It had been hours since Teresa disappeared down that hole and crossed the border and Kat's nerves are pretty much fried.

How long had it been? Since she'd really had the time to process things? Without the aid of weed or Leo to help cushion the blow? Too fucking long. She's antsy and cant help but fidget.

She'd taken one last call from Camila, right after Teresa had left, in which Camila had told her she was getting on a private plane, headed for Mexico. Kat's stomach had dropped, and she nearly gagged with relief when Camila said it was to appease Epifanio and not to hunt down Teresa because she was on to them.

No.

Kat's plan was working perfectly. Almost too fucking perfectly- it made the fear of being caught stir in her even more. After the call with Camila Kat had turned off her phone. Partially because she couldn't bare to see the continuous missed calls and texts from James and partially because she was worried that he'd find a way to track her if the phone was on. Call in one of his connects or use one of his gadgets to get her location.

And she just couldn't have that.

She tries to do anything to keep herself occupied. Bounces her legs, investigates every inch of the open barn like building. Fuck. She can handle anything but silence...

Or hunger, her stomach growls viciously and she get's up from the table.

"Are you guys hungry?" She asks Brenda and Tony who are sitting at the same metal picnic table, as far away as they could possibly be.

Brenda hadn't made her dislike discreet. She remembered Kat, from what her life used to be. Remembered doing lines in a back room of a club for some higher up's daughters Quince with the younger girl a few years back. With Chino and Guero. Kat had been likeable then, they'd laughed and partied together.

And then she killed her husband. She might have not been the one pulling the trigger that blew Chino away, but she was affiliated with them. Real chummy with the Vargas'. And it made Brenda sick to look at her for too long.

"No, we're fine" It's short and snippy and Kat tries not to take it to heart.

"Mami, I'm starving. I haven't anything since lunch" Tony whines in protest.

"No, we're not taking anything from her. We're fine, mijo, look I can buy us something-" Brenda goes to dig in her purse, looking for excess cash she could scrape together to get them some chips or something and Kat rolls her eyes and walks away, towards the direction of the small food vender in the corner.

Tony slumps, disappointed and Brenda feels like dirt.

Like she feels a lot of the time now. Her son, Chino's son, hungry? Fuck what had her life come to. She rubs a hand along Tony's back promising him that they'd get something when Teresa came back.

Kat wont let them wait all night starving though; when she comes back to the table its with an armful of food. A few bags of chips, aluminum foil pouches full of street tacos, and three bottles. One coke; for Tony. The other two Corona's. She sit's across from the mother and son and deposits the food onto the table top.

"Here, they're al Pastor, that's all he had" Kat pushed a few of the foiled packs at them, before opening her own.

Brenda was a prideful woman- but not prideful enough to deny her hungry son food that was right in front of him. Tony looks up at her with big eyes, and she nods, signaling him that he can grab for the food.

"Thank you" He thanks Kat around a mouthful of taco, opening a back of Cheetos and shoving those back too and Kat smiles in amusement.

"No problem" She says, taking the beers and opening both with a spare lighter in her purse and then holding one out to Brenda.

Brenda glares at it incredulous.

Kat sighs "Look, I don't know when Teresa's coming back but I have a feeling it's going to be a long one so...here"

"Thank you" Brenda's voice isn't really thankful though when she finally takes the beer and sips on it. Kat doesn't care, not about Brenda or her feelings towards her. Not really.

What she really wants is this damned night to be over with.

She takes a long swig of the Corona, downing about a third of it in one go as she tries not to think about the one persons feelings she really does care about. She fails miserably,

'I'll come get you'

James voice echo's in her head.

If she wasn't going to tell her where she was, then he was going to hunt her down. And not only because the thought of her out doing who knows what who knows where made him grate his teeth, but because he needed to find that maid.

James focused on that. Told himself that this wasn't about Kat, that he wasn't frantically searching for her. No, he was doing his job.

