“Your sister is in there with a killer, someone who can make an innocent soul bleed. When this is over, we’re going to have a serious talk about your taste in men.”
I drop my gaze, unable to keep looking him in the eye.
We screwed up.
“I told her there was something off about him, but he was always so sweet to Lupe.”
Iscrewed up. I’m the calculating one of the two of us. I’m the one who weighs every risk. Why wasn’t I more careful? Why didn’t I look into him harder?
Julia’s partner’s phone rings, and I hear a man’s voice on the other end, but my brain is drowning in guilt.
Between the two of us, I’m the brain. She’s the heart. I think. She feels. That has always been our dynamic, and I failed her. I let my mind go quiet under kisses in a library, under a man I thought saw me. The Amalia who isn’t interesting, the one who simply wanted to be accepted.
A man comes limping toward us, and Maksim signals him to take me to the car. He guides me into the back seat and climbs in beside me, the door slamming shut behind us.
Gunfire and shouting keep going in the background. The man, whose name is Jeremy, sits with his eyes closed, trying to steady his breathing, while my heart climbs up into my throat.
When he tries to shift his leg a little to the right, a grimace of pain cuts across his face.
“Can I help you with something?”
I remember the bag hanging across my chest and pull out a tablet of ibuprofen.
His eyes weigh the pill in my hand, then drift to my glasses, and he smiles. A weak smile, but a smile nonetheless.
“No, miss. Unless you happen to have a spare ligament or meniscus tucked in there.”
“Can you put weight on it?” I ask.
“Yeah, but my knee feels like it’s about to give out.”
“Then it’s just the ligament. At least that’s my guess. Sixty percent sure.”
His gaze softens and he nods.
“Good to know.”
The next second, the car door swings open and I see Maksim, with Julia in his arms.
Julia, unconscious. Julia, bleeding from her abdomen far more than anyone should be able to bleed.
“Ay Diosito, what happened?”
“Lupe had the gun in her hand when I walked into the room,” Maksim tells me, his fury feeding the black energy I can practically feel coming off him.
Lupe would never do this. No.
“Where’s Lupe?”
He lifts his eyes to mine and I swallow hard because he looks like he could rip my head clean off my shoulders.
What did you do, Lupe?
I look at my older sister and the tears gather in my eyes, because we didn’t have enough time.
Every candletíoFelipe lit for her. Every trip to the police station. Every birthday I bought a pineapple and caramel cake, because it’s her favorite.
The car races toward the hospital. Maksim is in the back with us, pressing his bloodied shirt against her stomach, his eyes never leaving her face. I take her hand in both of mine. Her skin is so cold it terrifies me. I start whispering anything I can think of, anything that might keep her here with us.
