Camouflaged (Hiding From Love #0.5) (5 page)

“So, Juan was older than me and barely knew I was alive. But I loved him—like really loved him, you know?” She turned to face me as if it was crucial I understood what she was saying. The conviction in her voice was strong.

“You can love someone who doesn’t love you back. Love doesn’t have to be returned for it to be real, and I loved him.”

I finally gave in to the need to touch her and reached out, gently taking her soft, little fingers in mine. She didn’t draw away, and I nodded at her to be encouraging.

She took a deep breath and let it out shakily. “I don’t know all the details about Juan’s family and his life, but I know that when you’re illegal in the U.S. it can be scary—tough to make a living, tough to get an education. It was just Juan and his mom, and I think they struggled a lot. All she could do to earn money was clean houses, and he wanted to go to college, but he couldn’t because he didn’t have a social security number.”

I watched her face as she became lost in the memories, and my thumb moved over the soft skin on her hand.

“I was there the day the INS came and took Juan’s mom away. It was so horrible, Gabe. I’d gone with my brother to pick up Juan so he could come to dinner at our house.

“When we pulled up in front, we saw the agents. They had guns and everything. Juan was yelling at one in the front yard and his mom was in cuffs being dragged along by the other one. She was crying and screaming. Juan was getting more and more agitated.

“My brother told me to stay in the car and he got out to help Juan, but before he could get to him, Juan took a swing at the INS guy. It just went downhill from there. The guy took out his gun and everyone freaked out. Juan’s mom was sobbing and pulling to get to him. Juan was so scared that he was standing in the middle of the yard, frozen. The INS guy with the gun was waving it everywhere, swinging it between Juan and my brother. I thought for sure one of them was going to get shot.”

“So what happened?” I asked, admittedly riveted by the drama. “Did they take his mom in?”

She looked at me finally and gave me a small smile. My heart clenched and I swallowed the feeling down as she continued.

“Yeah, they took her, and it was heartbreaking. She was crying so hard I thought she was going to pass out in the yard. After the guy pulled the gun, Juan went cold. He stopped fighting, stopped yelling—he just stopped.

“We took Juan in for a few weeks while his mom was in detention, but eventually, when his mom got deported and the INS started an investigation to get him deported as well, he left. Vanished in the middle of the night. I was destroyed. I asked every single day if my brother had seen him or heard from him, and he always told me he hadn’t. “

I stroked her hand and tried to imagine what it would be like as a teen to lose everything you had in your life. Your only family, your home, and the only country you really knew. Somehow it made my dad’s absence seem minor in comparison.

“About six months later,” she continued, “I was at the mall with some friends and there was a group of gang bangers hanging out in the food court. They were really scary guys—Latin King Nation, one of the worst gangs we had in San Marcos.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard about those guys from Benji. They’re big in South Central L.A. too.”

“They’re so scary, Gabe. In high school, if you saw one of those guys in the hall, you moved to the other side no matter what. Even the teachers wouldn’t touch them. That day, I realized one of the meaner looking guys seemed familiar. He had on the bandana over his eyes, you know, and tattoos all up and down his arms. He had a gun tucked in the back waistband of his pants, too, in broad daylight like he couldn’t care less who saw it.

“When he turned and looked my way, I realized it was Juan. He had LKN tattooed across the top of his back, and worse than that, he had stars tatted on his shoulders.”

While I wasn’t too familiar with Latino gang culture, I’d spent enough time listening to Benji to know that meant you were a Captain in the gang. It was a huge badge of honor to those guys. I breathed out in surprise. “Man, that’s really rough,” I told her in sympathy.

She squeezed my hand a little. “He stood there and looked at me for a minute and then…” She stopped briefly, seeming to gather up the memory so she could lay it out and expose it to me.

“Then he reached down and grabbed his crotch while he kept looking at me and yelled, ‘
Chupamela
!’ It means . . . well, trust me, it means something pretty disgusting. When his friends heard, they all started laughing and calling me names in Spanish. I was so humiliated. I wanted to die. To have this guy that I’d loved for so long finally notice me and that’s what he did. I never saw him again, but last year I heard that he’d been sent to Huntsville, the State Pen. He killed a girl in a drive-by that went wrong.”

“Damn. That’s hardcore, Alexis.” I shook my head, trying to absorb it all.

“I know for a fact that he wasn’t that kind of guy. This was the boy who’d eaten my mom’s tamales and played Scrabble with us on Thursday nights. He’d helped my dad with the yard work and had a 3.8 GPA. I saw so much good in him when we were growing up together. But when they took away his only family, he was lost. He turned angry and bitter, and he became a different person.”

