That meant starting with the body. Nita felt the smile tugging at the corner of her mouth as she pressed the scalpel into the skin and made a long, dark Y incision down the chest. Nita peeled back the skin and cracked open the rib cage, revealing the contents of the body to the open air. Nita sighed, a soft, contented sound, as she ran her finger over each rib, slick and sticky.
Then, carefully, she dipped her hand into the chest cavity. Where should she start? The heart, large and tough, but not tough enough to keep pumping when the skull was smashed. Or perhaps the liver, dense and brown, telling stories of bad habits the body may have had.
The stomach, Nita decided. She reached in for the pouch, wondering what secrets would be contained in the acidic fluids within. She shivered as she pulled it out, her body rippling like she was Kovit getting a hit of pain. It felt so good to be in a dissection room again.
All the little voices in her head had gone away. They knew what Nita needed, and it wasn’t their opinion.
Piece after piece went into little glass jars. Fingernails were pried off and dropped into vials with little clinks. Hair was shaved off and tied with a ribbon. The skull was sawed off and the brain scooped out, and portioned into little Tupperware containers like a zombie’s lunch. Then Nita stapled the top of the skull back on so they could wave the head around if needed for leverage. It still looked like Reyes.
There was no time while Nita dissected, only motion. So when she finished and checked the clock, she was shocked to find nearly six hours had passed. It was midafternoon.
She stretched her arms above her head, and her back made a satisfying crack. A contented smile crossed her face. She hadn’t felt this good, this at peace, since before Fabricio.
Nita’s smile fell at the thought of Fabricio. If she hadn’t saved him, her mother wouldn’t have sold her.
Don’t be naive. If it hadn’t been Fabricio, it would have been someone else.
She let out a breath. The peace of dissection had been broken by the real world.
Nita took off her gloves and rubbed her eyes. Then she texted Kovit. After the guards had left, he’d taken the phone and unlocked it. The problem with those pattern locks was that if you saw someone open them enough times, you could make a pretty good guess as to their combination.
Nita had been disappointed to find that despite unlocking the phone, there was still no internet. Either Reyes didn’t have a data plan (unlikely) or the connection in the middle of nowhere, Amazon jungle, was too shitty (more likely).
Nita’s fingers slid across the screen. All done. Everything’s ready for sale.
His response was quick. Good. I’ve told Jorge and Renzo that Reyes wants them to sell some things in the market today.
And they bought it?
Did you really think they would question me to my face?
No. No one was that stupid.
Nita swiped quickly. All right. Who are we saying the parts are from?
“Dolphin Girl.”
Nita nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard Kovit’s voice behind her. He leaned in the door, mocking grin on his face. He enjoyed startling her, she could tell. Nita just glared.
“Reyes’ arms are more white than pink,” Nita said, trying to pretend she hadn’t been surprised at all.
Kovit clearly didn’t buy it, but he didn’t comment. “But they look grayish in death, which is sort of close to Dolphin Girl.”
“All right,” Nita agreed. Kovit was probably right. Easier to pass off these parts as Mirella’s than Nita’s. “But Reyes was human, right? Won’t people be able to tell that they’re fake when they don’t do anything?”
“Dolphin Girl’s body parts didn’t do anything either. Or at least, nothing Reyes’ tests could detect. But it’s fine. Jorge and Renzo have sold lots of useless unnatural parts that way before, as have half the people here. It’s a scam, and everyone involved knows it’s a scam.”
“Why do it? Isn’t it easier to just lie about it? Pretend they have some other power?”
“Not really.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because it’s easy to test a lot of things. If you say something is zannie blood, all someone has to do is rub it on a paper cut, and they’ll know. It’s an anesthetic, right? So if the pain goes away, it’s real—if it doesn’t, it’s fake. But if you sell something as ‘it’s from this type of unnatural, but we don’t know what it does,’ then people think they can get it cheaper and figure out themselves what it does.”
Nita frowned. It sort of made sense. “If it’s cheaper, will we make enough for bribes and boat fare?”
