Page 20 of South of Justice

She wasn’t planning to die at all.

Lucía’s thighs were on fire. The air had thinned somewhere near the last switchback, and every breath now felt like inhaling through fabric. The trail—if it even could be called that—was little more than a fading animal track, threadingthroughweeping pines. Mercifully, though, the heat had fallen away as soon as the road climbed.

She paused to catch her breath, hands on her knees, the sound of blood rushing in her ears louder than the wind in the trees. Above her, the pines stretched in jagged silhouettes against the sky. Below, a sheer drop vanished into mist and shadows.

“This is insane,” she muttered.

She had a compass. She had Ramiro’s map, which she was grasping like it was the last page in a holy book. But what she didn’t have was balance, or trail sense, or boots that didn’t feel like they were trying to eat her toes. The pack on her shoulders was too heavy, the ghost laptop inside thudding against her back with every step.

She started moving again, slower now, scanning the rocks for anything that slithered. The last village was miles behind her, and she hadn’t seen another person since leaving the narrow dirt road where she’d stashed her motorbike under a fallen tree. It hadn’t been much, just a battered red Italika with one good brake. She’d paid a teenager in the village a few hundred pesos for a “test ride” he didn’t expect her to return from. But when the trail got too steep, she’d had to abandon the bike and tackle the rest of the way on foot.

She stumbled. Her foot caught on a root, pitching her forward. She twisted just in time to avoid face-planting into a patch of thorns and slammed her hip into the dirt instead. Pain flared. She hissed through her teeth and stayed there for a moment, heart hammering.

Then she saw it.

Not a meter away, in the dappled light: a snake. Curled at the base of a rock. Copper-brown, thick-bodied, motionless, but very, very awake.

Lucía froze. She wasn’t an expert, but she knew enough. Not bright-colored. No rattling. Silent, serious. Maybe a pit viper. Maybe just a local species sunning itself. But she wasn’t about to take a vote.

Slowly, inch by inch, she shifted her weight back, using her elbows to push herself upright.

The snake never moved.

Neither did she, until it finally slipped, silently, back into the underbrush, as if dismissing her.

Lucía stood, shaking now for a different reason. Her legs itched with sweat and nerves. Her hands were dirty. A pine needle was stuck to her cheek.

“Tech support, my ass,” she muttered. “I’m not built for this.”

She kept going. Cicadas pulsed somewhere high in the branches, a constant metallic hum that rose and fell with the wind.

Another half-hour passed before she saw the roof. It peeked through the trees like a mirage, corrugated metal, rusted in patches, sagging slightly to one side. The cabin was half-hidden in a natural crease in the hillside, a blessing from the terrain. She approached slowly, watching for signs of recent activity. There were none.

The door creaked when she pushed it open. Inside: one room, musty and dark. A wood stove. A rickety table. A cot with a mildewed mattress. Spiderwebs in the corners. No light, no running water. But it was a shelter.

She shut the door and slid the bolt. Dropped her pack. Sank onto the cot. The ache in her legs had gone bone-deep. Her palms were scraped. Her ankles swollen.

But she’d made it.

FOURTEEN

Lucía peeled off her boots,wincing at the raw skin on her heels. Blisters were already forming across both feet. The price of hiking in cheap, too-new boots over uneven terrain. Her socks were damp with sweat, and her toes ached.

She didn’t have much to treat them, just a travel-size bottle of iodine, a strip of gauze and a roll of tape. She dabbed the iodine on, wrapped her toes as best she could and muttered under her breath when the sting made her eyes water.

Despite the cool air up here in the mountains, her shirt was soaked through with sweat, her hair sticking to the back of her neck. She stripped down to her tank top and jeans.

She hadn’t eaten since before sunrise. From the main pocket of her pack, she pulled out a Ziploc bag of tortillas, dried mango, and two small cans of tuna packed in oil. She peeled one open and dipped the tortilla in. The salt and fat were welcome.

She ate quickly, still standing. Then, digging into her bag, she retrieved her ghost laptop. Dropping it onto the mattress, she got down on all fours and peered underneath the cot. Using the light on her phone, she illuminated the far corners. There wasdirt, dead leaves and the carcass of something long-dead. But no snakes.

The floorboards were ancient. It wasn’t hard to pry her fingertips beneath one and ease it up. With the phone light, she checked the space beneath. It was dry and dusty, with no signs of rodent nests. It would do for hiding equipment if she had to bail quickly.

She got up, dusted off her hands, then set up her laptop on the table by the window.

Out came the signal-booster antenna. It was handmade, cobbled together from radio junk and a salvaged solar array. She set it outside the window and angled it toward the southern ridge where the last usable cell tower stood. Barely half a bar, but that was enough. She unrolled the thin solar mat, its cells catching the last of the light, and plugged it into the battery pack humming on the floor. She waited as the machine booted up, the screen casting soft light in the gloom. Then she began to hunt. Not for anyone in particular, but for anyone looking for her.

She started with her digital tripwires. Each alias, burner account, and crypto transaction she’d ever abandoned had been embedded with trace triggers—harmless-looking scripts that, if activated, would ping her ghost laptop and tell her someone was poking around in places they didn’t belong.