A truck entered the slaughterhouse’s parking lot, the driver was ready to transport the usual confidential products he would take to the facility in the desert every single end of the month. Normally when he finished parking in front of the building’s cellar door, a man would promptly come out and give him his cut of the earnings so he would be incentivized to take the products as he was tasked to.
But this time there was no man bringing him the money, nor guards, nor nobody. The parking lot, or rather, the entire facility, was eerily quiet.
A voice in the back of his head was telling him to hit the gas and get out of there, but he listened to that voice too late. When he had the idea to turn the keys in the ignition, he felt the cold end of a pistol pressing over the side of his face.
“¿You the mule?” -He heard the soft but sour voice of Alicia. He slowly turned his eyes to see a girl whose own blood covered almost the entirety of her face. – “¿You are the one who transports the kids?”
“Y-y-yes…” -he answered, by the size of that gun, the blood that stained her clothes and face, he could only assume that the interior of that building was an absolute mess.
“Ok, how about if we make a deal? You’ll transport them again, but this time you’ll take me with you. Same route, same routine. If you do this, you’ll come out of this situation unharmed, how about that?”
“I-it’ll be my pleasure, miss …” -he had no other choice, he didn’t consider himself a coward, but he knew better than to turn down the deal of someone that was most likely a rival cartel’s sicario.
“Good.” -She suddenly hit him in the back of the head, knocking him out for a few minutes. Meanwhile, Alicia gathered the children and guided them to the truck out from their hiding spot in a corner of the building, luckily the people she had skewered a few minutes ago didn’t bother to check the outside area.
She opened the truck’s container, it was big enough for all of them, and there were a few mattresses lying around so the ones that needed it the most would be comfortable for the time being.
“Where are we going?” -One of the little girls asked her.
“Far away from here, a place better than here…” -She said. – “But before that, I’ll make sure no one comes after you.”
“Are you… an angel?” -Asked a boy on the back of the group. He was following Alicia’s silhouette with his gaze, but his eyes had been cut through with a scalpel, rendered blind by the cruel hands of Ricardo, but somehow, he could clearly see her. – “God…Did God send you?”
“What’s the deal with this kid?” -Asked Ten, weirded out by the feeling of being followed by that kid’s gaze.
“I could not tell you…” -She said. – “What matters is that I’m here and you’ll be ok, soon.”
The children listened to her, they hoped she would be true to her word and help them get to safety, and to save the most ill and malnourished among them.
They entered the container and sat down while looking at Alicia with their glassy eyes.
“Keep quiet, you’ll be here for a while, but I’ll wrap this up soon. Stay put and don’t be afraid.”
She closed the container’s doors and walked up to the front to the enter the truck’s shotgun seat.
Just as she sat down, the driver managed to snap out of unconsciousness. Once again, she threatened him with her gun.
“Ready. Now drive, don’t try anything stupid, because no matter how or when, I’ll kill you.”
“Y-yes ma’am…” -He said, he turned on the ignition and drove out of the slaughterhouse’s parking lot, through downtown, heading to the southern highway that would take them into the desert.
The travel was quiet throughout most of it, but Alicia made sure to remind the driver that he was being held at gunpoint a few times. He was sweating bullets throughout all of it, and not necessarily because of the ruthless sun posing itself over the territory.
The blood in her face kept on dripping down to her shoulders and then staining the seat, but she didn’t seem to be affected by it in the slightest.
“Mi…Miss…”
“Hm?”
“Uh…your face…it’s bleeding.” -He pointed it out, but surprisingly she hadn’t realized of that fact.
Alicia touched her face and noticed the blood tainting her finger tips. Once again, she wasn’t surprised, something similar to this had happened to her before.
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“Ah…” -she took a towel from behind the seat and used it to clean the blood away. Her wounds kept on bleeding, but not as much as they did before. The wounds would soon close, needless to say that at a faster speed than other people’s wounds. And whenever she wanted, they would open up again, to release the great power and curse that lied within her.
“You’ve bled a lot…” -Commented the driver. – “Are you ok?”
“Yeah, Good enough for you to not try to knock me out and try to escape.” -She took her gun and put it back in its holster. More than a sign of trust or even relaxation, it was a challenge; Alicia dared the driver to try and do something, anything, to get rid of her and find his way out of this situation. Maybe escape the country, maybe change his name or his face. She left herself open to a man that could be stronger than her, because she was interested in seeing what he could do. – “Regardless, if you think that’s not true, you can try something, right now.”
“What…?”
“I don’t intend to waste a bullet with an asshole like you. Look at me, my pistols are holstered, this cabin is too small for me to take out my knife swiftly …I’m defenseless, truckman… What are you waiting for?”
