Glass Cage

by Francesca Baez

  I swallow hard. I trust Javier, I don’t know why, but I really do. I trust him to do his best and keep his word. But suddenly, it strikes me just how much danger I’ll be in if anything goes wrong. I can’t be the reason things go wrong.

  “Okay,” is all I say. “I will. I’ll do everything you say.”

  And I mean it, not just the things she just mentioned, but everything she or Javier ask of me. I’ll be a good, obedient captive, at least until our enemy has finally been defeated. I can’t risk anything else.

  “I’m on the streets tomorrow,” Miel muses aloud. “But the day after, meet me here, in something you can sweat in. Maybe bleed in.” I give her a look. “You’re right, Javi will notice if I hurt you too much. But the first lesson, Selina, is to take a beating and get right back up.”

  I nod earnestly. Emotionally, I’ve been doing that my whole life, but my pulse flutters nervously at the thought of this woman coming at me physically. I’ve never so much as taken a punch before, and I don’t think I can handle it, but I’m sure as hell not going to prove that to Miel.

  “Got it,” I say, standing before I ruin my wedding gown once and for all. “It’s a date.”

  * * *

  I miss the time in my life when I wasn’t under constant surveillance.

  Whether it’s El Sombrerón’s men, or the police backup, or the press, I feel like I’m being watched no matter where I turn, by enemies and allies alike. It’s almost as bad as prison. At least I get to piss in privacy now.

  The wedding is in two days, and I still don’t feel ready. All I have to do is stand at the front of a church and repeat a few words, but there is so much else that could go wrong. I don’t think El Sombrerón will strike so publicly, but we must be prepared all the same. And then what? My new bride and I live day to day, holding our breath and praying this won’t be the night one or both of us meet an early grave? It’s not a life either of us asked for, but the decision was taken away from us long ago, by people who paid for their mistakes with their lives long before they had a chance to see those same mistakes destroy their children. It’s not fair, but nothing ever is.

  What we need is a honeymoon. Not a sex vacation to the Caribbean—although after our oral escapades last week, I’m hopeful that might be in our future. No, what we need right now is a moment to catch our breaths, just the two of us, far enough away from Atlanta that we don’t have to be constantly looking over our shoulders, waiting for the next bomb to drop. The idea takes root in my head, and I minimize the spreadsheets I was looking at, the ones that show the clear decline in Café Palacios’s income since parting ways with El Sombrerón, and pull up a search for flights.

  A quick drive to Blue Ridge or Asheville won’t do. No, we have to go far enough that there will be no following us. Far enough where there will be no need for fear. And yes, I say to the nagging voice in my head that sounds an awful lot like Miel’s, I know we can’t leave Atlanta for more than a few days, not with so much on the line. And I know Selina won’t be the least bit appreciative of the gesture. She’ll be pissed, convinced that this is some mind game, a play at getting between her legs. I don’t care about that, either. She needs a moment of respite from the stress of our daily lives, even if she plans on fighting it. And if such a trip happens to land her in my bed again, well, then so be it.

  One weekend. I’m taking one weekend to hole up in an expensive hotel in a foreign land with my beautiful new wife, and then we’ll come back to the real world. That’s the least we deserve.

  With one click, I’ve ordered two first-class tickets to Paris.

  * * *

  I shouldn’t be surprised when the event that should be the day of my dreams plays out like a living nightmare. I mean, after a proposal that felt a lot more like blackmail than a proclamation of love, an engagement party that gave me a panic attack, and a bridal shower that ended with me in silk binds—okay, that part was pretty fun—why would I think my wedding day could be normal, let alone happy? Still, a girl can hope, foolish though it may be.

  “Selina, you look like an angel,” Kate says behind me, wiping her eyes dramatically. I guess the sight of me in a wedding gown triggers her tear ducts like nothing else. “Oh lord, there goes my mascara.”

  “Thank you,” I tell Kate, feeling about as far from angelic as one gets.

  “Good luck, dear,” she says, dabbing at her eyes one more time before heading towards the door. “I’m going to go check on the florists, try to pull myself together.”