That's his mantra as he walks determinedly through the impound lot, searching for Teresa's towed car. He comes across a mechanic, whose working on a car with a flashlight in his hand.

"Hey, I think you've got my car here" James starts and the man looks up, unamused.

"You pay the fine downtown, and we release your car. Even the chickens under the porch understand that" The mechanic deadpans.

Fucking hick. The twang of the mechanics voice strikes a chord of annoyance in James soul. He's had too long of a day to deal with this shit.

"Yeah, someones going to take care of it" James fights to keep the terseness out of his tone "Where'd it get towed from?"

"Now if that's your car don't you know?"

If it wasn't for all that time in the Army, all that training. He might of snapped. But instead James stays cool and collected.

"It was stolen before he towed it. I followed the Low Jack here" James insists, this time he's serious though. The mechanic can sense it and after a moment of tense deliberation he uses his radio to call into his co-worker, questioning about the location the red four door had been picked up at.

'Parked in a handicap zone. Church on Roe street' a voice crackles back from the radio.

James mules it over, nodding "You two cars from churches" He states, not impressed. He himself was far from a man of faith but he could recognize greed from a mile away.

"The lord helps those who help themselves" The mechanic defends and James wished he had the time to deck him.

But he doesn't.

"Nice" Is all he scoffs as he walks away from the impound lot. Just as determined as when he came in.

James drives until the sun comes up, all night searching for them.

When his phone rings his stomach lurches and he grabs it fast. The disappointment rushes over him as he sees Kim's name on the caller ID. He really had no desire to deal with her, on top of all this other shit he was dealing with, but he knew how she would get if he kept ignoring her calls so he answers the phone.

"Hey babe"

"Where are you Jimmy? I sent you like four messages?"

He sighs. He shouldn't be so annoyed with her. Her voice shouldn't be like nails on a chalk board to him...it wasn't her fault all this was happening. Wasn't her fault that Kat had lost her damn mind and had him playing Detective, running around all of fucking Texas, scouring the state for her.

"I know it's just- work"

"Work? Is everything okay?"

"Yeah it will be, I'll be home as soon as I can"

"As soon as you can?- James what in the hell is going on with you? You haven't talked to me, and I mean really talked to me, in weeks. I never see you anymore. I sit in this house, not knowing if I'll ever see you again and then when you walk through the door it's like you're not even here!"

He rubs a hand over his face, trying to process what she's screeching. He knows that he's been distant. He knows it's not fair.

He also doesn't know what to do about it. He just didn't feel...right. In that house anymore. In that bed next to her.

And he doesn't know why. Or maybe he does and he's not willing to let himself really think about it, not now especially.

"I know, Kim. And we'll talk about it when I get home"

He sounds mechanical and Kim's sigh from over the phone almost resembles a sob. "Fine"

"I'll talk to you later, Kim"

She notices that he doesn't say that he loves her before he hangs up the phone. She's noticed it for a while.

When James parks his car in the church parking lot he tries, one more time, the a hundredth fucking time, to call Kat.

"Hey, you've reached Kat, leave me a message and I'll get back to you as soon as possible"

Her voicemail message is all he gets again and he clutches the phone so hard his knuckles turn white.

"May I help you?" One of the priests asks him once he's inside of the church.

"I hope so, Umm...two women came in here yesterday. One of them was taller; skinny, brunette- half as big as a minute. The other was about yay high-" James examples with his hand, exaggeratingly low to the ground "long sandy brown hair and green eyes"

"You just described half of our parishioners" The priest shakes his head apologetically but James goes on.

"We're you here?"

"No, I wasn't" The priest denies solemnly.

"Do you know who was? The truth is, their friends of mine and the shorter one...well no one's heard from her since yesterday and I'm sort of trying to retrace her steps. Make sure she's got her medication"

It was only half a lie...he really was worried Kat had lose her fucking mind.

That seems to ignite the priest "If it was yesterday, you probably want to talk to father Ramon"

"Okay, is he here?" James is eager, and is shot down.

