The Beasts of Juarez

their loved ones. These were people who devoted their entire lives and all of their resources to seek closure for those whose daughters had disappeared without a trace.
“Take her to Guillermo’s place,” Santiago finally said.
As Callie was dragged off, her eyes and Sydney’s eyes met, both of them tear-soaked and jumping with fear. Both women were too horrified to speak; the experience was so surreal and unimaginable, words alone could not convey the moment.
The sounds of agony started in Sydney’s throat again, but when the wailing sounds rushed out of her once more, they transformed into the most ferocious of screams. Her eyes bled tears and her body shook as if charged with electricity, but for all of her rage, this outburst of emotion changed nothing.
Callie shook with fear, tears streaming down her face, but she was brave, brave and beautiful.
“Callie!” she screamed. As her daughter was taken away, Sydney fell to her knees, her body rocked with tremors. Whatever strength she had left inside of her was fast diminishing. “Please, please,” she begged, the agony in her voice unyielding.
If it was the last time Sydney saw her oldest child, she wanted to memorize her face, lodge it so deeply into her memory that not even death itself could pry it loose. Instead, all she did was memorize the fear in her sixteen-year-old’s eyes.
The moment Callie was shoved into the trunk of a nearby car, Sydney wanted to die. When the men got into the car and drove off, the last light inside of her winked out completely and she felt nothing but the pall of death hanging over her.
“Look at you, Mrs. Fox,” Santiago said in that soft, smooth voice. “I do believe you are ready to become the slave.”

Chapter Seven
OTIS FYKES
The trooper whom Otis thought was pulling him over wasn’t coming for him after all. The highway patrol unit with the flashing lights changed lanes and raced by the Ford Ranger, sirens blaring, the engine at a high roar.
Otis let out a deep breath and tried to still his mind. “You’re still early, everything is fine,” he told himself.
He had planned to arrive at the prearranged location a few minutes early. He wanted to make sure there was nothing awry, that he wasn’t being tailed or surveilled in any way. The meeting he was attending was really just a handoff of sorts.
It was easy, simple, uncomplicated.
He had arranged with the courier to meet just outside Modesto Gomez Park off of Edna Avenue along the side of the road where a dry gully separated the park from the nearby neighborhood.
As he approached the road leading into the park, he scanned the squat one-story homes looking for anything out of the ordinary. He checked the residential windows for guys peeking through the blinds, eyeballed the vehicles parked curbside or in short driveways wondering if the feds were working surveillance inside of them, and let his gaze fall on any and all possible places where one could set up a sniper’s nest or the staging grounds for local narco task forces. Nothing stood out, allowing him to relax even further.
Most of the homes he passed were set behind two-foot rock walls, decorative iron fences, or sliding iron gates. Everything felt dry, dust-blown, and baked. Case in point, the asphalt streets, the concrete sidewalks, even the stucco finish on the decorative walls and the sides of the homes. These many surfaces were marred by cracks and fissures, some wider than others. Although this kind of wear and tear was emblematic of a neighborhood in decline, Otis was overcome by a yearning for his childhood years, that’s how strong the nostalgia had hit him.
He pulled the truck alongside a dipped section of the road where it cut through a dry stream bed. Behind him there was a long run of power lines, the sagging black wires feeding the neighborhood; before him stood an industrial yard as well as an open field where kids and dogs could run freely, or a family could have a picnic.
With the old Ford idling roughly but strong, he rolled down the crank window and let that warm air inside the cabin. He loathed the heat, but it was important to be able to hear what was happening in the neighborhood.
Through the dirty windshield, he studied a stretch of chain link fence with sheer green netting behind it. The industrial yard’s privacy net shifted slightly in a warm breeze, entire sections of it worn away from the elements. Through the holes, he saw garbage piled here and there, old scraps of metal and lumber tossed about, and a few abandoned vehicles dead where they sat with the rust to prove it.
Otis lit a cigarette, checked his watch again, frowned because the courier was two minutes late. Punctuality was critical in these kinds of transactions. There was nothing worse than jumpy criminals, for they tended to do some pretty stupid things when spooked. He was no different. As he smoked his cigarette, he stared at the border wall. Beyond that, the mountains of Ciudad Juárez stood in direct contrast to the clear blue skies.
When his paranoia finally broke through the trance, he checked his watch again. “Pinche cabrón,” he grumbled.
Anxiety and apprehension wormed their way into his every thought. What if the family didn’t make it over the border? What if they were stopped because the flow of traffic fed the driver into a different lane? What if this whole operation was belly up and he didn’t even know it yet?
A few cars moseyed past him, people heading up to the park. This didn’t bother him. Not on a Saturday. During the weekdays, after the COVID lockdowns, fewer and fewer people visited the park. Talk about sad. Modesto Gomez was once