Uncaged Read online

  Uncaged

  Paige Notaro

  Table of Contents

  PART ONE: Genesis

  Chapter One: Andre

  Chapter Two: Georgia

  Chapter Three: Georgia

  Chapter Four: Georgia

  Chapter Five: Georgia

  Chapter Six: Georgia

  Chapter Seven: Georgia

  PART TWO: Revelation

  Chapter Eight: Andre

  Chapter Nine: Georgia

  Chapter Ten: Georgia

  Chapter Eleven: Georgia

  Chapter Twelve: Georgia

  Chapter Thirteen: Georgia

  PART THREE: Salvation

  Chapter Fourteen: Andre

  Chapter Fifteen: Georgia

  Chapter Sixteen: Georgia

  Chapter Seventeen: Georgia

  Chapter Eighteen: Georgia

  Chapter Nineteen: Georgia

  PART FOUR: Exodus

  Chapter Twenty: Andre

  Chapter Twenty-one: Georgia

  Chapter Twenty-two: Georgia

  Chapter Twenty-three: Georgia

  Chapter Twenty-four: Georgia

  Chapter Twenty-five: Georgia

  Thanks!

  Other Novels

  Copyright

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or copied without the express written consent of the author. This book is licensed for personal use only.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  ©2014

  Paige Notaro

  Cover Design: © L.J. Anderson

  Mayhem Cover Creations

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to my loving family who suffer through my long silences and then sudden bursts of excitement as I’m about to publish.

  It is dedicated to my friends and fellow authors without whom I would have never gotten half as far in twice as much time

  Most of all it is dedicated to you, dear reader. I am truly honored by your kind words and outpourings of emotions. Thank you for reading!

  1

  Genesis

  “Every act of creation is first an act of destruction.” - Pablo Picasso

  CHAPTER ONE

  Andre

  The fight was over and my hands dripped red with victory.

  The Mexican guy across the dirt arena still stood, sure. He still had his taped fists up, but it was just for show. His eyes were blinking faster than needed to clear out the sweat and blood. I’d given him the chance to surrender and he had just mumbled gibberish back. He probably didn't even know where he was anymore.

  I hung back and waited, using the time to survey the kingdom I had retained this night. The crowd growled and hollered around me, seized by the fury they’d witnessed. The light outside the arena was dim, but my senses were amped by the adrenaline and I could see faces lined up along the risers. Most of the spectators wore street clothes - stained t-shirts or wife beaters and jeans - but the VIP section was full of men in suits and ties. Both types had animal looks on their faces. They smelled the copper scent of the blood dripping into the dirt.

  These men weren't fighters like me. They were straight-up killers from the Cartel, and they could see the end coming. Chain-link steel fenced me and my opponent in, the walls curving together overhead like a clenched fist. There was no way out.

  My opponent came at me, slow, as if he could sneak up. I let him take a swing, but his fist moved like molasses. I ducked and jammed my elbow into his stomach. He doubled over, but he didn't fall.

  Go down, dumbass. Don't make me paralyze you. This crowd would love that, but I wasn’t planning on giving it to them.

  He came again and I slammed the breath out of his lungs before shoving him back viciously. Half the crowd screamed for death. You could never tell when blood lust would drive one of these people mad. The armed arena guards would enact swift retribution if that ever happened, so I’d only seen it once. A lieutenant had pulled a gun out and taken a couple shots at the guy I was fighting. He’d been having a bad day, but it got a lot worse when two guards emptied their clips into him.

  It wasn’t pretty, but I liked what it meant: you might run a brutal drug empire throughout Mexico, but in this room, only I could pass judgment.

  The guy came flailing uselessly again. I weaved in under his grip, hugged him and kneed his kidney. He wailed and sank to the ground, swaying before me like a failed subject. Lucky for him, I was a forgiving ruler. It wasn't his fault he was no match. No one ever was.

  I pushed the top of his head, and he ran into the ground like it had called his name.

  A roar ripped through the arena. Men rose, clapping and swearing praise. I stalked around the cage prowling up at the faces, meeting one set of eyes after another. Most turned away, but a few higher levels returned stern approval. Ortega Garcia – head enforcer. Angel Torre - chief legal counsel. Hector Morales – collector and nephew to the Lieutenant that had brought me in. Mexico knew these faces in its nightmares, but for all the murders they had ordered or carried out themselves, they knew I was strong in a way they could never be. They feared me. It was the only currency that really mattered in Juarez.

  A small, gnawing part of me asked: Is this the fame you dreamed of? Respect from murderers?

  I saw some Anglo faces in the VIP section. Politicians, maybe, or business partners from across the border who wanted a taste of danger out here in the middle of the desert. Many of the VIPs came with female companions who sat silent and bored, at least until I found their eyes. Then they came alive in soft appraisal: a few shy smiles, a few parted lips. They might have been dragged here, but they were still women. Seeing me awakened their animal desires too - quite different from those of the men. Even under my heat and sweat a new kind of warmth started to burn at my core. It always did after a fight.

