. “I will
come with you, but I want to say good-bye.”

“Yes, me too,” Mom says.

“We will be up there waiting. Two minutes, or we come back down.” The two of them were true to their word and scale back up the ladder, leaving the four of us in shock and staring between one another.

Tango pulls me into a dark corner where neither of my parents
can see us. “Listen to me,” he says softly. “Your mom is still alive,
which
gives me good odds at surviving this. I’ve been through much
worse,
Cali, and I can take care of your mom and myself. If I make it
through this, you better believe I will find you.”

“Tango,” I cry. “I want to come with you.”

“We both know that’s not going to happen, Cali. And if you try, they’ll probably kill you. It isn’t worth it. You need to live for Krissy. Remember?”

I nod in understanding, trying to stop the tears from pouring out of my eyes. Tango takes his thumb and clears away my tears. “You
know what?” he whispers closely to my ear. “It’s always about fate, Cali. We will be together, some way or another.” I can hear the smile in his voice. The air between us disappears as his lips press over
mine. He leaves them there for several seconds before his arms wrap tightly
around me and he pulls his head back. “Take my phone out of my pack up there. It’s against the first tree on the right. Call the emergency number to get you and Eli out of here.” I nod in response,
and even though he probably can’t see me agreeing, he still tightens his arms around me and kisses my forehead once more. “Good, say good-bye to your mom. Love her like you did before she died, Cali. Don’t hold grudges. Life’s too short for that.”

I don’t want him to let go of me, so I clamp my hands around his
wrists, bringing them to my chest, begging for a little more time. But I know he wasn’t the one who set the timer. He slides his wrists out of mine and lowers his lips to my ear once more. “Thank you for saving my life. I don’t want you ever to forget how much you mean to me,” he says.

“Tango, I wouldn’t piss them off, son,” Dad says. “You both
should go.” I want to yell and scream. I want to say wait, I need more time. But I can’t.

Mom finds me in the darkness and her arms wrap around my neck. “I guess this is good-bye again, sweetheart.” The memories of our last good-bye sting my heart and force more tears.

“I think we both know it’s never good-bye, Mom. It’s always, see you later,” I cry softly over her shoulder.

“You are right, dear. And I
will
see you later.” I can tell she
means
that in a more ethereal way, whether later means from heaven or
earth, but I’ll take it.

They both leave, trailing up the ladder to God knows what. All
of me wants to follow them and try to shoot the men down, but I don’t know if there are more up there. And I’m smart enough to
know Tango
and Mom could be at the losing end of that battle. So I end my
internal
fight and fall to my knees and cry more. I cry for all the times I tried to be brave. For all the times I held it in to look strong. For all the
times I thought there was no such thing as love, compassion, or trust in this world. Everything I believed in was wrong.

CALI

DAD MADE US
wait an hour before we climbed out of the hole. I think he was scared to find the two of them dead when we came out. When we reached the surface, we were in fact faced with two dead bodies: Seaver and Kacen.

“Kacen?” Dad questions as he hovers over his dead body. “What the hell was he doing here?”

“He was after you, Dad,” I say simply.

Completely unfazed by the dead bodies, he then looks over at Seaver. “They killed that guy too.” I do feel sadness for Seaver. He
was a good man with a good heart. And like Tango, he had been through way too fucking much to come here and be killed the way he was.

I retrieve Tango’s pack from behind the tree and pull out his
phone. Of course there’s only one bar left. Shit. I press the emergency button on his phone, and I press it up to my ear, waiting, hoping.
After
a minute, the phone connects, and an English speaking man answers
the line. “State your emergency?” he drones.

“We’re in the middle of the Copper Canyons in Mexico. I don’t have a location, but I found this phone and I’m lost here with my dad.“

 “We’ll send you a rescue crew immediately. If you can start a fire, it will help us find you. Otherwise, keep an eye out and stay put.”

“Thank you,” I say, pushing the end button on the phone.

I drop the phone into my back pocket. “Everything is going to be okay. I need you to hang in there,” Dad says.

