Page 14 of Javier

“Ye may be a feek, but ye’re not the brightest bulb, are ye now?” Sister Janet’s stare bounced between us as if she were watching a tennis match. “Ye’ve got disaster in ye.”

“Every time he opens his mouth, he’s a wreck in progress,” Sister Elsa agreed.

I clenched my jaw and glowered some more at him.

“What?” Javier stared at me. “It was all in your profile.”

“Maybe I was all those things in the past.” I’d already failed to defend myself from the dead brutes and fainted in front of this stranger who’d sprang right out of my dreams. No more Mousy Missy for me. “But I’m not that person anymore. You can stick your freaking profile where the sun doesn’t shine.”

“Oh, boy.” Sister Elsa grimaced.

“Hey, lad?” Sister Janet tugged on Javier’s sleeve, looking like a tiny hamster standing next to a Kodiak bear. “Have ye considered that perhaps herself was sweet and agreeable until those devils and yerself showed up, have ye?”

I nodded furiously. “What she said.”

“You don’t gotta fear me, Angel,” he teased me with a wink. “I’m totally safe… for you.”

“Stop winking and grinning at me,” I snapped. “While you’re at it, stop it with the angel thing, too. I’m not your freaking angel!”

“And here I was trying to be friendly.” Javier scratched the shade of his beard. “Operation Angel is the code name for this mission. It now means I get you out of here.” He unhooked his carbine from his vest, checked his watch, and started toward the fence. “T-minus twenty. Let’s get the feet working.”

I had lots of questions that needed answers, but time wasshort. I made my decision. Escape the government soldiers first, then figure out the rest. I gestured for the nuns to follow me.

As I hurried toward the fence, I snatched my little veil from the ground and stuffed it in my pocket. I also picked up my backpack and slid it on. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.” He turned to face the sisters, but he kept walking backward, hugging his weapon to his chest. “I suggest you two hit the trail as hard as you can.”

“Have you lost your freaking marbles?” I stopped in my tracks and perched my fists on my hips. “Do you really think I’m going to leave them behind?”

“Didn’t you hear the part about we’re in a hurry and gotta move?”

“They can’t go out there alone,” I pointed out the obvious. “I stayed behind to help them across the border and take them to their convent in Costa Rica.”

“Very noble,” he said, now framed by the bougainvillea. “But totally stupid.”

“Hey!”

“Just saying.” He held the rent in the fence open for me. “I’m not big on altruism. The best intentions kill you the fastest. Good people die way before mean motherfuckers.”

“You’re an arrogant prick,” I bit out between my teeth.

He lifted a hand in the air. “Yes, and?”

“If you want me to come with you, then they’re coming with us.”

“My mission is to extract you, not them,” he said. “We gotta set a fast pace and they would slow us down. No offense, sisters.”

“None taken,” Sister Elsa said.

“Well, meself is offended,” Sister Janet grumbled. “But perhaps the lout is right and ye ought to go with him. On account we’re being persecuted, and he knows yer sister and all.”

I glowered at Javier. “I’mnotleaving without them.”

“You had to make it complicated.” If he rolled his eyes any harder, they might just fall out of his head. “We can be the A Team and get out of here fast. Or we can be the B Team and get out slow as fuck.”

“I choose the B Team.”

“Okay, fine,” he relented. “But don’t get used to throwing your tiny weight around. I’m in charge of this mission. Do you copy?”

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