Contents
Deadly Hearts
Copyright
Map of Guavina
Chapter 1 - Meat and Diazepam
Chapter 2 - The Jaguar
Chapter 3 - Trust Issues
Chapter 4 - A Burning Pyre
Chapter 5 - Signals
Chapter 6 - Burial
Chapter 7 - Gringo Alert
Chapter 8 - Dead End
Chapter 9 - Wounds
Chapter 10 - Darkness
Chapter 11 - Arrival
Chapter 12 - Fallout
Chapter 13 - Old Tricks
Chapter 14 - Cartel Politics
Chapter 15 - Reunion
Chapter 16 - Mangoes
Chapter 17 - The Cure
Chapter 18 - Rico
Epilogue - Rice and Beans
by
Priscila Santa Rosa
Other books by Priscila Santa Rosa:
Those Who Remain: Book One - Available now
Those Who Remain: Book Two - Available now
Those Who Remain: Book Three - Available now
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Official author page: www.priscilarosa.com.
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Copyright © 2017 by Priscila Santa Rosa.
All rights reserved.
Written by: Priscila Santa Rosa
Cover Designed by: Duong Covers
Edited by: Cynthia Shepp
Proofreading by: Fading Street Publishing Services
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
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Kindle Edition
1st Edition
I roll the piece of raw meat into a ball and shove the Diazepam pills inside to hide their bitter taste. My stomach growls at the delicious smell of meat sizzling in oil, but this food isn’t for me.
Mom enjoys her meat bloody, so I don’t cook it for long. After turning off the stove and gas cylinder, I gather the food on a plate, then leave the remaining precious oil in the pan to reuse it later. Crossing the small kitchen of our shack, I reach for the key in my pocket.
I unlock the bedroom door and take a deep breath to calm my pounding heart. My grip on the plate tightens at the rattle of chains. Her head shoots up, her bulging, bloodshot eyes on me the second I step on the dusty wooden floor. As if on cue, her chapped lips part wide, and the wailing begins.
“Hey, Mom.” I force a smile. I have to try, for my sake at least. “Brought some tasty meat for you.”
She lunges forward with a snarl, but the chains on her injured wrists won’t let her reach me. Instead, her screams pierce my ears and my soul, bruising it a little more each time.
“Yeah, yeah. I know you’re hungry. In a sec, okay?”
I pick up the feeder resting in the corner. After many near misses, I attached a screwdriver on the end of a broom handle with tons of duct tape. Not the most sophisticated tool, but now it’s possible to feed her without risking a bite. I skewer the meat onto the feeder and offer it to her. Mom snatches the meat, devouring it in a few bites. I talk over the noises of her eating, trying to pretend we’re sitting across from each other at the dinner table.
“No leftovers for me, huh? Beans it is. I used to hate eating beans. Dinner or lunch, it was always rice and beans all week long.” I sit on the floor and watch as she licks her bony fingers. “And every day, I complained about it. By Sunday, you would snap and tell me, ‘Well, go ahead and starve instead, Isabel Mendoza’,” I say, imitating her usual over-dramatic tone.
She looks at me, her gaze furious. A year ago, that would have made me wince with shame. Now, I’m used to it. She means nothing by it. She’s no longer capable of anything but rage and hunger.
My lips quiver, yet I keep smiling. “I was so angry all the time, I had no idea how hard you worked just to keep us fed. Guess I deserve this, don’t I? Now I’m the one doing all the work, and you get to eat and sleep all day. Lucky you.”
As I talk, her breathing slows down, eyelids closing until she finally falls asleep. Bless you, Diazepam.
If one can overlook the woman in chains and the awful smell, this is the best room in our little shack, which is in the middle of nowhere. I tried to turn this dreadful place into something livable. A small bookcase holds books I collected during supply runs, an old, empty wardrobe is in the corner, and there’s a bathtub next to the bed. The bathtub was a challenge—I had to steal it from an abandoned house in the nearby town of Punta Franca, and then haul it through the jungle for hours. But now it’s easier to clean her.
It takes me three trips to the well, a bucket in each hand, to fill the bathtub with water for Mom’s bath. After that’s done, I grab the key from my pocket and approach her now-slumped form, freeing her hands from the chains. The wounds on her wrists are bleeding again. I nursed them back from exposed bones, but my efforts were in vain.
Each time I lift her, she weighs less. Her skin clings to her bones, stretched and dried from dehydration. She used to be a beauty with a hard edge only years of arduous work could bring, but a beauty nevertheless. Now look at her.
Now look at us. I can’t help but wonder if I’m rotting away with her. Lately, I avoid shiny, reflective surfaces for fear of stumbling upon the tragic reality of my face.
I give her a bath, gently sponging her damaged skin and limbs to clean the feces, piss, and dry blood away. But no amount of bathing will erase the numbers on the back of her neck, burnt into her skin. I dress her in fresh clothes after tossing the rags she was wearing into the trash. I brush her hair, ignoring the strands that fall out at each stroke.
Softly, I try to reassure her everything is going to be fine, that I’m taking care of her and always will.
