She’s telling the truth. I can’t bring myself to believe otherwise no matter how hard I try. And I do try. I think I’m subconsciously attempting to find some reason not to like her or to be suspicious of her because of my jealousy from before.

But I find nothing.

And I can’t help but wonder if she holds that against me, if there is any lingering bitterness towards me because Victor asked her to risk her life for me. But I sense that there isn’t. It makes me feel ashamed in a way.

She gets up from the table and heads back toward the coffee pot.

But then she stops mid-stride and freezes at the end of the counter as if she came within an inch of walking into a glass wall. Her right hand touches the edge of the counter, her fingers curling into a fist as her head snaps back around to me. Her eyes are wide and alert and the sight of her like that makes me jump in my own skin.

And then I hear something, too, and my heart starts to bang violently against my ribs, reverberating through my bones and into my ears. Shadows move across the kitchen window and at that moment, Samantha drops low toward the floor, though still on her feet, and rushes toward me, pulling me completely from the chair. It happens so fast that I don’t get to drop as gracefully as she had. I nearly fall on my butt, but my right foot keeps me grounded where I spin around precariously on it until I catch my balance and then follow her through to the hallway.

“Who is it?” I whisper.

She grabs my arm and pulls me around in front of her. Her dog, Pepper, runs to the back door, barking furiously.

“Stay low and get back to your room!” she hisses. “Hurry!”

Crouched as low to the floor as I can possibly be without actually sitting on it, I feel like I’m scuttling across the carpet toward the opened bedroom door. Once I’m inside, Samantha comes in right behind me and dropping the rest of the way to her knees, she thrusts out both arms and presses her hands against the large wooden chest sitting at the foot of the bed. As she’s moving the chest, more shadows move across the window and I hear voices whispering outside.

And they’re speaking Spanish.

I whirl around to Samantha, tearing my eyes away from the window just in time to see her lifting a small metal door in the floor that had been hidden underneath the chest.

“Get inside! Hurry! Now!”

In that last second, which I don’t even think I really have the time to spare, I reach underneath the mattress and grab the gun that Victor left there, shoving it into the back of my pants. Samantha waves her hand at me to hurry and when I’m close enough she grabs my arm and helps me the rest of the way by practically shoving me down into the hole beneath the floor.

The metal door closes over me, shutting out the only light I had which had been shining thinly through the single bedroom window from the streetlight outside. And then I hear the chest being moved back over the metal door and my heart sinks like a stone at the thought of being trapped down here, regardless of what’s up there.

Make that one more thing that I fear, Victor: being trapped in a small space.

I hear Samantha’s footsteps move across the floor above and then the sound of the bedroom door clicking closed once she makes her way out.

Everything is eerily silent: the heaviness of my breath, the pumping of blood through my ears; I can’t hear either of them though I know both should be raucous in the small confined space that conceals me. I can’t see a thing, so I reach my hands out in front of me and start feeling my surroundings. I painfully count three walls to my left, right and in front of me, but am relieved that behind me there is no fourth wall to keep me confined. It’s a narrow hallway.

I don’t have time to investigate it further when I hear the first gunshot, although suppressed like Victor’s always sounds, but I know that this time it isn’t Victor.

Pepper isn’t barking anymore.

I hear a voice. It sounds far off but it echoes from somewhere above me. That’s when I feel a small draft on my hairline and I reach up my hand to feel for the ceiling. There’s a vent, though far too small of one for me to fit my head through much less the rest of my body, but it’s a vent and I know now that’s how I heard the echo of the voice.

There’s another suppressed shot and this time when I hear the voice that succeeds it, I know that it belongs to Javier.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

“I have four bullets left in this gun,” Javier says to Samantha somewhere in the house. “And I’m going to put one in you every two minutes that my sweet Sarai is still in hiding.”

My hand comes up involuntarily and clutches at my heart.

“Victor is coming back,” Samantha says in a weak, strained voice.

It fills me with dread to think of where Javier has already shot her.

“You lie, puta! You stink of lies. Now tell me where Sarai is. Because I know she’s here.”

How did he know I was here?

Then in Spanish Javier shouts, “Search the house! Every room. Turn it upside-down and find her!”

Two seconds later the sound of furniture being overturned, glass shattering and feet stomping across the floor echoes through the walls.

“She’s not here,” Samantha says as if pushing the words through her teeth. “Victor was here earlier. With a girl. A little black-haired girl he called Izabel. But he took her with him when he left.”

Thwap!

Another shot sounds and Samantha screams out in pain, but then her screams are muffled and I can only imagine that it’s by Javier’s hand. Or maybe someone else within the room. Tears stream down my hot cheeks. There’s a chill in the air being so close to the cold ground outside, but my blood pressure is so high from the incredible amount of stress on my nerves that it feels like my head is on fire.

“I know she’s here,” Javier says coldly. “I know she didn’t leave with him because I was watching. Now you have six more minutes. The last bullet I’ll put in your brain.”

Then Javier’s voice rises:

“You hear that, Sarai?” he calls out to me. “In six more minutes you’ll kill her. Just like you killed Lydia. All I want is to take you home. I could never hurt you, you know that.”

My legs are shaking.

After the ransacking noises finally stop, the extra sets of footsteps, two judging by the pattern, move back into the room with Javier.

“Both of you go outside,” Javier demands. “Look everywhere, search the neighborhood but don’t draw attention. Go!”

I can’t leave Samantha up there with him to die.

“I told you there’s no one here!” she shouts.

The noise I hear this time I know is Javier’s hand across her face and then her body hitting the floor. The floor beams shake above me with the force of her fall.

I turn behind me and start feeling my way through the narrow passage, hoping that it leads me out. Because I won’t leave her like this. Javier can take me back. He can kill me if he wants to, but I won’t hide under here like a coward and let her die for me.

Thwap!

My breath hitches and my bones lock up, but I keep on moving forward and finally come to the end. There’s nothing here, nothing but more walls and the same passage I just walked through. I reach up above me and feel around on the ceiling for another metal door hatch. And sure enough, there is one. And just when I think there’s no way I can lift that lid all the way and climb my way out without making enough noise to tell Javier exactly where I am, I stub my toe on a four-step set of moveable stairs shoved into the corner.

I pick the steps up instead of pushing them across the floor to avoid making any unnecessary noise and I set them underneath the hatch. Climbing to the third one, I have to bend over forward to keep from hitting my head on the ceiling. I reach up with both hands, pressing my palms against the hatch and close my eyes as I push, hoping that it’s not blocked by anything and that wherever it leads it’s not anywhere Javier can see me.