Chapter Text
For the sixth time in the last minute, Sean heard the idle slapping noise of Daniel playing with his rubber wristband. A sound accompanied by the gentle rolling of their car down the unkempt desert road; which so far had characterised his journey through Mexico. Three long hours the boys had been on the road, heads twisting left to right at any foreign assault on their ears; cars occasionally whizzing past them, the distant buzz of a desolate motel sign, or a singular bleak bird’s cry from above. To say that it had been an awkward, slow ride was an understatement. The boys had stopped once only for a bathroom break on the side of a sizzling rock; not that they weren’t used to the heat, but they preferred the still slightly functional breeze of Karen’s air-conditioned car. Sean looked ahead; miles and miles, focusing on the horizon line. Nothing. He had passed a few small towns, but strategically avoided them due to the incident at the border being fresh in his mind; the anxiety had not stopped once they’d crossed the wall.
He recalled a drawing exercise he used to do; taught by his art teacher in seventh, eighth grade? He didn’t remember the details, which was precisely the exercise. A learning curve in perspective, he was tasked to draw a rolling plains from the perspective of a road; to watch the condensation of the foliage into the distance on which his eyes could no longer focus, to sketch inwards, draw the power lines, the sunset, whatever his mind could play with in the scenery.
“Sean?” Came a familiar, yet startling voice from his right-hand side. He did not take his eyes off the road, before the follow-up came. “Do you think that… Dad would be okay with what we- what I did? At the border?”
Sean was glad he hadn’t made eye-contact. The bitter regret in Daniel’s words personified a shift from a child to more of an adult. The weight of the consequences of his actions sunk in; embedded like the stink of cigarette smoke in Karen’s junker, and as he often couldn’t, Sean failed to find an answer within the stunted reach of his mind. Too much had happened that day, it was too hot to think, and so he shook his head dismissively.
“I don’t know Daniel.” He let a sigh escape his nostrils. “We… we did what we had to do. That’s always been the case, right?”
His younger companion shifted about in his seat a little uncomfortably; Sean had let him take his seatbelt off for the journey, as at this point, it didn’t really matter after all they’d done.
“Yeah, I know. I just miss him, Sean… Why couldn’t he be here with us, today? He always said we’d see Mexico one day, but I didn’t know he meant alone.” That sentence struck terror into Sean’s heart; Daniel’s accelerated maturity, his desire to have his dad back, his appreciation for who his younger brother was all coalesced into some form of melancholic feeling. As he felt his lips pursing and eyes welling up with tears, he looked back at his brother for the first time, sacrificing his view on the road to see Daniel, also whimpering a little and looking dejectedly at the road ahead.
“I miss him too, Enano. I’m sorry… You deserved to have him here with you…” Sean pondered for a moment, thinking about Daniel’s current state of mind, before continuing; “But hey… you know if Dad was here, you wouldn’t get to ride shotgun, and he’d make you wear a booster seat or something.”
“Shut up, I-“ Daniel began, before Sean cut him off by shooting his hand towards his little brother and jabbing him in the stomach with his fingers, tickling him mercilessly.
“And he’d play his music and sing super loud!” Sean laughed, gritting his teeth through tears and forming his best impression of Esteban. “¡Y al fin te encontré!” It was so hard to fight back the urge to cry.
“Aah- Stop! Dad wouldn’t be an asshole and tickle me!” Daniel pleaded between a flurry of giggles, kicking his legs hysterically against the dusty dashboard.
“Daniel, careful! Or you’re gonna knock the door off and fall out! I don’t know if Karen’s car can take you bashing against it.” He laughed, ceasing his assault for now, looking down at his little brother. “You know? I think Dad would be proud of us. We haven’t done too bad out here.”
“I hope so…” Daniel smiled cautiously. The two didn’t want to birth a celebratory energy, but it was impossible to remember hours earlier, being cornered at the border.
“Hey, even if Dad wouldn’t be? I’m proud of you dude. You got us through.”
“Thanks, Sean. But you did too.”
