Daleyza
“Tobias!”
Screams covered by gunfire, then suddenly… the cacophony stopped, leaving only her gasping sobs.
A limp body in her arms. Closed eyes. Chest unmoving. Far too small to be covered in so much blood.
Pounding feet from behind. Too lost in her grief to care if it was friend or foe.
Nothing mattered anymore. Her beautiful Tobias was gone.
“Daleyza!” His cry of relief that she was safe.
Then, “No!” His soft cry of disbelief. An arm around her, another reaching for her son. “Tobias,” he moaned.
She struggled and strained against her confinement. Arms of steel banded around her, and soft murmurs penetrated the fog of memories. “It’s okay. You’re dreaming. I’m here. You’re safe. It’s over.”
It wouldnever be okay.
Dreams were what you reached for. Maybe challenging, but overall, positive and pleasant. This had been a nightmare.
He was here now, but could she trust him not to abandon her again when this was all over?
This was not okay. Her family and her husband’s family had taken the life of a six-year-old boy because they were displeased with Ildefanso, and now she was being targeted.
The ultimate truth? If Tobias and Ildefanso were gone, it would never be over. She would live with this pain for the rest of her life.
The voice returned. “Leeza, you need to wake up.”
Her eyes opened, focused on the wall of the hotel room in Bariloche. New tears began as she realized where she was, who she was with, and what was happening. Meanwhile, the arms still held her through the wracking sobs, and the voice began to speak soothingly in Spanish.
At one point, she heard him speak in English to someone, saying it would be a bit before he could bring her somewhere. But then he went right back to comforting her.
Eventually, the sobbing became crying, the crying became silent tears, and then the tears dried up, leaving behind what felt like a dried husk. Lovelessness. Loneliness. Emptiness.
As they lay in twilight, elements of the dream still lingered, especially one that had not been there in the past. His arms around her. His horror at their son’s body. But had it really happened? Or was it the feel of him surrounding her in the bed that prompted it? His whisperings in her ear generating his voice in the dream.
“I have to know, Fanso. When Tobias died? Did you hold us in your arms?”
She felt him tense. “Briefly. We weren’t safe, and I had to help you and Ka-Bar get to the vehicle.”
Fresh tears sprouted from her eyes, and she turned to face him, burrowing into his chest. “I didn’t remember! All this time, I didn’t remember that. It came back in my dream just now.” She’d failed him. Blocked out all memory of those first hours after escaping thecartel mansion. “How you must have hated me. No wonder you left us.”
His thumbs brushed away the tears on her cheeks. “I never hated you,belleza. Not once.”
“I wouldn’t blame you.”
“You were in shock, and so was I. Both of us could have been there for each other, but pain is a terrible thing. It makes us feel isolated. Like no one can understand what we’re experiencing.” He kissed her forehead, then tucked her under his chin, his hands sifting through her hair. “If you have questions, I’ll answer them. If not, when you’re ready. If you’re never ready, that’s okay too.”
Reliving that day and the days after was something she desperately wanted to avoid, but she knew she couldn’t. She needed to know. “The next thing I remember, we were in that building back home. What happened in between?”
“I had to drive because Ka-Bar was too wounded, so he was lying in the back. You sat in the passenger seat, Tobias clutched in your arms. While I drove, I held onto you both with one hand while I steered with the other.
“When we arrived in the city and waited for my contact, that was when I could finally hold you. We sat side by side, my arm around you.
“I always met my DEA contact at this bar in town. It’s also where I met Ka-Bar. Both posed as American drug runners, and the bar was a known place for handoffs to occur, so it never caused comment.
“While we were there, my father’s soldiers showed up. They followed us. I barricaded you and Tobias in a closet, and Ka-Bar had me prop him up in the hallway as a sort of last sentinel between my father’s soldiers and you. He took several more bullets before I ended it.
