Prism (Story of CI Book 1)

by Rachel Moschell

  But she was shaking. With every breath she felt like she was making the whole truck tremble.

  The truck doors clanged open and someone grunted as the truck swayed. They were going to put his body in here.

  With her.

  Stalin’s voice echoed around her, crackly and breaking. “I can’t believe this. How could he be so stupid? I don’t think I can do this.”

  “The worst is over,” Gabriel said, sounding quite sick as well. “It’s our job. We just do what we have to do, Stalin.”

  “It’s Alejo!” Stalin hissed, tone suggesting he wanted to yell. Wara heard a fist slam against the inside wall of the truck near the door. The floor bounced as they stepped to the ground and both doors slammed shut, leaving the truck’s interior in utter darkness.

  The sound of the two voices moved around the front of the truck, obviously still in heated discussion, and then the muffled sound of a door shutting and the truck roared to life. Gabriel, or whoever was at the wheel, was driving like a bat out of hell, nearly throwing Wara into the corner of the truck every time they took a skidding turn.

  She supposed they were driving away to get rid of the body, and the thought was horrible. She hadn’t liked Alejo much, but he was Nazaret’s brother. Somehow, in the middle of all this mess, he had saved her life.

  Her stomach churned, complicated by the wild motion of the delivery truck. She kicked the heavy tarps off her body, desperate for fresh air.

  It was really dark inside the truck, and that was probably a good thing, because the thought of looking over and seeing Alejo covered in blood next to her was terrifying. But finally she couldn’t resist. She slowly turned her head to one side and made out a still form next to her. Very, very still.

  They had left him there on his stomach, eyes staring at her in the darkness. His curly hair was wet and sticky and blood splattered over one ear and ran down his chin to pool on the wool blanket.

  She shivered and turned her eyes back to the darkened ceiling, breathing deeply. The sound of her gasping breaths echoed in slow motion around the interior of the truck, slow and rasping. Then Wara’s skin crawled as she heard a low moan, and the tickle of breath across her cheek sent her scrambling into the corner, arms wrapped around her knees.

  Was someone else here? The shallow breathing continued, shuddering in slow puffs of air around the truck, and Wara knew it wasn’t hers. She was holding her breath, heart in her throat. The truth came to her all of a sudden and she crashed forward onto her knees, palms spread out on Alejo’s back. His shoulder blades shifted upwards, then fell.

  He was breathing.

  She waited for what seemed like an eternity until Alejo’s back rose and fell again, a rasping, choking sound that sent millipedes racing up her back.

  He’s still alive.

  Wara threw herself down on her stomach next to Alejo and whispered, “Can you hear me?” No answer. She forced herself to feel for the wound on his head, but couldn’t find any place where blood seemed to be spurting, nowhere that she could put pressure on the stop the bleeding.

  “Alejo, can you hear me? It’s Wara!”

  She was confused to find that she was crying.

  How could Alejo have survived that? I saw him shot point-blank in the head!

  She had to tell the guys up front. Alejo needed a hospital.

  Wara paused, imagining herself kicking the wall of the truck’s cab like a madwoman to get Gabriel’s attention.

  Stalin doesn’t know I’m alive back here, and I don’t know how badly he wants me dead. And if either of them finds out Alejo is alive, they could come back here and just finish the job.

  Sweat pricked Wara’s armpits. The vehicle spun to a skidding stop and two doors slammed. Wara braced herself next to Alejo, waiting like a deer caught in the headlights for the truck doors to open.

  Time was up for any kind of decision; they were coming back here.

  A scraping of metal, then the truck filled with shafts of light, filtered through shadowy eucalyptus branches waving over the truck outside. Wara saw that they were stopped near the side of the road, still in the countryside. The two guys peered into the truck, expressions grim.

  “He’s still alive!” Wara blurted out, holding out a hand towards Alejo and realizing it was smeared with blood. She scrubbed her hand frantically on her black pants. “He’s your friend! Take him to the hospital. There’s still time!”

  Gabriel regarded Alejo with pinched lips; Stalin’s mouth gaped open, taking in first Alejo lying there, then Wara next to him.

