My breath locks. I squeeze my eyes shut as every word she spits sinks into me anyway.
“Back the fuck up.”
I hear Efren before I feel him. Standing in front of me like a shield. Genesis’s lips curl as she meets his stare, something wild flickering across her face.
She laughs manically in his face before Ari grabs her and drags her toward the guest bathroom. She’s still laughing even as the door slams shut behind them. Efren turns to me, his warm hands palming my face.
“Are you okay, Kitten?”
The dam breaks. I fold into him, a broken sound slipping out as I cling to his shirt, breathing him in like oxygen. Over his shoulder, I see a tall figure approaching through the thinning crowd.
Ignacio Fernandez.
“We should go,” I whisper.
“Abre la pinche puerta,” Ignacio shouts outside the door.
Efren lifts me and carries me out of the party, but not before I look back as Ignacio pulls Genesis out of the bathroom. She stands tall and level with him, and he pulls her forward. They yell, but I’m too far to make out the words, then I watch him hug her. It tugs at something inside me.
“Alma.” Efren’s voice snaps my attention forward to the bottom of the hill, where a black van idles.
“We need to get out of here.” He sets me down.
That’s when I see the blood. Smeared across his hands. Dark against his knuckles. Soaked into the front of his shirt.
“Oh my god! Are you hurt?” I reach for him, panic climbing up my throat.
He catches my wrists and pushes them down.
“No. But we need to get out of here.”
I climb into the front seat of the van, look back, and freeze. Don Cheetos sits between Ricky and the tall, hollow-eyed man Efren calls Lurch, his orange fur a surreal splash of normal in the dark interior.
“What is Don Cheetos doing here?” I ask, turning to look at Efren.
“He’s sort of our mascot,” Ricky says, and I turn back to bitch him out.
But instead, something long, heavy, and wrapped in plastic on the floor catches my eye. The shape is unmistakable.
“What. The. Fuck. Is. That.” My lips tremble at the sight.
Ricky exhales. “Oh… I can explain that, see Efren had this?—”
I don’t hear the rest. My stomach drops hard, nausea crawling up my throat.
“Please,” I whisper to Efren, turning back to face the front. “Tell me that’s not a body.”
His silence is answer enough.
The van starts moving.
Efren talks. About Jasper, about Salma’s husband, but the words blur together. I stare straight ahead, hands clenched in my lap, nodding when I’m supposed to. Somewhere, we stop. Somewhere, the men get out. I don’t follow.
I stay quiet.
There’s so much to process. The Biondini brothers, Salma, Missy. It’s new information, but nothing that leads me to my birth parents. Just another crazy goose chase that would once again lead to another dead end.
The guys return, and Efren drives us back to the hotel. When we reach it, I’m out of the van before it fully stops. Ricky hops out behind me as I snatch Don Cheetos from Lurch’s arms. He lets out a low hiss that makes my skin crawl.
