The Kingmaker

The question takes me by surprise. We’ve talked about boys, sure, and crushes, but I didn’t expect this. Anna’s sixteen, so I guess that’s about right. Most girls don’t seem to wait quite as long as I did, but most girls don’t have Maxim Cade as their first. A reminiscent smile curves my lips in the dark. God, he was so careful with me, but then, so completely out of control, like he couldn’t get inside fast enough and wanted to stay there forever. I didn’t have words that night for what I felt when he initiated me not just into sex, but into this world that is just ours. Just our two bodies, sun and moon, just our souls, earth and water. We are the sky and the sea, and the horizon is where our hearts meet. Every part of that world is made by and from and for just us two. I couldn’t articulate it then, but now I have no choice.

“Yeah, I loved him,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady, the hot emotion in my throat nearly melting the words.

I don’t have time to process those words and their meaning before the girls dig deeper and for more. More questions, harder answers. Finally the girls’ words start slurring, and my eyes grow heavy. The stirring breeze through the open window keeps us awake a few moments longer, and then we sleep.

Morning comes quickly. It feels like I’ve barely closed my eyes before Wallace is gently shaking my shoulder, asking if I still want to go with him to the village. The sun isn’t even up. The girls have another hour or so to sleep, so I dress as quietly as I can. I join Wallace and Paco at a Jeep that has seen better days, climb into the back seat, and rest my head against the window.

“At least we get to ride,” Wallace says wryly. “The village is about ten miles away. That would have been a long walk.”

“Promise me I won’t have to stick a needle in some poor, unsuspecting kid,” I say on a yawn.

“Just be my clown, Lenny.”

He reaches back to give one of my two braids an affectionate tug. We share a smile, and then lapse into silence. For once Wallace doesn’t keep up a running commentary about everything we see, but allows me to appreciate it. It’s hard to believe that a mere five hours away, there’s an airport and a bustling city. Here on the fringe of it lies this wild, untamed jungle, the narrow road carved into the side of a mountain the only concession to progress. Paco is carefully negotiating the road, and I can’t help but risk a glance over the side, the precipitous height making my belly dive and flop.

The Jeep screeches to a halt and jerks my attention forward. A small camouflage-spotted truck with a canvas-covered bed blocks our way forward on the narrow strip of road.

“What the hell?” Wallace asks, peering through the windshield.

A round of gunshots blast into the air, staccato and strident. My heart seizes, clamoring against my ribs at the violent sound. Wallace reaches to the back seat and shoves me to the floor.

“Stay down,” he whispers. The flattened panic in his voice is only outdone by the terror. A half-formed scream jams in my throat. A flurry of Spanish words fly past my ears faster than I can process or translate. I force my body as low to the floorboard as possible, keeping my head down.

Paco’s door is yanked open. I hear him begging, a series of por favors and confused pleas. I brace myself for the sound of the shot that could end his life, but it doesn’t come. I bite my lip against a cry. I’m completely blind to what’s happening. My fear has no shape or form—only sound.

To my right, I hear Wallace’s door jerked open too, h

is body dragged out.

“This one,” a man says in heavily accented English. “He the one.”

“What?” Wallace asks, his voice slightly higher and confused. “No. There’s been a mistake. El error. Vaccuna.”

“Si, si,” the man replies, satisfaction in the words. “Vaccuna. Come. He the one.”

There’s no way I’m hunching down in the back seat like some timid rabbit while God knows who drags off my best friend. I’ve never been more frightened, but I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t do something. If I didn’t try. I’ve heard of tourists being kidnapped by extremists or mercenaries. This overgrown paradise will swallow any trace of Wallace, and I might never find him. That’s not happening to me again. I can’t lose anyone else that way. I’m working up the nerve to get out and do something, try something, when the back door rips open, and my choice is taken away.

“Ah ha ha,” a man drawls. “What do we have here?”

His voice is so neutral it sounds like he ruthlessly scrubbed anything that could trace its owner from it. When I glance up in centimeters of trepidation, the mask covering the man’s face matches the anonymity of his voice. It’s a mask of Abraham Lincoln, incongruously comical, like a child would wear for trick or treat. He’s heavily muscled, broad and tall, maybe six foot five, with blond hair rioting around his head in a cloud of paradoxically cherubic curls. A Kurt Cobain T-shirt tops his camouflage pants.

“Hi,” he says, his tone infuriatingly calm for a man with a semi-automatic weapon slung over his shoulder. “Care to join the party?”

He orders me out with a curt flick of his head. My teeth grit around a torrent of curses and demands as his flippancy finally roots out the fury buried beneath my fear.

I uncoil from my hiding place behind the front seat and climb out. Several dark-haired men, apparently locals, stand behind him, armed and grim-faced. Paco huddles in the truck bed, his wrists trapped in plastic cuffs. Wallace stands on the barrel side of a gun aimed at his head.

“Who’s this?” another voice asks from just beyond Abe’s shoulder. A man, roughly Abe’s height, maybe a few inches shorter, with hair not quite as blond, curls not quite as cherubic, and an accent firmly from the Midwest, walks toward us, wearing a Richard Nixon mask.

“We don’t know yet,” Abe replies.

“Can I keep her?” Nixon asks, and even behind the slits of his mask I feel his eyes crawling over my body in my fitted T-shirt and jeans.

“We may need to dispose of her, brother,” Abe says, apology in his tone.

Fear weakens my knees and I struggle to stay on my feet. My chest goes so tight, every breath is torture. The threat of his words finds its mark in my racing heart.

Abe grabs my arm and drags me forward. “What a shame that would be. She’s a pretty little thing, but I need the good doctor here, not stowaways. Can’t afford dead weight, even if it is lightweight.”