by Dela
“Everyone come with me downstairs. We’ll sneak out the back and wait outside for Huitzilihuitl to show up,” Andrés directed. “Esteban, come downstairs and go through the front door like a normal doctor would. Lucas, stay here with Zara. Her parents are going to want answers—which you have already, I presume?”
I shrugged. “I saved Zara from a riptide.”
Dylan laughed and pointed his fingers outside. “From those baby waves? Seriously, you couldn’t think of anything better?”
“I didn’t have time, Dylan. Max was waiting for me when I got home.”
“Dylan, shh. It will work,” Valentina said. The noises were moving up the first flight of stairs. “Let’s move.”
As they hurried out, I checked the transfusion. Zara had taken nearly the entire bag. Color was returning in her cheeks. I unhooked the blood bag and stored it in the cooler, which had been hidden in the bathroom shower. I’ll give her more later tonight.
I ran over and sat next to Zara on the bed just as her family walked in. Her mom gasped and ran over.
“Zara!” she cried.
“I was jogging, and I saw her in the ocean by herself. I could see she couldn’t get out, so I ran in there and got her,” I lied.
“Why would she go out in a storm alone?” Mitch asked. Storm? Good, my story should work out.
“I don’t know.” I lowered my head. “I’m so sorry. This is my fault. I shouldn’t have left her on her own.”
Mitch placed a hand on my shoulder. “You did fine, son.”
I could hear Max behind me, his heart rate picking up. “Dad, you believe him?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
I peeked over at Max behind my shoulder. His face was red with anger. Casey stood next to him, confusion arching his eyebrows. “What’s wrong with you, Max?” he asked.
Max glared at me two whole seconds before he huffed and stormed out of the room again.
“Did I do something wrong?” I asked.
“No, no, honey,” Mrs. Moss said, sitting on the other side of the bed. Her eyes never left Zara. “Does Zara need to go to the hospital?”
Just then the doorbell rang. A minute later Esteban walked in, and I felt the stress in the room dissipating.
“This is Doctor Esteban,” I said. “He’s an old friend who works in the ER in Merida. I called him to come over and take a look at Zara.”
“Oh, thank you,” Mrs. Moss said, moving over so Esteban could do his “job.”
Esteban did a few assessments, checked her vitals, and asked me questions in Spanish. He turned to her parents and explained in English, “Zara is in a coma, but she will most likely be out of it in a few days. I wouldn’t recommend moving her, as long as you have a nurse watching her around the clock and giving me updated vital stats. She has some cuts and bruises, and her collarbone is broken. Unfortunately, for those kinds of breaks, there really is nothing I can do. The break isn’t bad enough to need surgery, so she just needs to keep her arm in a sling for eight weeks. She will need to rest quietly while she heals, and I will send some painkillers for when she wakes up.”
He did his job with comforting them, but he lied. We didn’t know when Zara would wake up. And he didn’t comfort me. I was the one who broke her bone.
The Mosses were asking more questions, and I was looking at the new bump on her chest, half covered by the sheets, when my ears caught the sound of Tez and Huitzilihuitl’s arrival. It was dulled by distance, maybe a quarter mile away on the beach. I looked around for Marifer, and she appeared as if from thin air by the long dresser behind the Mosses.
“Mr. and Mrs. Moss, you’ve met Marifer.” I lifted my chin to point her out. “She is an RN. She will look after Zara so that she can rest here in our home.” I pulled the sheets up to Zara’s neck and patted the side lightly, and then I stood.
“I will give you some time alone,” I said. Marifer and Esteban silently asked what I wanted them to do. I switched to their Mayan language to tell them, “Don’t let the sheets come down. Don’t let them see her wounds.” Marifer bowed her chin and stood against the bed with the Mosses while Esteban busied himself with Zara’s bandaged wrist, conveniently keeping her family at a distance.
Huitzilihuitl and Tez were standing with my family and Tita in a circle by the water, out of view of the house.
