Last Breath

Eleven

Regan

“THE WAY I SEE IT, BABY DOLL, we have three big issues,” Daniel tells me as he hands a wad of cash to the taxi driver that drops us in the middle of a disgusting slum and speeds away.

I’m sure the nickname is to distract me from the fact that we’ve been dumped in the middle of hell. I still fall for the bait. “Baby doll? Are you for real?”

“Oh, I’m real.” He gives me a roguish grin and winks at me. “One hundred percent prime specimen.”

I roll my eyes and shoulder my backpack. Daniel’s been needling me ever since we left the apartment. I know he’s doing it on purpose. It’s obvious. Normally he’s understanding and gives me space, but right now he nudges me with his elbow and calls me names like “sugar pie” and “baby doll.” I guess he figures if I’m riled up and want to choke him, I won’t flip out and go into another crying jag.

He’s right, too. I have to admit that I’m still freaked out. I’m trying to hold it together, but tonight Daniel executed a man in the middle of his living room. I turned my back for two minutes, and boom! Boom! The man was shot twice in the head. Daniel didn’t even blink.

I hated the man, but I’m still shocked to my core. This is the third man that has died in the last two days, each effortlessly dispatched by Daniel, who makes it look as if he hasn’t broken a sweat. He’s a dangerous man behind all of his laughing grins and teasing names.

Weirdly enough, though, I trust him. If someone had to die, I believe it. I don’t think Daniel would kill anyone frivolously. He’s had lots of opportunities, especially when he saved me, but he tried talking his way in first. The gun is the last course of action.

That he’s had to pull out his gun so many times the last few nights tells me how much shit we’re in.

Daniel eyes the graffiti-decorated slums of Morro dos Macacos. “Home sweet shithole,” he says. “Stick close to me, baby doll. This is one place we do not want to get separated.”

“Enough with the ‘baby doll’,” I tell him but move a little closer. His arm goes around my waist, dragging me against him, and I’m about to protest until I see a few men lurking in the shadows nearby. All right, if I need to hang off of Daniel to make things look good, I will.

“So, where are we going?” I ask in my sultriest, sexiest voice. I try to give Daniel a heated glance in the hopes that it looks like we’re heading for a midnight rendezvous. I’m hoping no one stops to ask why the hell we’d be doing that here.

Daniel must’ve guessed the reason for my new attitude because he flashes me an appreciative look. His hand is still at my waist, but I know it’s resting on the gun he tucked under my shirt earlier. “I told you. It’s a surprise . . . but you’ve gotta be good.”

We pass by the men lurking in the shadows, and I do my best not to tense up. I play along instead, and trail a hand down the front of Daniel’s shirt. “Oh, I can be really good to you, baby.” Strangely enough, the urge to vomit at his touch is gone. I guess I got it all out of my system earlier.

“Damn,” Daniel says hoarsely, and I want to laugh at his expression. He looks as if the pretending’s getting a little too real for him. But I keep rubbing my hand on his chest, looking like a devoted, slutty girlfriend who can’t wait to get him home.

We pass by the men without incident, and Daniel’s arm loosens around my waist a few minutes later—a sign that the danger has passed, but our charade needs to continue. We walk a few blocks in the slums, which Daniel tells me are called favelas. They’re concrete cinderblock and rickety wooden houses all held together by garbage and spray-painted graffiti, and they pile on top of one another like cockroaches. I’m sure the rest of Brazil is pretty, but so far, all I’ve seen are slums.

“So,” I ask him as we walk, “you never did tell me the three problems?”

“Hmm?” He brushes a hand over mine absently, then pulls away as if remembering that I don’t like to be touched. Again, I’m surprised Daniel’s not setting off my puke trigger. Maybe our ugly little interlude this morning was cathartic, like a boil that needed to be lanced. It’s a gross mental image, but those are all I’ve got lately. “Oh, yeah. Three problems. One is that your sweet little ass has no papers. Two is that we can’t go to the embassy to get those papers for obvious reasons. And three is that pissant Gomes keeps pulling more guys out of the woodwork to go after you. Mr. Freeze wants you back and bad.”

“I don’t know why. I’m no one special.”

“Baby love, you are all kinds of special.”

“You are the worst at coming up with pet names.”

“It’s a talent of mine.” He grins at me and then gestures down the street. “There we go.”

“There we go, what?” I stare at the building and try not to panic. It honestly reminds me of the brothel. It’s a narrow three story red brick building. The windows have strings of laundry hanging out of them, and a nest of wires overhead shows the building has electricity. “Not in there, surely?”

“‘Fraid so,” Daniel says casually. “We’re going to hide under their noses for a few days. I’m going to pull a few connections, see what I can find out, and a partner is heading this way.”

He doesn’t look afraid of the shitty building, so I swallow my fear and let him lead me onward. I have a gun tucked into my pants, and I’m going to use every bullet before I let anyone drag me back into the brothel again.

We approach the building, and there’s music blasting from a nearby apartment. The door is wide open, and people are lounging inside the grimy hallway. I’m pretty sure someone is shooting up in the corner. It smells like piss, shit, and, of all things, wet dog. Daniel walks in with a smile and heads for the nearest man. “Pereya.” he asks, and from the tone of his voice, it’s a demand to see someone, not a question.

