“Is that what he did to you? Is that why you’re running?”
Not him.
Never him.
“Listen, you know you don’t have to talk about it if—”
“You know what the real imposition is?” I interrupt, staring up at the moon again; fixing on a single point to give me the courage to say it. “It’s not the act or the pain so much—most of the time you can just shut it out. You can visit a place that’s all rainbows and unicorns while your soul is busy getting dissected. It’s what happens afterward that destroys you. It’s the shame, the disgust, the hurt, the confusion; the nightmare that’s just your reality with black cloths thrown over it like someone died. And pieces of you did die. Pieces you’ll never get back again. Pieces that you never knew were part of your jigsaw in the first place. Months go by, and everything worsens. You end up so far inside of yourself you can't find the door anymore…” My breath is coming out in sharp gasps. By the time I realize I’m crying my tears are dripping off my chin. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, rocked to the core by what I’ve just confessed. I’ve never said any of this out loud before. Not to Eve, my therapists, him… Instead, I’ve broken the seal to a total stranger. “I’m so sorry. I’m so—”
“Shhhhh, Anna, it’s okay.” Vi pulls me into her arms, and I go willingly. They aren’t the arms I want around me, but it’s the next best thing.
Her compassion is a key. It’s not so much the floodgates she opens as the Niagara Falls. I cry for all the words I couldn’t say; for everyone I pushed away. I cry for sailing too close to the rocks of a man who is as much damned as he is beautiful. For the rash of feelings sealed so tight inside me, it’ll take more than his gun to shoot his way in.
“You know what you need, right?” says Vi, stroking my tears into my hair.
“A Delorean time machine?” I lift my head and swipe my eyes, catching the edges of her wicked grin through the fuzziness.
“I’ll be right back.” She jogs inside and remerges with a bottle of tequila. “The old cures are the best.” She replaces my half-drunk beer with the bottle. “Three sips. Three questions. And then we never have to speak of this again.”
“Fine by me.” I take a swig while holding her gaze, the alcohol searing the back of my throat. “Wow,” I croak, spluttering like a teenager after stealing her mom’s vodka. “Are you trying to kill me?”
“It’ll be a sweet, sweet death, I promise,” she says, laughing at my reaction. “I grew up on this stuff… Does he know you left him?”
My smile vanishes. I nod, and take another sip, not bothering to correct her assumption. He’s not the bleakest chapter in the story of my life, but if I make him the villain, he’s easier to hide from.
“Can he trace you here?”
“He can trace me anywhere,” I admit, taking my third and final mouthful.
“Do you want me to kill him for you?”
It’s the way she says it. It’s so brutally casual; so effortlessly sincere.
“You can't kill a shadow,” I say, my eyes seeking out the moon again. “They thrive too much in the darkness.” I rise to my feet, feeling a little unsteady. I’m done with this day. My emotional exhaustion is like a sinkhole, sucking me down into the dirt. “Do you have a couch or something I can crash on?”
“I mean it, Anna,” she says seriously, rising to her feet as well, looking and sounding like some beautiful Colombian Kill Bill assassin with much cooler shoes. “Just say the word.”
“The word is sleep,” I argue, swaying not so gently in the evening breeze.
“No, American Girl,” drawls an amused voice from behind us. “The word for tonight is betrayal.”
13
Anna
“Isn't that so, Viviana?” The deep voice reaches into the yard where we’re standing again, curls around us like tentacles and forces us back inside. “Would you like to tell your new friend its definition, or shall I?”
“Tell me what?” My gaze snaps to Vi, but hers is fixed on the Colombian standing in the middle of her bar without an invitation; the kind of man who looks like he never seeks permission for anything. Late thirties, black suit with an open neck white button-down, tough lined skin like a lizard. He’s huge in every sense of the word: Broad, muscular… Even his moustache is two sizes too big for his face.
“Vi?” I prompt again in a panic.
“What are you doing here?” she says, ignoring me. “We agreed on tomorrow.”
“Vi, who is he?”
Again, she doesn't answer, but I’ve made the connection anyway.
My suspicions are confirmed when the two men from outside the airport terminal start crowding up the place as well. They’re sicarios, I realize with a jolt. They’re cartel soldiers who hurt and kill for their leader, and they’re even sleazier in person. I watch their gazes slip from our chests to our bare legs as the truth slams into me like a wrecking ball: I ran from drama into the arms of more drama, and this time there’s not a hope in hell of my shadow rescuing me.
Alberto Fernandez himself is exuding the worst kind of sin. If I’d thought Vi was bad news at first, this cartel prince is kicking that rep to the curb. No one says a word as he circles the bar and helps himself to a new bottle of aguardiente, tossing the shot glass down and pouring out a double with a sinister amount of care. He doesn’t offer anyone else a drink until long after he’s downed it, and then he’s sliding the bottle toward his men, not us.
“Our deal still stands, Viviana,” he says, his jet-black eyes flickering between us as an icy cold hand takes a hold of my stomach and squeezes. His accent is as thick as his neck, the dark flesh stamped with skulls and crosses. “I’m moving the delivery time forward a day… Let’s just say I was anxious to sample.”
“I don't care. I’ve changed my mind. You’ll get your money another way,” she says, slipping into urgent Spanish; firing missives at him that sound more like pleas and bargaining.
Fernandez chuckles and shakes his head, dismissing her like he’s swatting a bug. Meanwhile, every bad intuition I’ve ever had is crushing me. Snap shots of R-rated images blitz my mind—basements, cages, brutal hands. My past is rushing up so fast I can feel the incoming breeze.
Betrayal.
They couldn’t have been talking about me. Could they?
“Please, Vi—”
“Señor Fernandez was just leaving,” she says in a tight voice, but she can’t hide her undertones of desperation. If her fierceness were a tigress, she’d be slinking around her ankles right now.
“Am I?” he says casually, shifting his attention back to me. “You didn’t exaggerate, Viviana. She really is quite lovely.”
He can’t mean…
“The terms have changed,” she snaps, but her face is drained of color. “Come back tomorrow. You can have your money in full then.”
“I disagree.” He pours himself another shot as the chilly atmosphere in the bar drops a couple of degrees. “I make the decisions—not you.”