  “I told Stalin that you were back here,” Gabriel clipped. “He’s a nice guy anyway, kind of a pushover. I thought maybe he would help me. He noticed that Alejo was still alive on the ground at Pairumani.”

  “Thank God he’s still…we’ve got to hurry, Wara.” Stalin’s voice was heavy. “We’re taking him to Univalle Hospital—it’s close to the lake where we’re supposedly leaving him, and then the Khan is waiting for us at the airport. We’ve got to hurry, or he’ll suspect. And it’ll be too late.” Stalin blanched and turned away from the sight of his friend covered in blood.

  “Wara.” Gabriel snapped his long fingers, calling her attention back. “When we get to Univalle, we can’t stay. We’re going to drop him and you and get away as fast as we can. You’ve got to run, ok? Invent something to tell the doctors, but don’t tell them the truth. If you tell anyone about us, the authorities and media will find out. And if they find out, the Khan and everyone else will know you and Alejo are not dead. You understand.”

  Gabriel had been speaking quickly but concisely. He suddenly slowed down and his shoulder sagged. “Please help him. He did this for you.” Gabriel waved his hand unsteadily at Alejo’s lifeless form, then looked back at Wara once more with tortured eyes.

  “Hurry up!” Stalin said loudly, and then slammed one of the doors. The other reverberated like thunder as it too was shut heavily, and then footsteps running on gravel sounded outside. With a gentle jerk, the truck sprinted back into motion, towards Cochabamba and life for Alejo.

  An eternal fifteen minutes or so dragged by as Wara braced herself in the pitch darkness, trying not to be thrown on top of Alejo by the urgent driving maneuvers of his friends. She left a palm on Alejo’s back. Finally, the delivery truck careened around a last corner and came to a screeching halt, causing Wara to bang a shoulder against the metal side. Running footsteps, and then the doors to the truck were opened, letting in florescent light from an overhead street lamp. The sun had already disappeared, and the sky was deep blue.

  “Univalle,” Stalin’s scratchy voice said, face etched with stress. He and Gabriel leaped into the truck and began to carefully pull the blanket with Alejo’s prostrate form towards the door. “Still breathing?” Stalin asked Wara.

  She nodded and scrambled up after them, leaping out onto what she saw was the sidewalk of the hospital. She had heard of this university teaching hospital, located near the poorer south of the city. Five tan, modern-looking stories rose out of an adobe house neighborhood, and the truck had stopped right in front of the main entrance. No one was visible at this time of night, but a guard shack just inside the entrance told Wara that someone might soon appear to see what was going on in front of the hospital.

  Gabriel and Stalin heaved Alejo and blanket to the ground as gently as they could, then whirled to face Wara. “Go with God,” Stalin muttered, covering his eyes with his hands. Then he dashed to the passenger side of the truck. Gabriel was already half in the driver’s side, but leaned back to whisper, “Go! Run!”

  The truck pealed away in a cloud of dust, rounding the corner at the end of the short street at break-neck speed.

  Alejo’s ribcage rose shakily, then he gagged and shuddered into the wool blanket. Here in the dim street light, Wara could see the blood already starting to dry, plastered along one cheek, matting his hair. His eyes had closed.

  A hospital guard in a navy uniform stepped questioningly toward her from the shack, ey
eing the form on the ground.

  Wara ran.

  “Please, help me!” she cried to the guard, then ran past him into the near-empty waiting room where she saw a door with large red letters: EMERGENCIAS. “Help, somebody help, please!”

  Yelling to anyone in sight, Wara pleaded for help for the man who had caused Noah’s funeral.

  26

  pale blue

  THE PILLOW BENEATH HER HEAD WAS PRICKLY with feathers, the pale blue cotton blanket meant to be soft and comforting. But Wara shivered on the narrow hospital bed all night, sleeping barely a wink between nocturnal nurse visits and the constant beeping of the blood pressure machine.

  Alejo was alive. He was lying nearly motionless on the other bed in the hospital room, chest faintly rising and falling under a matching pale blue blanket. A thick ream of gauze was plastered around his head, covering the wound where the doctors claimed the bullet had narrowly missed his brain.