  “How much longer are you planning to keep her around?” Miel asks once the older woman is gone. “You know her presence only makes things harder for everyone, including yourself.”

  “I know,” I say, leaning in closer to the vanity mirror and adding a touch of highlight to the tip of my nose. The hair and makeup people did a fine job, but I need to keep my hands busy, and a little extra glitter never hurt anyone.

  “How’s your hand?” Miel asks next, swooping in behind me, licking her fingertip and stamping down a stray baby hair above my left ear. It’s an oddly maternal gesture, and it sets me on edge.

  “There’s, like, a thousand hair products right here,” I say, wrinkling my nose.

  “Whatever,” she says, crouching down beside me, meeting my eyes in the mirror. “Answer the question.”

  “It’s fine,” I say, moving my own eyes down to the vanity, eying the expensive products in question. “The ice helped, like you said.”

  “Good,” Miel says. “And what did you learn?”

  “Punch with my knuckles, not the flats,” I recite tiredly.

  Since I asked her to train me, we’ve spent every spare minute when Javier’s been out of the house in my walk-in closet, a poor substitute for a proper gym, but it’s one of the only rooms in the house without cameras in it. Unfortunately, while I’m now infinitely better at throwing punches and dodging them, as well as some other basic self-defense moves, one thing has become abundantly clear: I’ll never be good enough to beat Miel. It doesn’t matter. If all goes well, I won’t have to face down with her or anyone else. Javier will protect me from El Sombrerón, and once he’s defeated, well, I’ll find some non-confrontational way to slip out from my captors’ grip.

  I set the highlighter pan down and flex my hand. I thought I’d broken a finger or two, when my fist connected with the punch mitts Miel smuggled into my bedroom and sharp pain shot directly through my bones. And when she made me go again while I was still cursing and blinking back tears, saying that in a real fight you don’t get a time-out if you’re hurt, I wondered if I was delusional for pursuing this endeavor at all. I’m not a fighter, not a warrior. I’m Selina Palacios, renowned anti-violence advocate. My weapons have always been the ability to keep my chin high and my emotions safely locked away. That used to be enough. Until Javier. The only weapons that stand a chance in the cruel world he forced me into are, well, weapons. I have to learn to become one.

  “It’s time,” Miel says, and I glance up to see an attendant standing in the doorway.

  “Just a sec,” I say, and lean into the mirror one more time. I wipe off the pale, peachy gloss the makeup artists put on my lips, and pick up my favorite red shade.

  “Not very bridal,” Miel notes, as I check the reflection of my scarlet lips.

  “I know,” I say, rising to my feet. They have twisted me inside out, forced me to become a person I hardly recognize, but I can still hold on to the little things. “Let’s go.”

  It’s not until I’m halfway to my reckoning that reality sinks in. I’m about to get married. I’m about to wed the man who kidnapped me and forced me to hand over the keys to my family’s kingdom, in front of everyone I’ve ever known. I’m about to stand in front of God and Atlanta and pledge my whole life to a groom who is more monster than man, vowing to honor and obey him ‘til death do us part.

  Most marriages don’t make it that long, but I know deep in my heart that death might be my only escape from Javier Vega.

&nb
sp; I haven’t done any drugs since the night my brother died, not so much as smoked a bowl or popped one pain pill too many, but this feels like a bad trip. The hallways of the church warp around me like fun-house mirrors, stretching infinitely between me and my forced destiny. I’m already married, I remind myself. This is just a show. But that doesn’t help. Imagining all the eyes that are going to be on me, smiling at me, unknowingly waiting for me to fuck up and reveal that this is all a horrible farce, or worse, never even noticing that something is horribly wrong, makes my legs go weak. I stumble over my steps, forcing Miel to catch me and hold me upright.

  “What the fuck?” she growls, eyeing the attendants around us and lowering her voice to a hiss. “You can’t do that out there.”

  “I know,” I say. “Just give me a moment.”