She shivered even though it was mild out, and I once again fought the impulse to touch her more, hold her, comfort her.

“When you ask why I would come over here and volunteer, that’s why. If I can help even one person avoid a life like Juan’s, then it’s worth it. Everyone deserves to have a country where they can live in peace and safety and have food and shelter. No one should have to fear they’ll be taken from their homes in the middle of the night by soldiers, federal agents, or religious zealots.”

She sighed, and we sat quietly once more as I stroked her hand carefully, dreading the moment she would take it away from me, knowing it wasn’t really mine to hold. I realized this was a woman who saw the good in people, and for whatever reason, she’d seen the good in me. I wasn’t sure what to do with that.

I
t
was December seventeenth when I took Alexis out in a supply truck to deliver one of the first loads of aid supplies to the families of the area. The UN staff had carefully surveyed every household they could to get an assessment of needs, and now we were supposed to hand out things like baby formula, aspirin, clean water, and hygiene products.

To be honest, I’d been looking forward to this trip for a few days. We planned to go to the village down the road from camp but also to some outlying areas. It meant spending the whole day locked in a truck with Alexis, and even though I’d promised not to come on to her anymore, even though it might mean my job if I touched her, I had this strong pull to be in her orbit. I knew she belonged to someone else, but I couldn’t seem to control the direction my thoughts took around her. The simple truth was I wanted to fuck her for about five days straight, take a nap, and start it all over again.

We loaded up the truck and left at about seven a.m.

“I didn’t even think about how we’re going to eat if this is going to take all day,” Alexis said as we started out.

I slammed on the brakes. “Oh shit!” I hollered.

She jumped about eight inches off her seat and yelped. I laughed as I started up the truck again.

“It’s all right,
babe.
I’ve got it under control. MREs are super and the canteen water only tastes a little metallic. You’ll get used to it.”

Poor girl. She was spunky as hell, but I watched her face fall as she anticipated eating the Army’s infamous meals in brown plastic wrapping.

I took mercy on her. “Hey, I actually have a whole lunch the kitchen packed for us. No MREs, I promise. Just the usual crappy sandwiches.”

She sighed in relief.

“So, the plan the squad leader gave us is to start at the farthest point from base and work our way closer throughout the day. The other trucks in the convoy will be coming about a half hour after us. They had a last minute repair to make. We’ll meet up with them at the first stop. It’ll take us about forty minutes to get there, so kick back and enjoy the lovely views of the rocks and dirt we’ll be surrounded by all damn day.”

She laughed. “It’s not terribly beautiful, is it?”

“Not the landscape, but the people . . . You know, it’s weird. They can be really beautiful and then again they can be barbaric. There’re a lot of contradictions.”

Nodding, she looked out the window as we bumped along the road, dust churning in our wake. I watched her profile, wondering why it was I found myself wanting to talk to her, actually talk to her, when I rarely talked to women longer than it took to get them into my bed.

“Can I ask you something?” I queried as I took the turn off to our destination, travelling through the craggy cliffs that surrounded the basin where our camp and the adjacent village were located.

“Sure.”

“Can you tell me about your boyfriend? I mean, I’m not trying to pry, but you’re sort of young and you seem really serious about him.”

She stiffened a little. “I’m not that much younger than you,” she said somewhat indignantly.

“Yeah, and you don’t see me with a serious boyfriend, now do you?” I joked.

She chuckled and rolled her eyes. “I think I’d pay to see that.”

“What? You think I can’t get myself a serious boyfriend? Shit, I’ve had more offers than you have I’ll bet.”

“God. I can’t imagine any guy who’d be brave enough to hit on you. You’d beat the crap out of them.”

“Hey now, I’m very tolerant. I put up with the ass pinching every day. I do draw the line at Jefferson crawling into bed with me at night though. He’s just so damn needy.”

Alexis was full-on laughing at me now, and I decided I really liked the sound of her husky voice when it was that happy, even if it was at the expense of my manhood.

“You’re avoiding my question though, aren’t you?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

She sighed. “What exactly do you want to know?”

“Just the regular stuff. How’d you meet, how long have you been going out, is he as hot as me . . .“

She started laughing. “You’re unbelievable. He’s different than you, so I couldn’t ever compare. But we’ve been dating since I was sixteen. We’ve always known each other—same neighborhood, our families are friends, all that stuff.”

“And he goes to UT with you?”

“Yeah. We went together. He’s a sophomore though. He went to Texas State at San Marcos his first year so he could stay with me until I graduated.”

