by Aiden Thomas
They could help, but Julian couldn’t get his body to understand what his brain knew. Adrenaline coursed through him, rigid and ready to fight even though he knew he didn’t need to.
He refused to move away from Yadriel’s side, but he did shift back. As soon as he made room, Enrique and Lita leaned in.
Julian bit back the urge to knock their hands away as they touched Yadriel’s cheeks, his pulse, his forehead. He was unconscious and vulnerable. Julian had to keep him safe.
“Is he okay?” Enrique asked.
“Sí,” Lita said with a heavy sigh. “Just exhausted.”
Enrique looked over. “Paola?”
“She’ll be okay,” said the girl who looked way too much like Maritza not to be her sister. She looked pissed, holding a light green rosary to Maritza’s forehead. “So stupid,” she chided, even though Maritza clearly couldn’t hear her.
“Thank Santa Muerte,” Enrique said. “We need to get them out of here. The ambulances should be arriving soon.”
When he and Miguel moved to pick up Yadriel, panic cut through Julian. “Be careful!” he shouted.
Enrique tried to speak gently to him. “It’s okay—” But Julian wouldn’t hear it. Couldn’t hear it.
Miguel got down and jostled Yadriel as he got his arms under him. Yadriel’s head lolled to the side.
“YOU’LL HURT HIM!” Julian tried to rush forward, but a pair of sturdy hands held on to his shoulders. Everything in him screamed to fight. He tried to rein in his anger but fear tore through his veins. “You’ll hurt him!” His throat ached. The sound of his heartbeat pounded in his ears.
Miguel scooped Yadriel into his arms. His head fell back, lips parted and neck exposed.
Julian’s voice splintered. “Don’t hurt him!”
“He’s okay; he’ll be okay,” Enrique repeated, trying to calm Julian, but he was already turning to follow.
Miguel was across the cave and going up the stairs. There was more movement around him, and brujx went to help the others. Julian could only see Yadriel’s dangling legs. His swath of black hair.
Julian’s heart thrashed wildly in his chest, threatening to break his ribs. He didn’t want them to take Yadriel away from him. What if something happened and Julian never got to see him again?
He twisted out of the grip of whoever was holding him and rushed forward. “WAIT!”
Enrique turned with a jerk, posture tense as he gave Julian a startled look.
Julian took a step back. “I need to go with him!” he insisted, fingers knotting anxiously into the hem of his shirt. Miguel disappeared with Yadriel up the stairs. Something tugged urgently at his chest, demanding he follow.
Enrique looked him down, confused and apprehensive.
Julian was covered in blood, trembling as his chest heaved with ragged breaths. Tears streamed down his cheeks, blurring his vision.
With effort, he choked back his primal instinct to charge forward, to just push past Enrique and anyone else in his way until he got back to Yadriel. “Please let me go with him!” Julian begged, hating the desperation in his voice.
After a moment, Enrique’s expression softened. He gave a curt nod. “Okay—”
Julian tore off up the stairs after Yadriel.
They wouldn’t let him ride in the ambulance no matter how hard he argued. It was too small. Enrique was the one who accompanied his son. Julian was put in his own ambulance after a lot of negotiating. He only agreed when they said he would be going to the same ER as Yadriel.
The adrenaline started to wear off on the way to the hospital. Strapped to a gurney, his body felt heavy, every muscle sore. The paramedic cut open his shirt and dressed the stab wound on his chest first, with layers of gauze and tape. He snapped at her when she pressed too hard, sending a sharp ache cutting through him.
“How long were you down there?” she asked, face screwed up in confusion. “It looks partially healed.”
Julian ignored her. He wasn’t no snitch.
It took the paramedic three tries to get him hooked up to an IV because he kept pulling away. Julian was too distracted worrying about Yadriel to listen to her explanation, but the stuff in the IV was cold, and he could feel it race through his veins. The tube tickled his arm with every bump of the ambulance.
As soon as they got to the hospital, Julian demanded to see Yadriel, but they wheeled him into his own room to be examined. People stood around him, poking and prodding, speaking to one another but not giving him a straight answer when he asked where Yadriel was.