Father Ramon was up north until Wednesday. He could leave his number, the priest tells him. If it was an emergency.

"Eh, well, that's exactly what I'm trying to avoid. An emergency" He leaves his "number", a fake he scribbles down fast, and then makes his way back through the pews.

He's feeling pretty defeated, which also made him feel irritated as hell as he stands next to his car. What was he going to do? If this went on any longer and Camila found out...

He'd have to tell Camila.

Could he tell her? The thought had him in shambles. He looked up to the sky exasperated.

Are you there god, it's me, James he thinks humorously.

Instead of the holy father, he's greeted with the sight of the gas station across the street. The gas station that had cameras that faced the church...

Maybe the big guy was looking out for him...

...Nah. God doesn't look out for murderers.

He's able to buy off the cashier pretty easily. Three hundred bucks and the young man lets him into the back staff room where the camera footage is.

"Dude, how much longer are you going to be?" The cashier hurries back again, nervous and jumpy and sweating.

James rolls his eyes that are still glued to the screen and takes a bite of the snickers in his hand "Not much"

"That candy bar costs a buck ten, homie"

Sighing, James reaches into his back pocket for his wallet. He all but blindly pulls out a twenty and throws it at the annoying man.

"Keep the change"

"On top of what you gave me?" You would have think James had given the guy a Porsha, The poor SOB had obviously never seen real money before.

"Get out before I change my mind" James orders because the footage has finally come to what he wanted to see. Teresa's car pulls up, delibratly parking in the handicap zone, and her, Kat, the maid and her kid get out and transfer into another car.

Bingo.

He zooms in with his phone to take a picture of the mystery cars license plates.

Got you, Kat he thinks as he dials Denny's number on his phone.

"Yeah, it's me. I need you to run a plate"

Camila and Epfinaio lounge in their bed in Mexico. Naked as the day they we're born.

Epifanio hadn't been this relaxed around his wife in so long, he reveled in the post sex bliss. In the tequila fueled haze.

"Why is this the only place we are ever totally honest with each other?" He wonders to Camila who smiles.

It's beautiful and cruel. A look that he so adored- and one that had made him lose his mind more then once.

"I don't know. May have something to do with the fact we're naked"

He laughs at this; at the dryness of her words and the sparkle of her dark eyes.

"And I was hoping you'd say something touching about out souls"

"No" She chuckles, taking another shot of tequila "That's something one of your young, stupid lovers would say. Not me"

He's a sucker for pain. He'd missed the sharpness of her words.

A moment passes between them before she says what she'd come to Mexico to say.

"I know it was you that stole my trucks, drying up my drug supply" She gauges his reaction.

He doesn't deny it.

"Villagrosa told me everything, or more like I got it out of him"

"It's true"

She cant fight the slight look of disgust that crosses her features as she nods at his words "And Batman? Did he tell you about my plans?"

"Yeah, he's loyal. That's something hard to find. I'm sure you offered him the world" Epifanio decides that they might as well get it all on the table.

Camila nods at that. It is hard...

Kat had told her that Batman was the rat. She should have listened to her right then.

"He told me that you we're going to take over"

"What did you expect?" Camila snaps "You took everything from me and kept me on a leash?"

"And you repaid me by taking coke from the Colombians behind my back and growing twice as big as I wanted...that Alma girl really was a good investment for you, huh?"

"You see that's the thing. What you want. I want to run my business anyway I see fit. Do you think I can?" Camila ignores the dig about Kat. He was just jealous he hadn't gotten to the girl first.

"Apparently yes" He sighs.

"And birdman, was he acting on your order too?"

"Him too" Epifanio nods "But I didn't expect you to try and kill him"

Camila sighs and then looks up at him through her eyelashes. Of course she was going to kill him. He'd stepped on her turf.

"Don't look at me like that. You hid the girl, Mendoza" Epifanio argues with that look on her face.