“I hope so.” Kovit shook his head. “But there’s no way to know. This is a barter market. Who knows what we’ll get.”
Nita sighed and leaned against the metal autopsy slab. “I wish we could sell it ourselves.”
“We can’t.” He wiped a hair from his face. “Jorge and Renzo know I’m not supposed to be outside much. And if they see you in the street, the jig is up. We’re lucky you haven’t run into them thus far.”
Nita grumbled, but didn’t complain.
She and Kovit worked to package everything nicely and brought it out to the front of the building. Kovit messaged one of the guards.
“I’m going to tell him to call Reyes to confirm. Can you answer and pretend to be Reyes?”
Could she? Nita, who’d barely spoken to anyone except her parents for the past five years until Fabricio came along? Any plan that relied on Nita’s communication skills seemed doomed to fail.
But it wasn’t like Kovit could pretend to be Reyes.
Focus on specifics. You have to do this. Don’t think, Can you do it? Think, How will you do it?
Nita had heard Reyes speak in Spanish a few times. Her accent was hard to place, mostly because Nita didn’t know accents so well. Reyes had used vos instead of tú, so probably not western South America. But no sh sounds instead of y like Fabricio had. So, probably not Argentina/Uruguay. Maybe Central America somewhere?
“I can try. I don’t know if I can get the accent right.” Or even if she was right about what accent it was. For all she knew, there was some part of western South America that used vos or some district in Argentina that didn’t use sh.
“Keep it short, then. Just confirm I speak for Reyes and they’re supposed to sell those parts.”
Nita nodded and pulled Reyes’ phone out of her pocket. There were seven missed calls in the last few hours. Nita, so absorbed in her dissection, hadn’t even heard them.
The two of them stood there, tense and waiting, staring at the phone, but they both still jumped when it rang. Nita answered, voice dry. “Reyes.”
“Ah, Señora!” She thought it was Lorenzo speaking. “I’ve finally reached you!”
“Clearly.” Nita tried to keep her voice level and curt. “What do you want? I’m busy.”
“Ah, of course. I’m sorry to bother you. But the zannie has been saying some things—”
“What about them?”
“He says you ordered the dolphin girl’s death and her body parts sold.”
“I did. And?”
There was a pause. “I just wanted to confirm with you, Señora.”
“You’ve confirmed. Don’t waste my time again.”
Nita hung up, hands shaking. Had they bought it? Did she make a convincing Reyes?
Kovit winked at her. “Good job. I have no clue what you were saying, but you got that evil deadpan she had down just right.”
Nita let out a laugh, more a release of stress than anything else. She almost blushed under Kovit’s praise, since she figured he was a great judge of how to do evil voices and threats. If he approved, she’d done well. Though he could just be humoring her.
“Thanks. I hope they bought it.” Nita looked down at her phone, turning it over in her hands, thinking about how simple it had been pretending to be Reyes.
“Me too.”
A few minutes later, Jorge and Lorenzo swung by to pick up the
body parts. They didn’t talk with Kovit much. It was clear they were scared of him even though they didn’t want to show it. Nita hid around the corner and grinned when Jorge squeaked as Kovit came too close.
The guards took crates of parts and put them up on their shoulders, leaving one arm free to go for their guns. One of them said something curt that Nita couldn’t hear, and Kovit laughed his creepy, oh-if-only-you-knew-how-much-I-want-to-hurt-you laugh. Then the guards were gone, nearly stumbling in their effort to get away from Kovit.
Nita wondered how much more scared they’d have been if they knew they were selling pieces of their former boss.
Kovit turned back to Nita after they left, and grinned. Nita returned the smile full force.
All they had to do now was wait.
Twenty-Eight
IT DIDN’T WORK OUT as well as they hoped.
Jorge and Renzo hadn’t had a good day selling pieces of Reyes. In fact, they’d sold one eyeball and all her teeth. But nothing else.
And the rest of it was starting to smell. Bad.