“Don’t worry about your friend,” a nurse said with a smile. Julian growled at him. The smile quickly vanished.
One of the machines he was hooked up started to beep wildly as Julian made to stand up. If they weren’t going to tell him, then he’d figure it out himself. Another icy sensation tingled through his arm and suddenly he was sunk into the bed again, conscious but impossibly groggy.
“Tranquilo,” another nurse said gently, softly brushing gloved fingers over his sweaty forehead. “You assholes,” he slurred. All he could do was lie there as they went to work.
* * *
Too much time had passed. He’d been lying in bed, staring blankly at the TV on the wall as it showed an onslaught of infomercials. He was ready to lose it. He couldn’t stand being cooped up in this room, trapped in bed with nothing to do but obsess over whether Yadriel was all right. His body felt stiff and heavy. His stomach twisted with worry. The wait was killing him.
The only thing keeping him from storming down the hallway and demanding answers was whatever sedative they’d given him. There was a thick fog in his head, dulling his senses. Familiar voices came from the hallway and he turned to the door, chasing the sound.
A second later, the door swung open.
“Jules?”
Rio. Relief crashed through Julian. His pulse thudded in his temples as he tried to sit up.
“Christ, Jules,” said an irritated voice. A strong hand pushed his shoulder, holding him down. Julian tried to fight it, but he was far too weak.
“Stop,” the voice ordered, giving Julian a small shake that sent his head spinning.
Rio’s tense face swam into focus above him. His jaw was clenched, worry sparking in his sharp eyes.
“Rio?” he croaked groggily, latching on to his brother’s arm with feeble hands.
“You’re hooked up to a bunch of shit. If you keep fighting, you’re going to pop your stitches,” Rio told him sternly. “So quit it.”
Julian’s head rolled to the side and he blinked hard, trying to focus.
His friends stood huddled by his bed. Omar’s eyes were bloodshot and he looked pissed. Rocky was pale, and there were tears freely running from Flaca’s puffy eyes. Luca openly gaped like he was staring at a ghost.
“Are you guys okay?” Julian asked the first question that popped into his head.
“We’re supposed to ask you that, dumbass,” Omar growled.
“The cops said you got kidnapped by a cult,” Luca piped in.
“It wasn’t a cult,” Rocky corrected, looking annoyed. “It was just one guy.”
“They found you and three other people in a murder dungeon,” Luca continued, like he hadn’t heard her.
“He was about to kill all four of you,” Flaca said through tears, her fingers pressed to her lips.
“But Maritza and Yadriel found you,” Luca added.
Julian sucked in a breath. “Yadriel?” When he tried to sit up, he was hit was a violent ache in his chest, eliciting a groan.
“Julian,” Rio warned.
“Is Yadriel okay?” he demanded, trying to push his brother’s arm away.
“He’s okay,” Luca told him. “I asked one of his relatives. There’s a whole bunch of them in the waiting room.”
“Where is he?” Julian wasn’t going to take anyone’s word for it. The only way he’d believe Yadriel was okay was if he saw him with his own eyes. He wasn’t safe until Julian could speak to him and touch
him, until he knew for certain. “I gotta see him—” Julian tried to get up again, even though every muscle in his body screamed at him to stop.
Rio pushed him back down with ease.
Julian glowered.
“You got stabbed, Jules,” Rio said.
“Yadriel’s okay,” Flaca tried to reassure him. “He’s still recovering.”
It did little to make him feel better, especially when Rio added stubbornly, “You’re not going anywhere.”
“The hell I’m not!” Julian growled, trying to get up yet again.
Luca threw himself across Julian’s lap, and a scuffle ensued, if you could really call it that. It was mostly Julian cussing out Rio and his friends to let him go and them not letting him up.
TWENTY-FIVE
When Yadriel started to wake up, he tried to force his eyes open, but they slid right back shut. The strange scent of antiseptic mixed with flowers filled his nose.
“Yadriel?”
He tried again. Everything was blurry and way too bright.
