by Karina Halle
I just couldn’t.
Maybe that made me weak. Maybe it made me strong. I didn’t know and I didn’t really care.
All of my vengeance was for Esteban now. He took everything away from me and made my loved ones suffer. Luisa never took anything from me. Instead, in her devastation here, she gave me something instead, and as I held her, I knew it was a piece of myself back, a part that I had lost along the way, a part I never thought I’d find again.
It didn’t make me whole. I didn’t think anything ever could. Some people weren’t meant to be whole, to have soul.
But it was something.
I would not harm my wife. Not anymore and not in any way. I didn’t know if she would pull through and if we could ever have what we once had, no matter how fleeting it had been, but I knew I’d have to learn to let go of that suffocating hate and start all over again. Learning to forgive her would be the toughest thing I’d ever have to do.
If she pulls through, I thought.
I had a hard time believing I wasn’t carrying a dead woman in my arms.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Luisa
When I was a young girl, maybe eight or so, my father once took me the dry bluffs above the ocean to see if we could catch a glimpse of the migratory humpback whales. Even though they were common during the winter months, I’d never seen them, so papa took me to the best viewing area he could find.
Unfortunately it happened to be part of one of the fancier resorts that plied the beaches between San Jose del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas. He told me to dress up in my Sunday best, a white cotton dress with red embroidered flowers that I thought made me look like a princess, and he donned his straw fedora.
He drove us there in the afternoon, parking in the guest parking lot, and then we walked in through the hotel like we belonged there. I’d felt so special, so much like royalty, walking across that white marble floor of the lobby, so shiny I could see my own reflection. I remembered the sound of my Mary-Janes hitting the floor, tap-tap-tap, and hoping that no one would see my shoes, for they held a layer of dust on them. They’d know we were imposters for sure.
Once we made it outside though, papa led me along the pool area as I tried not to gawk at the vacationing gringos, impossibly pretty people, reading, laughing, splashing without any cares in the world. We stopped at the bluffs, leaned over the fence, and watched for the whales.
I remembered how bright it was, that sun shimmering off the water. There were other people there too, guests, watching for them and talking excitedly in English. I wanted nothing more than to see these beautiful mammals break the ocean surface. The whales had always been a symbol of everything graceful and wild and free.
Everything I wanted to be.
We were watching for only a few minutes though, scanning the waves, hoping beyond hope to see them, before a woman in a white pant suit approached us. Her name tag said Gloria. She was Mexican too but at that moment she pretended she wasn’t.
She didn’t even ask if we were staying there – I guessed it was too obvious that we weren’t. She just told us we had to leave.
My papa nodded, not wanting to cause a scene, but I stomped my foot and held onto that railing.
“I want to see the whales. The whales are for everyone to see.”
“Not from here, they aren’t,” Gloria said snidely. “You must leave.”
“But why? We are not harming anyone. We just want to watch.”
“This hotel is for guests only, you are not a guest.”
“Let’s go, Luisa.” Papa grabbed my arm and I saw so much sadness and disappointment in his eyes that it only made me madder. Here he was, trying to do something nice for me, something free, which we could afford, and we weren’t even allowed to lay our eyes on the ocean that belonged to all of us equally.
“I will have to call security,” Gloria said.
“So you can throw us in jail?” I cried out and now other guests were looking at us.
Then some older gentleman, white skinned with a crippling sunburn on his nose, approached us and said to Gloria, “It’s okay, they can stay on account of me. They can be my guests.”
I could have hugged that man, a vacationer with a good soul, but Gloria was having none of it. “They have to leave, sir,” she said to him, blowing him off. “They don’t belong here.”
And though I’d grown up knowing how unfair life was, that was the first time I felt the pinch. Mexicans like Gloria and rich white people had rights that we did not. They had access to land and sights that should have been for everyone. They were privileged. They had power. They were the true royalty of the country.
I would realize, later, that they weren’t even at the top of our food chain. The narcos were the true royalty, more than them, more than the government.
If you wanted to be queen, that’s where you had to be.
I finally saw the whales one day when I was nineteen and driving to my waitressing job in Cabo San Lucas. But by then, the magic and everything they had meant to me, had long since disappeared.
And now, as I lay here in some bed, in a clinical, silent room somewhere, tethered between life and death, I saw the whales behind my eyes. Swimming, singing. They gave me comfort and kept me cool. They beckoned me to go under, to feel that silk water slide past my skin, to feel free and wild. They dove deeper and deeper but as they disappeared into the cobalt depths, I knew I couldn’t follow them. Not now. Not yet.
I raised my palm in the water to say goodbye, watching their flukes dissolve into the great blue and then slowly I made my way to the surface.
Evaristo was standing over me, observing me closely.
“Luisa,” he said. “Welcome back.”
I tried to speak, to ask where I was, what happened.
If Evaristo was here, then it meant the federales had me.
A landslide of horrors came flooding back.
Esteban.
The look in his atrocious eyes.
The torture.
The endless pain.
My mind shut down. I was pulled under again after that, back to that deep, deep blue.