The two exchanged warm grins, and Sean fixated his eyes back on the road; the atmosphere within the car feeling a little less stagnant and awkward now. Driving Karen’s car had given him some much-needed levity over his situation. Rolling over miles upon miles of desert and cacti put his mind at ease. How could the police find him in such a vast expanse? Truly, the desert was like a wasteland; overgrown with encrusted foliage which looked like it hadn’t seen moisture since it had grown. Quirky critters littered the wastes, shovelling sand and scampering about their homeland. Sean had recently come to the realisation that despite losing his father in Seattle, despite losing his eye in Humboldt, his mother in Arizona, the world had not stopped turning. Animals still filled their burrows with plentiful food, the cooling veil of night still swept over him; the stars finding their way to the wolf brothers every night. After everything that had happened, life could still go on. Sean still had nightmares; troubled thoughts. He had issues with making peace with some of his decisions.
The image of Lisbeth down the barrel of his gun, her defiant yells, then… as if by mere automatism, the deafening bang and subsequent ringing in his ears… He aimed for her chest, but got her in the stomach instead. God, he wished he had aimed higher. Then perhaps the woman wouldn’t have looked up in him in such pain as she did. She gargled, as if a sound wanted to come out, but it couldn’t; drowning in her own thick, hot blood. It haunted Sean. White-hot, blinding fear had shot through his veins. He still hadn’t deciphered whether the church was so swelteringly hot from the fire, but… it felt as if he had began to burn alive in that moment. Taking a glance at his younger brother, he had not easily forgotten the moment, and had been somewhat wary of Sean for days after, like a rose bent in place, Sean would have a hard time recovering and tried to focus his mind away from the church. It wasn’t like he could talk to anybody about it, or go to therapy. It festered in his mind like a rotting corpse under thin soil; veiled in a conundrum of his mind’s inner workings. Had he refused to acknowledge the possibility of sparing her due to rage? It had caused him to doubt the Seattle incident; had he really killed the officer in a blind rage, as the officer had suggested? No. Those were insane thoughts. It was Daniel’s power, surely? Surely…
Almost in a trance-like state, it took a distant wail to permeate Sean’s thoughts, and he was brought back to reality, with Daniel sitting on his knees in the passenger seat, turned around and looking out of the back of the car.
“Sean! It’s the cops!”
Craning his neck and placing a hand on Daniel’s shoulder to leverage himself, Sean noticed the distant sirens of the car. They were the only ones on the road, alone. The midday heat was burning on Sean’s palms like a trickle of molten sun; sweat running down the back of his neck. All of the general anxiety he had been feeling throughout the day condensed into an immediate fear of the car that loomed around ten feet behind him. He began to panic, slamming his foot onto the pedal and keeping watch behind him. The car was definitely for him.
“S-Sean… I can get rid of them. I’ll throw their car off the road, or shatter the glass, o-or just… crush them. Please, I know I can do this.”
“Shit…” Sean whispered to himself, his eyes flickering up between his wing mirror and the road ahead. Of course, this could just be a routine check. But… he wasn’t entirely sure. There was no way of telling. He couldn’t outpace the roaring Chevrolet behind him in this old junker, and it was only a matter of time before evading was no longer an option. He had to act. Quick. Now. Fast. The car was getting closer. Distance closing.
“I’m going to do it!” Daniel yelled, holding his arm back in preparation to thrust it forward, before Sean grabbed his hand and held it, shaking his head wildly from side-to-side and pleading.
“No, no Daniel. Don’t do it. We’ll pull over and see what they want… But if we need to, we’ll do it. Okay? Just… wait until I give you the signal.” Sean reassured him, letting go of Daniel’s arm as it slowly slumped against its side.
“Sean! They could shoot us! Look at what nearly happened this morning!”
“I know! I know Daniel… Sean trembled, slowly starting to decelerate and pull over to the side of the road. “Just… please trust me on this.” And thankfully, he did. The smaller Diaz slowly slid down his chair, huffing quietly in protest. Sean finally drew the car to a halt on the bumpy desert sand, and rolled down the driver window as the sirens turned off, a heavy-set officer stepping out, with a large pistol at his belt, and a small scanner-looking device. He glanced to Sean, and then to Daniel, and back to Sean again as he approached the window, bending down in his large frame.
