Page 22 of Fighting for Julia (Laguna Beach Cops #6)

GULF SHORES, ALABAMA

AXIS AND AXALIA

Fishing boat captain Moses Pierce spent half his life in military intelligence.

During his long career, he rose through the ranks and earned his stars and stripes as a general.

He was instrumental in preventing global terrorist attacks and apprehending those whose ideologies threatened peace around the world.

When he retired at age fifty-five, he desired a quiet life pursuing his childhood love of fishing.

So, he bought a thirty-five-foot trawler and christened her the Exodus, inspired by his biblical namesake, and started a business taking folks out into the Gulf on pleasure fishing excursions and selling his catch of the day directly to local seafood restaurants.

“You’re boring me.” Axalia waved her gun at him. “So, you’re a fuckin’ hero. If you don’t save my brother’s life, you’ll be a dead one.”

“Lia!” Axis gasped. “We agreed. No more killing.”

“What about Julia? She shot you! Our own sister!”

“I’ll live. Right, Captain Pierce?”

“The bullet went straight through your leg. You’re a lucky young man. But you should have stitched up the wound earlier.” Captain Pierce shoved a needle with thread through the gaping bullet hole.

Axis spoke through gritted teeth. “Couldn’t. Not with cops on our tail.”

“Your sister is a cop, and she shot you?” Captain Pierce asked.

Axalia chuckled. “Not a cop! A DEA agent. Wanna know who her grandfather is?

Gen—”

“Shut up!” Axis barked. “Shut up! Shut up!”

Captain Pierce tied off the last stitch and clipped the thread.

He doused it with rubbing alcohol and covered the wound with a large sterile pad which he secured with paper tape.

He fished antibiotics out of his first aid kit and handed a double dose to Axis, along with a bottle of water.

After her brother’s sharp rebuke, Axalia sulked in a far corner of the cabin, warily watching Captain Pierce.

When the time was right, he would disarm her and kick the fugitives off his boat. Even if she fought back, she wasn’t a match for him. Though nearing sixty, he’d adhered to a strict diet and physical regimen that kept him lean and fit. And the brother wasn’t in any shape to tangle with him.

“All done,” Captain Pierce declared. “Now what?”

“Help me to a bunk. I need to sleep,” Axis ordered.

Captain Pierce half carried the teenager to his twin-sized bed.

“It’s small,” Axis complained.

“What did you expect when you stole aboard? This isn’t a luxury liner.”

“Hey, watch your tone,” Axalia demanded.

“Yeah? What are you going to do about it, little girl?”

Axalia cocked the gun and pointed it at him. “Shoot you.”

“Go ahead. It’s past dawn, and the marina is crawling with other fishing boat captains, crew members, and tourists. When you take that shot, good luck getting off this vessel. Your brother can barely walk.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“Lia, stop it. I have a new plan. Captain Pierce will be taking us to Mexico on his boat. No border guards to worry about. We need him.”

Axalia let out a low, guttural sound of outrage. Not much frightened former general Moses Pierce, but that sound terrified him.

“I need something for pain, Captain Pierce. What do you have on hand?”

“Tylenol.” He twisted off the bottle cap and dumped two tablets into Axis’ hand. After Axis took them, he fell asleep. There wasn’t much room for Axalia, but she stretched out next to her brother and joined him in dreamland.

The gun slipped from her hand.

Captain Pierce grabbed it and stuffed it into the waistband of his old jeans.

He filled a syringe with a powerful sedative he kept in case someone developed severe motion sickness and jabbed the needle into Axalia’s arm.

Her body jerked, then lay still. Quickly, he filled the syringe again and plunged the second dose into Axis’ thigh.

Using zip ties, he secured their hands and feet.

He bolted up to the top deck and started the engine. When Axis and Axalia had stowed away, they had smashed his radio and satellite phone. He’d also been forced to relinquish his cell phone, and it, too, lay smashed to pieces.

As he guided the Exodus into the Gulf, Captain Pierce considered his only option. “So, you want to go to Mexico?” he muttered. “Then, by God, that’s where I’m taking you.”

He could have alerted the authorities, but he’d heard what these siblings had done. It didn’t sound as if the authorities could hold them. Better that he delivered them to whatever fate awaited them in Mexico.

The Exodus was the top of its line and could slice through the water at eighteen knots. Captain Pierce had fifty-five hours to reach Mexico’s closest shoreline. Until then, he’d keep his uninvited guests sedated.

The weather cooperated, and the Exodus crossed the Gulf with ease.

Axis and Axalia slept for the first forty-eight hours with the aid of the sedative.