I don’t know how much time passed before I felt myself coming out of it again. I blinked slowly, expecting to see ocean but only saw a white ceiling above me. The flecks on the ceiling came in and out of focus. It reminded me of when I was young and in school, staring at the cheaply-made walls to pass the time. I tried to feel my body from the inside out, working on moving my toes, my fingers, carefully. Everything felt tight, like a rubber band, especially my face and stomach where I knew I had been badly burned.
Horribly disfigured and scarred for life.
I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath, letting the air fill me, bring me life and strength. I had been ruined but I would survive. I would learn to live again, anew.
I heard someone shift beside me. I remembered seeing Evaristo. He must have rescued me from the house, perhaps the agency went back on their word and took Esteban down. Maybe he was in prison.
Maybe he was dead, killed in a gruesome, painful death.
I could only hope.
“Who is there?” I asked weakly, too afraid to turn my head, that the pain would be too much.
The person stood up, casting a shadow in the corner of my eye. My hand was held and I knew the grip better than I knew myself.
Javier’s face came into my view, peering down at me with those golden eyes that seemed almost soulful. “You don’t need to talk,” he told me, voice soothing me like that feather on my skin.
It was too much. Tears welled up in my eyes.
“Don’t you dare cry on me,” he said sternly, gripping my hand harder. “Don’t.” He swallowed hard.
I sucked in my breath, trying to steady my emotions which were flying all over the place.
“Where am I?” I asked.
“In a private clinic. San Salvador.”
“We’re in El Salvador?” My mind raced. “Are you really here?”
He nodd
ed, smiling only slightly. He looked older somehow, more grey at his temples, his features strained. It made me realize how horrible I must have looked, the burns, my face, my hair chopped off.
I closed my eyes and turned my head even though pain ripped through me in nauseating spasms. “I don’t want you to see me like this,” I said, voice choked in my throat, even though I realized how petty it sounded.
“I want to see you like this,” he said.
“Because I deserve it.”
“Because you’re alive. When we first found you, I was certain you were anything but.” He paused and I felt soft fingers on my scalp. “No one deserves this, not you.”
But I did. I did. And I didn’t deserve to have him by my side right now, being actually tender with me. I needed his wrath again, his punishment, his torture. I couldn’t have been anything more than trash to him, after all the terrible things I had done.
My heart wept for a million bad choices.
And then I started to weep myself.
“Luisa,” Javier said, leaning over further. “Look at me.”
I opened my eyes and the tears spilled down the sides of my cheeks. I expected the burn to sting but I felt nothing at all. All the nerves had been burned away.
His gaze was deep, intense, until I felt it in my bones. “You’re going to be okay.”
I could barely shake my head.
“Yes,” he said angrily. “You will be. You’re my wife, my queen, and this is something you’ll get over. We both will.”
“How?” I cried out. “How can I get over this? Look at me! Look at me, I’m destroyed, I’m barely even a woman anymore, barely even a human being. I’m mangled garbage. Look at us! How could you ever, ever forgive me? How could I ever get back the husband, the marriage I had? Why would I even be allowed that?”
His jaw tensed. He closed his eyes briefly, breathing out slowly through his nose. “I don’t know,” he said. When his eyes opened, they were lost. “I don’t know how we can move past this, if I can forgive you, if we even deserve a fresh start. All I know is that I’ll try. We’ll try.”
It wouldn’t be enough. I knew that. We had hurt each other too much.
“I want Esteban dead,” I told him, surprised at the strength in my voice. “I want him to pay.”
The corner of Javier’s mouth curled up now, his eyes glinting wickedly, like a million amber knives. “He will pay. I will make sure of that. He will pay over and over again, I promise you.”
“No,” I said. “I want to be the one that makes him suffer.”
He shook his head. “You’re far too hurt for that.”
“I don’t care.”
“Luisa, your collarbone is broken. You’re burned …”
“I. Will. Make. Him. Pay,” I ground out, squeezing Javier’s hand back with the same kind of ferocity.
He studied me for a moment, almost amused. “You really are the woman for me, aren’t you? Have I ever told you that there’s nothing sexier than seeing bloodlust in your eyes?”
“Javier …” I pleaded.
He sighed impatiently. “Look. We’ve tracked him as far as El Salvador. Evaristo is using the agency’s satellites to get readings on known safe houses, I’m using my men across Central America to spot him, we –”
“Evaristo?”
He smirked. “Right, you didn’t know. I escaped from prison with his help. He switched teams.”
I frowned.
“He’s not gay,” Javier added. “Not that I’d blame him with a hot piece of ass like me around. He’s just one of us now.”
“You corrupted a fed.”
“He corrupted himself. He just wanted to be on the winning side for once. His intel got us to you, we knew Esteban had you and was in the compound when we ambushed it. Unfortunately, that fuck got away.”
“How did he look?” I asked, remembering our tooth and nail battle.
He cocked his head. “Not good. Somewhat blind. Why? Please tell me you fucked him up.”
I could only manage a small, tight smile. “He cut off my hair. I put the scissors in his eye.”