Nita had put many of the smaller pieces in formaldehyde—she was no stranger to dealing with bodies. She’d washed the nails, trying to scrape any stray pieces of flesh off. She’d done everything right.
But they still smelled.
It was the jungle. The jungle made everything smell like sweat and rot.
Kovit greeted Renzo and Jorge at the door, and helped them put everything away. Nita hid around the corner again, trying to keep out of sight. The smart thing to do would have been to sit in the cage and pretend to be trapped, but she wasn’t getting anywhere near that cage if she didn’t have to.
Jorge, Lorenzo, and Kovit didn’t talk much as they moved the merchandise.
When all the parts were inside, Kovit turned to the guards. “What did you make off it?”
Lorenzo wiped his sniffling nose, hand shaking from withdrawal, but his voice was firm. “That’s for Reyes. I’m not giving it to you.”
Kovit smiled one of his smiles. Nita wondered if he stood at a mirror every morning practicing them. This one said, Oh, an excuse to play with someone! I have such wonderful plans for you.
Lorenzo flinched, but stood his ground. “Reyes said to never give you money.”
Well, that was annoying. Nita hadn’t predicted that.
“I guess you’ll have to call her and check with her, then.” Kovit’s eyes danced, excited.
Nita could see Lorenzo second-guessing himself, and then Jorge elbowed him. Both guards stood their ground.
Damn.
“We will.”
That was Nita’s cue to slip away. She crept to the back of the building, where she couldn’t hear them and they couldn’t hear her. A few moments later, Reyes’ phone rang. Nita picked it up and answered.
“Reyes.”
“Señora. It’s Lorenzo.”
“Yes?”
“The zannie is getting . . . demanding.”
“And?”
“You want me to do like we discussed if he became a problem?”
Nita wondered what plans Reyes had for Kovit. Nothing nice, she was sure. “No. What’s the problem?”
“Wants your money. Says you said to give it to him.”
Nita paused. How to do this so they weren’t suspicious? She needed that money.
“How much money?” Nita asked.
“Just over two hundred dollars, a couple hundred soles, and sixty reais.”
Nita had been hoping for a lot more than that. There was no way she could book a boat for both of them and bribe the guards with that little.
Nita forced her voice to remain calm, not allowing any of her emotions to show. “Count it. Then give it to him.”
“Señora?”
“I want to see how much goes missing in transit with him.”
“Oh.” A static crackle. “Why?”
“Are you questioning me?” Nita’s voice was icy.
“Never, Señora.”
“Good.” Nita’s shoulders were tight. She could do this. She could be a convincing Reyes. “That will be all.”
She hung up the phone and waited, thinking. They didn’t have enough money for a convincing bribe. Yes, it was possible that Kovit could bring Reyes’ head down to the wharf and terrify people into doing what he wanted, but Nita was worried they’d just get shot. A lot of money was really the only thing that felt safe to Nita.
And it wasn’t like she could ditch Kovit here—for one thing, she barely had enough money to get passage for herself now. And for another, she just felt . . . bad about the idea of ditching him. They were in this together.
Kovit himself approached her a moment later and showed her the money. “Pathetic.”
Nita sighed. “We need more.”
“Yes.” He shrugged. “Or we take the head and threaten our way onto a boat.”
Nita shook her head. “No. I feel like that’s riskier.”
“So, what’s the plan?”
Nita hesitated. “You won’t like it.”
“Try me.”
“How many other big players in this market have secluded houses?”
“A few.” Kovit considered. “Reyes took me to Boulder’s place once.”
“Boulder.”
Nita remembered Boulder, with his shiny black shoes and shinier white smile. Mirella’s dying cries echoed in Nita’s memory. She wondered how many other people who’d stayed in Reyes’ cages had lost body parts to that man’s hunger.
“You met him. He likes to, ah, sample pieces of unusual unnaturals.”
“I remember.” Nita’s jaw clenched, trying to push away the image of Mirella with white gauze over her eye, blood trickling down like tears. “Tell me about him.”
