by Karina Halle
“Yes,” she says. “But not for the reasons you think. This was your chance to have gone good.”
I give her a sharp look. “What are you talking about?”
“You cheated on Ellie. You lost her this night forever. Don’t talk to me about what happened later on, she was gone on this night, never to be yours again. You fucked up Javier. You ruined your only shot at redemption.”
I shake my head, glancing at Ellie, still sobbing uncontrollably. “No. She wouldn’t have…I would have corrupted her. She would have turned dark, she was already heading there. She had been lying to me this whole time!”
“That’s what you think because your ego is so damn large. But you were young then. You were finding out who you were in the world, and what your place was. You had ambitions, but you had just gotten started. Ellie…had you not cheated on her, fucked her over like this so callously, she would have rubbed off on you. She would have made you turn away from the cartels. You would have been happy together, married, with kids. Safe. Loved.”
I shake my head. “No. I refuse to believe that.”
“And I asked you to listen to me. This is important. I’m showing you where you went wrong. Ellie didn’t want to be a con artist, it’s all she had ever known. She had a purity in her underneath all the mud. You saw it in her. That’s why she was your angel. You knew it. You knew you would have traded it all away for the simple life with her.”
“And that’s why I did what I did,” I say quietly. “Because I didn’t want to be good.”
“Congratulations, Javier Bernal. You’re not a good man. You feel better now?”
I glare at her. “So what the hell am I supposed to do with this information? I can’t change the past.”
“You can’t. Ellie is gone. You’re with Luisa now. And she’s your present. But you can use your past to make changes to the present. More importantly, you can make changes to the future.” She holds her hand out for me. “Come on. It’s time to go back.”
I stare at Ellie in the truck for a moment, her mouth open in a gaping sob, her eyes pinched shut, her black tears streaking down her cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” I say to her, even though she won’t hear me.
I never meant to do this to her.
I look back to Violetta and take her hand.
She leads me around the truck and then we’re not on the road anymore, we’re in front of the cabin.
Snow is falling all around me.
Cold as fuck.
And I’m all alone.
Violetta is gone.
“Violetta,” I whisper into the darkness. “Where did you go?”
Then I realize I may have woken up.
This might be reality.
I’m sleepwalking right now, aren’t I?
I look around. There are no tracks in the snow, not even my own.
What the fuck?
I shake my head, trying to work sense into it again.
I head toward the cabin.
The front door is open.
Some security system we have.
I lock the door behind me and look around the living room.
The fire is back, though it’s dying down to embers.
The house is empty.
I let out a long sigh, feeling normality return, and then go up the stairs to the master bedroom.
Shut the door.
Turn toward the window.
FUCK!
There’s someone standing in front of the billowing curtains, their silhouette visible in the moonlight.
My gun, I think, about to lunge for the drawer in the bedside table.
“Javi,” Violetta says. “It’s just me.”
I stop dead and look up at her. She walks away from the window and comes around the bed.
“What are you doing back?” I hiss at her. “I thought I was done dreaming.”
She folds her arms and gives me a saucy look. “We’re not done, brother. And you’re not dreaming.” Then she sighs. “I’m the ghost of Christmas present.”
“Past and present?”
“Yeah. The future too. No one else wanted to take you on. I can’t blame them, you’re a total pain in the ass.”
“Perhaps you’ve just missed me.”
And there I go, bantering with my dead sister like all is right and normal in the world.
“I watch you all the time Javier,” she says, then she makes a disgusted face. “Well, not all the time. But enough. I can truly say I don’t miss you at all.”
“Ouch.”
She shrugs. “You can dish it out but can’t take it. Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. You need to see something.”
“Oh god,” I say. I can still feel Ellie’s pain sticking to me from that previous dream or whatever the fuck it was.
“Take my hand,” she says.
Wincing, I put my hand in hers and she opens the door, taking me out of the bedroom and down the hall to where Luisa and Vicente are sleeping.
My pulse starts to pick up in my throat. This isn’t going to be good, is it?
I stop outside the door, trying to put on the brakes, not wanting to go in, not wanting to see what horrors may wait.
But Violetta gives me a gentle smile and opens the door.
Pulls me into the room like I weigh nothing more than a feather.
To my surprise, Luisa is awake, dressed in her nightgown.
She’s sitting in an armchair with Vicente in her arms, her dark hair spilling over her shoulders.
He’s fussing, crying out softly, and she’s trying to soothe him, to no avail.
Violetta sits on the corner of the bed and I find myself walking to Luisa, crouching down beside her.
“Luisa,” I whisper to her.
But she doesn’t hear me.
I try to put my hand on her knee, but I can’t. Like there’s an invisible barrier.
“Is this happening now?” I ask Violetta. She nods. “Then why can’t I…why doesn’t she see me?”
“Because you’re just an observer. So observe. This is important.”
I stare up at Luisa, and suddenly I’m struck by the pain in her eyes. Not physical, but emotional pain.
