There was no time for explanation.
“Come on!” She tugged on the boy’s arm, panting. “This way!”
A bullet hit the gravestone next to them, taking a smoking chunk out of one corner. Antía instinctively ducked and gripped Diego’s hand even tighter.
They rushed out of the graveyard. In the general disorder, the Docampos and the Freires moved as one, all simply bent on getting out of there alive. Antía caught sight of Amaia Docampo tripping and hitting the ground, to be trampled in the terrified onrush as everyone fought to get through the gate at once. Panic had seized them all. They hurtled along like a blind mob.
Antía went down a narrow, overgrown track. With one hand she swiped aside the branches in her way, and with the other kept hold of Diego behind her.
All she could think of was to run, to get as far away as possible from the bullets flying in the graveyard.
Just then she found a bulky figure barring the way.
“You!” growled Luis Docampo, as startled as she was. His eyes darted over to Diego, who was cowering behind Antía. “All this is because of this little imbecile, him and the writer!”
“What are you talking about? We have to get out of here! Those people are going to—”
“If they hadn’t pulled that damn money out of the water, none of this would have happened! They’ve fucked us all!”
You weren’t saying that when we were all counting the cash.When you thought you’d struck gold.
But she didn’t have time to voice her thoughts, and Luis wasn’t listening in any case.
In a blind rage, needing someone to blame for the nightmare that was unfolding, and at the same time seeing a chance to settle old debts, he leaped at her, knocking her to the ground.
“Luis, no, wait!” Antía cried, but it was already too late.
He was at least twice her weight and strong as an ox. She cried out, feeling his hands close around her throat. She heard a muffled shriek from Diego. She gasped, her feet scrabbling in the sodden earth.
Then, just as she was about to lose consciousness, she saw a shadowy figure behind her assailant, carrying some sort of club, which was then lifted high and instantly came down on Luis’s head.
There was a thud, and Luis was knocked sideways to the ground, unconscious, like an ox in the slaughterhouse. With his hands released from her neck, Antía spluttered and then gulped down air.
“Roberto!” she croaked, coughing and spluttering. “It’s you!”
“It’s me, yes.” Roberto helped her to sit up. “Are you all right? Are either of you injured?”
“Diego! Are you okay?” Antía staggered over to her son, who was trembling with fear. She engulfed him in a protective embrace before turning to her savior again.
Roberto looked terrible. His clothes were little more than a collection of wet rags, and his face was a constellation of cuts and bruises. One armhung limp at his side, and he had a makeshift crutch. He looked as if he had just stepped out of a washing machine filled with sharp rocks.
Which in a sense wasn’t all that far from the truth.
Time stood still. Antía was unable to speak, trapped in Roberto’s feverish gaze. For an instant, the shooting, the violence, the money, all the chaos that had been unleashed on the island, simply stopped.
“Antía, I ... I need to tell you something. There’s nothing between Helena and me. It’s a misunderstanding. In fact ...”
“Shut up ...” She got up and moved closer to him. “I know. Helena told me everything after you left.”
“Really? I didn’t want you to think that ... I mean ...”
“I know,” she repeated before hugging him tight. Roberto yelped with pain, and Antía instantly let him go. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s nothing. I think I’ve cracked a rib, that’s all.”
“I don’t mean that.” She looked in his eyes. “I’m sorry I doubted you. I was an idiot.”
“Antía.” He looked at her hard. “I . . . you . . . I mean . . .”