"Well, I knew she meant something to you. I still don't know what"

"I told you" Epi insists, lying this time, "She saw my man kill Chino. I want her dead. And Chino's wife too. They have to go, there's no question...do you know where she is?"

"Yes" Camila's tone is matter of fact "She works for me. She's trust worthy so far"

" 'So far' is a term I'm not comfortable with, and you shouldn't be either-"

He's interrupted by the door, and someone knocking on it from the other side.

Camila's trust worthy Teresa was in Mexico too- little did she know.

Kat's long stripped off her jacket and is laid down, across the bench of the picnic table with her arm thrown over her eyes.

It's too fucking hot and it's been too fucking long since Teresa went down that hole. She was going to go down there and get her. Stomp into Mexico and drag Teresa back by her curly hair.

"I spy with my little eye...something shiny" Tony says from his place, perched on top of the table and Kat creaks one eye open to look in the direction he was.

They'd been playing 'I Spy' for the last two hours.

Her brain was melting.

"Is it green?"

"No"

"Is it a machine?"

"Yes"

"Tony, that tractor is green!"

"No it's not it's olive. There's a difference"

She grins and closes her eyes again. She was learning that Tony took after his mom and was a master of sass.

Brenda's icy demeanor had melted a little bit in the Texas heat and was allowing Kat to speak, to play, with Tony. Both children, because Kat was youthful enough to be a child, we're bored. At least they we're entertaining each other.

"It's your turn, Kat!"

"Fine. I spy-" The ringing of Brenda's phone interrupts her and the woman scoffs about some guy named Ricardo probably wanting his damn car back.

"Ma, when is Teresa coming back?" Tony grumbles, wanting to go back to the motel and play X-box with his friends.

I feel you, little man, Kat silently agrees.

"I don't know mijo, hopefully soon"

"What is she getting?" Tony was asking all the right questions, Kat thinks.

"Mind your business" Brenda chastises before answering the phone that just kept ringing hotly. "I'm still using your car, Ricardo. What?"

"This Brenda?" an unknown male voice answers her and her eyes go wide as she stands up from the table.

Kat automatically knows something's off and stands too, mouthing a "Who is it?" to Brenda who puts the phone on speaker and then asks the man the same question.

"It's not important put Kat on the phone"

James.

Kat shakes her head hard at Brenda. She couldn't talk to him.

"Kat's not here"

"Where is she? If she's not there then put Teresa on"

"She's not here either"

"Where are they" James snaps demandingly and Brendas face scrunches, Oh hell no.

"Hey, who the hell is this?"

"Listen to me-"

"No, listen to me, pendejo. I don't know who you are and I don't know who you think you are, but no body talks to me like this, got it? Especially not some shity ass gringo. Now put Ricardo on the phone"

Kat seriously fights the urge to gape at the woman. She'd never heard anyone talk to James like that. Not even she did. A smile cracks over her features as she shake her head. Brenda was crazy. Maybe even crazier then Teresa. She could see why they we're friends.

"What, not so tough now, huh, cabron?"

"Tell me where they are or your friends die"

There's a loaded moment as Brenda rolls that over in her head, before her face loosens and she shrugs "You gotta do what you gotta do" is all she says and Kats hands go to her mouth as she chokes on a laugh.

"-Sit your ass down! Last chance before I shoot somebody, Brenda!"

"Shove it up your ass, gringo" And then Brenda clicks end on the call and Kat laughs hard, out loud.

"What? What's so funny?" Tony wonders, having not heard the conversation.

"Nothing, Tony. Your moms a savage" Kat chuckles. She can't wait to tell Leo about this shit.

Poor James. His poor ego was taking a beating today.

James day just kept getting fucking better. When he busts into the crap motel, and gets to knock Ricardo to the ground, releasing a little of his pent up frustrations, that satisfaction is only felt for a moment.

Brenda, the woman on the other line, is a crazy cunt.

She tells him to do what he's got to do and shoot her friends. She calls him a gringo, and a pandejo and a cabron, and then she hangs up on him.