She stares down at Vicente, who is such a big boy now, and I know she’s silently pleading for him to go to sleep. I know she’s tired of having to do this, of being alone. She’s refused a nanny, wanting to take care of Vicente all on her own, but what I’m realizing is she didn’t want to be totally alone.
She wanted me to be there.
She wanted me to be with her in moments like this.
When Vicente won’t sleep.
Or when he needs to eat.
Or have his diaper changed.
Or any of the things I’ve not helped with because I’ve been too fucking busy running a drug cartel.
And I’ve abandoned her.
I’ve left Luisa to do it all herself.
I’ve admired her. Of course I’ve admired how natural she is at being a mother, at how well she handles everything. My respect and my love has gone up for her exponentially.
But what does that matter, when she probably feels more alone than ever before?
And Vicente.
I stare at my son, his thick black hair, his golden-brown eyes as he stares up at Luisa. I’m missing out on every second of his life. How did he even get this big? I swear he was an infant the last time I looked.
“Do you see?” Violetta asks gently. “Do you see that this is important? That it’s the most important thing in the world? That these two will save your soul in the end, but only if you let them.”
I nod, unable to take my eyes off of them. I love them both so much that the feeling breaks me in pieces.
“Shhh, please,” Luisa says to Vicente, her eyes closing, brow furrowed. “I just need to sleep. I just need some sleep.”
Fuck.
I’m an asshole. To think this is what she goes through, and she never ever calls me over to help. Never tries to complain.
The only thing she even asked for was a beautiful, special Christmas together, and I only did that halfway, not even thinking for a second what would be a nice thing to do, not even trying to make her happy, just trying to get her to shut up.
I’m nothing but a self-serving dick.
I glance at Violetta. “I can make this right.”
“I know you can,” she says. “I know you will.”
I feel a hit of relief but then she goes on. “But we have one last thing to see.”
I get to my feet. “No. No, I am done. I don’t want to see anymore.”
“I have to take you to the future. To show you what will happen if you don’t change your ways. If you don’t start taking your family more seriously. If you don’t choose love over your very selfish core.”
I gulp. I have a feeling I don’t have much of a choice.
The thing is, now I have to know what happens.
“Fine,” I tell her. “Do your worst.”
“I’m not doing this Javier. Everything I’m about to show you is all your own doing. No one else to blame but you.”
She turns and opens the door to the pitch-black hallway.
I give Luisa and Vicente one last look, my heart pinching at the sight of them, at Vicente finally going to sleep, then I follow my sister.
She grabs my hand and pulls me into the darkness.
Gives it a squeeze.
And then the darkness of the hall dissolves to something else.
A scene.
A field.
We’re back at home.
At the compound, I think?
Except things look…different.
It’s dark out and drizzling and lights illuminate the grassy lawn.
And a war is going on.
It takes me a while to focus on everyone.
Guards are shooting from the trees, while three men fan out with guns. I don’t recognize any of them, except the tall one with dark hair. I don’t know who he is, but still, I know him.
And then behind them are two women.
One of them I immediately recognize as Ellie.
She’s much older than I last saw her, maybe in her late forties, but it’s her. She’s still attractive as hell, covered in tattoos, dark hair, looking somewhat wild and feral, like she’s on the hunt.
And I’m guessing the girl is her daughter. She’s got to be nineteen or twenty.
Same long dark hair, beautiful with fine features, just like her mother, except for a fresh V-shaped cut on her cheek.
And her leg.
The sight of her leg makes me feel breathless.
It’s scarred and bubbling and raw, just like the scars on Ellie’s leg, only it looks like it was done very recently.
And I know it can’t be a coincidence.
“Holy fuck,” I say softly. “Is this…is this the future?”
“Yes. This is what happens.”
“I don’t understand…why is Ellie here? In Mexico again? Is that her daughter?”
“That is her daughter.”
“And her leg?”
Violetta gives me a pointed look. “You did that to her leg, Javier.”
“I would never.” She’s wrong. I know I’ve done my share of fucked up things in this world and I know I’ve tortured, mutilated, and killed many. But I would never do that to someone innocent like a young girl, and especially not Ellie’s daughter.
“I would never,” I say again.
“But you do…unless you change things.”
And then Ellie looks at her daughter’s leg like she’s seeing it for the first time. Perhaps she is. Then she looks at the man who looks familiar to me, as if she expected him to do this to her, her face cracking with raw rage.
“It was my father,” the man says.
And that’s when it all slides into place.
That man is my son.
That’s Vicente.
The twinge of pride I feel swelling in my chest at seeing what a handsome, strong, confident-looking man he’s become only lasts a few seconds as I realize that my son just threw me under the motherfucking bus.
And sure enough, there I am.
Me in the future.
Thank fuck I still have my hair.
Future me comes out of a grove of trees with Luisa by my side. She looks great too, good to know. There’s blood running down the side of his head. Makes future me look distinguished, I think.
