Without taking a breath, I get Reece back on the line.
“Where?” he repeats, dispensing with the chitchat. I knew there was a reason I tolerated him.
I glance at the ocean vista behind me. Eve calls it a carpet of diamonds, but to me the breakers have always glinted like razors blades and temptation. Today, they’re spelling out words I never thought I’d speak again.
“We’re going to fucking war,” I tell him, grinding my knuckles into my desk.
24
Anna
There’s an ugly vulgarity to silence when your heart is going bat-shit crazy inside your chest.
The hallway that I’m pacing is cold and empty, with stark white tiles on the floor and ochre walls. Everything about this mansion is immaculate, but it’s like a mausoleum, stinking of money and disdain. I don't want to be here, but I have no choice. Behind a wooden door to my left there’s a doctor fighting like hell to save my shadow.
I catch glimpses of him when the door opens and closes. Fresh medical supplies seem to be arriving on a constant loop. He’s hooked up to clear drips and draped in blue surgical sheets… He’s a picture of vulnerability that shakes my foundations. Shadows aren’t meant to be still: they wax and wane with the light.
The stag never got up again.
This time he will… He has to.
I hear snatches of words between the doctor and Vi’s aunt, Gabriela, a stoic, kind-faced woman in her late fifties who took on our carnage with the quiet grace of wisdom and familiarity—issuing instructions for Joseph to be brought inside immediately, and attending to him as best she could before Gomez’ private physician arrived.
By some miracle, the bullet missed his heart and lungs, but there’s damage to other parts I can’t translate with my high school Spanish, and I have no idea where Vi’s gone, so she can’t help me out. As soon as I called Dante—as soon as I blew myself wide open—she shut down all communication with me.
It has been three hours since we crashed through the wrought-iron gates of this place, and were sealed inside by a protective wall of Gomez’s men. The three explosions that followed led me to believe that the men who had been shooting at us were nothing but ash and dust. The devil had kept his word, but had I sold my soul to receive it?
There’s only so much adrenaline I can handle, and my reserve tanks are empty. I come over all light-headed suddenly, reaching out for the wall, and then slithering down it in an exhausted, filthy heap. I can't stop the tears now, either. I don't know if I’m crying more for me or for him, or for the nameless thing we lost that never spread its wings in the first place.
For so long I hated the arms of safety he threw around me. I believed I didn’t deserve them so I pushed them away. He forced that feeling onto me until I had no choice to embrace it. Now it’s been amputated, and I feel more exposed than ever.
“Anna, child.”
I feel a gentle touch on my shoulder. It’s Gabriela reaching down to comfort me.
“Is there any news?” I demand, wiping my face. “Will he be okay?”
“We will know more soon.” She holds her hand out to me. “Come.”
“I can’t,” I say, shaking my head at her. “What if he dies?”
“What if he wakes up?” she counters, a smile twitching at her mouth. “I give you my word; you will be the first to know the outcome of all scenarios. But you must eat... You cannot find subsistence from sitting on a hallway floor.”
It sounds like something my mother would have said to me. Perhaps that’s why I find myself scrambling to my feet.
“Your English is amazing,” I tell her as we descend an extravagant white marble staircase together. Everything about this house is insane, like billion-dollar insane. It’s like the Palace of Versailles has been dismantled and rebuilt in the middle of the Amazon. In contrast, there’s a neat, understated elegance to Gabriela, from the long gray hair swept into a neat chignon at the nape of her neck, to her linen pants and shirt that fit her willowy figure like black linen bark.
“It was a necessity to learn,” she tells me.
“Vi said you were a nurse?”
“Viviana likes to play hide and seek with the truth when it suits.” Her eyes start twinkling at me. “I have no formal medical training, but I’ve been required to familiarize myself with the rudiments over the years. Not everyone wishes to visit hospitals for treatment.”
“People like Joseph Grayson, you mean.” I’m fighting the urge to run back upstairs, and curl up outside the wooden door like an animal shut out in the cold.
“Quite.” It’s her lips that are dancing with all the ambiguity now.
“You have a beautiful house,” I lie, glancing about.
“There is no need for such insincere flattery,” she says, with a laugh that sounds like love as she slips her arm through mine. “It is as monstrous and obnoxious as the man who built it.”
“Then why do you live here?” I say, frowning at her.
She shrugs. “Because it is discreet. Because no one bothers me or my girls… There are no ridiculous cartel taxes to pay, no inquisitive authorities demanding access. It is just us and the wildlife, although the bellbirds and cicadas can be quite raucous at this time of year.” She gives my arm a squeeze.
Girls? “What do you do here?” I ask her, as she gently guides me down another white and ochre hallway toward a set of gilded double doors. There’s a loud chorus of chatter coming from the other side.
“We save and we heal,” she says, pushing them open, and then standing aside to let me enter. “I do not mean to be so enigmatic, but sometimes the eyes explain better than words.”
Intrigued, I step forward. The room is like some kind of dining hall or canteen, but it’s unlike any I’ve ever seen before. Firstly, it’s the size of a soccer field, with life-sized golden cherubs presiding over the architrave and Michelangelo-inspired paintings spanning the entire length of the domed ceiling, studded with a perfect central line of crystal chandeliers.
Making up for the car crash of pretension are the twenty or so women—the same age or younger than me—sitting in regular clothes and eating their lunch like regular people at a long wooden table in the middle of the room. They all turn to stare when they hear me enter.
“I love my country very much, Anna,” I hear Gabriela say, following me inside. “But some of our laws hurt us more than they serve us.” She leads me over to an empty space at the head of a table and motions for me to sit.
Right away, a bowl of piping hot soup and bread is placed in front of me. Gabriela sits down opposite and flashes her motherly smile again. “Please eat, and I will do my best to explain. It’s Ajiaco,” she says motioning to my bowl. “It’s a traditional chicken and potato soup that I think you might enjoy.”
I glance toward the open door, a familiar knot tightening in my stomach. “I really don’t think I should leave—”
“I insist,” she says firmly, pouring me a glass of water from the jug on the table and then wetting a napkin with it. Taking each of my hands in turn, she wipes away the worst of the blood and dirt from my skin. “There is no judgement here for the rules that you and Viviana have broken these past few days, but I do take offence to a starving woman refusing my food.”