But the masked gunman only waved us through.

“That was easy,” I commented, twisting in my seat to watch them stop the car behind us.

“They’re on our side,” Berrellez said smugly.

“And what side is that?”

“Mexico’s. They’re your army.”

“And Salvador’s checkpoints?” I asked, waving at the distance in front of us. I knew there would be a few more and they wouldn’t be on “our” side.

“Just trust us,” she said.

Yeah fucking right.

But I had no choice. Soon we were pulling off the highway and down a dusty road that seemed to head into nothing but farm fields, rows of eggplant and tomatoes as far as the eye could see. Finally the fields tapered off and we ascended up into a forest, the road starting to wind.

“Where the hell are we going?” I asked. There was a niggling feeling in my gut that perhaps they were planning to off me.

They didn’t answer. That didn’t help.

Eventually, however, we came to a stop in a wide, mowed field beside a rather large barn. The field was occupied by at least seven black helicopters. Dozens of armed officers with the words DEA emblazoned on their backs were milling around. All of them were wearing goggles and helmets, covered head to toe in protective gear and holding matte black automatic rifles.

“Wow,” I commented. “Very professional looking bunch.”

“It’s the DEA, what did you expect?” she asked, opening her door.

I shrugged. “I thought it stood for Drink Every Afternoon.”

She eyed me with impatience. “Come on, get out.”

I did so, stepping on to the grass with ease and felt every single pair of goggles turn in my direction. Here I was, Public Enemy Number Two, and completely surrounded. I was tempted to give them all a little wave but figured some hotshot would probably mistake it as a threat and blow my hand off.

“Now I’m going to go change,” she said. “Want a gun? They’re brand new carbine AR-15s.”

I pursed my lips. “Nah. Seems a bit impersonal, don’t you agree?”

She stared at me for a few beats. “How about protection?”

I grinned at her. “I don’t use protection. Dulls the senses.”

“For your body,” she said in annoyance.

“I’ve got a vest underneath and a few pistols. I’ll be fine.”

“Your funeral,” she said before she turned and headed toward the barn.

It wasn’t long before she came back looking like a man. Every part of her was covered up in the DEA’s armor, the long AR-15 held proudly in her hands. She smiled at me. “Well, I just spoke to the PGR. They have another five helicopters at their location, and they’re about to set off. Are you ready?”

“To be thrown out of a helicopter? Not particularly.”

She jerked her head toward a helicopter that was just starting up, its blades slowly whirring around. “Let’s go.”

Just like that, everyone around us started clamoring toward the waiting choppers. I climbed in with Berrellez, Greg, and four other men whose names I didn’t know, nor could I tell them apart, and soon we were lifting off into the air. Though I denied an AR-15 and protection, I was still given a headpiece which I could talk to them through, something that was already useful, considering how loud the helicopter was.

“You look nervous,” Berrellez said to me.

“I’m not the best flier,” I admitted.

“Nothing to do with you being dropped off at the heavily-armed compound of the world’s most wanted drug trafficker?”

“No,” I lied. It wasn’t that I was freaking out. It wasn’t even that I was afraid. But there was a thread of apprehension that ran through me, tickling me from time to time. It wasn’t often that I was out of my element, and beyond that, beyond the idea of dying fruitlessly, I was worried that I still wouldn’t be able to save Luisa in the end.

“Good,” she grinned. “I’m not nervous either.”

To my surprise, the choppers didn’t head toward the city of Culiacan, the hazy mass of roofs and rivers. They headed further inland, into the mountains. It seemed that Salvador had changed it up after we captured Luisa and had moved to another mansion. I had no doubt that the remoteness meant security was even tighter.

“Based on satellite images,” she said, pulling out a mobile device and flipping through it, “there’s a plot of land both behind the house and down the road by a few meters. We’ll go as close to the house as possible. If the PGR aren’t already there, we’ll be the first on the scene. We’ll all head out first, then you follow.”

I nodded, understanding but not agreeing.

Suddenly the choppers swooped up, nearly missing a row of trees that protruded from a rapidly rising cliff.

And on the other side of them, settled in the middle of a plateau, was Salvador’s house. It was a mansion not too dissimilar to mine, albeit with none of the class or beauty, with a few guards milling about and some stationed at the gates. Naturally, as soon as we started bearing down on the house, they started panicking and shooting at us.

The gunman in the chopper began firing back, taking out as many as he could before the pilot began a quick descent toward the green grass of the backyard.

Not going to lie—my heart was in my throat.

And I had to take every opportunity I could. As soon as Greg slid the doors open and the chopper was making its way past one wing of the house right over a small balcony, I made the sign of the cross, leaped past Berrellez, and jumped out.

Someone tried to grab me at the last minute, maybe it was Berrellez, but gravity had taken hold and I plunged about fifteen feet, landing straight on a glass table. It shattered beneath me and I lay there for a few moments on my back, the wind knocked out of me, staring blankly up at the black chopper blades as it continued on its way. The sound was incredible, hypnotic, until I heard Berrellez squawking in my ear.

“What the hell was that?” she yelled at me through the scratchy earpiece. I quickly rolled over in time to see someone coming to the balcony door. I whipped out my pistol and shot right through it, getting the figure before they could get me.

“You do things your way,” I said to her, “I’ll do things my way.”

“Don’t forget the deal. All bets are off if you end up killing him. We need Salvador alive!”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said, and switched my earpiece off.

I scrambled to my feet, shrugging the broken glass off of me. Rapid gunfire erupted on the lawn though I couldn’t tell who was firing the most and who was already winning.

It didn’t matter though. I was after only one thing.

I gripped my gun and stepped through the broken glass door and into a cool, carpeted bedroom of Salvador’s house.

Time to find my queen.

Luisa

At first I thought it was the end of the world. I heard the deep rumble slice through the air, felt it quaking in my bones, shaking the floor of the bathroom I was lying on.

I welcomed the end of the world with open arms. In fact, I think I smiled knowing that death was finally on its way. It had ignored my pleas for far too long.

But then, when I didn’t die and the world didn’t burn and crash around me, I realized that the sound I was hearing was helicopters. I tried to raise my heavy head to look through the narrow window above the shower. It was glassless now, as was the mirror. Salvador had taken them out after I had stabbed him in the forearm one day with a slice I broke off. It cut my hands up pretty bad and I received a round of electric shock torture for my disobedience, but damn had it felt good.

Through the window I saw a black helicopter fly past, heading right over the house and the sound built up, growing deeper. Then I saw another helicopter and another.

Something was going on. I should have been happy, just having a disruption to the daily monotony. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been kept in the bathroom, perhaps ten days, perhaps two weeks? It was hard to remember. My brain wasn’t functioning anymore since he stopped feeding me several days ago. I still had water coming out of the bath and the taps and the toilet, just to ensure I wouldn’t totally die. If I was dead, how on earth could he torture me? How would he hear me scream?