Javier broke into a wide grin and leaned down to kiss my forehead. “That’s my woman,” he said proudly and I tried not to wince at the feeling of his lips on my skin.
“I think the acid burned away some of his hair too,” I added. “But that’s not enough. I want more. I want to rip his head off with my own fucking teeth.”
He raised his brows at me. “My god, if you weren’t so damn injured, you wouldn’t be able to keep me off of you right now.”
At the thought of that, my heart sank and the smile fell from my face.
“What?” he asked quickly.
I turned my head way, staring at the wall, feeling everything. The shame. The knowledge that nothing would be the same. “How could you want me after everything?”
“Because,” he said, sounding confused. “You’re you.”
“I’m not.” I let out a small, sad little sob. “I don’t know what I am now. A monster.”
His eyes narrowed into slits. “We both know who the real monster is here,” he said sharply.
“Please, you know it …I’m ugly. I’ll never be the same. Even if I can get your forgiveness, I won’t look the same to you again.”
“Luisa, stop talking like an idiot. Give me time. Give us time.”
“My looks won’t change with time.”
“Your looks?” He trailed his fingers down my arm. “What about your looks?”
“My hair, my scars, my burns.” I could almost feel the same acid eating away at my soul.
“Hey now,” Javier said, putting his hand under my chin and gently tipping my face toward him. He appraised my face, taking me all in coolly. Finally he nodded and said, “You’re better now.”
“What?”
He shrugged casually. “What can I say? I think you look better. With your hair short like that, you can see more of your gorgeous face. And the burns only make you look stronger. Like a warrior. Like the queen that you are. Like nothing will hurt you ever again, because you’ve lived through it already. What could be more beautiful than that?” He leaned over and kissed me gently on the lips. “You know now that you could never be ugly to me,” he murmured.
My heart wanted to swell with his words, so terribly honest that it took my breath away. When Javier was cruel he was brutal, but when he was tender, it was almost more disarming.
Yet, at the same time I knew he wouldn’t be quick to forgive me and that we had so much distance between us we needed to gap. He might have implied that he was still physically attracted to me, a fact that brought with it a whole mess of other issues, but I didn’t know when he would let me in again.
“Sorry to disturb you,” Evaristo said, opening the door to the room while lightly knocking on it at the same time.
Javier glared at him. “She finally comes to and there you are. Can’t even give us a damn minute.”
He smiled at me brightly, looking so different in a suit and not the tortured man in the basement. “Luisa, I’m glad you’re awake. You’ve been out of it for the last few days.”
“How long have I been here?”
“A week,” he said.
“And you still haven’t found Esteban?” I asked.
“Actually,” Evaristo said quickly, coming over to me. He turned to Javier excitedly. “We have. We just spotted him on the satellite footage, in a village in the mountains, southeast Guatemala.”
“Well, fuck,” Javier said, gesturing wildly, his eyes wide and bright, “what the hell are you doing waltzing in here like this? Let’s go!”
“I want to go,” I said quickly.
Both men looked at me as if I were insane. I probably was. But I couldn’t rest here, not without finding Esteban with them and taking out his other eye.
“You’re in no shape to move,” Evaristo said. “Stay here, we will have people taking good care of you. You’ll be protected around the clock.”
&nb
sp; “Leave Diego here,” Javier said, which surprised me. “He can guard her.”
It seemed to surprise Evaristo too. “You sure? We might need him.”
He shook his head. “I’m not leaving her in the hands of someone I don’t know and trust.”
“Forget trust,” I told them. “I’m not afraid, I just want him dead.” I tried to get up but the pain was so great, spreading like fire. I cried out and Javier gently pushed me back onto the bed.
“No, Luisa,” he told me. “We will get Esteban alive. And I will bring him back here for you. You can do whatever you want with him. I promise.”
“Please.”
“I promise,” he repeated. He jerked his chin at Evaristo. “Come on. Let’s find Diego and get going.”
The two of them stalked off. For a moment I thought perhaps, if I just tried hard enough I could move, but my whole upper body failed on me. The agony was just too great. I lay back, breathing hard, wishing my anger could fool myself into thinking I was okay. But all it did was tire me.
My last thoughts before I fell asleep were of all the terrible things I would do if Javier brought Esteban back here.
For the first time in a long time, I smiled.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Javier
It wasn’t easy leaving Luisa behind in her condition but there was no fucking way I was going to let this go. My mind was on a single track and that track led to blood and bone.
It also wasn’t easy leaving Diego behind either but it had to be done. I didn’t trust anyone but him at this point. He understood too, vowing to watch over her as he had before, though I read it on his face that he wanted to join in on the massacre.
True to my word though, if we did manage to capture Esteban alive, I would take him back to Luisa and Diego and we could all fucking take turns doing whatever it was that our hearts desired.
I’d never seen such thirst for blood and violence in Luisa before.
I had to say it unnerved me in the best possible way. I saw in her what I saw in myself, something dark and frightening and unstoppable. The fact that she actually drove a pair of scissors through Esteban’s eye stirred up something deeper inside me than just my cock.