“It’s not her,” he says, certain. “Let’s go.” He turns away, dismissing Mira.
“Can we still keep her?” Mira’s captor asks. “I think mine likes me.”
“No!” Mira and I scream in unison. I battle hard against the teenager’s arms.
Mira’s captor turns to the teenager with a sadistic grin, taking joy in our cries. The boy hangs his head, refusing to join in. I drive my head up, forcing the teen to meet my eyes. Help us, they plead, but I can see in one glance he’s just as helpless as I was in the city square watching that woman get tasered over bottled water. He won’t save us.
“You can have her. But don’t expect me to feed her,” Carlos says, placing my rucksack on his shoulders. “We’re done here. Leave the others.”
The brute grabs hold of Mira and turns to follow his ringleader, ripping my sister away from me.
“Mira!”
Unleashing a deep, savage roar, Mira fights, thrashing and kicking, to get back to me. We’re dragged farther and farther apart, our screams becoming violent cries as we continue to wildly claw out for each other. But she’s slipping away from me. My heart breaks free from its ribbed cage inside my chest and flees to her side, where it belongs.
I’ll find you again. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
Without warning the sharp blast of a gunshot cuts through the air, and everything goes still.
Then the wailing of the child and the ringing echo of the bullet overwhelm me, and I clasp my hands to my ears, disoriented. From the corner of my eye, I see Carlos drop hard to the ground, the moment prolonged and distant. He clutches his upper back, dark crimson coating his frenzied hands, trying to stop the bleeding, his throat producing horrifying noises in his great effort to breathe.
Oh God, he’s going to die.
Lost in a haze of shock, I look from his hemorrhaging body to the gun still raised in Lucía’s steady hands.
She turns her concentration to the leaderless gang of bandits and aims her cocked pistol at each of them, daring them to move. Fear spreads clear and contagious across their faces. Her assailant backs slowly away in disbelief, both hands clutching his bleeding nose. The teenager loosens his grasp on me, and I rip his arms from my body. But the brute doesn’t let go of Mira.
He glares at Lucía, calculating if he should charge. She points the gun at his head, the tip of her index finger tightening on the trigger. The man backs down, reluctantly releasing his grip on Mira. She bursts free of him, stumbling to the ground.
I rush to my sister, falling into the dirt by her side, lost in a whirlwind of dust and emotion. I lock my arms around her, tight enough to bruise. My mind frantic, I grab her hand and she grabs mine. We lift each other up and scramble behind Lucía, behind the power of the gun.
“No nos sigan,” Lucía warns, backing away from the men. Do not follow.
Together the three of us disappear into the night.
MIRA
My feet are a hundred pounds each. I watch them as they rise and fall, one after the other, two leaden boots dragging me across the dead grasslands of their own volition. I wonder idly what keeps them going.
My mind is full of air. The strong Panhandle winds have finally made their way inside me, and I am hollow. Numb. I no longer feel the stab of pain from my poorly healed ankle, no longer feel the fiery sear from the cold-hearted sun.
But those hands.
I can still feel those hands.
And the gun.
I will always feel the echo of the gunshot that saved me from the void.
Twenty-one miles. Ava keeps shouting out the new distance every few hours, trying to give me something to walk toward. Trying to make me believe she still knows where we’re going.
Lost in fear, we were too shaken to remember our rucksacks. By the time we realized our error, it was too late to go back. Too dangerous. Now we have no map. No compass. Only the highways and farm roads to orient us and lend us any clues we’re headed in the right vicinity. Ava studied the map every night, her tireless eyes poring over every small town, neighborhood, and scrap of terrain. I wonder if she’s recreated the map in her mind. If she sees our precise position and imagines we’re tracking the exact inked line Father drew for us to follow all the way up to the edge of Texas in Dalhart. Or did she just look up at the night sky, turn her body northwest, and hope all roads really do lead to Rome?
Ava walks a good fifty yards ahead of me, Lucía by her side. It started off as ten yards, but mile after mile I’ve let the distance grow, wanting to be alone, wanting to be free of someone listening for my every breath, watching my every move. Ava turns her head to check on me again.
Yes, I’m still here. I stop and wipe the dirt from my eyes and let another yard extend between us. I don’t know why this protective gesture annoys me so much—she almost lost me, and I almost lost everything. But it does.
Ava’s gaze shifts to the bulge now unmistakably visible beneath Lucía’s linen jacket. She pulls down the soaked cloth she cut from the ends of her shirt to protect her face from the grass and sand and addresses Lucía. The howling wind carries her words to me.
“Nunca he visto a un civil con una pistola.” I’ve never seen a civilian with a gun.
Her voice is weak. I hear the strain. See the exhaustion in her hunched body. In her short and heavy steps.
“De donde vine yo, no se puede sobrevivir sin ella,” Lucía responds. You don’t survive where I’m from without one. She drapes her soiled scarf over her shoulders, maneuvering the frayed ends to blanket her secret weapon.
“¿Usaste tu última bala?” Did you use your last bullet?
The wind brings me nothing more except its own violent shrieks. Yes, the wind screams for her, she used her last one.
I hug my body and take five sizable steps forward, narrowing the distance. Ava turns her head, checking on me once more.
Still here.
I can feel the sun now.
My numbness has thawed. Sweat leaks from my every pore, my insides seeping dry. The thirst is so bad, I keep reaching for the water bottle that I know isn’t there, like a ghost limb. My head aches. The relentless wind twists and whirls and spins my brain. I squint my eyes and my lips crack. I see a thousand windmills far on the horizon. Or is it an army of soldiers come to watch us melt away in this immeasurable wasteland?
“Nine more miles!” a voice shouts back to me.
I shake my head and focus my parched eyes. Two figures walk before me, miles and miles between us.
My sister. She’s so far away. She’s an extension of me. Half of me. And she’s so far away.
I reach out my arm for her and become distracted by the dancing numbers on my wristwatch. The watch’s hands twirl and swivel, disorienting me, and I stretch out my fingers to catch the maddening arrows when suddenly they stop, revealing the time.
1:35 p.m.
A rush of clarity. The hottest time of day is still ahead.
I stumble on.
It’s better than what’s behind.
I’m running on autopilot.
I blink and somehow find myself walking beside Ava, Lucía on my other side. Our ragged breaths and the steady tread of our mechanical slog are the only sounds left on this earth.
We stop in unison when we see it—a stone ranch house, small in the distance. I blink again, ensuring it’s not a mirage.