“I’ll get a doctor,” Diego’s voice said. There was squeaking of shoes on linoleum. The opening and closing of a door.
“Yadriel? Are you awake?”
With effort, Yadriel turned and saw his dad. He was a haggard mess, but he let out a heavy sigh of relief.
“Ay, Dios mío!” Lita practically wailed at his side. Yadriel flinched as she babbled incoherently, thanking every god and saint she could think of, her hand pressed to her breast.
“Jesus Christ.”
Yadriel’s eyes swung to his left, where Maritza hovered over him.
He tried to sit up.
“Here, let me help,” Maritza scolded him, carefully pulling him into a seated position.
A wave of nausea crashed over him. Yadriel groaned as bile rose in his throat. Someone pressed a cool, damp cloth to the back of his neck. “This will help,” his dad told him, gently rubbing his back in circles. His bare back. Someone had taken off his binder.
“Where am I?” he asked, dragging the blanket up over his chest.
“The hospital, pendejo,” Maritza snapped, huffing as she crossed her arms. She was very angry.
Yadriel rubbed his throbbing temples. “How long have I been here?”
“About seven hours,” his dad said. “It’s almost ten a.m.”
Yadriel looked around. They all were staring at him, wide-eyed and … frightened?
He remembered the old church. Tío Catriz. The jaguar. “Tío,” Yadriel blurted out. “He was trying to summon Bahlam— He was going to—” His thoughts crashed painfully in his head. He grimaced, trying to string them together into something that made sense.
“It’s okay. Maritza told us everything,” Enrique said, smoothing his large hand up and down Yadriel’s arm, speaking softly.
“I’m so sorry, Dad. I’m so sorry.” The apologies spilled from his lips.
Enrique blinked at him, surprised. He gave a slight shake of his head. “No, Yadriel—”
“If I had just told you everything to begin with, then—”
Yadriel’s dad pulled him tight against his chest. “Yadriel,” Enrique sighed into his hair. “My brave, brave son.”
Yadriel wept into his dad’s shoulder, hard and uncontrollable.
“That was not your fault,” his dad told him, his voice soft but firm.
Yadriel’s chest felt like it had split wide open. “All I did was ruin everything. Tío is gone—”
“That’s not your fault,” his dad stressed. “Your tío was corrupted by the desire for power. It poisoned him, turned his mind toxic.” He sighed sadly. “He died at his own hand, no one else’s.”
Lita crossed herself and prayed under her breath.
“And we are partially to blame,” his dad continued. “We were unfair to him, and you, Yadriel. It’s too late to go back and make things right with Catriz, but I promise to do everything to make sure nothing like that happens again. You stopped him; you stopped it,” his dad insisted, giving him a gentle squeeze. “Everyone’s okay.”
But everyone wasn’t okay. Yadriel knew that. Everything in his body screamed it.
He’d watched as the jaguar dragged his tío down to Xibalba. He’d seen Miguel’s lifeless body laid out on the stone.
And there was something else. A persistent tugging in his chest. Something important that was just out of reach.
There was a flicker of a memory. A spark of a smile. A flash of dimpled cheeks. Dark, piercing eyes and a cold kiss on his lips.
It all came crashing back to him.
Julian.
The memory of his lifeless body struck Yadriel in the chest like a knife. He squeezed his eyes shut. Grief welled up inside, threatening to consume him whole. He felt bile rise in the back of his throat. “He’s gone.” Yadriel choked on a sob.
“But, Yads,” Maritza cut in, annoyed. “The amulet—”
Miguel. Julian. “They’re gone.”
“No, Yadriel, escúchame.” He dad squeezed his shoulders. “You saved him, Yadriel.”
Yadriel’s breath hitched. He blinked. “What?”
“All of them! Miguel and the others, too,” Maritza added.
It didn’t make sense. Yadriel pushed himself upright. “That’s not p-possible,” he hiccupped. He searched their faces. Hope fluttered in his heart.
“You used that amulet, and you brought them back.” His dad looked just as bewildered as Yadriel felt.
He stared at his dad. His brain was still foggy. He tried to keep up, to process what that all meant. “That’s not possible,” Yadriel said. “No brujo can bring someone back from the dead.”