  “It’s time,” one of the attendants chimes in nervously. “They’re about to start playing you in.”

  “I said, give me a fucking moment,” I snap, glaring her down with enough ferocity to make even Miel raise her eyebrows.

  I hear the organ begin to play the first notes of the wedding march, but all that echoes in my head are gunshots.

  Bang. Bang.

  Blood.

  My heart freezes. I don’t have time for a flashback right now, but my inner panic has thrown the gates of my mind open wide. Miel and the attendants are shoving me into place, thrusting a bouquet into my hands and placing me in front of the closed chapel doors. I don’t get my fucking moment. I don’t get a single choice in any of this. I’ve never had a choice. I was born onto a stage, with a role to play and eyes on me at every turn. I know how to do this. My mother taught me. The girl is the least part of herself. I’m not here, I’m outside my body, where it’s safe. I know how to make my legs walk down the aisle, make my tongue say I do, make my lips kiss my tormentor in front of half of Atlanta. I know how to make every part of myself disappear. My mother taught me how.

  Bang. Bang.

  The chapel doors swing open.

  * * *

  If Miel hadn’t told me later, I never would have known how close Selina came to fucking up her role in the wedding. As is, she carried it off beautifully, so convincing even I almost forgot that this was all a farce.

  In movies and on TV, they always talk about the first time the groom sees the bride, as she walks down the aisle in her uselessly extravagant dress. They talk about how he cries, or smiles, or however else he makes a fool of himself. Me, I did smile, and I probably managed to make it look like a sweet smile, but the only word in my mind was “mine.”

  Selina Palacios is MINE.

  For now and forever, in the eyes of the law and the public. She’s been mine since the first moment I laid eyes on her, mine even before that, but now it’s for real. And if everyone else but her knows that, well, that will have to be enough.

  And now, we’re on our way to Paris, despite her protests, and Miel’s. I don’t have time for this, not even for the short weekend we compromised on, but it’s alright. A honeymoon is good for our public image as well as for the delicate give-and-take between me and my wife. Who knows what will happen in the most romantic city in the world? I don’t expect any miracles, but my cock does twitch a bit with hope.

  “Champagne, sir?”

  I smile at the flight attendant and accept the champagne. I’m still not used to people calling me “sir,” let alone the way people bend backwards to tend to us when they hear our first-class status. Selina seems annoyed by it, grabbing the cashmere blanket she brought with her and curling up into the plush seat. Maybe, by the time we’re ready to celebrate our first anniversary, I’ll have gotten around to buying us a private plane. Maybe, by the time we have children, we’ll be country-hopping every weekend.

  Where the fuck did that thought come from?

  “Can I ask you something?” Selina says, her voice bored but not quite sleepy.

  “Absolutely not,” I tell her, grabbing her blanket and pulling half of it over my own legs. On our private jet, we won’t keep the A/C cranked quite this high.

  “Not, like, a serious question,” Selina says, pouting at the theft of her blanket. She’s acting like she didn’t almost have a panic attack at the church yesterday, like Miel reported. She’s acting like she didn’t spend half the night screaming through her nightmares, rendering us both sleepless, no matter how tight I held her. “I just need to talk or I’m going to feel like the most awkward person on this plane.”

  “Okay,” I say, turning to face her. “Go ahead.”

  “Um,” she glances around the giant tin can we’re currently trapped in, scrambling for a question I won’t object to. “What’s your favorite TV show?”

  I scoff and take my eyes to the ceiling. “I haven’t exactly had time to catch up on popular culture in, say, a decade or two.”

  “Bullshit,” she says, suddenly invested in her dumb question, tucking her feet under herself and turning her full body to face me. “If your guys have time to play video games, you have time to watch some Netflix. What about Narcos? You’d be into Narcos.”

  “First of all, racist,” I say with a grin at the way she hits those Rs so softly. My princess is such a gringa. “Second, I’m not ‘one of the guys,’ I’m the man in charge. And even they shouldn’t be sitting on their asses playing games. I’m going to kick their asses when we get back.”