The man studies Daniel, his clean-cut looks, and glances at me. I sidle closer to Daniel, in case. Then he holds his hand out.

Daniel says something friendly in Portuguese, but he brushes his jacket back as he does so, revealing his gun. “Get me Pereya,” he says again. “Now.”

The man nods and disappears into the building.

A few moments later, another man comes out, all smiles. He’s wearing a Manchester United jersey, despite the fact that it’s a British team, and a baseball cap. He has a scraggly goatee that’s so long it’s been braided, and he grins at Daniel and throws a hand up. “My man.”

“Pereya. How’s it going?” They exchange an intricate handshake as if they were bosom buddies.

“Can’t complain, can’t complain. Got your stuff inside.” Pereya looks me up and down. “Sweet little honey.”

“She’s mine,” Daniel says casually, as if I’m not my own person. I want to protest, but Daniel’s arrogance brings safety so I’ll let him take the lead. He’s leaned closer to Pereya, asking, “The doc too?”

Pereya nods, touches the side of his nose with his thumb, and glances around.

“Yep,” Daniel says to the unspoken question.

“Come on, then.” He gestures to a couple of the men loitering in the doorway, and they shuffle outside. Bodyguards, perhaps. Pereya looks at Daniel and nods his head, acknowledging a back room.

Daniel grabs my hand and begins to head back, but Pereya shakes his head. “Just you, Hays. No chickies.”

Panic swirls, but Daniel gives my hand a squeeze and pulls me closer. He clearly doesn’t like that idea either. “You didn’t hear me, Pereya. I said she’s mine. She’s staying at my side. You got a problem with that?”

Pereya considers me and mutters something in Portuguese, then shrugs and leads us to the back room.

It’s surprisingly clean, the back room. There’s no windows, and the only light is a bare lightbulb that flickers overhead. Pereya lets us into the room, shuts the door behind us all, and then pulls a ring of keys out of his pocket. There’s a short wooden table in one corner of the room, and Pereya heads there. He drags it over to the side, revealing a trap door with a padlock on it, unlocks it, and flips it up. Under the floor, there are two military crates, also padlocked. He hops down into the crawlspace and opens the first crate. “What’s the order of the day, Hays?”

“I’m thinking a GPS tracker if you have one. Couple of semi automatics. More bullets. Maybe a nice grenade for shits and giggles.”

Pereya grunts and unlocks the case, revealing a veritable armory stored in the boxes. My eyes widen. Did we come here to get more guns? How many more do we need? Pereya digs through the stack of arms and pulls out another handgun. He offers it to Daniel, who inspects it with a clinical air.

The room’s quiet. Oppressively so. I lick my lips, nervous as Pereya drags gun after gun out of the case, along with boxes of bullets and cartridges.

Daniel looks over at me. “You want anything, baby doll?”

“For you to stop calling me baby doll,” I say in a sweet voice. Then I add, “Maybe a couple of knives.” I want to be armed to the teeth.

“You heard the lady,” Daniel says, and I catch a drawl in his voice. Southern, or that’s part of his act, too. “Got any knives?”

Pereya pulls out a couple of small knives in leather sheaths. “For your girlfriend. She can slide them in her boots.” He gives my ugly sandals a skeptical look.

“You got boots for her?” Daniel asks.

“Size seven,” I offer hopefully. I like the idea of getting boots and filling them with weapons. “Maybe some jeans, too. Size two.”

“I’ll see what I can find,” Pereya says, tossing stuff into a pile at Daniel’s feet. “Give me until the morning.”

“Doc?” Daniel asks again.

“Soon,” Pereya answers.

“We also need a place to stay tonight.” Daniel says, pulling out a wad of money from his pocket and peeling bills off. “Though I think it goes without saying that no one saw us here.”

Pereya gives us a skeptical look, then shrugs again, as if he doesn’t care. “Got a room upstairs. I can toss my old lady out of it for the night, but it’ll cost ya.”

“Not a problem,” Daniel says smoothly, flipping more money out of his stash for Pereya.

I look around at this room. No windows. Only one door. And we’re close to the front of the building. I point at the floor. “We want this room.”

Pereya looks at me like I’m crazy. “Ain’t no bed in here, chickie.”

“Bring us blankets and pillows,” I tell him. “I like this room.” It’s true—I wouldn’t feel safe upstairs in a room full of windows. In this place, we can barricade ourselves for the night . . . and we’re close to the exit if we need to escape.

Daniel’s giving me a half smile, as if he’s wondering what I’m thinking, but he doesn’t argue. He looks over at Pereya, pulls out a few more bills and then offers them to the man. “Think you can set us up for the night?”

Pereya takes the money without even looking at the amount. He simply pockets it and begins to put his guns carefully back into their cases, locks them, and then shuts the trap door and padlocks it. “Be back in a bit with your bedding,” he tells us, leaving me and Daniel in the room.

WHEN PEREYA RETURNS HE BRINGS an older woman with kind eyes. She’s carrying a black bag.