He holds the phone to his ear after she's hung up for a moment, gob smacked.

Could this day get any weirder? Any worse?

"You're going to tell me everything you know about this Brenda, do you have any pictures?"

The two restrained men are more then willing to comply; she had just sold their lives without a bat of her lashes.

He best her and Kat are getting along great.

When Teresa finally returns, late into the afternoon, both Brenda and Tony jump up to embrace her.

Kat stays back at the table. She'd wait her turn.

"Did you get it?" Brenda quarries and Teresa hands her a worn looking notebook as she comes to the table, panting, sweat covering her brow.

"Welcome back" Kat hands her a cup of water that she slams in one go.

"This is it?" Brenda flips through the notebook "What is it? It doesn't make any sense?"

"Let me see" Kat requests and Brenda glares at her, before turning to Teresa.

Teresa nods, still panting tiredly and Kat takes the book.

It doesn't make any sense to her either...it's all in code. Letters and numbers that don't add up. Too long to be phone numbers.

Socials?

Area codes?

Coordinates?

She doesn't know. But even if she did she wouldn't tell them. She had what she wanted- she got the information she had come for.

"We need to figure out what it means" Teresa tells her.

"None of it makes sense. It's all jibberish. Who's is this?" Kat doesn't look up from the book. She's trying to memorize or recognize anything of use.

"Guero"

"Dyslexic fuck" Kat jokes gruffly as she hands Teresa the book and they start to walk to the car.

"James called" Kat informs her.

"Yeah he did. He's at the hotel where I live holding the two guys hostage that I live with"

"What did you tell him?"

"Nothing, I didn't tell that pendejo anything"

Kat snorts "She really didn't. It was hilarious"

"He knows where I live, this isn't funny"

Kat shrugs. Isn't funny for her.

"What are we going to do?" Teresa looks at her.

Kat knows what she has to do. What she's been waiting all day to do.

"Let's get out of here...we'll talk in the car, okay?"

James sits in the armchair of the dingy motel, his hands idly click and unclick the safety of his hand gun. It helps, keeping his fingers idle as he waits. Waits for what he doesn't know.

A call?

Kat to come to her senses?

He's glaring wordlessly in the direction of the two terrified men, but he doesn't really see them. He see's grinning green eyes.

When his phone vibrates, he thinks his eyes might be playing tricks on him.

"Where are you?" He answers, his voice hoarse.

And desperate. More desperate then he'd meant for it to be. He was so sick of the tone he seemed to not be able to control with her.

"Look out the window" Kat suggests and his face drops before he stands, using his gun to peek through the curtains.

She's standing there, next to a beat up old car. The sunshine blaring down on her, creating a halo around her golden head.

The looked more like horns to him.

He holsters his gun back, into the back of his jeans and leaves the room quick, without saying another word to the two men on the floor.

He didn't care. They didn't matter.

Kat didn't think it would be so hard to breathe, when she saw him. It had been less the twenty four hours since they'd been together at the warehouse, so why was it so hard for her to inhale now?

To look him in the eye?

"James..." What she had been planning to say goes out of the window.

"Where the hell have you been?"

"At some crossing near the border. You know I'm bad with directions" She tries to joke. To diffuse. That was her coping mechanism.

He's not having it.

"Where's Teresa?"

"I dropped her back off at the warehouse" She had, right after they'd gotten Brenda a room at a new Motel.

"Why? I don't get why you would help save some random maid- you're the first person who says we need to clean up after ourselves. You left a mess, you helped create a mess, Kat"

"You don't get it-" She insists, going closer to him. Needing him to understand.

"No, I don't" He shakes his head, down at her, her sage eyes boring up at him.

It's intense. Too intense.

The ring of his phone saves him from drowning in those teal lakes.

It's Camila. He swallows and answers it.

"Hello"

"Where are you?" Camila inquires.

"With Kat"

"Good, what happened to the maid?"