It’s only after I chain her to the bed again and return to the kitchen that I allow myself to weep. I press my back against the wall and place a hand over my mouth to stop myself from sobbing. Eyes shut tight, I cry silently for a few minutes. Just a few minutes. Anymore, and I’m afraid I won’t be able to stop. I thought I would get used to seeing her like this, but she’s wasting away right in front of me, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
I wipe the tears away. After a long sigh, I stand to reheat yesterday’s beans. Their mushy brownness looks even less inviting than last night, but I eat them in silence, my gaze occasionally traveling to the door.
Silence still feels strange even after six months. During our escape from Bonita Island, I grew used to her snarls, especially during the night. A full night’s sleep became impossible. To this day, echoes of her groans reach my ears.
I clean the dishes, and then check my supplies. There’s plenty of meat, rice, and drinkable water, but no more Diazepam pills. This was her last dose. In four hours, she’ll be awake again.
After delaying it for as long as I can, I brace myself for another trip to Punta Franca. The day I stumbled on its location, I felt lucky. Confident it would be abandoned and full of loot, I had risked approaching its outskirts, only to find the small town very much occupied.
By a drug cartel.
Turns out, Punta Franca is also the home and hi
deout of Diego Vargas and his illegal coca farms. After a bloody history of dodging authorities by using bribes, threats, and even murder, the cartel was finally pushed back and forced to hide in this isolated piece of no-man’s land.
Ironically, retreating in defeat was what saved them from the disease. Protected by jungle and accessible only by the river, the town was spared from the destruction that my home, Rio Alto, suffered.
Now responsible for the entire black market that sustains what’s left of the ruined Republic of Guavina, Vargas evades all the international blockades to trade locally made drugs and stolen weapons for everything else our country no longer produces. Fortunately, that includes Diazepam. Unfortunately, no one but Diego and his soldiers have access to that kind of drug.
So I’m going to steal it. Again.
It takes me about an hour on foot along the Mayo River to reach the small town. Ever since I discovered its location, I have been scouting it, looking for a safe way in. So far, my best bet has been the logging camp. The logs provide cover, and the dirt road nearby is mostly quiet. Hidden behind the tree line, I wait for the usual vehicle to drive past me. There’s a ten-minute window I can exploit between patrols, but I need to be sure of the timing.
The roar of an engine draws my attention.
Thirty feet away from me, a driver thrusts his foot on the pedal of a Jeep, his efforts doing nothing to pull the buried tires out of the mud from yesterday’s storm. Three soldiers jump out of the back and start pushing it.
While they’re preoccupied with the Jeep, I rush out of the trees, crossing the dirt road to find shelter between towering piles of logs.
With the perimeter patrol behind me, I turn a corner and reach the area where they unload their goods. Dozens of workers haul heavy sacks of dry leaves from the cartel’s beaten-down trucks, their heads downcast as they pass by the armed soldiers who skulk around to make sure the job is done fast and proper.
They don’t care who is doing it, as long as nobody stops doing it, so I step next in line as if I were always there and meekly grab one of the smallest sacks of the bunch. Then, I follow the silent march toward the center of the town.
As we shuffle along the narrow gravel streets, we penetrate the tight cluster of shacks, rundown buildings, abandoned shops, and a lively pub to reach City Hall.
After the mayor abandoned the town, running away with other politicians as soon as the outbreak of the disease went violent, City Hall became the cartel’s main base of operations, a place where Diego’s soldiers can rest and enjoy all the luxuries they deny everyone else. That includes food.
If people want to eat, their whole family needs to work in the coca fields from sunrise to sunset, bringing in a large amount of dry leaves to trade at the end of each week.
So, as usual, a long food line forms outside the imposing concrete building. People with gaunt cheeks and bony hands wait under the blazing sun to trade their dry coca leaves for a sack of rice, beans, and bananas under the watchful eyes of Diego’s armed guards.
I slip out of the line before any of them can set their gaze on me.
But I can’t hide from Diego Vargas’ overconfident stare. A wall painting of his smug, but handsome face towers over the crowd as if he’s a Catholic saint. And for some? He is. I have yet to see a glimpse of the real man, but, supposedly, he’s charming, easy on the eyes, and incredibly generous when he feels like it. People treat him as if he’s their certificated hero, a shining beacon of safety amidst the chaos.
It doesn’t matter that he also has a reputation of being a liar, of manipulating people for his own gains, and being as slippery as a snake, or that he can order anyone killed with a snap of his fingers. For them, shelter, food, and protection in exchange for work isn’t the worst deal when there’s no other way to survive. I can’t blame them, but I’m tired of suffering under the boot of powerful people.
With the majority of the guards occupied with the crowd for another hour or so, I have enough time to sneak in and out of City Hall without anyone noticing.
I circle to the back of the building where they keep their noisy generators and dump trash bags into ever-growing piles of uncollected waste. To withstand the acrid and pungent odor, I cover my nose with a piece of cloth, then look around for signs of people.