“Hello, I’m—”

Daniel cuts her off. “No names.”

Pressing her lips together, she nods and opens the bag. “I’m going to take blood and urine samples. I can have your results back in an hour.”

I don’t know if I’m relieved or terrified to see the doctor. Both, I suppose. I’m afraid of what she’ll find swimming in my system after all the “clients” I’ve had. But . . . I also want to know. So I let her examine me thoroughly, not flinching when her touch becomes as invasive as any client’s. She asks me personal questions without judgment on her face and takes blood and urine. Daniel’s there the whole time, at my insistence. I don’t think I’d be comfortable with a stranger touching me if he wasn’t there. He keeps his face averted out of respect for me, though.

Then the doctor leaves to run tests, and I sit in the room, waiting, my arms wrapped around my torso as if I can hug out the fear tumbling through my body.

The call comes back quickly. Daniel listens, speaks a few words into the phone, and then hangs up. “All clear,” he tells me.

I want to collapse with relief. “Nothing?”

“Nothing. No STDs; no bun in the oven. You’re right as rain.”

I stare at him. Right as rain? I didn’t catch anything, but that doesn’t mean I’ll ever be “right” again. Still, I’m relieved beyond words that I’m not a walking stick of hepatitis. Small blessing, I suppose, that Freeze was such a hygiene freak.

“I told you that they used condoms. Even when I blew them.”

“Can’t believe Gomes sold you. What a stupid, greedy fuck. If I don’t get to him, Mr. Freeze will.” He sounds disgusted, as if he can’t believe the stupidity.

I slide to the floor, my knees feeling weak. I’m sitting close to a load of weapons at Daniel’s feet, and he’s casually picking through them as I watch. I glance around the room once more. “You sure this place is safe?”

“Not at all,” Daniel says. “But the devil you know, and all that.”

I know how that feels. “Good point.”

Daniel stuffs a few of the new guns into both of our bags. “So why do you like this room?”

“Two things: no windows and close to the front door.”

He grunts, not looking at me as he organizes his new stash of weapons. “So you’d rather be close to the front door than have a bed?”

“The way I look at it, everyone here is dangerous,” I say. “If I was in a zombie apocalypse and I wanted to be safe, I’d pick a room with no windows and close to the ground floor. You don’t want to be upstairs in case of an emergency.”

Then he looks at me, and his gaze is amused. “Zombie . . . apocalypse?”

“Yeah,” I say. “So? I like horror movies. They’re under-appreciated gems of filmography.”

Daniel shakes his head, grinning. He doesn’t say anything else because Pereya has returned with a sulky woman in tow. They give us several pillows, a few blankets, and some questionable-looking sheets. Doesn’t matter to me. I’ve slept on worse recently. I take them from her and begin to make a bed in the corner of our little fortress room while Daniel and Pereya talk for a moment more. A bag of junk food and some sodas are exchanged.

Then, the door closes behind us, and Daniel throws the lock and pushes the squat wooden table in front of the door to make a clumsy barricade. He returns to my side and sits next to me on the makeshift pallet.

He nudges me with his elbow. “I wasn’t giving you shit back there,” he says. “It’s actually pretty smart to suggest we stay here. I was surprised, is all.”

I nudge him back with my elbow, a shadow of my playful old self returning at his compliment. “When in doubt, look to the zombie apocalypse.”

Daniel chuckles, and it turns into a yawn. I suddenly remember how tired he was before I started getting crazy on him. He’s exhausted, and I need him healthy and on his feet in case we have to mow down any other bad guys, get into gunfights, or whatever assassins do. “Why don’t you sleep?”

“I can take watch,” Daniel says. “I sleep light anyhow.”

“I can watch, too,” I tell him. “I have guns. And a knife. And apparently a grenade for shits and giggles.” I elbow him again playfully.

“You think you could shoot someone if they came through that door, sweetheart?” No more “baby doll” now. Daniel’s done teasing me into irritation. I can hear the exhaustion in his voice.

“Sure,” I say blithely and pat one of the dirty pillows, inviting him to lay his head down there. “I’ll pretend that whoever comes through has been infected with a virus that turns them into a brains-eating monster.”

Still, he hesitates, clearly torn.

“There’s a crack under the door,” I say, pointing at it. It’s about an inch high. “I’m going to be watching that all night anyhow. And I’ll scream ‘Zombies!’ if I think there’s any trouble. All right?”

He rubs his face slowly, his eyes hollow. “All right. But if you get tired, wake me up.”

“Get some sleep,” I tell him. Strangely, being bossy to him is making me feel a bit more like my old self, too. Give a girl an ounce of power and all that. But I pat the bed again. “I’ll even tuck you in.”

“How can I resist that?” Daniel says and climbs into the bed fully dressed. Within two minutes, he’s asleep, despite the constant noise outside. There are people talking and walking around upstairs, and I tense at every creak of the boards. Daniel went to sleep with his hand on his gun, so I’m guessing he still doesn’t feel a hundred percent safe. But he’s got to sleep at some point.

I take my sandals off and pick up my gun, making sure the safety is on. Then I creep toward the door and lay down flat so I can watch through the crack underneath.