The look on Kat's face is as torn as he feels and the air is heavy as he deliberates on what to say next.

He's hanging, on a wire, between two women he'd sworn his loyalty too.

"James, what happened to the maid?" Camila persists stonily and Kat bites her lips together.

He has no reason to side with Kat. She'd plotted behind his back, and made him spend the day chasing her shadow.

She drove him nuts. She made him hit things and made his stomach tighten every time she walked into the room.

She made it hard for him to do his job.

"She's dead. I took care of her" As the words leave his lips, his eyes connect with hers.

Kat doesn't know what to do. How to feel. How to deal with the tsunami that rushes over her as he answers Camila.

"Good, get to the club, now" Camila, who had no idea of the scene on the other line, orders before she hangs up.

"I-I don't know what to say" Kat admits and James has never seen her at a loss for words the way she is now.

"Tell me why, why you did all of this?"

Spinning. Her heads still spinning.

"I- Do you remember that time we we're smoking behind the club. I'd only been here a few weeks and you asked me what I wanted? And told me that you wanted a few bricks?" She brings up a memory that she tends to replay in her own mind often.

Of course he remembers. "Yeah, I do"

"I want the whole block, James" She confides in him "And I don't want to take it from Camila, I want my own-I want to control my-" She's struggling again, trying to annunciate her thoughts "I want to be in control of what happens to me from now on"

He's stunned, and then he's scared, and then he's angry "You're going to get yourself killed"

"Maybe. But It'll be my choice, my doing. I went to the border with Teresa so that she would tell me what the fuck is going on between Epifanio and Camila. Because Camila's not telling us shit. I don't know exactly what it is that I found today, so I cant tell you. Yet. But when I figure out what's going on I promise you'll be the first to know"

She hopes that he's hearing her. That he's understanding.

"I cant protect you if you don't tell me how, Kat"

She'd never had the urge to touch him the way she did now. She just wanted to be closer, to have him as close as she possibly could.

Maybe it was the fact that she was running on fumes after being awake for the last 48 hours, or maybe it was the way he'd been with her through this whole endeavor. She doesn't know but she leans forward and wraps her arms around him. Tightening them around his neck as she reached up on her tip toes to embrace him, pressing her face against the leather of his jacket.

She didn't even care that he was so shocked for a moment that his arms laid at his sides, she still pressed herself against him. Hard.

James didn't know what was happening. One minute she was telling him her suicidal plans and the next she was all but jumping into his arms.

It was all so confusing, to his already muddled mind.

She fucked his brain up. Turned him inside out.

Still, even after all she had put him through today, his own arms twine around her waist and he squeezes back, her long hair brushing against his cheek and her soft, pillowy body pliant and small in his arms as he lets her cling to him.

And he clings to her too.

He'd spent the last day and night searching high and low for her and to finally have her back, so close to him felt like winning.

She was so warm in his grasp that it almost burnt him alive. Kat and the strong Texas sun caused him to melt.

He remembers that Grecian story he'd heard when he was young.

Icarus and the Sun. The boy who flew too close to the sun and was set into flames.

At that moment, holding Kat felt something like holding sunshine.

Well fuck guys...I updated twice in one day. What even is life? We got the deterioration of James and Kim which is so important going forward and what...physical contact?! Not just staring?! I know, you're all like what the hell how are they not kissing but can you see how this is more intimate almost? He spent hours searching for her after an already emotionally taxing time for him (Did you all see how worked up he was in the show when Tonto was shot? My poor PTSD child) and then pledges his allegiance to her and then she clings to him. LITTEREALLY CLINGS AND WILL NOT LET GO. I almost died writing this. I hope you all almost die reading it. Tell me about your near death experiences so I have some inspo for the next chapter. Plus do you guys see the parallels I so subtly tried to drop between the James/Kat and Camila/Epifanio relationships? Cause that's one of my favorite elements of this story.

Ps. Listen to Old Money by Lana when you read the last part. Thank me later.