Usually, no one comes here this early in the morning, but sometimes a guard will want privacy to pee or smoke, and I can’t risk being seen. Stealing from the most powerful cartel in the country is not a minor offense.
If I’m caught, they will put a bullet in my brain. My mother will slowly rot away, alone in the middle of nowhere.
Stepping on the pile of trash, I grab the closest windowsill and use it to propel my body upward. Climbing a building is an arduous, dangerous process, but in my teens, I learned how to find the right spot to hold or place my foot for a safe and fast climb. Back in Rio Alto, the kids in my neighborhood would dare each other to climb and spray-paint profanity on the tallest spots around. Buildings or statues of famous Latin American figures—it doesn’t make much difference if you know what you’re doing.
And I know what I’m doing by now.
The familiar vertical path takes me to the roof. As usual, there’s no one up here to watch the jungle. They don’t believe the infected can reach Punta Franca since it’s surrounded by thick jungle.
Quietly, I slip inside the building by using the roof-access door. This whole floor is used to store Vargas’ loot. After peeking around to make sure the hallway is empty, I step out and move toward the room where they keep the medical supplies.
I walk around dozens of large crates with the World Health Organization logo on them and go to the far corner of the room. The crate I used last time is still there, untouched by anyone but me. I carved a small hole in its back so the damage would be hidden.
Hopefully, if anyone bothers to check this spot, they will only see a crate still sealed and leave it alone. Last time I was here, I didn’t take a lot of pills, afraid it would draw too much attention. It’s tempting to take more. Coming to Punta Franca is always risky, but if they find out someone is stealing, then they might tighten their security. I can’t afford that.
A little regretfully, I snatch only one box of Diazepam, and dump as many pills as I can fit into my jacket’s pocket, zipping it up to make sure they don’t fall out. As I do this, footsteps echo at the end of the hallway.
I freeze and listen.
Muffled voices grow closer. With sweaty palms, I put the box back inside as two forms materialize on the glass of the storage room door.
I make myself small, clutching my knees against my chest and ducking my head behind the crate.
The door swings open. Two pairs of footsteps enter, and then a voice. A female one.
“Did it arrive safely?”
I’ve heard her shout enough orders during my scouting expeditions to recognize the voice of Ana Cruz Ortega anywhere.
One of the toughest soldiers of Diego’s private army, Ana Cruz is a short, athletic woman with not an ounce of kindness in her hazel eyes or humor in her always pursed, scarred lips. I’ve witnessed her clock men twice her size with the back of her gun for looking at her the wrong way.
If she finds me here, it’s over. I hold my breath, fingers over my mouth and nose so as not to make a sound.
“Yes. The Americans were true to their word. I saw Diego hold it in his hands myself. But, Ana…” The man sighs. I have no idea who he is. “Why are you asking me about the cure and not Diego?”
Cure? I widen my eyes. What? Am I hearing this right? That can’t be possible.
They take a few steps further in, but I can’t know for sure where they are, and I can’t risk a peek.
“Because he doesn’t trust me anymore. Why else, Carlos?” Even I can hear the bitterness in her tone. “He thinks I’m like his brother. But it doesn’t matter. As long as the cure is safe, it’s fine. It is safe, right?”
There’s no mistaking now. She said it. A cure. Here.
I can’t believe it.
The man lowers his voice to a whisper. “Yeah, Diego’s keeping it with him all the time. He even joked he would sleep with it under his pillow.”
“I’m sure he’ll make it difficult for anyone else to have it.”
“Yes, definitely. He has always been careful, but after what happened, he got totally paranoid.”
“Don’t go talking about him like that in front of just anybody. He’s kept you close so far, but that can change. Now, get back to your post. We have a lot to do today.”
They leave the room. I don’t move, waiting until their footsteps fade in the distance and disappear. When silence falls again, I relax my muscles and stare at the crates around me, too shocked to move.
Rumors of a cure were more like prayers in Bonita, always uttered with reverence, as if you were lighting a candle in the darkest of corners, desperate to see but afraid of what would come out of the shadows to extinguish the flickering flame. Liam certainly believed it was possible that someone, somewhere, would find the cure for the disease, and he’s a doctor—or was, if he’s still alive. I just never dared to hope it would ever be within my reach.
Could it be true? Vargas has access to everything from white truffles to bazookas. If anyone could acquire a cure in this rotten hole of a jungle, it would be him.
Biting my lip so fiercely it draws blood, I stare at the wall with a racing heartbeat.
I could get my mother back. We could be a family again. We fought all the time, we could never agree on anything, and our relationship was messy and painful, but she’s the only person I have left in the whole world. Nothing else matters anymore. I just want to hear her voice again. I don’t care if she shouts at me, or if she cooks only rice and beans until the day I die … I want her back.
I still have one hour before she wakes up. I have to try. I might be crazy. I might be going out of my mind completely, but I’m going to see for myself if this is real. If it is, I’ll snatch the cure right from under Diego Vargas’ nose, and I’ll do it today.
Deadly Hearts: A Post Apocalyptic Romance Novel Page 1