Except nothing is okay. At all. I’m completely and utterly heart-broken. My insides feel shredded and torn apart. I feel helpless and alone again. Having Dad by my side doesn’t give me the comfort it should, because I can assume he’ll disappear the first chance he gets again. He’s good at that. I’m refraining from asking where he’s been my whole life and where he plans on going, but I’m smart enough to know he’ll either make up a story or look me in the eyes and say he’s sorry. That’s the way it’s been since my earliest memory.

An hour goes by and we started a small fire with the materials I took from Tango’s pack. The smoke must have done the trick
because
it’s only minutes before I hear the spiraling propellers pushing through the winds. We walk out into the clearing, and I pull a dirty
red shirt out
of my pack and wave it around, waiting for the helo to spot us. It only takes a couple of minutes before the thing is above us and a
hanging
ladder descends from the opening on the side. I take one last look around, wishing and hoping to see Tango and Mom running toward us. But they’re both gone. So far gone.

Loss is and always will be my one and only reality. It’s one constant I can rely on in my life.

An older man with salt and pepper colored hair makes his way down the ladder, which is swinging coarsely in the air. He reaches for my hand, and I give it to him. He pulls me up to the ladder and I
place
my feet firmly on the bottom rung. Once I’m inside, the man lowers himself back down the ladder to retrieve Dad. Once they’re up, the ladder is pulled up into the helo and another man pulls me into the back.

The man has short, fire engine red hair, bright green eyes, and his
face is covered with reddish freckles. His cheeks look as though they’ve been pinched, but there’s only pink around his cheekbones.

“Was it your phone you called from?” the redhead asks.

“No, sir. I found it in a bag. Someone must have lost their belongings,” I lie.

“We should send another search out for whoever’s bag that is,” the redhead says to the pilot.

“Copy that,” the pilot says.

One of the men appears to be a medic, and he’s checking Dad
out. I can understand why they’d think he might need medical attention. He might have only been in the canyons for a couple of
weeks, but he looks as if he’s been living under a rock for two years and doesn’t exactly scream the picture of health.

“You’re lucky you found that phone,” the man says. He picks up his radio and calls for a search unit to go in and find the missing
person.
I can only wish they’d find Tango and Mom, but I’m sure they’re long gone. “Oh,” I interrupt the man on the radio. “I heard some
fighting going on in the canyons. There may have even been gunshots. Not sure what was going on, but you might want to check it out.” Just covering my bases.

Dad made it clear that we can’t call the police or any type of official and report missing people. Information on the untested drug
he gave
Tango and Mom can’t be public information, which I can
understand.
If the public knew there was a potentially simple cure for cancer
floating around, riots would erupt and all hell would break loose. There’s no possibility of that ending well for anyone.

“Where are you from, hon? And what is your name for the
record?” The redhead asks.

“I’m from . . . Pecos, Texas. My name? It’s Carolina Tate.” Saying my name with confidence is a first. It’s the first time I know I’m not being chased.

“Is there someone you want us to call for you?” he asks.

TANGO

I didn’t cry at my own funeral. I didn’t cry at any of my brothers’ funerals. I sucked in the pain and held it strong, hiding it behind my
heart. But
right now, I feel like crying. I feel like crying like a little girl. This was all for nothing. I’m locked in a fucking room in some underground facility in China, I think. They kept us blindfolded
when we departed the jet. Alice and I have been placed into two different rooms.

What’s worse is the symptoms I have been living with have worsened. I can hear death knocking on my door with each struggle to take a small breath. I have come to the conclusion that I’m not
scared of anything else in this world, except for dying. Moreover, I wouldn’t wish dying with a broken heart on my worst enemy. I already miss
her. She was in my life for three weeks, but those three weeks felt like forever. Leaving her and being strong while trying to do so has been my biggest challenge yet. The look on her face, the one I could
barely make
out in the dark, was enough to kill me and of itself. She weakened
me and made me realize I can’t be strong all of the time.