She should leave. She had no business being in Baltimore. Her guts shook her from head to toe. Electric shock fizzled in and out of her head while she fought hard to make sense of her predicament. She could book the next flight to San Francisco and lie that she went there for her long overdue surgery. Was she stupid? In a of history, San Francisco was definitely not the preferred place for best treatment. India then? Scratch that, she might as well never escape.

She remembered that she had had not discarded her free flight ticket to Hawaii. But there was a no-go, as snow was disturbing the fine weather all day. Damn winter and Winter.

"They're here ma'am," Penelope, her long forgotten maid blubbered excitedly.

Isla faced the girl with a frown engraved on her lips.

"Stop being so excited. Don't you know it's stupid? And who's here, by the way? Tell the idiots I'm busy. They can come back later or drop their complimentary cards then you can toss them in the trashcan after they leave."

"I'm afraid that won't work, ma'am. It's the feds and they're banging all around this house right at this minute."
Penelope glanced behind her back as she spoke, as though the police would appear there and catch them unawares.

"Search every room in this mansion. We got you, Miss Dehler! Now don't be a coward and come out clean! We know where you're hiding!" A gruff voice hollered in the basement.

"Carry on boys! Go go go! Hurry! That bitch must not escape!"

"Yessir!"

Isla heard, distinctly, ten pairs of adult feet thudding up the staircase. Her knees dissolved to jelly as terror seized her throat with hands of sheer steel, numbing her senses, a cathartic seizure ravaging her bones.

"Penny?"

"Yes ma'am?"

"Get me my keys. Now."

"What kinda__"

"Car keys, you fool! Get me my fucking car keys! Oh God, what am I gonna do? Are you still standing there? Get the fuck out and bring me those keys!"

Penelope scurried to Isla's room in a jiffy, upturned her dresser and found the keys lying under her huge makeup kit. She opened it with trembling fingers, swept her stare over the array of her mistress's lipsticks, eye shadow pallettes, eyeliners, and reached out to take one. Her have froze midair as she considered the culpability of her actions. Assuring herself somehow that Isla would not miss what she would take, she tucked a tube of maroon lipstick she had been eyeing ever since Isla fired the cleaner and she, Penelope, had to tidy up her room.

"Penny! I swear, I'll cut down your pay when I return!"

If you return, Penelope corrected, chuckling to herself.
On a second thought, she grabbed a handful of makeup that she dumped inside her bra.
"And now to see that spoilt brat off," she muttered.

"Penny!"

"Coming!"

She dashed to Isla as if the past few minutes had been dedicated to finding the keys.

"Sorry," she offered a lame apology.

Isla yanked the keys out of her grasp, tucking them in her sweatpants pocket. She did not remove that hand from the pocket.

"Head back downstairs," she barked.

Penelope wondered what went wrong all of a sudden. She was about to question Isla's order for the first time ever, then she saw the unbelievable. Isla was smiling so much that, if her happiness were to be eaten by someone, the person would eat and eat and suffer indigestion.

"Go on, I'm waiting."

Then a sense of foreboding loomed ahead of the maid, came crashing down and drowning her. Isla could, and did count green lines of pressure zigzagging across Penelope's forehead while the rest of her face was washed white, deathly pale. Penelope took trepid steps towards the door, willing her booty to stay calm in her bra.

Isla whistled - a low merciless sound - as she plucked her hand from its hiding place.

"You sneaky little bitch. You're not gonna tattle on me."

And so saying, she pulled the trigger on her silent pistol aimed right at Penelope's skull. She did not have enough human sympathy to behold the fruit of her rash impulses. She uncocked the pistol as she turned around and disappeared through a secret passageway disguised in form of a wall hanging.

"We will find you!"

She heard her pursuers grunting, followed by china smashing, but she wisely paid no heed to them, instead bounding down the passage, two stairs at a time. Isla dared not switch on the numerous lightbulbs hanging above lest, they detect her presence. She missed her foothold at the landing which caused her to trip so, bumped her head on the dusty floor, choking on murky bits of debris churning up her nostrils.

꧁꧂

A trio of police officers sporting beautiful and sexy muscles, lounging outside the mansion, spotted Isla's Ferrari darting away just in time. They jumped into their Ford.

One started the engine while the other barked into his mic, "Agent Thompson Mitchell reporting. Isla Dehler within close range. Sky blue Ferrari, number plates... She's headed downtown. Repeat, Isla Dehler within close range... We need backup asap!"