The driver had his eyes glued to the road. Stopping at the red lights as he was meant to and advancing when the light changed to green, yet in those moments in which he stopped in front of a red light, he didn’t even dare to look in her direction, not even he dared to take his hands off the wheel.
“M-miss, I’m not a violent man.” -He said. – “I would never attack someone, not even someone like you, please understand.”
“…I see.” -Even if she was glad he would cooperate no matter what, she felt disappointed that someone as big as him didn’t have the courage to fight for his own sake.
“Did a cartel send you?”
“Everyone makes that question.” -She said, rolling her eyes. – “Does it make any difference if I was sent by a cartel at all?”
“…I guess not…”
They fell back to silence, on the road they drove passed a handful of police patrols heading in the opposite direction, they were probably heading towards the slaughterhouse after the employees called for help upon discovering the pile of corpses she left behind.
But still, the driver didn’t dare to call for their attention, and she noticed that.
They soon got to the highway, slowly but surely drifting apart from the city.
She looked at him and the driver turned his eyes for a moment, just like Kirsten, he noticed that the beast that lied within those gray eyes had fallen back slightly.
“Did you know the people in the basement?”
“I did not… they just paid me; I took the shipments to the desert for them.”
“Why?”
“I was indebted, I gambled and lost. They told me I could repay my debt like this.”
The beast slowly stalked forward, applying pressure.
“And you knew that you were taking children to some traffickers.”
“…Yes…y-y-yes, I did…”
He felt a hand creep over his shoulder, a hand that wasn’t really there. cold, accusative and of ruthless might. The driver couldn’t help bursting into tears.
“You knew what would happen to them if you took them there.”
“…Yes…”
“Let me ask you something…” -The beast dwelling inside her retired for a moment, letting her heart become calm enough to absorb this experience. She wanted to test something.
She wanted to know the kind of people that live in civilization, and especially, the ones that live closer to the darkness that dwelled in its roots. To see how much in common they had with those that lived in the desert.
“From all the times you transported children towards that complex, every single end of month. From all the times you drove through this very same route…did you ever think of detouring? Did you ever think of…you know…choosing a different route…letting the children go, abandoning this truck and running away, no matter the consequences?”
“…I…” -The driver knew he couldn’t justify himself, and felt like he had no right to do so.
Every night he would dream of the children’s screams and pleas as they were taken away to that dark and horrible place, he would always wake up in his bed with a cold sweat and heavy feeling in his chest, every single night, without fail.
He couldn’t eat without thinking about them, he couldn’t speak without thinking about them. His existence had been cursed by the pain of those children he had helped condemn.
“…I’m scared…” -He said. – “…I can’t do anything…because I’m afraid…they are so powerful…they would destroy me and everyone around me… they are just too powerful… no one in this country can defeat them.”
Alicia listened attentively to his grievances while looking at the road. She now confirmed that the people in civilization weren’t that different from the ones she found in the wasteland.
“Fear is something reasonable to feel in the face of a mayor power.” -She said. –“But it’s flawed to keep on being afraid when that power threatens your very livelihood, and maybe not only yours, but of all of those around you as well. Rebelling, standing up and biting the neck of those that seek to put you down, is not something anyone can do…at least not for those that didn’t prepare themselves for it. But when you do…you realize how little such “power” matters.”
“What do you mean?” -He asked.
“You won’t ever know what you are capable of until you kill a man more wicked than you, and when you do it, you must ask yourself: how many more can I take for myself? One after the other, see how superior you are, both inside and out.”
She looked up to the sky from the window and remembered what she saw while being extracted from the desert: news about hordes of refugees moving to the west, through land, sea and air. There were all sorts of people in that mass of unfortunate fugitives; women, children, elderlies, but those didn’t matter to her. the ones that really caught her attention were the others, those that she knew well with just one look, those that escaped her knife. They surely thought that by fleeing they had escaped her shadow, but she would make sure to prove them wrong.
“Above all, you must make sure to be thorough, not only with killing, with anything you do, no matter how long it takes you.”
The driver remained silent, he wanted to say something, but couldn’t utter a word after smelling the strong scent of blood that came from her.
“Let me tell you, your country has a lot of useless heads that should roll…when I’m off work, I’ll make sure to come back and see what I can do about that.”
“Please, no!” -suddenly, the driver had the courage to object to her goals and raised his voice. – “You’ll cause a war, many people will die.”
“They’ll die even if I do nothing.”
She had nothing else to say to the man, and he didn’t want to say anything else either.