I nodded. “Huitzilihuitl. Tez.”
“Lucas.” They nodded.
I glanced back to my family, glad to see they looked well and not as damaged as I expected. One look at the others, though, made me exhausted. Huitzilihuitl, stained and reeking of oil again, and Tez, slick and clean, with tired yet very sharp eyes, made me wish for a new life. I didn’t want a laborious life. I wanted a free life. Free to love, free to speak, free to feel—a life with purpose. I wanted to sit on a country porch and play guitar as children ran around, to watch the sunset with Zara, counting each, knowing they were numbered in our short lives, savoring each one more than the last. I would not have that life, not with my invisible bonds, but I could give myself to Zara—serve her—for one human lifespan and still feel freer, more alive, than I ever would in the rest of my eternity. I felt anew because I chose Zara. And I supposed I always had.
“It has been explained to me that Xavier is out,” Huitzilihuitl said, shifting his gaze to Andrés.
“Yes. He won’t be a problem anymore.”
Perhaps I spoke as if this were a light topic. Huitzilihuitl’s face burst with anger at my undermining comment. I looked to the ground.
“Where is the sacrifice?” he asked.
My throat tightened. I glanced at Andrés to make sure it was okay to speak freely. He nodded. “Inside, being watched over by her family and two Aluxes,” I answered carefully.
He folded his large arms across his chest. “Do the humans know our secrets?”
“No.”
“Explain . . . spare no details.”
I recounted everything, from Tita’s vision to all that had happened in the past year. The pad of his wide thumb rubbed his chin as he listened. When I finished, he looked to my family and then to Tita.
“Now I will explain something to you. I don’t trust witches; I hate witches. And now I don’t trust you.” My body tensed, and Tita froze. I watched the muscles around her eyes deepen with sadness. “But I have been told that Xibalba has been experiencing certain tremors. They grow weaker.” He studied me a moment. “I believe it is because of you, and this . . .”
“Zara,” I said.
A low grumble escaped his mouth. “ . . . this girl, with you, starts these tremors. I do not believe in prophecies that come from witches, but I believe in fate. Everyone will get what they deserve. Mictlan got what he deserved, and we will too. We broke a binding agreement. We stole from Mictlan. There will be a price to pay.”
“Why? Why do we have to pay the price for someone else’s wrong?”
“Someone else’s wrong? You stole from him! You lied to ME!”
“Don’t hurt her,” I pleaded.
“Silencio, Lucas! We are not thieves; we pay for what we take.”
“Don’t give her to him, I beg you!”
“I’ve made my law . . .”
“Your law? Isn’t this supposed to be our law? You don’t represent the others; you represent yourself!” I shouted.
“Lucas! Watch your tongue,” Valentina snapped.
I fell to my knees. The sand was powder, damp with my tears. “Huitzilihuitl, do not make this mistake. Give me a chance to show you.”
“Lucas,” he spat, his face disgusted. “I am not giving her up. You are keeping her.”
“What?”
“Why would I give up a possession that can make Xibalba tremble?”
I sniffed. “Then what do you mean, ‘price to pay’?”
“The portal is closed, and I cannot reopen it.
The sacrifices will no longer take place. The price, Lucas, will be the price of breaking our agreement.”
“What will that be?”
“A wrath of revenge.” A sickening calmness controlled him. He rubbed one hand over the other in slow motion.
“How? They have no way of getting to us. The Milky Way has passed.”
“They do not now. But they will, I assure you.”
Tez’s footprints in the sand flooded as he stepped deeper into our circle. “Lucas, the Council agreed to let you keep the girl, contingent upon you further exploring your connection and reporting to us. She will be our greatest weapon, and when they return, we will need her.”
It was hard to hear Zara being called a weapon. Tez was on my side, but he didn’t know the side effects of Zara’s ability. I shuddered, remembering Zara collapsing before the mental assaults. The girl was just a girl, not a weapon.
“What if they come after she has already grown old and died? What then?” I wondered.
