Page 42 of Spiders in the Grove

Leo cocks his head to one side, and the subtle movement is enough that Joaquin knows this man is more than capable of pulling it off. Joaquin swallows nervously, and tries to maintain his undaunted act, that he has the upper-hand. And although technically he does—because Leo is outnumbered—the line between his hand and Leo’s is very thin.

I glance over at Cesara, witness the familiar hunger in her eyes—past-tense, my ass; she’d still bend over for Leo Moreno in a heartbeat.

“You know what,” Joaquin begins with a dismissive shrug, “you picked the wrong buyer to threaten me with—kill him, I don’t care.”

The buyers sitting in the crowd all turn and look at one another, shocked, and likely reconsidering their future visits to this place. Unsurprising, Iosif appears unfazed, but he is watching, nonetheless.

Joaquin, noticing the error of his decision, remedies it quickly. “That’s the only buyer in the room who owes me,” he says.

“Joaquin,” Jorge pleads, his voice cracking, “I thought we had an agreement. Why do you—”

Leo shuts Jorge up the same way Joaquin had silenced Naeva moments earlier.

“You have three seconds,” Leo warns in Spanish.

Visibly nervous, Joaquin squeezes Naeva tightly within his arms, indicating his unwillingness to let her go, no matter what.

Three seconds flies by in what feels like one, and a shot rings out, echoing off the tall walls; Jorge’s body falls to the carpeted floor in a bloody, slow-motion spectacle. In the same moment, Leo rushes toward the stage, gun in-hand. Another shot rings out, and another—buyers scream and duck underneath tables—but before either bullet can strike him, Leo leaps onto the stage, rolls two-feet before coming to a stop in a crouched position.

“NOO!” Naeva screams as Joaquin’s gun moves in front of her face, and fires at Leo, striking him in the shoulder.

Leo goes down; his gun crashes against the stage, and slides out of his reach.

The gasps from the crowd pull all of the air out of the room—even Iosif has risen into a stand, unable to tear his gaze away from the scene.

I don’t even remember when I stood up; but here I am, my hands pressed to the table, my body a solid mass of muscle and bone; my eyes and mouth open wide, looking more like Izabel Seyfried than Izel Ruiz.

“Grab him!” Joaquin orders the guards in Spanish, and nine rush onto the stage and barrel toward Leo like a stampede.

Leo doesn’t care about any of them; he pulls a trembling Naeva into his arms, shielding her with his body; he knows he’s not getting out of this alive, wounded and with nine guns pointed at him.

“I missed you so much,” he tells Naeva, his voice choking with emotion; he grabs her face in his hands, peers into her eyes, and my heart is breaking into a million goddamn pieces. “¡Escúchame!”—he wrenches her face in emphasis, and then continues in Spanish—"No matter what happens here tonight, know that I am with you; I won’t leave you again, not even in death—you hear me?”—he shakes her—“not even in death.”

Before Naeva can say anything, before she can kiss his lips, guards are ripping Leo and Naeva apart.

“No! Don’t hurt him! I’ll do anything! Please don’t hurt him!”

Despite the gunshot wound to the shoulder, Leo still manages to land three bone-cracking punches to one guard; two more to another; a third guard moves around behind Leo, grabs his arms and pulls them backward; the back of Leo’s head smashes into the guard’s face, and the guard stumbles back, his hand covering his bleeding nose.

Five more guards rush Leo, but it’s only the gun in Joaquin’s hand, pointed at Naeva that stops him.

“Just kill me, you sonofabitch!” Naeva screams. “Give Leo back his freedom, and do what you want with me!”

“Oh, now you want him to have his freedom,” Joaquin taunts; he moves in a careful half-circle so that he can face the stunned, wide-eyed crowd, the gun still pointed at Naeva sitting on the stage floor. “Now she wants Moreno to have his freedom!” he repeats for the audience.

A round of laughter makes its way around the room; Cesara joins in. I glance over at her standing next to me—almost everyone is standing now so they can see over the heads of the people in front of them—and the enjoyment in her face disgusts me. Cesara may have been like me once upon a time, she may have endured the same horrors, and came out stronger on the other side because of them, but she and I are two very different people, who went in entirely different directions.

Joaquin looks down at Naeva.

“He gave up his freedom a long time ago, Miss Brun,” he says grimly, “for you. You should never have come back here”—he gestures a hand at the crowd, seeking their praise—“Moreno isn’t the man he used to be! He isn’t the fighter he used to be! And his services are no longer needed!”

The crowd claps; heads nod; voices rise up all around me, most of them agreeing with Joaquin, or, at the very least, just wanting to see bloodshed.

Joaquin makes a motion with his head at the guard standing nearest Naeva, and the guard grabs her by her arms and lifts her from the floor.

“Don’t touch her!” Leo barks; his breathing is labored; blood is running down his arm and chest; he’s beginning to show signs of distress from his wound.

“I’m going to do more than touch her,” Joaquin tells him with satisfaction. “I’m going to show my buyers what happens to runaways”—he gets closer to Leo—“and thieves.”

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