  But that was impossible; Wara had seen the gun pressed point-blank against the center of Alejo’s forehead, then fire. He shouldn’t be alive.

  And he might not be for much longer.

  “For now your fiancé is stable, but in a coma,” Dr. Ortega had told her seriously last night, wadding used latex gloves in the pocket of his lab coat after emerging from the emergency room. Remembering Gabriel’s ominous words of warning not to let anyone find out she and Alejo were still alive, Wara had told the doctor she was engaged to the man who’d been shot in the head. They were tourists here from the U.S., and had been robbed at gunpoint in the country near Pairumani. Dr. Ortega looked at her over gold-rimmed glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose with thick, hairy fingers.

  “We’re not out of the woods, yet, by any means. The bullet’s shock waves could have serious repercussions. I’m going to be honest with you. If your fiancé would need brain surgery, there’s no way we can do it here. An airlift to Chile or Argentina would take too long. Stay with him tonight in the extra bed in the room; if he’s going to pull through we should know by the morning.”

  And now it was morning; crisp white light filtered in through the blue checked curtains of the hospital room. A matronly nurse in a tri-cornered hat and thick stockings was shoving a glass thermometer under Alejo’s tongue and smoothing the covers over his shoulders.

  As if he would have been able to mess them up somehow; Nazaret’s brother was as motionless as he had been sprawled there on the ground at Pairumani.

  But he’s still alive.

  Dr. Ortega had said that if Alejo made it til the morning, his chances were better. Wara sat up groggily on the bed and turned toward him, eyes stinging as she took in the bloodied bandage above one closed eye.

  I have to call the Martirs, she realized. The idea brought a new chill of shock. How could she tell them what had happened, that the son they had just found as a killer had been shot and could die? And that she had seen the whole thing?

  Feeling sick, Wara ignored the matronly nurse with clogs and staggered wordlessly into the hall. Clean white tiles spread before her, and the air was ripe with the scent of Clorox and chamomile tea cooling on breakfast trays. Wara stumbled to the silver elevator and punched a button to head down, desperate to get some fresh air.

  In the pocket of her black pants, she fingered the fat wad of boliviano bills she had removed from Alejo’s pants before the nurses carried him into the emergency room. It should be enough to last for awhile; for sure it was enough to make a call to the Martirs’ cell phone in Lima.

  The doors dinged open on the main floor, but as soon as Wara’s eyes hit the lobby she nearly doubled over, remembering the scene last night when she ran across the tiles screaming for help. Without stopping, Wara did a one eighty and headed down the hall, towards the back of the hospital and away from the lobby. Plastic olive chairs lined the scuffed walls, filled with women in polleras and children licking suckers. Wara eyed them all blankly, forcing herself to put one foot in front of the other, really hoping there was going to be a back exit to this hospital. And outside the exit, some quiet, grass-covered spot where she could curl up and wail, possibly until next week. It was still early; the call to the Martirs was going to have to wait just a little bit more.

  The creaky voice calling to her in Quechua took her totally unaware. “Imajnaya kasanki? How are you, Wara?”

  Wara planted her flip-flops in the center of the hall and whirled around, eyes wild. Who knew her here? She was supposed to be dead.

  The navy cardigan sweater and thin gray braids were nothing out of the ordinary in this row of Quechua women awaiting the doctor, but the crinkled black eyes regarding Wara immediately flashed familiar. Doña Filomena, the elderly lady who worked at Café Amara! Wara felt her shoulders slump with relief and she took the few faltering steps over towards the older woman, overwhelmed to see someone from her old life. Her old life, before the trip to Coroico, before disaster.

  Wara slowly leaned forward to grasp Doña Filomena’s forearm, mumbling the usual Quechua greeting. The woman smiled, dispersing a legion of crow’s feet across her copper cheeks. “I have been needing to have some tests done for a while,” she was saying in Quechua, “and since the café is closed today I am taking advantage of the time.”

  Wara swallowed hard. Café Amara, vestiges of another dimension. “The café is closed?” she repeated. Her voice faded to a whisper as she asked, “Why?”

