I still had a lot of shit to do.
I gathered what little strength I had, let it swirl and build inside me, then sent it out to swallow the heat like a dragon. I absorbed the fire, breathed it in, reveled as it soaked into every inch of my body. As fast as the fire had ignited, it extinguished that much faster. I thought about waiting for Tidwell’s reaction, watching to see if his expression was more surprise or murderous rage. But I figured while I was here, I would finish the job I’d started. I reached out from somewhere deep within, clasped on to either side of his head, and twisted. His neck snapped before he even realized I’d extinguished the fire, and he dropped hard, his face slamming into the train track and bouncing back until he settled in a heap of lifeless flesh and blood.
This would make two men that I’d killed. Two men that I sent to hell. Reyes’s dad would be proud.
Faith sprang forward and wrapped her tiny arms around my neck. I almost laughed, but the flesh and blood me was back, and pain had permeated every nook and cranny of my body. And my pants were down.
But my heart beat. My blood pulsed. No doubt about it, I was alive. Then the evening hit me. I’d never been quite that close to death – well, me – before. My eyes stung from emotion and from gasoline and I buried my face in Faith’s matted, muddy hair. But I was still tied up and the binds were cutting into my wrists. If I didn’t know better, I’d have sworn he used some kind of steel cable. So there I lay, half na**d and bound. I could break a man’s neck, but I couldn’t untie myself.
I didn’t dare summon Angel, if that were even possible yet. He always wanted to see me naked, but not like this. Seeing me like this would bother him for a long time to come. And I didn’t want to summon Reyes, either. I didn’t even know if I could. I certainly didn’t want Cookie or Gemma here. They would never get over it. No, the only one I could let see me this way was Uncle Bob. We had an understanding, and he would be able to live with seeing me like this in a way the others couldn’t. He understood the dangers of the job. He lived with that knowledge every day.
I felt the impression of my phone in my front pocket, more than a little shocked Tidwell hadn’t taken it. With Faith clinging to my neck, I twisted my bound hands around, pulling one arm across my back like a contortionist, until I could retrieve it. My dislocated shoulder protested. Pain shot through me until I almost cried out, but I locked on to the phone with thumb and index finger and pulled. Glancing over my hip, I could barely see past Danger and Will. I held it carefully in my shaking hands, scared I’d drop it through the railroad ties to the road below. Then I twisted my head until I could see the screen. It was cracked, but the phone still seemed to work. Faith sat back, balancing on her toes as she liked to do, and kept a hand on my head as though to let me know she was there.
The world had slowed, but my sight was still blurry, my position still twisted enough to make finding Ubie in my contacts difficult. On a scale of one to for-the-love-of-god-this-is-hard, I would’ve given this a twelve. I scrolled to what looked like the U’s and found his name at last. Then, after trying to wipe my eyes on my barely there shirt, I pushed his number, dropped the phone on a railroad tie, and scooted until I could hear him pick up.
“Charley?” he said when I was finally in position. “Did you butt-dial me again?”
His voice caused a wave of relief to rush over me. “Uncle Bob,” I said, my voice cracking and weak.
“Charley, where are you?” He was now on full alert, but I’d started crying.
I rested my head against the metal track and said, “I need —” My voice broke, and it took me a second to recover. “I need you to come get me.”
“I’m on my way. Where are you, pumpkin?”
“At the bridge,” I said, my breath catching in my chest. “But only you, okay? Only you come.”
Faith petted my hair as I tried to stay conscious, the fumes from the gas making me even more light-headed.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, and I heard his engine start in the background.
“I killed a man,” I replied, right before I fell into darkness.
Over the next twenty minutes, I woke at odd intervals. This had to be the least traveled road in all of New Mexico. I could see between the ties, but the only car I saw pass under me was a faded red Pinto with a chicken coop on top. The other times I woke to the sound of crickets or birds’ wings brushing together overhead.
“Charley, talk to me!”
I blinked, tried to clear my head. Uncle Bob was still on the phone, screaming at me. “Okay.”
“I called for a patrol car to meet me out here.”
Shame consumed me as quickly as the flames had. My pants were down. That was all I could think about. My pants were down. “Only you,” I said again, pleading with him.
“I’ll get there first. Whatever has happened, we will deal with it together. But I need to know, do I need to call an ambulance?”
“No. I’m okay.”
“I’m almost there. I can see the bridge. Can you see my headlights?”
I rolled over and almost cried out at the pain. “Yes,” I said.
“What? Charley, where are you?”
I had to endure another roll to get back to the phone. “I’m here. I can see your headlights.”
“Black GMC SUV,” he said, remembering my earlier encounter with that exact same vehicle. “Where are you?” He had slid to a stop and was running now.