  Soon, someone would come and unlock the arena door. I would shake a few hands, get patted a few times, maybe be introduced to a couple people by my patron. Then I could wash up, drive back to the city and find a nice girl with a thin waist and a plump chest to take my fight to the bedroom.

  Not an American tourist. Tonight I would look like more danger than they'd come across the border to find. Besides, it was a not a night to think about my past. I needed a girl that had lived with violence, who was indifferent to men who committed it. A girl of Juarez.

  I was lost in my plans when I landed on the face of one last woman. She was young and Anglo ,with shoulder-length blond hair. She sat under the arm of a red-faced fat man, whose eyes I could feel burning into me from next to her. Her face stood pale, like the moon in the darkness of the crowd and her eyes shone like emeralds. Her mouth was open, but not in lust or shock. She looked sad. Concerned.

  "Is this who you are?" that look seemed to ask.

  No, that was just my own voice again. She didn't even know me. But there was something in that face that made me want to ask what she saw. I couldn't tear myself away.

  Her eyes popped open and her mouth widened into a silent scream. I had a moment of confusion and then I heard the whish of air behind me. I twisted my head, just as metal whipped past my neck.

  The guy I'd knocked out sliced the air again. I sunk back, but not enough to keep the blade from notching my cheek. It stung, not with pain - the adrenaline blocked that - but with annoyance. This fucker could not learn a lesson.

  My back was against the fence as he slashed a third time, but I was ready. I nudged the thrust past my side and twisted his wrist till he screamed and dropped the knife. I popped him right in the eye. He staggered back and I scoo
ped up his blade. Clenching it in my fist, I punched him again. His head rattled back, but he stood standing, too gone to even fall.

  The crowd's screams churned the air. They rattled the benches and stomped the concrete floor. Death – that’s what they wanted. No one would bat an eye if I dealt it. Blades had to be agreed on beforehand and a man that broke his word deserved to be broken upon it.

  You don’t kill.

  I repeated the mantra and my own rage died. It was the line I couldn’t cross, even in the midst of this darkness. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t give him a concussion. I sighted my fist on his temple.

  Then I thought of the girl at my back, watching what I would do. I slammed a palm into the man’s sternum and he crumpled to the floor. His chest moved, but that was it.

  Men were swearing at me now, but I turned around and looked for the one reaction I cared about tonight.

  She was gone. The ruddy Anglo businessman was clapping and nodding his head, but the space next to him was just blank, dark, lifeless.

  Whatever. I threw the knife away and walked over to the cage door. I didn't know who that girl was, but she didn't belong here anyway. What did it matter if she couldn’t handle what she saw? There were a million others who would love feasting on my dangerous body, and one or two would get that chance tonight.

  I studied the dark blood on my even darker knuckles. These were powerful hands. They needed to be around a strong woman, not a weak one.

  ****

  Georgia. Weak.

  Funny how I ever put those two words together. Of course, I hadn’t even learned her name yet.

  How could I have known she was the girl that would set me free.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Georgia

  "Are you sure we didn't pass it already?"

  "Listen. How many times have you driven to San Antonio?"

  "Uh, none."

  "How many times have you visited Texas?"

  "None."

  "So maybe you can just trust I know where I'm going?"

  "Fine." I fell back into my seat. "I'm just excited. I've never come anywhere near here."

  Teresa looked over from the driver's side, her hair black against the setting sun. She gave me a one over. "Don't worry, sweetie. It ain't going nowhere. "

  Her perfect teeth lit up in a grin and she turned away. I could hardly believe that this girl would call herself my friend. Even after days of driving, she looked so pretty and full of life. Her skin glowed as bright as the desert we were racing through.

  I mushed my face on the window and looked at the empty land rolling past. A couple sharp edged mountains rose here and there, but mostly it was flat. Teresa said life thrived in its own way out here, but I couldn’t see how. There were no forests or creeks in sight and nothing moved but a few hawks far overhead. People had survived in the middle of this. They'd built cities from this empty land, and I was going to start a new life in one of them.

  Far away from the cold, miserable place that had been home.

  Music was blasting through the car, a loud vibrant Spanish mix that suited this place and had Teresa swaying along as she drove. I'd only started to hear that sort of music a couple months ago, after I’d moved to New York, but I liked the way it made the air pulse with power. I wanted to move to it, but there was no way I would look as smooth and elegant as Teresa. I didn't want to make her regret having such a clumsy and talentless girl around.

  We drove for a dozen more minutes that seemed the same as the dozens and dozens before. Teresa started to hum along to the radio. I wondered if she liked the song that much or if she were just trying to stay awake. I'd offered to take over. I had no license, but the roads here were straight and flat, so I just had to keep the wheel in one place. How hard could that be?

  Teresa wasn't willing to risk it. "La policía," she'd said. "I don't want them stopping us. Don’t worry, mami. The car’s got its fuel. I got mine." She chugged another energy drink, her third of the day. This was another ability that I couldn’t match. I'd tried half of one the day before and been up most of the night at the hotel.