“You die first, then your family, then we come up with another arrangement before they bring war on us.”
“One that doesn’t involve people dying, please,” Gabriella said.
“Gabriella,” Dylan said. “After we’ve done this, they won’t take anything but.”
“What about bloodletting?” she asked, hopeful.
“No, babe.”
An unexpected laugh choked my throat. “It wouldn’t matter because we’d be dead.” More like murdered.
Gabriella frowned and turned to me with a determination made of pure fear. “Lucas, you love that girl so hard your heart hurts.” Her voice shook, and strands of hair flew over her face. She cinched it into a ponytail in one hand and brushed the strays away with the other. “Keep her. You hear me? Otherwise, I’ll kill you myself.”
I blinked at her, then switched my attention to Huitzilihuitl with a crazy notion. “Do I have permission to marry her, Huitzilihuitl?”
“You want to marry her?” He laughed. I gulped back a ball of pressure and let the joy of proposing root a new stress inside me. I had heard of men becoming sick with worry whether a woman would say yes. I was beginning to feel the same, only worse. If Zara said no, I’d face denial and possibly death. But then again, if she says no, I’d rather be dead anyway.
“Huit, look at Valentina and Andrés. Chac admires them, god and human together, and they have served us well thus far,” Tez said, eying me carefully afterward. I understood now that he was here for damage control, in case Huitzilihuitl acted against us. I was glad he was here. “This girl is our weapon; she needs the proper care to grow, doesn’t she?”
Huitzilihuitl whipped around. His mouth shrank like a fish’s as his black eyebrows slanted in. “Mulac doesn’t know anything about caring for a woman. And she isn’t here so you can sleep with her. The only reason she is still here is because she is our weapon.”
“I agree, she is special,” I said. “But in order for Zara to grow as you wish, she must grow into a woman first . . . sexually too. When that time comes, it will be me who lies with her. No one else. I can help her. Let me try . . . and . . . I will take care of her.”
“How do you know this?”
“Because I have felt it.”
“And I have seen it,” Tez added.
“The girl does no good to us alone. The connection must be bound,” Tita abruptly said.
Huitzilihuitl looked away from her in contempt. “Why?”
I could tell his cruelty toward Tita was another slash at her self-worth, but she stood tall, her hair still spiked from battle. “Security.”
“I will watch and make sure Lucas keeps his end of the deal,” Andrés said as a wave splashed around his ankles. But this wasn’t a deal; this was my decision. I loved Zara and wanted this.
Huitzilihuitl grunted and said, “Don’t disappoint me.” And then he vanished.
Dylan’s laughter broke our silence. “This has got to be the biggest pressure any man has ever had to marry a woman. I do not envy you, brother.”
I swallowed, nearly choking with shock that we had stopped the sacrifices, and Zara and I were still alive, and that it was actually okay to love each other and even marry. I stared off into the limitless turquoise water, unable to fathom it all. My shackles were gone. I could breathe. A torrent of gratitude suddenly made me quiver. I stretched my back and stood taller. Today would mark my last day in hell, and my first of utopia.
Zara
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Meant but Never Said
I drifted into the expanding whiteness until I was back in Tahoe at the wintery pond. I walked along the edge slowly, watching white butterflies land on the silver lily pads. I saw a pair of bright blue eyes staring at me through the aspens.
I followed them, wondering why the observer looked so familiar. I stopped and circled the soft snow where they had appeared, searching for anything with a tint of blue.
“Zara,” a voice said behind me.
I flipped around and he was there, taller than me, hair as dark as ebony. I knew this man. His name was on the tip of my tongue. He reached for me with smooth hands, and mine felt rough and callused against them.
“Zara,” he whispered again. “Come back to me.”
Then the dark angel bent his head and touched his lips to mine, sending a surge of electricity rippling through my body. I broke away and touched my poisoned lips, shocked.
“Come home,” he said, anguished, and then he vanished.
