A Fierce and Subtle Poison - Samantha Mabry Page 0,73

she stood abruptly.

“Watch it!”

Her arm was outstretched, and around her wrist were two thick leaves, secured in knots. Others were shoved under the straps of her tank top, close to her heart. Despite a line of shallow cuts running across her cheek, Isabel was, of all things, smiling. It was a wan smile on a tired face, but a smile nonetheless. She held up her other wrist, around which were the same leaves tied in the same way.

“Dumb cane!” she exclaimed.

“So, you’ll be all right?” I asked.

Isabel stepped out of the underbrush and into the road. “For now. How about you?”

“I’m okay.” In an attempt to mask the pain, I bit down on the inside of my lip. “Our ride’s wrecked, though.”

Isabel’s eyes shifted to the remains of Rico’s scooter, then to the road ahead.

“So we run,” she said.

So we ran, or at least tried to run, down a road turned to river in the driving rain. I kept my wrist close to my body, because when I let it swing down by my side the pain was unbearable.

Eventually, we turned a corner. Up ahead was the glow of a faint light. The sight of it caused both of us to run faster, kicking up the thick mud and water under our feet.

Soon, what had been just a small light took the shape of a white, luminescent square: a window. Something moved across it. While it could’ve been a palm frond or a coconut falling from one of the trees, I was hoping it was a girl.

The cabin that eventually came into focus was bigger than the one we’d just seen lifted up into the sky and then thrown to the ground. It was sturdier, cobbled together out of large, round stones and bolstered by wooden beams. Rather than standing unprotected in the middle of a field and exposed to the elements, this one was nestled in a kind of alcove, surrounded on three sides by dense trees.

In the road, maybe forty yards in front of the house, was a light blue Mercedes-Benz, the old kind with the hubcaps that boasted the Mercedes symbol and matched the car’s color. As we neared it, Isabel slowed to a stop, taking in the house, the trees, the car.

“He must’ve passed us while we were back at the other cabin. I don’t think the police are coming this way, or else he wouldn’t have put down the spikes. Those were just for us.”

“Maybe, but Mara Lopez tracked me down at some random church in the dead of night, so I doubt a rainstorm and some spikes are going to stop her.”

Isabel dug into her back pocket and held out the damp and mud-splattered note that the woman from Mayagüez had given her.

“Take this,” she said.

“Why? What am I supposed to do with it?”

“Put it with the others. That’s all I did. People need something to put their hope in.” Isabel swallowed and nodded her head as if convincing herself that she was doing the right thing. Stepping forward, she shoved the note into the front pocket of my jeans. “You be the wishing fountain now.”

Without waiting for a reply, Isabel took off toward the house. As she neared one of the front windows, she crouched to peer through it. I took my place beside her. The inside of the house was dark, except for a couple of lanterns burning on small bedside tables. Through the muted light all I could make out were the faint outlines of two beds, much like those in the other cabin, and across the room from those, a long table about the height of a kitchen counter. Everything else was fogged up, dark, and indistinct.

“Lucas,” Isabel hissed. “Mira. Look!” She pointed at the front door. A padlock the size of my fist hung from the handle. Isabel gave it a tug. “He’s nearby or else he would’ve taken his car.”

“I’ll go around the side,” I said, “and see if I can find something we can use to smash the lock.”

I scanned the dark ground around the perimeter of the house. The rain rolled off the roof and steadily dripped from the eaves onto my shoulder. The runoff found a rhythm. It hit harder—more urgently. Then, a blast of cold hit the back of my neck.

I spun around and saw the girl; she was at least six feet away, partially hidden in the shadows of the trees. Her feet were bare and covered in sand; her skin was concrete-gray.