The cold is no friend of Moira’s. As the car door shuts behind her, she shivers, wondering when she’ll wear shoes again. When the soles of her feet will find reprieve.
When she’ll wipe the grime from her skin.
The memory of Sol’s handgun has her setting forward as the car drives away behind her. Would they follow her? Would she see them and freeze?
Each step she takes is painful, and she’s certain by the time she reaches the edge of town, her feet are covered in her own blood. She’s begun to favor one foot after stepping on a sharp rock, causing her to limp.
A few people shoot her odd stares but aside from passing glances, she offers little else. A pub sits at the corner of the street on the right and she decides that if anyone knows anything, they’d be in a place where most of the population congregates.
It would be this place or the church.
“Are ye okay there, lass?” a man crossing the street asks. His blond hair flaps in the wind as he lightly jogs toward her. Concern mars his features, causing his brows to pinch closer.
“I am…” She clears her throat. “My name is Moira MacQuarrie. I’m looking for my brothers.”
“Oh, dear. I’ll call for help,” he starts, pulling a mobile phone from his pocket, but she shakes her head.
“No, no.” She holds her hands out. “I’d just like to find them and be on my way.”
“But…you’re bleedin’, girl.” He looks down at her bare feet, wincing at the sight of them.
“I’ll be fine,” she assures him.
The silence between them turns into something she can’t quite decipher. Concern dissolves into shades of distrust.
She has, after all, come from nowhere, shivering, blood on her dress, with no desire for appropriate assistance.
He’s standing too close, eyes assessing her as if he can see right through her façade.
“MacQuarrie, ye say?” He purses his lips together.
“Aye, MacQuarrie.” She starts toward the pub again, but he reaches out to grab her arm.
His hold is light, but his eyes are too focused on her. “The same MacQuarries who suffered gruesome deaths not four and twenty hours ago?”
A jolt of adrenaline runs through her at the words that are posed as questions but are not.
Not when he already knows the answers.
“The very same,” she answers, nonetheless.
“And you…managed to escape?”
Moira stares at him, not wavering.
She would have to face him, or the end of a gun.
So, she chooses him. “Aye, I did. Do you ken if any of my brothers have been seen?”
He glances around before stepping even closer.
She moves back out of habit, but he remains as close as he endeavored to be, following each step she takes. His eyes speak of kindness and concern, but she wonders what eyes are on them—and if those eyes report back to Sol.
“Why don’t you come with me?” He gestures his head toward the car he’d gotten out of. “I’ll help you get cleaned up and find them.”
She finally looks down at her toes, pressing her lips at the dried blood that cracks as she flexes them.
Still, she stands there, unable to go with this new stranger.
She’d done it once before and she was still alive.
But everyone knows you shouldn’t push your luck.
The image of the gun in Sol’s hand has her shaking her head. “Thank you, but I’ll be on my way.” She’s about to turn away when she hears him utter words that cause her to pause.
“Please. Let me help you.”
I am beyond anyone’s help, she wants to tell him. But an even larger part of her wants to believe that he actually can help her.
So, when she looks at him again, she opens her mouth. “Thank you.”
It’s near inaudible, but the man smiles at her response.
Sol told her last night that she was free to go.
And when he woke up this morning, freedom was taken off the table.
Moira isn’t in a place to gamble her freedom at the hands of a man whose words mean nothing.
And if she is going to survive, she wants to live as well.
She drops the phone Sol pressed into her hand onto the ground just before she climbs into the car.
She is no girasol. She is a demon. A woman melded in the fires of Hell, forged with God’s image in mind.
Because while she may look pure, her particular brand of deceit is one Sol hadn’t expected.
The man on the other end of the line just informed him that she got into a stranger’s car and all that was left of her was the mobile phone he’d handed her.
“¡Buscarla ahora mismo!” he shouts into the phone. He ends the call and throws the phone toward the center console of the car.
“I see her,” Julio says from beside him.
And Sol hears what the man isn’t saying.
I told you. You couldn’t trust her.
He grits his teeth. He should’ve killed her the moment he saw her in the woods, instead of making love to the idea of her.
She’s more trouble than she’s worth.
The sight of her hair, the auburn strands blowing in the wind, causes him to spit out instructions in rapid-fire Spanish.
Their cars are close, but not close enough for her to notice. The driver peers over at them, confusion written on his face.
And for no reason at all, maybe because even still, he can remember Moira in his bed, he pulls his handgun out and aims.
“Ten cuidado,” Julio warns. “If you hit her—”
“I don’t give a shit!” Sol yells, even as he tucks the gun away.
How dare she defy me?
If he thought she came from Hell, he was more than prepared to send her right back.
Julio speeds up and jerks into the second lane, cutting the driver off. Before the car comes to a complete stop, Sol pushes the door open, handgun now in a tight hold. He rounds the car, picks up his arm, and aims at the driver.
Only when Moira’s eyes widen with recognition does he pull the trigger.
Bang.
Bang.
Bang.
Blood splatters the windshield and Sol doesn’t slow down, not even when Julio runs past him and opens the passenger door.
He can hear her yell as he shoves his gun in the back of his waistband. Just as he approaches, Julio grabs her by her silken hair, pulling her out of the car. She stumbles, nearly falling before standing upright, her face impassive.
“Estás loca, eh?” Sol says before spitting at the ground before her. “I will fucking kill you.” He reaches back to touch his gun.
But the look in her eyes stops him.
Despair swirls in grays and he blinks and looks away.
“Why won’t you let me go?” she whispers, his eyes catching her own, tearing. “You told me I was free to go.”
He stares at her, his chest rising and falling in fury.
Julio stands silently behind her, his hand on her shoulder.
“Don’t be naïve, girasol. You’ll see a grave before you see your freedom.” He nods at the man behind her.
Julio drags her to the car, but she doesn’t weep, doesn’t scream, doesn’t struggle. It is an eerie calm, the kind of peace that makes you wonder when the chaos will begin.
Sol looks around, catching sight of someone’s back. They’re too far for him to make out whether it is a man or a woman, let alone dispose of the witness.