Kovit shrugged. “He’s another crime lord here. He’s part of a big American organization. Most of the American organizations like to partner with other countries, but this one just sets up their own . . . franchises in various parts of the world.”
Nita licked her lips. “Anything unusual about him?”
“He’s an unnatural.”
“He is?” For some reason, Nita hadn’t thought any of the people in power here would be unnaturals. But of course some would be. After all, Nita was an unnatural, as was her mother, and they killed and sold people too. “What kind?”
Kovit clicked his tongue. “He’s an aur.”
Aurs were essentially bioluminescent people. About the most harmless, useless type of unnatural Nita could think of. Nita had only ever seen one on TV. He thought he was the second coming of Jesus and that God had given him a full-body halo. He’d drowned in Lake Michigan on live TV trying to walk on water when Nita was a kid.
Nita paused, thinking. “But aurs—I mean, I thought they’d fetch a pretty penny on the market. Isn’t their blood considered an aphrodisiac?”
“Probably.” Kovit grinned. “But who’s going to take on someone like Boulder just for that?”
Nita stared at Kovit, a slow smile curving her lips. Half-formed ideas flitted through her mind, nebulous and wild. Nothing Nita could give voice to, not yet. But a plan was building itself in the back of her mind, and she thought she liked where it might be going.
“You said you’d been to his house. Why?”
Kovit scowled. “He asked Reyes to bring me over when he heard she had a zannie in her employ. He’d found a spy. He wanted me to torture information out of the man.”
Kovit paused as though waiting for her response, but Nita only raised her eyebrows and said, “I see.”
“I warned him that torture isn’t great for getting information. It’s not reliable.” Kovit examined his nails. “He was still angry when no useful information came from it.”
“I imagine Reyes was also unhappy?” Nita’s fingers slid over Reyes’ phone.
“I have no clue. She never said anything.”
“Hmm.” Nita leaned against the wall. “Did he seem like the type to carry cash?”
Kovit tilted his head to th
e side. “I dunno. I didn’t really think about it then.”
“And now?”
“Maybe?” Kovit shrugged. “I know he has things that sold in the market today. I imagine they were paid for in cash. He probably has some somewhere.”
Nita nodded, a sharp movement. “We’re going to find it.”
Kovit paused and gave her a long look. “We are?”
“Yes.” Nita met his eyes. “We need bribe money. We’re going to go over there and get his money.”
“How?”
Mirella’s screams bored into Nita’s memory. Not the ones elicited from Kovit’s torture, but the ones of pure rage as she fought the guards trying to take her away to have her eye gouged out.
Nita raised her chin and met Kovit’s eyes. “You’re going to give him that torture session he wanted.”
Twenty-Nine
IT WAS CLOSE TO DARK when they made their way to Boulder’s house. Much like Reyes’, it was set slightly out of the market, in the woods. Kovit had said putting the phone light on would alert Boulder and any guards he might have with him of their approach. Given that they didn’t know how many people were at this house, subtlety was the safest bet.
However, walking through a sketchy path in the dark rainforest was not.
Nita had spent ten minutes trying to increase the concentration of rods in her eyes so that she could better absorb light. She’d considered trying to create a tapetum lucidum on her retinas, like predators had to see at night, but it seemed like dangerously detailed work with little room for error. So she went with increasing rods.
When she opened her eyes afterward, despite the dark, the world was much clearer and sharper than it had ever been before, albeit in grayscale. She blinked a few times, adjusting.
They crept through the forest, Kovit holding Nita’s hand as she led. It wasn’t quite so hot at night, and their skin didn’t stick together from sweat anymore. Kovit’s hand was warm, and his grip light, almost invisible, as if he were nothing more than a ghost.
Nita held Reyes’ gun in her other hand. Just in case.
There would be guards, and she couldn’t expect Kovit to take care of all of them. Nita would do whatever she had to in order to get out of here. And if some body-part lord had to die on the way out, well, who cared? No loss to humanity. And the guards that supported him? Enablers.
Not Even Bones Page 19