Page 2 of Broken Cracks
“And how can we do that?” Sledge asks, playing into the request, even though we both know what he wants.
“I have some immigrants that could use your help to get safely into town.”
It’s a worthy cause and he wouldn’t put the request forward if those people didn’t really need help. A sliver of the moon’s light shines on one of the group members, a beautiful tawny-skinned girl with long black wavy hair. One of the soldiers is salivating over her and hovering. I’m tapped into her, feeling her clammy fear. I can feel her pounding heartbeat through the ground and have to take another drag of my cigarette to keep myself in check. I breathe in for a minute as I watch the soldier snatch up her arm.
I realize Tito is still waiting for an answer as I do a quick count and see that there’s at least twenty of them. Even if we could help, we wouldn’t be able to take them all.
Sledge is doing the same as me and checking out who and what we would be looking at taking over the border if we could.
“We can’t do it, we got too much heat on us right now.” I can feel the pull of the girl, and she needs my help. She’s stunning, and a pure brand of innocent—the wholesome beauty type and a light amongst all the others. That soldier is fucking me right off and a motherload of rage is building, but I gotta move right. I have to move right.
“Who’s that?” I nod my head to the girl, the soldier still hovering over her. She can’t be more than nineteen, twenty at best.
Tito swivels to look where my head nods. “What do you mean who’s that mujer? Do you want to buy her? You pay me five thousand dollars and she’s all yours!” Tito gestures in a heavy Mexican accent.
Sledge cuts an imaginary border in front of me as if marking a line in the sand, but I do what I gotta do. She’s calling to me and it’s undeniable, but he’s chewing Tito out for asking.
“What the fuck, man!Are you completely loco? We’re not going to buy a human being!”
I stomp out my cigarette in the gravel as the gravitational force and the bolt of electricity between me and the young girl escalates. “Whoa, hold up, hold up! I will take her now and you can come by the clubhouse later to get the money.”
“By the clubhouse…no!You pay me now.” He points to the ground with a tight jaw, but we’ve done business before. This won’t be the last time either and he knows us.
“Come on, Tito. We’re good for it. It’s gonna be fine. We’ll be fine. All you gotta do is come by the clubhouse, otherwise you lose the sale altogether. You gotta take the risk, what are you gonna do?” I ask him, applying pressure.
“You pay and I send one of my representatives. ¿Entiendes?”
“Good, let’s go. Bring her to me.” Tito pulls her away from the clutches of the vulture who’s not so happy about his prey leaving him. As he walks the dark-haired beauty over to me, Sledge freaks.
He’s baffled, but he gets me. He knows I have this unpredictable, impulsive streak, and he should know anything is liable to happen when he’s with me.
“What the fuck man, how you gonna buy a person?” he hisses under his breath, to which I reply with could-give-a-fuck shrug. I know what I’m doing and feel no reason to explain right now. My reasoning is solid, and the questions can be answered down the road.
Chapter Two
Isabella
“This man bought me like I’m a piece of meat!”
“You, you go with the crazy-looking biker. Go now.”
I stand still and I’m terrified, but if I stay, it’s worse. I’m caught in the world of two evils, not one. I don’t know what to do, so I stand still, lost in the chaos of the night. There’s a line that distinguishes the American and Mexican border and I look down at it, my fate decided and my body locked in overdrive. Tears flood my eyes as the overflow pours to the ground. They are the tears of my soul being broken minute by minute, hour by hour.
I look at the man to whom I’ve been assigned. He has a bullring through the middle of his nose and he’s puffing on a cigarette. He’s bald, or his hair is close-shaven, and his eyes are hot, burning into my flesh. His thighs are thick and his heavy leather boots are tapping on the ground, waiting for me. His body is not the biggest; he’s not stocky, but a leaner size with angel wings on his faded charcoal-colored shirt. How can he be an angel if he’s buying people? He’s older than me. I think he’s in his thirties, and I have no hope with a man like him. His ears are wide open with large holes in them, and I don’t get it, and don’t want to. Must be some sort of biker trend. I can hear the hushed, desperate whispers of the minors carrying through the midnight air.
I look away as I stare back at the huddle of other girls and boys just like me from the village. All their eyes are wide and scared. I’m pushed in the back from the soldier and shoved forward with the butt of his gun. I stumble and try not to fall; I don’t even feel as if I’m inside my body completely.This is not real. It can’t be real.I keep telling myself this is an illusion and I’m trapped in a nightmare, but the butt of the gun was too real. I know it to be true.
I want to go back to the safety of the group; it’s better in numbers and at least I could feel the warmth of my people’s hands as we banded together. We were busy saying our prayers before the bikers came so we could all cross over the border together to escape the inexplicable horrors of our village takeover.
I face the biker again in the luminescent moonlight. I can make out his neck tattoo, which is prominent in the light—it’s a Venus fly trap, and as I stare at him, I feel an intense wave of nauseating fear coming to wash me away. I’m swaying and want to faint, but I put on a brave face for the others. I don’t want them to be fearful for me. It shouldn’t matter because in my mind, I’m about to die. How can this man want to buy me? What is the sickness in his head?
He’s with another biker who looks less threatening, with a weird hairstyle of half a head of hair, but they are not men I want anywhere near me or my village mates.
“I don’t want to go with them. I can’t,” I plead with Tito as I cast my eyes back at the others who are as scared as me, holding their arms around themselves in the freezing midnight cold.
“Go! Now you go! We get money for you! Go,” Tito screams and his spittle hits my face as the soldier holds a gun to my head. I can feel his hot stank breath on my neck as the bile rises in my stomach, and my body begins to shut down. I shut my eyes as he cocks back the barrel.
“You heard what Tito said, little one,” he whispers as his rough, chapped lips hit the side of my earlobe, causing me to hunch up my shoulders in disgust. It’s either have my brains blown out or do as Tito says.