Good.
“Yes?”
“I’m sure you won’t mind going home to the compound alone tonight, will you?” he asked.
He posed it like a question.
It wasn’t.
“Of course, not,” she said.
“I’ll be home for breakfast. Take care of my baby. You got me?”
Better than he understood.
• • •
Valeria did her best to soothe the nerves running wild as she brushed down the colt, Butter, in the stables. Butter, only two months old, had given Valeria a reason to visit the stables on the compound more often over the last couple of months.
The compound itself, set on a good twenty acres of secluded, desolate land protected by armed guards, allowed the Lòpez family privacy. To the east, one would find cliffs leading out to choppy, dangerous ocean water. The guards and an electric fence secured the only road leading out of the compound. Two larger barns, used like warehouses and full of drugs to smuggle, sat further west of the compound, while their homes and stables made up a small village right in the center.
There was no way out.
Or so they thought ...
One simply needed enough time, and the means to make it happen. Not that they ever gave her the opportunity to run before. She could rarely do anything without a guard or her husband nearby to watch her do ... whatever.
The stables, however, were her free time. Or, that’s how Jorge liked to put it. He didn’t have much interest in the horses, it was more of a pet project for his siblings, and some guards that stayed on the property.
Valeria took a liking to the horses because her husband didn’t care. He wouldn’t follow her into the stables to look after the horses, and he didn’t mind her taking one out for a ride—like she did after arriving back to the compound that night—as long as someone was with her to keep an eye on her.
But when she looked after the horses in the stables?
No one cared.
No one watched her, then.
The sound of boots crunching against dried grass, and the hay that fell around the outside of the stables during the last delivery, made Valeria slow the strokes of her brush against the colt’s hind end. She peered up over the back of the colt in just enough time to see Abril slip into the stables.
Dressed in riding boots, a helmet in hand, jeans molded to her legs, and a shawl that would keep her warm on a ride, Abril looked ready to take a horse out.
“Ready?” she asked.
Valeria swallowed hard. “Did they see you?”
“One or two.”
God.
That just made Valeria nervous. Her heart threatened to jump into her throat. Was this possible? Would this even work?
She didn’t know.
But she had to try.
“Stop worrying,” Abril whispered, coming closer to the colt, and Valeria. “We have it all worked out, right? You went out on a horse and came back with a guard. They saw you do it. And like usual, you’re in here taking care of the horses—nothing strange.”
Right, right.
“But—”
“But nothing. They’ll see me go out on a horse,” Abril said, shrugging, “and they won’t think anything strange when they see you go into the house.”
Valeria nodded.
Except it wouldn’t be Abril taking a horse out, and it wouldn’t be Valeria heading back to the house. The girls were close enough in age, and in some ways, appearance given their olive-toned skin was the same, their stark, straight black hair both reached mid-back, and as long as someone was looking at them from behind while they sat on a horse, no one would tell the difference.
Abril had an inch of height on Valeria. Her eyes were a shade deeper brown than Valeria’s russet gaze. Her sister-in-law took after her family in appearance. Sharp, angular jaws, elongated features. Whereas Valeria had a softer, rounder face, and lower cheekbones that always showed the apples of her cheeks when she smiled.
Looking at them face to face, it was clear the two looked nothing alike. But from behind, and on a horse, at a distance?
No one would be able to tell.
“Someone has to see you come back, though,” Valeria pointed out. “Or they’ll believe you helped me get away.”
Abril shrugged as she dropped the riding helmet to the floor of the stables and kicked off her riding boots. “And they will.”
“How?”
“You know Juan?”
“Samuel’s guard?”
Her brother-in-law had a friend—friend being a loose term because Valeria wasn’t sure any of the people in this family had someone they cared about, except for Abril. Point was, Samuel preferred one guard amongst the many that looked after them at the compound.
“What about him?” Valeria asked.
Abril smirked up at Valeria. “He’ll do me a favor, okay? Tit for tat, I gave him something he wanted, and he’ll make sure someone saw me come back tonight on foot after the horse threw me off. Now, are you going to get dressed and switch clothes with me, or keep wasting time?”
Valeria had so many more questions.
What kind of favor?
What had Abril done?
“All right,” Valeria muttered.
The two of them stepped into a stable corner and made quick work of shedding their clothes. Abril dressed in the clothing from Valeria, and she took her sister-in-law’s stuff to slip on. Before long, they came out of the corner, and Valeria turned to head for the horse she preferred to ride on toward the end of the stables.
“No, take Maple,” Abril said, “he’s my horse, and that’s the one they expect me to ride.”
“But he won’t come back.”
And Abril loved Maple.
“It’s okay,” Abril said, “he will be taken care of once you get to where you’re supposed to go. I know that.”
Valeria hesitated to move for the other horse who was blowing them his special kisses because his favorite human was close, and it meant a ride was coming. Turning to Abril, Valeria let the first tear fall, and she didn’t bother to brush it away.
“Thank you for doing this.”
She understood well just how much Abril was risking.
What it could mean if someone caught them ...
“Take care of my niece,” Abril replied, “and stay away so he can’t hurt you anymore, Val.”
“I will.”
Or she would try.
It was all going to fall on a hope, a wish, and a damn prayer, though. She didn’t doubt for a second that once Jorge knew she had run away, he would come after her. He would never stop tracking her down.
She was his trophy.
His thing.
He won her.
She belonged to him, and only he decided when to toss her away like trash on the sidewalk. But that was okay because Valeria would keep running. As long as it meant her baby was safe, and Jorge couldn’t hurt their child, then she would keep going.
To the ends of the fucking earth.
Abril checked the watch on her wrist, and said, “You only have three hours, now. Do you remember the spot where you’re supposed to meet Cruz? He has the fake papers you’ll need with him, and he can get you across the border, but only for a small window of time, Val.”
“Can I even trust him?”
“Papá killed his father—he’d do anything that went against my father or brothers. It’s only because he was my ... it doesn’t matter,” Abril whispered, shaking her head. In a flash, the emotion she had showed speaking about her lost love, something she guarded even from Valeria unless she slipped up like now, to cold in a blink. “He will be at the meeting place, but he will not wait past the time we agreed. You need to go, so go.”