“No, not any brujo could do that.” His dad smiled. The kind that brimmed with pride. “But you did.”
“But, that should’ve—”
“Killed you?” Maritza cut in. “Well, it nearly did, no thanks to Lady Death!” Her glare was vicious. She crossed her arms, but Yadriel could see her hands were shaking. “As soon as you brought the others back to life, she just vanished, and I had to save your sorry ass!” she snapped.
Yadriel balked. “You … you healed me?”
Maritza wiped at her eyes and nodded impatiently.
“You saved me, even though it meant using blood?” Yadriel said, staring at her in awe.
“Yeah, well, it wasn’t animal blood, and it’s not like I was just going to let you just die there.” She sniffed and lifted her chin. “I guess you lying on the floor in a pool of blood is my breaking point.”
Yadriel exhaled a weak laugh. “You’re amazing, Maritza.”
“Don’t get used to it,” she said, still angry. But then she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tight. “And you can expect a call from my lawyer,” she told him, voice muffled.
Yadriel hugged her back, and for a moment they both leaned against each other, laughing and sniffling.
Yadriel dragged his hand over his runny nose. “So, the others…” he ventured, hoping against hope. “They’re okay? All of them?”
“We called 911, and they rushed them—and you—to the hospital,” his dad nodded. “You took good care of them.” An amused look crossed Enrique’s face, ruffling his mustache with a knowing grin. “I thought we might not even be able to get you to the hospital. That boy, Julian, guarded you and kept you safe. He was ready to fight anyone who got near you—”
Yadriel’s heart leaped. “Julian?” He sat bolt upright, ignoring the churning of his stomach. “Where is he?” he demanded. “Is he here?”
Enrique nodded. “Down the hall, but you—”
Yadriel threw the blankets back and staggered to his feet.
“Yadriel!” his dad gasped.
The machines chimed as he shook off the wires taped to him and bolted for the door.
Lita, Maritza, and his dad scrambled after him.
“Yadriel!”
But he was running down the hall, his legs like Jell-O, half leaning against the wall. He passed one room, and then an
other. The small whiteboard outside the third room read J. DIAZ.
Yadriel shoved open the door.
Rio stood at the center of the room in his coveralls, eyes shut and pinching the bridge of his nose. Flaca, Rocky, Omar, and Luca surrounded the bed.
“This is bullshit!” a voice yelled. Omar shifted, and Yadriel saw him.
Julian was trying to push himself up off the pillows, snarling and looking surly as he glared up at his brother.
Yadriel sucked in a breath.
All eyes swung to Yadriel, but he only cared about the dark, piercing gaze.
Julian blinked. “Yads?”
There was sudden thrashing, and his friends quickly moved out of the way.
“Dammit, Jules!” Rio snapped, but Julian wasn’t listening.
Yadriel didn’t have time to say anything before Julian was on his feet and across the room. They collided, and Yadriel could only clutch and hold on tight as Julian slammed into him, sending them toppling into the wall. Julian’s arms locked around him so tight it hurt, but Yadriel didn’t care.
Julian’s warm body pressed against him and a spark of discomfort momentarily flared. Yadriel didn’t have his binder on and he suddenly felt exposed and bare.
But then Julian laughed. It tickled Yadriel’s ear, and he could feel it rumble in Julian’s chest. Yadriel squeezed his arms tighter around Julian, smothering the spark in his embrace before it could catch fire.
Julian cupped Yadriel’s face in his hands. “You idiot!” he shouted, brow furrowed, but his smile was wide and dimpled. “You could’ve gotten yourself killed!”
Yadriel was overwhelmed by the sheer fierceness of him. Julian’s spirit was nothing but a dull shadow of his real self. Alive, fiery, crushing. It was overwhelming, but Yadriel would gladly get his breath robbed by Julian’s brilliant smile over and over again.
“You’re so stupid!” Julian repeated. “You—!”
“Shut up—” Yadriel threw himself against Julian and wrapped his arms around his neck and kissing him fervently.