“Hola.” He began. “Are you aware of why I stopped you today?”
Sean hesitated; any answer could break his cover… the cop could draw his gun at any moment. “N-No sir.”
“I’ll tell you why. Do you not see the signs? Ninety kilometres per hour. You know how much you were doing? No. You don’t. You were doing a hundred and three exactly. Suppose you’d have hit somebody.”
“Sir…” Sean began. “There’s nobody and nothing on the road for miles. I’m sorry, I must’ve just missed the sign. I’m sorry.”
The officer looked at him and then focused his vision to Daniel. “And you’re driving with a kid in the car too? Wait- without a damn seatbelt? I don’t know which parts you come from, friend, but around here, we run things tightly with this… Too many accidents going on, and you’re contributing to the endangerment of it all.” He said, with a stern face. “Get out of the car, and give me your license.”
Sean hesitated; the dry, dusty breeze which swept through the car helping to remove the sweat from his palms a little, before pretending to rummage about in the passenger seat compartment for the license. His fingers stumbled across his ID, would this be of much use? He didn’t have his driver’s license yet. Sure, he’d been on drives with Esteban, but he couldn’t drive under the law. Daniel looked at him cautiously, gesturing to his hand and tilting his head inquisitively. Sean shook his head.
“Not yet Daniel. It’s because we were over the speed limit.”
“Ah Christ, and you’re from Arizona too? You know that the road laws are different once you cross, right? Just… hurry up.”
He sighed, gently swinging the door open and stepping out into the blazing sun; hot like a heat lamp.
“Sorry, officer. I don’t have my license. I must have forgot it at home. But I have my state ID from Seattle.” The dishevelling disappointment which spread across the officer’s face was not much of a surprised to Sean, as he bowed his head in shame. Suddenly, Sean was met with a sharp finger in his face, the officer moving him backwards to inspect the interior of the car, upon which his large brusque hands stumbled into the half-open compartment box, where he pulled out a number of items. His Puerto Lobos lighter, and a small bundle of paperwork; their letters from Claire and Stephen, Jacob, Cassidy… His gruff countenance studied these items briefly, and he seemed thoroughly unphased. He sighed a long sigh, looking up at Sean.
“Shame you had to be from the United States. I can’t exactly get you on a ticket while you’re here, it would be too hard to enforce, so you get off easy today. But drive like that around here again, and I swear, I’ll rough you up myself. Show you what it’d be like for a law-defying jackass like you to get into a real accident.” The ostentatious man grumbled, stuffing Sean’s letters and his lighter back into his hands, when suddenly, a small card fell out of the pile, just his ID card. The officer picked it up and studied it once more, looking back at Sean and at the image again.
“Why did you lose your eye?” He inquired, the tone of audible suspicion in his thick accent.
“Accident.” Sean muttered, “In California.”
“Quite the traveller. Arizona plates, Seattle ID, lost your eye in Calif-…”
Suddenly, it was as if the wind had dropped, and the entire wilderness had fallen silent.
“Sean Diaz.”
Sean swallowed, nodding up at the man, who easily towered at above six feet tall. “Sean Diaz. That’s me.” The guard immediately held up his piece of equipment, the scanner to Sean’s ID, and heard three loud beeps, almost like an alert. The guard proceeded to lay a firm hand on Sean’s shoulder, and hold the scanner to his face, the same three beeps sounding again. At first, his slacked jaw became even more agape, but after a while, he simply laughed breathlessly, his face lighting up as if coming to some sort of wild epiphany.
“Sean Diaz. Wanted double-murderer, terrorist, vandal, and illegal immigrant.” He smirked widely, stepping towards Sean even further and baring his teeth slightly.
“Please… We just want to be free-“ He begged. “That kid, in the car? That’s my brother. He’s been through hell… Whatever the American Police have told you guys, it isn’t worth sending us back. This entire time, all I’ve done is protect my brother. I haven’t always made the right choices, and I know how bad this looks… But we’re just kids. I don’t know what you want from me, but please, have some humanity dude… Let us go free.”