  We passed another sign on the other side of the road. I craned my head back to check. San Antonio: 450 miles.

  The distances were definitely going up. But I didn't bother Teresa. Maybe it was a different San Antonio. Back in New York, she'd told me that there was a town in Texas called Paris. If there could be two places called Paris then why not two San Antonios? Texas was so freaking huge. We'd entered the state yesterday and we were still driving through.

  I chilled my cheek on the window and tried to savor all the memories from the trip. The first couple days of the drive, we'd gone through two, sometimes three states each day. 19 years I'd spent in one little corner of Massachusetts and now two months after escaping to New York I was rushing through states just a few hours a pop. The memories all blurred together. Corn fields and grass fields and barns and small town and towering cities. None were as big as New York, but all were still so different from home.

  Home. I mouthed the word. It was easier to say now that I was heading towards a new one. I didn't even feel angry or sad or disgusted at myself for enduring what I had for so long. Maybe I was just tired. I rubbed my leg and grinned privately at the bare skin of my knee, where the jeans cut off. My arms were bare to match. It was necessary out in the heat of this place, but still, it felt like victory. If Father could see what his obedient daughter had on right now, he would pull out the belt and lay angry red welts on every inch of bare skin I had. Ma would even bother to contain that rage.

  Well, no belt was long enough to reach me here. The blotched purple from that final lashing couldn’t even be seen anymore. I’d looked like a zebra for a while, the whips a punishment for kissing one of the few neighbor boys. I knew it wasn’t right –that’s why I finally ran away, but it wasn’t till I got to New York that I realized how strange my life had been. I’d found work at a restaurant almost at the edge of the city, which was about all I was qualified to do after 18 years of meager home schooling. It’d given me a chance to listen to the other girls my age talk about all the past boyfriends they’d had and all the different types of sex they were being asked to do. I didn’t have anything to say, but I listened and soaked it in like one of the sponges I cleaned dishes with.

  New York City life had been a real education, but it was too much to take in. Everything was so tall. Everyone moved so fast, said so much and sounded so angry. This was the real world, but it didn't have any space for someone small like me to bloom.

  That's why San Antonio had sounded so beautiful. When Teresa had bought me a beer one day and told me about the place her family lived, it sound incredible: warm all year round, rich with history, but also full of families and and friendly people. I’d known her barely a couple weeks, but when she offered me a ride down, I had to take a chance. Even other than New York’s crazy pace, I could never shake the fear that I hadn’t run far enough. I needed to make sure my old home stayed in the past, and 10 states worth of distance sounded a like a much safer bet.

  Lights peppered the horizon ahead. I'd learned enough on this trip to know that a constellation this size meant city.

  "Is that it?" I asked. "Are we there?:

  "Almost." Teresa sighed. "Almost."

  Time stretched as we moved in closer. Small warehouses started to appear along the road, then big plants and parking lots and factories and side roads leading off to blocks of houses. The traffic thickened and the buildings grew more dense. I tried to read all the new store names we passed, but a lot of the signs weren't in English. Spanish, I guessed. A lot of people around here were from Mexico like Teresa’s family, so the signs were there to help them. Teresa asked if I could understand any of it, and I had to confess I didn't, expecting the worst. But she had flashed that glamorous smile and told me that was just fine.

  We passed a giant sign with more Spanish, but there was English above it: ‘Welcome to El Paso.’

  "This isn't S
an Antonio." I could hear my own voice deflate.

  "We're close," Teresa said. "Just gotta pick up my cousin here first."

  The city heights twinkled further down the highway, but we pulled off and turned a few times into a street lined with houses. They were all so big here, bigger than even the barn back on the farm. We stopped in front of one and Teresa dialed a number on her sleek black phone. I couldn’t wait to buy one those for myself.

  Teresa started murmuring something smooth in Spanish on her phone, though it also sounded a bit angry. I went through my moving checklist in my head:

  Get job. Get apartment. Get phone. Get phone numbers to put in phone.

  Teresa had offered me a room for a while, but I didn’t want to use up her hospitality. I didn’t have much money though, so I needed to fix that first.

  Teresa finished talking and patted my hip. "How are you?" she asked. “Hungry? Thirsty?"

  "Both." Lunch seemed like hours ago, and we’d even run out of water. “How about you? You're the one who’s driving."

  "I'm fine, don't worry." Her gaze passed me.

  A guy in loose jeans was running down the driveway. He was lean and had a red baseball cap on backwards. He looked nothing like Teresa.

  She popped the locks and he climbed in behind us.

  "Hey papi," she said, leaning back and planting a kiss on his cheek.

  It was sweet and I loved that they could be so close, but I felt my own cheeks go red.

  "This the girl?" the guy asked.

  "Yes, this is Georgia Mayes."

  He studied me with dark eyes, like I was something to buy in a store. But I couldn't be rude. I smiled. "Hi."

  "Hey," he said. "I brought something for the ride. You girls thirsty?" He held up a water bottle.

  Teresa shoved it away. "Come on. You know I gotta drive. Georgia, you have some."