My stomach sunk and went sour. This wasn’t some quickie boyfriend she’d picked up in college. This was someone who had a history with her that I never could. Someone who understood where she came from, knew who she was deep down. Fuck, that hurt.

“Okay, well, sounds like you two have it all worked out then,” I quipped.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she bristled.

I didn’t answer as I slowed down to negotiate around a hairpin turn that took us along the edge of one of the cliffs. Luckily I was going slowly when the shell exploded about fifty yards ahead in the middle of the road.

Alexis screamed as I hit the brakes, skidding on the dirt and sending the truck into a fishtail that took us way too close to the drop off. Glass broke from the passenger window next to Alexis, and debris from the explosion rained down over the windshield and roof, making it impossible for me to discern if it was rocks, shrapnel, or bullets.

“Get on the floor!” I yelled at Alexis as I brought the truck to a stop just a few feet from the pit that had been the road before the explosion.

She kept repeating, “Oh my God, oh my God,” as she scurried onto the floorboards of the truck and huddled in a little ball.

I glanced at her while I looked all around us as quickly as I could. She gazed back at me with huge eyes, and in the back of my head, I logged an emotion brought on by those fearful eyes that I couldn’t place but knew I didn’t like. The dust started to clear and the debris quit falling. Everything became eerily quiet as I scanned the adjacent hills for signs of who might be there. There was nothing visible, but I’d been trained well enough to know that meant nothing.

I reached for my pistol and took it out of the holster before I removed the rifle from under the seat and slung it over my shoulder. “Okay,” I said to Alexis. “You’re going to stay right here while I see what the situation is.”

She whisper-yelled, “No! You can’t leave me here! Seriously, you’ll get shot and then I’ll be here all by myself!”

I looked down at her for a split second. “Thanks for all your concern, but I promise not to get killed so I can still give you a ride home.”

“I didn’t mean it that way, and you know it,” she growled.

“Look, I don’t have time to fight with you right now, Alexis. I’m guessing that we’ve got insurgents ready to hit us with sniper fire the minute we try to move, so I’ve got to scope the area and try to get you somewhere safe to wait them out. Can you let me do my job here?”

“Okay,” she muttered. “But please don’t get killed.”

“Gotcha.” I grinned at her as I slowly opened the door a crack and then slid down and out as quietly as I could.

I crouched on the ground, searching the rocks all around. There was a lot of dust in the air, and it burned my eyes and the inside of my nose. There also wasn’t a sound—not animals or wind or vehicles—and a bad feeling passed through me, leaving behind the surge of too much adrenaline. I gripped my M4 rifle more tightly and inched forward, away from the truck.

When I reached the hillside that climbed up from the road, I turned my back to it and sat. The truck obscured my view somewhat but I could still see most of the opposite cliffs. I looked along the top ridge, watching for movement. Right as I thought there wasn’t anything to be seen, I caught the tiniest shift in the picture. A brief flash of black among the beige rocks and sand. Bingo.

My mind spun, working out possible scenarios. At the very least there were snipers on the opposite hills. Most likely there were others hidden among the rocks all around. That was how the insurgents usually worked. It gave them not only the element of surprise and the ability to shoot at the enemy without being shot at but it also made it difficult for us to estimate their numbers. There could be two guys out there—or twenty; I had no idea. I was lucky the truck had ended up in the curve of the hillside, meaning when I was between the truck and the hill, I was relatively protected and hard to spot.

I decided I needed more information and there was only one way to get it. I crawled back to the truck then along the side until I came to the front bumper. I rolled my shoulders back a couple of times, took a deep breath, and stood up. As the shots exploded in the air around me, I dropped to the ground and rolled under the truck, my breath coming fast and hard, my heart beating ten times the normal rate. Alexis’s screams were echoing in my ears. As soon as the shots stopped, she stopped, but I heard her in the truck chanting, “Please don’t let him be dead. Please don’t let him be dead,” over and over.

The smell of diesel and motor oil nearly gagged me as I scooted under the truck until I was beneath the driver’s door. Then I crawled out and up into the cab. Alexis looked at me and burst into tears. I lay down on my side along the seat, my face right on level with hers.

“Shhh. It’s okay. I’m okay. Don’t cry. You’ll make me get all teary too, and that’s just damn embarrassing.”

She laughed softly through the tears. “How can you joke at a time like this? God, I thought they’d gotten you. I couldn’t see anything. I just heard all those shots.” She reached over and slugged me in the shoulder. “You suck for scaring me like that.”

I grabbed her hand when she hit me and held it as I rolled onto my back. I looked up at the truck’s ceiling while I talked. “I’m sorry about that, but I had to get a feel for where the guys are. Judging by the direction of the shots, they’re only on the opposite side of the ravine, but that might not last long. More could be on their way.”