Captain Pierce locked them below deck and took cat naps.

His military career prepared him well for vigils and surveillance which required him to go without sleep for long periods of time.

Midafternoon two days later, Captain Pierce cut off the engine and idled a mile offshore of the Mexican coast. He figured he had about thirty minutes to abandon his unwanted cargo before the Mexican coastal guards swept the area.

When he unlocked the sliding wooden panel, he heard Axalia’s and Axis’ loud curses.

He descended the stairs, gun drawn. Both were sitting on the bunk, spitting mad like a pair of feral cats.

They shouted obscenities at him. “Get up!” The grandfatherly manner he’d adopted vanished. The siblings struggled to stand.

Captain Pierce grabbed Axis roughly by the arm, and in one swift movement cut the zip ties binding his ankles with a knife he used to fillet fish. He shoved him toward the steps. “Move!”

Axis hobbled up the steps.

Captain Pierce turned his attention to Axalia. “Make a move, and I’ll shoot you and your brother and gut you like a fish.”

Axalia snarled an answer but remained still as he unbound her ankles. “Go!”

Topside, he corralled the siblings close to the railing. The coastline was on their right. “This is the end of the line for you. I hope you can swim.” Before either one could react, he freed Axis’ hands and pushed him overboard.

Axalia screamed, “Axis!”

Captain Pierce cut her loose, but he didn’t have to push her.

She jumped into the water. He leaned over the railing and yelled, “If you make it to shore, get to a hospital! There’s flesh-eating bacteria in these waters.

That is, if the sharks don’t get to you first!

Adios!” He started the engine, turned the Exodus around, and sped away, churning white water behind him.

“I hope you drown, you murderous pair of monsters.”

“I’m s…s…so c…cold.” Axalia’s teeth chattered as she tread water. “Not…not gonna make it, Axis. G…g…go on…without me.” She slipped beneath the chilly waves.

“Lia!” Axis inhaled a deep breath and dove under water to search for his sister.

Though tired and weak, he summoned the energy to drag Axalia to the surface after he spotted her floating a few feet away.

“C’mon, Lia! Stay with me. We can do this!”

Axalia coughed up the water in her lungs and gasped for air.

Axis held her head above water with his remaining strength. “Look, Lia! The shore is no farther than the length of a football field. We can do this, but you have to help me. Please. We’re so close.”

“I… c…can’t.”

“You have to!” Axis cried. “If you don’t, we’ll both drown. Remember what Mama and Papa taught us. We’re Andersons. We’re strong. We were born to the revolution. And we don’t quit. Ever! Now kick your legs and help me!”

Drawing upon their last reserves of energy, the siblings thrashed and kicked their way toward land. The Gulf spit them out, and they lay on the warm sand of the beach, heaving and gasping from their exertion until they lost consciousness.

Axalia’s furious screams roused Axis to wakefulness. Rough hands hauled him to his feet. His head spun, and his stomach roiled with nausea. Sharp foreign voices snarled something at him in Mexican. A hard fist connected with his jaw.

“Leave him alone!” Axalia shouted. She squealed when one of the men backhanded her.

As if part of a hive mind, something snapped inside Axis and Axalia.

Adrenaline flooded their veins. Their psyches clicked with dark, violent images from their intense brainwashing, and their bodies reacted.

They struck swiftly. Silently. Unexpectedly.

As one entity. In less than a minute two of the four men who had accosted them lay dead, the third was bleeding out through his carotid artery, and the fourth, seriously injured but not near death, found himself in a chokehold. Axis could break his neck with ease.

The terrified man faced Axalia. She punched him in the gut and declared in Spanish, her voice calm and leaden, “We’re going to fucking kill you unless…you take us to General Jorge Escobar.”

His eyes grew wide with abject fear. He trembled. “No! No!”

Axis cut off the man’s air supply. “Try again.”

“Sí! Sí!”

“That’s better.”

Axalia picked up a pair of handguns that belonged to the dead men. She gave one to her brother who jammed the barrel into his hostage’s back.

“Move!” Axis commanded.

They shuffled toward an old dune buggy. All the men wore uniforms that indicated they were Mexican border patrol officers.

Axis forced the man to climb behind the wheel and took the seat next to him.

He kept his gun pointed at the officer’s side.

In the back seat, Axalia pressed her gun against the man’s head.

“Don’t try anything,” she warned him. “Or I’ll blow your brains out.”

“How far is General Escobar’s compound?” Axis asked.

“R…rough…thirty-five k…kilometers,” their hostage stuttered in broken English.

“So, you do understand English.”

“Sí.”