And then the future me starts smiling.
Oh god, why the fuck is he smiling? What a psycho.
“Have some remorse!” I find myself yelling at him.
“Oh, you do,” Violetta says. “You’re not one hundred percent evil.”
Somehow that doesn’t make me feel any better, because I have a feeling the number ranges in the nineties.
And so I watch the scene unfold.
Ellie loses her shit, and rightfully so.
She runs across the field toward future me and tackles him.
And she fucking rails into him.
It’s painful to watch.
She bites, punches, claws.
And he doesn’t even fight back.
It looks weak. It looks so fucking weak and I hate myself for thinking that way, that future me is letting himself getting beaten up by a woman.
But I also know the truth, and that truth is the same now as it would be in the future. I think I deserve her wrath and so I’m letting her do her worst.
Perhaps karma, if I believed in it.
Now she’s choking him, and I think she’s actually going to kill future me.
Can’t say I blame her.
Then I hear shouts. People are getting upset. People scream.
But Ellie continues to choke the life out of him.
“Fucking hell, Violetta, is this how I die?”
She doesn’t say anything.
The suspense is too much.
Then Ellie loosens her grip.
Stares into his eyes.
And from this distance I can see her realize what she almost did, that she almost killed him, and that she didn’t want to follow through.
The future me smiles at her.
A real genuine smile.
I can only imagine what I’m thinking.
That Ellie cared enough about me not to kill me.
“Keep your eyes on your wife,” Violetta says.
I pull my eyes off Ellie straddling future me in the middle of the field and look at Luisa, who has a gun in her hands, aiming it at Ellie’s back.
“No!” I yell, attempting to run, but Violetta pulls me back into place. I’m forced to watch. I watch as another guy and Ellie’s daughter start screaming, running toward them.
Luisa pulls the trigger.
The bullet gets Ellie in the back.
Blood splatters on my future face, eyes round with shock.
She collapses on him.
And the look the future me gives Luisa as Ellie lies in my arms, dead, is the same look that I’m giving her right now.
Essentially, everything that the Javier of the future is doing and feeling is exactly what I’m feeling right now too.
Shock.
Horror.
Pain.
How could it end this way?
“It can’t end this way,” I tell Violetta, feeling breathless. “How did it get this way?”
“The worst is yet to come,” she says.
I close my eyes. I can’t watch anymore.
And yet, this is my destiny, isn’t it?
My eyes open.
Ellie has been removed by a bunch of people and is carried off in a hurry, and my heart leaps with hope that maybe she can still be saved. Meanwhile, future me is staggering to his feet. Vicente is storming over to him.
Vicente grabs future me by the back of the neck and shoves a gun under his chin.
Holy. Shit.
“You are no longer my father,” he screams in his face. My face. “And you no longer have a son.”
&nbs
p; The pain I feel in the future slams into me through the decades until I can’t even breathe anymore.
Then everything goes black.
The scene vanishes with a gust of air that gets colder and colder and colder and suddenly I’m back outside the cabin.
On my knees in the snow.
Shivering.
Violetta is standing beside me, her hand on my shoulder.
“It’s a lot, isn’t it?” she asks softly.
I look up at her, snowflakes gathering in her hair, as if she’s really here with me.
“I can’t lose my son,” I tell her, trying to find the words through the pain. “I can’t…I can’t be that person. I don’t know what happened to lead to all of that, but I can’t let that happen. I won’t.”
“Then you have to make some changes, Javi,” she says, reaching down and hauling me to my feet. “Okay? You have to change the path you’re on. Start with the small things.”
I hear what she’s saying, but my mind is stuck in a loop over what I just experienced. “What happens after that? After that scene? What’s the future? Do I have other children? Is Ellie really dead? Do I forgive Luisa? Do I ever talk with Vicente again? How do I even go on after that?”
“You’re not going to remember any of this tomorrow anyway, so I might as well you tell you,” she says with a sigh. “Ellie isn’t dead. You forgive Luisa because you love Luisa and she was only trying to save your life. You would have done the same for her. You have a daughter, Marisol, with whom you have an opportunity not to fuck things up with. And Vicente, well…the damage is done. You will lose him for good. And when he starts running a rival cartel…”
“He what?” I cry out. “He starts running a rival cartel?”
“You should be proud.” She gives me an impish smile. “Someone has to take you on, Javier. You can’t stay number one forever. Second place isn’t the worst.”
“It is for me.”
“And so you see why you need to change, right?”
“How?” I throw out my arms. “Giving up this life and walking the line?”
“No one is asking you to stop being Javier Bernal,” my sister says. “But you can be a better husband and a better father, and you can start with little things, like stop cutting people’s noses off, or feeding them to the pigs. Things like that. You know, baby steps.”
“I can’t let that happen, Violetta,” I tell her, gesturing to the snow-covered pines, as if the future lies just beyond them. “I can’t let Vicente turn against me.”