  “You don’t know?” Doña Filomena’s rheumy eyes flickered, then she cocked her head to one side. “Of course you know! They said you were on the bus as well, that bus that had the accident. This whole week we prayed for you, and that boy. We prayed for you so much. What am I thinking, how could I forget that! They said that you had been found and that you were all right. But then yesterday I went to work, to peel potatoes and make the humintas, and they said that the café was closed until next week, because they found that poor boy had died and gone to glory.”

  Wara’s words stuck in her throat. I can’t talk about Noah, or I’m going to throw myself into her arms and cry.

  Her knees trembled beneath her. And then she heard herself say something she never would have expected.

  “Doña Filomena, can you please pray for another friend of mine?” The word ‘friend’ was spoken rather tightly. “He was shot in the head. The doctors think he might not live.”

  “Oh, that is serious!” Doña Filomena shook her head slowly, thin gray braids scratching her worn sweater. “We must pray for this poor boy, too. Sometimes, when I am not working, I come here to the hospital to pray for people. And if I cannot come, I will remember to pray for your friend at church.”

  Wara felt some kind of relief that Filomena would probably be waving her hands around and praying for Alejo, because right now, she couldn’t. All she could do was sit there and watch him, to see if he would live or die.

  Fighting back the bitterness stinging her throat, Wara said goodbye to Doña Filomena and made a beeline for the back door of the hospital. An ample concrete square shaded by a balcony preceded the hospital’s delivery area, currently completely empty.

  Filomena’s words echoed through Wara’s head: “They found out that poor boy had died and gone to glory.” Barely stifling a cry of grief, Wara flopped to the ground behind a huge clay planter and curled into a ball.

  Sometime in the afternoon, Wara forced herself up from the ground. She wandered the dusty neighborhood and called the Martirs on the brand new cell phone Alejo had bought for them. She couldn’t call them on her own new cell phone, because the thing only worked for local calls. By the time she left the Viva call center across from Univalle, dusk had darkened to full-blown night. Few people passed the hospital on the unlit sidewalks. Wara sighed deeply and headed across the street to the hospital, resigned to spend one last night here before joining the Martirs in Lima.

  Yes, she felt bad for Alejo; he was up there all alone, life hanging in the balance. But he wasn’t hers to care for, not by a long shot. She needed some time, needed to
be close to people she actually liked. The roll of red boliviano bills she had pilfered from Alejo were more than enough to make it to Lima. With her dark coloring, she’d likely make it across the border on the bus without showing ID. She had also called her parents again from the call center, and they would wire money to Lima for her and arrange for a plane ticket back to the U.S.

  Home.

  But not really. This had been her home.

  I loved this city. I never wanted to leave.

  But now Cochabamba seemed full of unknown stalkers and haunted memories. For the first time since she arrived in Bolivia five years ago, Wara wanted to go home.

  Chest still tight with emotion, Wara exited the elevator upstairs and turned towards the room she shared with comatose Alejo. The halls were dim and empty and a faint, urgent beeping drilled the walls. From the direction of Alejo’s room.

  Wara swallowed hard, just as the buxom nurse from this morning pushed past her, practically tearing up the tiles in her white clogs. Wara froze, then hurried after her with clipped steps, as the nurse dove into the open door where Wara had left Alejo.

  She ducked inside to find Alejo convulsing on the bed and the blood pressure machine going wild. Dr. Ortega had his back to Wara, punching a syringe into the plastic of Alejo’s IV bag. Five or six nurses in white were framing the bed, grim and sober. Every single set of eyes flickered to Wara as she entered, and none of the gazes were friendly.

  “What’s happening?” she asked stupidly, knowing they all must hate her for disappearing the whole day while her fiancé was hovering between life and death.

  “He’s dying!” the nurse with the clogs snapped, then turned back to Alejo.

  “It’s the swelling.” Dr. Ortega’s face shone slick with sweat above a bushy black beard. “It’s gotten worse, making him convulse. His heart’s racing. It’s like I told you, señorita. The only way to relieve the swelling is to operate. We can’t do that here.”