  “Oh shit, I didn’t mean to tattle,” she says, and I can’t help but widen my smile at her playfulness, at the way she’s leaning into me oh so casually. There’s a new lightness to her, and I feel it too. Being away from her palace, from my people, from Atlanta lifted a load off us both. The anonymity of this plane allows us to shed the masks we’ve been wearing for the public, if only for a moment. She’ll never truly let her guard down in front of me, and I’ll never truly be myself around her, but this can be as close as we get.

  “What’s yours?” I ask, because though I could give a shit what trash television she likes to consume, I want to keep her talking. Keep her smiling.

  “Hmm?” she glances up, then back down shyly when she catches my eyes. I don’t think she expected me to be looking at her, watching her face.

  “Your favorite show.”

  “Oh,” she says, taken aback by the simple question. “It’s stupid, but I really love Grey’s Anatomy. It’s crazy, and dramatic, and oh so unrealistic, but I eat that shit up. And the romances, well, they’re crazy and dramatic too, and the girls are always falling for these guys that are clearly fucked up and bad for them, but… it’s sweet. And kind of hot.”

  “Is that the one where they’re always making out in elevators?” I ask, furrowing my brow. Selina nods, giggling a little. “Our Tia used to watch that all the time, ages ago. Damn, is that still on?”

  “I think so,” Selina says with a shrug. “I mean, I wouldn’t know.”

  Right. We cut off her access to the outside world this summer, including the television.

  “I can get H to set that up for you,” I offer with a shrug. “If you’d like.”

  “Really?” she asks, eyes wide. “That would be awesome. And with the wedding finally over, and Kate back, I’ll actually have some free time. I mean, unless you’re going to find some new way to be wearing me out.”

  She blushes a little, and I suppress a filthy response. I know it still makes her uncomfortable, her attraction to me, how much she loves getting down and dirty with the man she still sees as her enemy.

  “Oh, you’ll be plenty busy, princesita,” I tell her, keeping my voice mockingly serious. “We have a mythical beast to take down, after all. But you’ll still have time to watch your telenovelas. Maybe you can even get back to your baking. Or should I call it what it was, cake-burning?”

  “It’s not a telenovela, and I didn’t burn every cake,” she insists grumpily, but she’s still smiling. Then her face grows serious. “But, speaking of which, what’s your—our—next move?”

  Now my smile falls, too. “Not here,” I tell her i
n a hushed tone. I don’t want to discuss this with her anywhere, not while we’re on our honeymoon, faux though it may be, but this excuse will hold her for now.

  “Fine,” she says, and for a moment, I think the moment might be over, that she’ll turn away from me and find another way to distract herself. Then she speaks again. “What’s your favorite color?”

  Red. The unspoken answer comes to me in an instant. Red, specifically, the red of her lips on our wedding day, of her satin robe the first night I took her, of the soles of her shoes every time she tries to run from me. Red.

  “Only children have a favorite color,” is what I say aloud, keeping my voice teasing even as my words come out rough. “Why, do you have one?”

  She’s opening her mouth to tell me when a new flight attendant crouches down in the aisle beside us, holding up a smartphone.

  “I’m sorry, this is so rude,” she begins, and I feel Selina stiffen beside me. “I saw your engagement photos in the AJC, such a gorgeous couple. Selina, I’ve been following your story for years. I can’t even imagine what you’ve been through. Well, I was actually in that club, the one where, you know, two days before your brother, well, you know what happened. So like, I kind of get it. Total brush with death.”

  The attendant makes her eyes go big, and Selina offers her a tight smile. “Yep, totally the same thing.”

  “Right? So scary. Anyway, do y’all mind if I get a quick pic? And can I totally drool over your ring while I’m here? It looked huge in the pictures.”

  Selina acquiesces, and even I find myself leaning in for a selfie. When the woman finally leaves, Selina pushes her body against the wall of the plane, pulling as far from me as she can. She pretends to be asleep until we land in Paris eight hours later, while I remain sleepless, senselessly wondering if I’ll ever find out what my wife’s favorite color is.