The last one stayed mute as he rolled down their windows and cocked their machine gun ready to blast. They spilled into Maryland's traffic without warning, after Isla's Ferrari, fishtailing through dangerous bends, winding up tricky cul-de-sacs. She jammed her foot on her accelerator; soaring above 150km per hour. Her tires screeched along the asphalt under immense duress. All of it__ instinct, fear, months of hardcore reckless driving molded into one motion as she skillfully swerved the steering wheel. Hell. Bent. On. Losing the police. Wailing sirens punctuated the atmosphere with their screams as everything went crazy. The Ferrari zoomed in and out of their sight, beat the red and sped on faster than light personified. It taunted them. They reacted by jerking their vehicle forward, barely missing an old woman trying to cross the road on her own.

"No no no," Thompson panted as they were slammed back against their seats.

When they raised their heads, the dust had cleared.

"Where is she?" He asked neither of his colleagues in particular.

"Morons," he moaned when neither answered.

But seriously, was he not a bigger moron?

꧁꧂

She did not stop. Not when bullets from the police smashed her bonnet. Not when her car knocked down a stray cat messing around the road. Not when her phone beeped; a notification from traffic guys directing her to appear in traffic court on or before next Thursday to answer charges pressed against her by the US government for careless driving. Not until she drove and drove until she was careening out of town.

"Damnit, I lost them. I fucking lost them," she sang as she slowed down to a normal speed so she was simply cruising.

She remembered how to breathe again, there, flying past blocks of suburban homes at the first wake of dawn, there, headed for the Mississippi River. She went there oftentimes before, whenever life threatened to blow up her senses or she had had too much shit.

Cool breeze teased her, dancing on her skin. She laughed. It had been a long time since she had last laughed. But she did. After eliminating not-too-innocent Penny, she laughed the laughter of a prisoner set free. For all she knew, there was no returning to Maryland. Not now, not ever. As her tires rolled up the riverbank, she switched off the ignition, undid her seatbelt, and stepped outside. Her toes sank in sharp sand as she watched the sun bloom and rise like God's winter present in the blue horizons dotted by puffs of white clouds pregnant with snow.

"Look at that," she wondered.

"Yeah, it's beautiful."

Isla whizzed out, "What the... You scared the shit out of me."

He narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms. A sour expression doused his looks.

"What are you doing here? Don't tell me you were following me."

"What are you doing here? Don't tell me you were waiting for me."

They moved closer to each other, an act based purely on instinct, shedding their different stories of survival in their weird pasts.

And then she broke down in front of him__ released tears pent up since forever, running into his embrace.
"Te quiero no solo por como eres, sino por como soy yo cuando estoy contigo," he murmured, sniffing her hair.

"Since when did you learn to speak Spanish?"

"There was this jailer in my prison, he'd say this to his wife whenever she brought him lunch at work. I eavesdropped, I memorized it. Because I knew that, someday, I'd be saying it to you."

"Seriously," she chuckled softly.

He missed hearing that, too.

So he held her for a few moments longer, stroking her face with grubby tips of his fingers toughened by three months of fighting off psychotic inmates.

"Can I tell you something?" She asked.

He hummed in reply.

She inhaled deeply before proceeding to say the lines she never thought she would learn.
"I think..."

He ceased kissing the side of her neck for a split second.
"Yeah?"

"I think I love you," she whispered the last part as though it was her deadliest secret.

"I know. I knew it all along."

"Oh God," she turned her face away, looking at everywhere in sight but him.

He leaned in closer, shunning her coyness, and brought her face up to his, those grey eyes burning into hers with keen intensity. She did not wait for him to ask for it. She consummated his lips whole, kissing him feverishly. Luckily for her, he responded with greater eagerness than she, holding her for his dear life as he kissed her own life out of her.

"I love you more than you can ever love me," he confessed.

"Then die with me," she stated matter-of-factly.

He noticed her beholding the overlapping waters of Mississippi. She drew in a wistful sigh which seemed to last longer than an eternity. And she detached herself from his embrace, presently avoiding his dark grey pools of warmth. Raising her hands, she made to take off her pyjama top but he stopped her.

"I get to take these off."

She nodded solemnly like a Catholic before his priest.

He began the ritual of undressing his lifelong best friend. The top went first, of course, unveiling her supple breasts capped off with pink taut nipples. He shuddered at the feel of them being so close up to him. Nonetheless, he focused on his task at hand, loosening her pyjama bottoms. Her stomach clenched involuntarily as his palms played around her waist; shooting upwards to cup both her breasts. She mewled and collapsed against his broad chest that stood there like a rock in a raging storm.

When she was fully nude, she took her turn to undress him as well, feeling every dip and curve of his toned body, loving the way he tensed and hardened under her touch. Linking their hands, they ran the last few feet and dived headlong into Mississippi.

• • • • • • • • • • •
Translation of Spanish: I love you not only because of who you are, but because of whom I have become when I am with you.