The officer took a brusque advance; stepping forward onto Sean’s toes and crushing them in his boots. He let a stark scowl emerge from his otherwise maliciously evil countenance. Sean shuddered.
“Give me one reason I shouldn’t just shoot you right here, gringo. We don’t want your dirty crimes here. Those can stay in the USA. Say I gunned you down here. What are you gonna do? What’s your brother gonna do? You’re unarmed, and in the middle of nowhere.”
Sean nodded. “Unarmed. No weapon. We pose no threat to you, or to Mexico. Our dad lived here, before everything. Before us. We want to go to his hometown, settle down, and live our lives in peace.” He felt a surge of panic enter his bowels; butterflies igniting his stomach. Had this all been for nothing? He’d fled the USA to flee conviction, but now, things were just the same.
The large man placed a fat finger on Sean’s chest, forcing him backwards and stepping even closer towards him. Were it not for his aggressive nature, Sean would be sure the man was flirting with him.
“Empty your backpack. Money, anything valuable. And we will talk about what can be done for your sorry situation, criminal.”
A sudden power found it’s way into Sean’s voice. He had braved staring down the barrel of Merrill’s shotgun, of the white-hot rage of hundreds of bullets being fired towards him at the border. This would not be how he was caught. He had to act, fast. Protect Daniel. The idea of him being alone in a foreign country should anything happen to Sean was unbearable. He turned around to his brother and nodded.
“My brother will get the bag for you. Touch a hair on his head, and I swear I’ll fucking kill you.” Sean barked, not bothering to wait for permission as his younger brother exited the car, meekly making his way towards the officer and Sean, his eyes questioning and attentive, as if constantly waiting for a signal to use his power. Sean gently shook his head to indicate for him to wait, his ruffled hair swishing around his head.
“Daniel, I need you to ‘Get our bags’ Sean uttered to his brother, holding Daniel’s shoulder firmly. “When you ‘Give him the bags’, be sure there’s nothing in there that would hurt him too badly, okay? We don’t want to do that. We just want to ‘Give him our bags’ and he’ll let us go.”
He took a look at the officer. “See? He’ll get the shit for you.” And as if instantly, Daniel tightened his wrist and flung it out, grabbing the officer in a tense chokehold with his gift, and dragging him up from his feet. Sean instinctively rushed forward and grabbed the gun from his side-holster while the man tried to desperately grasp away at his neck. Safety off, already loaded.
“Remember what I said, Enano. Don’t kill him or hurt him too bad. We don’t want this shit out to get us, right?”
The younger Diaz nodded tentatively, as if there was some cognitive dissonance going on. He was clearly desiring more out of this.
“Sean… what do I do with him?”
“Let him down.”
And so he did. Daniel held no care for the officer’s comfort as he dropped the burly man to his knees, panting and perplexedly looking between the two brothers, who stood confidently, Sean with his gun in hand. The officer took a step towards Daniel, as if trying to grasp at him, yet stopped immediately upon the older Diaz holding the pistol at arm’s length, trained on the man’s blubbered chest, ready to fire.
“Get back, o-or I swear, I’m going to blow your head off!” Sean remarked in English through gritted teeth. He wanted to be firm in his demands, lest there be another repeat of Lisbeth disobeying his gun threat. The officer surprisingly put his hands in the air; the familiar trembling of his bottom lip becoming his dominant act, the fear obvious to Sean. He cocked the gun and took a step backwards towards the car as the officer still struggled to regain his panicked breath.
“I want you to drive the other way to us.” Came the autonomous demands from Sean’s mouth, his jaw agape with anger and his entire body tensed, as if it could snap at any moment. “And never, ever mess with the Wolves again. Got it?” A pang of rage coursed through Sean’s limbs, an overwhelming sentiment of anger which threatened to consume his body at any moment, forcing him to pull the trigger and end this man’s life. But he resisted it. For both Daniel, and for himself. He pocketed the gun into his belt and gestured to the car. Having no caution not to touch the boiling metal of the car, Sean entered the driver’s seat, and despite the guard’s reason for stopping them, tore off well above the speed limit, and without a seatbelt in sight.
And so the journey continued, to Puerto Lobos, and beyond.