Whiteness consumed me again, and I floated into nothingness. The poison of his kiss streamed downward and set my heart to aching. But I wanted more. I wanted more of his poison; I wanted him. What is his name? It irked me until one memory arose in my mind.
I glanced at my arm. The aqua heart glowed in the silver light. I stroked it, feeling his warm, gentle touch when he put it there. I closed my eyes, remembering. He and I walking along the beach at night, the fine sand squeezing in between our toes while the water glittered bright blue. Him bending down to touch the water, his finger glowing as he lifted it. Him scribbling on my arm, producing a heart that blazed aqua in the night. Mi princesa, he said.
Lucas!
My throat scratched as I struggled to say his name. A deep, catching breath brought in fresh air and the scent of laundry detergent. I cracked my eyes open and squinted down at myself. White satin pajamas robed my aching body. A fuzzy figure moved at my side. I squinted at it, trying to force my eyes to adjust to the bright light.
“She’s awake,” Lucas said. He turned. “Go get her parents.”
I tried to identify the dark figures at his left, but they fled too quickly.
His warm hand quickly filled the space in mine. “I’m right here.”
My head felt like it weighed a thousand pounds, and it pounded horrifically when I moved.
“Be still. You got beat up pretty bad,” he said, brushing hair gently off my cheek.
“Is Xavier . . .?” I whispered.
Lucas nodded.
I choked down a cry. “And the portal?”
“Yes.”
“And Xquic?”
“We were lucky that she persuaded Xavier to go. Dylan and Tita were close to destroying him.”
“Are you safe from the Council?” I asked.
“As far as I know, yes.”
An overwhelming sense of relief eased some of the pain, but then the image of Max running from my room brought the anxiety rushing back. “Max,” I gasped. “He went to go get Nicolás for help.”
My head itched. I raised my hand to scratch, but pain stabbed across my upper chest and my hand stopped short. I moaned.
Lucas softly pulled my hand away and laid it back on the bed. “You need time to heal. Those have to stay on there, and don’t raise your arm. Your collarbone is broken . . . and a rib.”
&n
bsp; “What’s that?” There were puncture wounds in my undamaged wrist.
He stroked the bruises gently before looking away. “Your parents will be here soon.”
My heart skipped. How can I think of a lie to cover this up?
“It’s okay,” he said. “You drowned. The tide took you pretty hard. You got cut up when it thrashed you down into the reef.”
“How did I get out?” I wondered, catching on to his raised eyebrow.
His troubled face broke into an endearing smile. “I saved you, of course. That’s five now.”
He sat gingerly on the edge of my bed as I secretly counted.
“What day is it?” I asked.
“Two days after Christmas.”
I began to sob, imagining my poor brother. “What about Max? I disappeared from my bed, Lucas.”
“When I showed up with you at the house, Nicolás warned me that Max was involved, with a little too much information,” Lucas said. I didn’t like his reprimanding tone.
“Sorry. Nicolás was ignoring me,” I said defensively.
“On my orders.”
“Yeah, well, your plan didn’t exactly work as agreed, did it?”
There was a tickling sensation on the inside of my fingers, where Lucas had settled his hand again. There was grief in his eyes. “Zara, everything I did was to protect you. If I’d known that he could take you . . . this wouldn’t have happened.”
I gazed away, embarrassed to seem ungrateful but still angry, and realized just how much gauze covered my body beneath the silk. Lucas was already holding up a small mirror when I looked up. The first thing I noticed was the cloth wrapped tightly around my forehead and a scrape along my cheekbone. The wound left by Xavier’s dagger over my left breast was bandaged and taped. Thick white gauze encircled my wrist, a slight pink tint marking the surface. The disturbing dark impression of fingers spread from beneath the dressing, and similar purple spots marked much of my body.
“You’re lucky you didn’t break your back,” Lucas said, picking up a roll of gauze. He lifted my wrist and gently wrapped a fresh layer over the fingerprints. “We can’t let anyone see this.”