Chapter Text
Agent Flores slowly clambered onto her knees before standing up. She had to steady herself against a car. Her head must have been hit pretty hard after she was flung through the air, considering how it hurt and how wobbly her legs felt. Trying to figure out what actually shoved her to the side with such force that she lost the ground under her feet for a moment just increased her headache. But she was certain, the car of the Diaz brothers hadn’t hit her. Looking around, her confusion grew even more. Cars lay on their sides or roofs with broken windows and dents all over. Officers were lying on the ground, some moaning and moving, but obviously living, others were just lying there in such a way that Flores couldn’t imagine them being alive.
The officers manning the police car driving up after the Diaz-brothers had arrived were unscathed and so were the front-line agents who were not too close to the roadblock. Most of them stood around dumbfounded, trying to process what they just saw, while the more experienced officers started to help the wounded and unconscious. The gate in the border wall was lying in the no-mans-land between the wall and the “Bienvenido A Mexico” billboard, and the car, which so easily broke through the ranks stood there, a little way off the road but on mexican territory. Somehow, she had a bad feeling, but she couldn’t focus on this right now. She needed to inform her superiors that she failed.
Looking through all her pockets and on the floor, she found the device about sixty feet from where she stood, close to her gun. Both must have fallen to the ground during the involuntary flight. Groggily she walked over and picked up her belongings. Her view fell once again on the car on the other side of the border, where a door just opened and Daniel nearly tripped over his legs and barely kept himself on his feet.
Wait, just one door? Where is Sean? That’s not good. Did we really hurt him? Did we kill him?
One thought chased the other, while she observed Daniel on the other side. He’d sat down, knees to the chest and head buried in his arms.
Oh no, no no no. We really killed Sean? I never wanted that, I really tried to help. Why didn’t he surrender? What will Daniel do now?
Suddenly Daniel looked up and in her direction. For a moment he stared at her and then stood up and walked towards the border with such determination, that she - unconsciously - made a step back.
This is odd. Why would he come here? Sean and he never trusted me or the police in general and he managed to get across the border. Unless…
She had never met Daniel, but the way Sean behaved when she was asking questions about the little brother and how determined Sean was to find Daniel always seemed a bit off. She always thought it was just brotherly concern, but what if there was more to it? What if Daniel was the cause that everybody was pushed out of the way and none of the bullets seemed to hit the brothers’ car? The implications were horrifying and all of a sudden, when looking through this lens, everything moved into place.
It was Daniel, it always was Daniel. The dead cop in Seattle, the devastated pot farm in Humboldt county, the dead Reverend in Haven Point, the whole unexplainable occurrences fitted so perfectly to what she witnessed here.
Daniel still walked towards the border and with every step the fear she felt, since the boy stood up, grew.
“Get up men, quickly. Make yourselves ready, it isn’t over yet”. But how can I give the order to shoot a boy? It is to no avail anyway, is it?
About a dozen officers had taken up arms again and looked a bit confused at Daniel from behind the makeshift cover they’d taken. She couldn’t blame them, for them the real threat was Sean and he was nowhere to be seen.
I have to try something…
“Daniel! I’m glad you are okay. I’m sure…”, she stopped. How am I going to end this sentence? everything is going to be ok? That would probably be the worst thing I could say and also sounds like mockery only minutes after Sean died. …I can help you? We can talk about everything? These options were all so bad. She started anew:
“I’m really sorry Sean did not make it. Please, don’t do anything stupid now. It is over.” She was not sure if Daniel understood a word she ‘d said, but then he answered and she could see the sun reflecting in the tears she knew were there.
“Why did you kill him? Why couldn’t you just leave us alone? Sean did nothing wrong”.
An officer, squatting down behind an upturned border patrol car about twenty-five yards away abruptly jerked backwards and lay there, motionless. A bloody hole in his temple announced his fate and she knew; she didn’t have a choice anymore. But it must be a surprise for Daniel, otherwise he would just deflect the bullets… again. Gun in her hand, she took a quick look, took note, trusted her training and shot. It rang through the air like a bell who announced the second part of a play in a theatre. She saw a shimmering wall go up between her and Daniel nearly at the same time she heard the gun go off, but she also saw Daniels right shoulder lurching back. He just stood there, while the officers opened fire, taking her shot as the permission to shoot on the child. Through the hail of bullets and the barely visible wall, she had troubles making out Daniels face and reaction. But what she saw happening around him, was not good news at all. Stones flew to him and surrounded him like he was at the centre of a tornado. Not just pebbles but stones she easily could make out from a hundred feet away. Ripples emanated from Daniel into the ground, it looked like a small earthquake with Daniel at the epicentre. She didn't know exactly what would happen next, but all her experiences with Sean and all she knew from the case file of the brothers pointed in one direction. Shit, this is going to be bad
“Stop firing, take cover, NOT behind cars!”, she shouted once, then a second time. She ran to a small depression in the earth not far away. In the moment she let herself fall down to the ground and tried to turn around to have a look at the scene, the first shockwave hit her.