Page 36 of Lethal Pursuit

They still had one of the men in the interrogation room. Every few minutes, a new set of hoarse screams would echo down the corridor. If her hands had been free, she would have clapped them over her ears to drown out the sound. Each cry of pain made her stomach clench and her skin ripple with chills of terror. It might be Jackson in there. The captors had taken turns torturing the male prisoners, so she knew he’d been tortured at least once already. It made her ill to think of them hurting him.

They had to be coming for her again soon. Could she withstand that sort of punishment again? A few days ago, before all of this had happened, she would have said yes without hesitation. Now she wasn’t so sure.

She allowed herself to retreat from the present and slip into the past. She’d kept Pilar’s memory close all these years and right now she needed her sister more than ever.

Her mind flipped through the catalog of stored memories she kept tucked away, for some reason settling on one of the last days she’d seen her sister. It was a Friday night, and she’d just come home froma study session at her high school to get a jump-start on her final history paper. She’d walked into their crappy apartment to find Pili getting ready in their room.

Maya stopped dead in the doorway, that familiar sick feeling washing over her. Her sister stood before the mirrored closet dressed in a short, tight black leather miniskirt and a red halter top that barely covered her breasts. Her thigh-high black high-heeled boots sat on the floor next to her bare feet.

Maya lowered her backpack to the floor, hating the mingled shame and anger warring inside her. “I thought we were going to hang out together and watch a movie tonight. You said you weren’t working this weekend.” She couldn’t help the accusatory note in her tone.

Pilar glanced at her in the mirror before turning her attention back to applying the ruby red lipstick on her mouth. There were purple smudges beneath the carefully applied concealer under her eyes, and her ribs now showed below the hollows of her collarbone. Because she would rather do the drugs she was addicted to—even if she refused to admit it—in order to escape her shameful reality rather than eat the food selling her body bought them. “I have a client.”

He wasn’t a client, Maya thought in disdain. He was just another john willing to fuck her sister for money. Maya bit back the angry words rising inside her. “Will you be back tomorrow?”

“I’m not sure.” Her sister wouldn’t meet her eyes.

She swallowed, the pressure in her chest expanding until she thought she’d burst. When Pili reached for those fuck-me boots, she couldn’t hold it in any longer. “We can move away from here,” she blurted, desperate to make her sister listen. “We’ve done it twice already—we can do it again.”

Pilar drew the zipper up the inside of one bare leg. “We’re not moving this close to the end of the school year.”

“I can go to a different school.”

“You’re on the honor roll and about to take finals. We’re not moving.” Her tone was implacable, and it made Maya’s heart sink.

“You don’t have to do this,” she pleaded, her voice breaking. There were tears in her eyes as she watched her sister zip the otherboot and straighten to fluff her hair, carefully styled over one shoulder to draw attention to the deep V in the low-cut top that showed off her cleavage. Advertising the merchandise for sale. “Don’t go out tonight. We can get by another way. I can get a part-time job or—”

“No.” Her sister whirled around to face her, her expression set. “You’re staying in school and that’s final, and all I want you to worry about is your studies. You’re going to make it out of here. I swore it when we left that monster’s house.”

The knot in her throat threatened to choke her. She hated it that her sister was selling her body to provide a future for her. Hated even more the weakness and shame she felt in standing by and allowing it to continue. And she loathed the judgmental part of her that disapproved of what Pilar was doing. Her sister had taken the abuse for two years to shield her, was now doing a job she hated just to keep them off the streets. She should be grateful, not condemn Pilar’s decision, no matter how uncomfortable it made her. Yet she couldn’t ignore the reality that her sister had sold her soul along with her body.

Emotion tightened her throat. “You don’t have to do this. I don’t want you to, especially for me. We’ll get out of here together and make a new start. We’ll—” Her words cut off when Pilar set her hands on her shoulders, squeezing gently. Her smile was warm, the worn look in her eyes making her appear far older than her nineteen years.

“Don’t you worry about me. You hear me? I’m fine. There’s nothing more important to me than making sure you finish school and get a scholarship to get out of here for good. I know you’ll do it.”

It frightened her that Pili hadn’t said they’d both get out, together. She pressed. “And then you’ll come with me, right?” That was the real reason Maya had busted her ass these past two years, putting all her effort into her schoolwork. From the day Pilar had begun turning tricks to keep food on the table so that Maya could stay in school, she’d vowed to herself to get a full-ride college scholarship and take them far away from this life, start fresh in a place where no one would know about Pilar’s sordid past.

The dimple appeared in Pilar’s right cheek as her smile deepened, even though Maya knew it was forced. “Sure.” She kissed Maya’sforehead and grabbed her purse that held condoms and lubricant. Pulling out a wad of ten-dollar bills, she handed them to Maya, who took them reluctantly. To her the cash was tainted—might as well have been blood money. “Go buy yourself a pizza down at the corner. Don’t wait up, I’m not sure when I’ll be home. But when I do get back, we’ll watch that movie together. Okay?”

Maya tightened her fist around the cash, doing her best to hide the dread curling inside her. “Promise?”

“I promise.”

It was the last promise Pilar ever kept, because less than a month later she broke the most sacred one of all by taking her own life, abandoning Maya forever. In the years since, she’d never fully recovered from that wound. The scar had long since healed, but the hurt was still there.

Surfacing from the difficult memory, she opened her eyes in the darkness and swallowed hard. She could feel herself beginning to losing hope. The continual pain and anxiety were already taking their toll on her, wearing her down by the hour. It disappointed her to realize she wasn’t stronger than that, yet in a weird way it made her feel closer to her sister. For so long she’d been angry with Pilar for taking her own life, thinking she was a coward to give up.

Now, for the first time, she finally got her sister’s desire to escape from the pain and misery her life had become. She’d sacrificed everything for Maya, but in the end the shame and despair had been too much. Facing her own grim reality, Maya couldn’t help but wonder if she was more similar to Pili than she’d ever realized. In the end, would she welcome death rather than keep fighting?

The moment she thought it, a fierce denial ignited deep in her gut.No. No way.She couldn’t dishonor herself or her sister’s memory that way. And she couldn’t let down her fellow prisoners. The Air Force had trained her to withstand this, expected her to. Somehow she had to get hold of her fear and find a way to be strong.

She gave herself a mental slap, trying to bolster her resolve. She might be weak and suffering, but she wasn’t out of the fight yet. Quitting wasn’t an option. It wasneveran option.Hang in there. Baby steps. Take things one at a time—don’t look ahead.

“Maya?”

She twisted her head toward the low voice, heart tripping. “Jackson?”

“Yeah. You okay?”

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