There were men’s voices outside. At least two, maybe three. They were coming closer.
“Esconder! Ahora!” My mother bellowed.
Everyone was screaming. I was so scared, I could barely move. But somehow I managed to crawl inside the closet and close the door just as two men burst inside.
Pulling my knees to my chest, I struggled to catch my breath. I was crying hard, but it was silent. I was too afraid to make a sound.
“Fuck you,” my father snarled. “Rata.”
I could see them through the slats in the closet. My sister was still out there. I wanted to scream to her, but I couldn’t. I had no voice.
Pop!I cringed, and covered my eyes.
“Mami!” At the sound of my sister’s voice, my hands fell away fast, and I peered through the slats.
“No!” My mother wailed, lunging for my sister…
But it was too late. One of the men had grabbed her and was hauling her away.
He was… taking her.
The other man kicked my mother, then my father. Beating my father, taking his gun as a new man walked into the room, moving much slower than the others.
I could only see him from the waist down. His clothes were different than the others. He was wearing a white suit, and black shoes with shiny buckles.
His arm lifted, aiming a gun at my father…
Pop!
Then he turned it on my mother.
Pop! Pop!
My lips trembled, wide, horrified eyes unable to look away.
I didn’t want to look… I didn’t want to see, but my eyes were wrenched open by a force I couldn’t control.
My father was cursing at him as my mother tried to crawl away. She was bleeding, leaving a trail of deep red in the cream-colored carpet. The other man kicked my father morewhile the man in white stood over my mother. Lifting the gun once more.
“Lo siento,” he spoke softly.
Almost too soft. I didn’t understand why he sounded like that…
But then it didn’t matter. BecausePop!
My mother went still.
Slumped onto the floor, blood gushing from the hole in her head.
Mere feet away from the closet where I was shivering. Hand clasped tightly over my mouth to keep myself quiet.
“You think they’ll just let you get away with this?” My father choked, groaning when the other man stepped on his throat.
“Déjalo,” the man in white said to the other one, who backed up.
The man who’d just killed my mother knelt over my father. His white suit was all splattered with blood.
He reached into my father’s pocket, and pulled out his knife. The one his father had given him…