I reached for the truck’s radio in order to warn the rest of the convoy coming after us. All I got was static.

“Damn it, this canyon must be screwing with the signal,” I told her after I’d spent a few minutes messing with the various dials and settings.

“So what do we do?”

“We make a run for it. There’s a cave a few yards down. Once we’re there, we can wait them out until the base sends some people for us, but getting there isn’t going to be easy. You up for it?”

I could hear her breathing kick up from the fear, but she had a steady voice when she answered me. “Why will we be safer there?” she asked.

“Once we’re in, we’ll have the advantage. It’s dark inside, so they won’t see us clearly, but we will see them out in the light. We’ll have a field of vision they won’t. They’ll have to risk a lot to get to where they can take a shot. Most likely they’d rather starve us out, but that won’t happen because our guys will get us long before then.”

She seemed to think and then nodded. “I’ve got to say, just about anything sounds better than hanging out here like sitting ducks. Tell me what to do.”

“Good girl.” I reluctantly released her hand. “All right. First thing is to get any supplies we can.” I started a list out loud, more for myself than Alexis. “The rucksack’s got MREs, clothes, water, but we need the blankets behind the seat and the LBV.”

“What’s the LBV?” she asked quietly.

“Load bearing vest—all the extra ammo.”

She swallowed and didn’t respond for a moment. “How long do you think we’ll be trapped here?” she asked.

I lay on the seat, and while I wouldn’t have admitted it to her, I didn’t think I could sit up yet; I was still trying to restart my heart after being shot at. I turned my head to look at her. She was so close, crouched on the floorboards, that I could feel her breath on my face. I could count the tiny freckles across the bridge of her nose and see the flecks of gold in her dark eyes. That jumpstart my heart needed? Yeah, her eyes did it.

I cleared my throat. I wasn’t sure how much more my nervous system could take. Mind-shredding fear coupled with heart-pumping lust was a hard combination, even for a young guy like me.

“I’m hoping just a few hours, but we need to be prepared for a day or two.”

She nodded again.

I mentally gathered myself and sat up, keeping my eyes on the cliffs outside. I wondered how much the snipers could see through the window. Times like this I was really glad for military grade armored glass. I reached behind the seat, grabbed the rucksack and LBV, and then stuffed in the lunch and water bottles we’d brought.

Once I’d gotten everything together, I said, “You can get up now. Just move slowly.”

She crawled up onto the seat, finally sitting up and taking a deep breath. “What now?”

I scratched my head. Truthfully, I didn’t have much in the way of a plan. I’d probably get us both killed, but it was only a matter of time before men arrived to do that anyway, so it wasn’t much of a risk. I wished like hell Alexis weren’t here. If it weren’t for her, I’d probably have gone and stood outside the truck and let them take me. I wasn’t suicidal, but I was realistic, and they had us tied up pretty well. There was, however, one big advantage to getting gunned down as we made a run for it. I’d never say it to Alexis, but if they got us at the truck, there was a good chance they’d rape her before they killed her. In a way, getting blasted to pieces on the way to the cave was a better option for her. My stomach twisted at the thought of either possibility.

Shaking off the negative vibes, I took one more look around as I talked her through what we’d do. “The tarp that’s across the back of the truck is the same color as these rocks. We’re going to crawl underneath the truck and then I’ll go in the back and get that tarp down.”

She looked at me and swallowed hard. Her eyes were big and scared.

“Then you’re going to wrap that tarp around yourself while you run for the cave. It’ll help camouflage you so it’ll be harder for them to shoot you.”

“What about you?” she asked in a small voice.

“I’m going to come right behind you with the rifle. I’ll shoot if I have to in order to cover you.”

“But you’ll be out there, exposed. I mean, can’t you get something to camouflage
you
?”

I shook my head. “No. That’s what my MultiCam is for, and I can’t see to shoot if I’m trying to hide behind something.”

She looked at me and her eyes grew even bigger if that were possible.

“I want you to carry this rucksack.” I handed it to her. “That way, if I don’t make it, you’ll have the supplies to get you through the next twenty-four hours or so. There’s a pistol in there. If you end up alone in that cave, don’t use that gun unless someone gets all the way into the cave with you.”

Her eyes welled up. “No,” she whispered.

“Alexis,” I said sharply. “Listen to me. If you fire at guys who are shooting at the cave from a distance, you’ll never hit anyone and it’ll just waste the ammo. You have to wait until they’re a few yards from you. Not so close they can touch you, but close enough you can see their faces clearly. You got that?”