TW: This chapter contains mention of drug use.

“You wanted to talk to me?” I stuttered, still holding onto the heavy bedroom door.

A loud moan came from the bed, exhaled by a lump of flesh that might have once been a man. I threw one last glance over my shoulder to a concerned-looking Oscar and a frowning Gustavo, and shut the heavy door behind me with a trembling hand.

“Pablo?” I whimpered.

Uneasy steps led me to the bed, and I slowly approached the writhing mass that hid beneath the scarlet-speckled silk sheets.

“Pablo,” I repeated softly. “It’s me, Gordita.”

He jolted up from under the covers, and greeted me with a wide grin. Thick, dark, dried blood had crusted under his nose, seeped in between his front teeth, dripped down his bare chest and painted it with crimson streaks.

“Morning, sunshine,” he sang.

“Pablo,” I whispered. “You’re covered in blood.”

“Yeah,” he slurred. “My own blood. No big deal.”

“Did Hernan do this to you?”

“Hernan?” he scoffed. “That motherfucker throws punches like the marshmallow man. No, Gordita, it’s just a little nosebleed.”

“And you didn’t clean yourself up?”

Pablo sighed, and rolled over to show me the pair of pink fuzzy handcuffs that had been slapped around his wrists.

“Well, it’s hard to do anything with these cuties,” he chuckled, twisting his head to look at me over his shoulder. “Do you like them?”

“Where did they find those?” I cringed.

“Well, uh, that’s a conversation for another day,” he muttered. “Anyways, did your evening go?”

I stared at him in silence for a while, my mouth half-open as it froze midway through a chuckle of disbelief.

“You mean, between the moment you threatened to kill me and the moment you almost punched me in the face?” I scoffed. “Well, all things considered, it wasn’t terrible. It was pretty good, actually.”

“Why, because you had your ass grabbed by Hernan Sandoval?” he sneered. “Was that your highlight of the night?”

Another bad idea ran across my mind for a split second, like when you watch a truck barreling down a street and wonder what would happen if you jumped in front of it.

I told myself I could play into his stupid game. I could act all sarcastic, ask him if he was jealous, push all his buttons and drive him crazy. But I didn’t know how strong the fluffy handcuffs were, or if Pablo might remember my words for long enough, until someone eventually untied him, and so the thought left my head just as fast as it had entered it.

“Do you really think I enjoyed being groped by that creep?” I hissed. “Really, Pablo?”

“Then what made you so happy? Was it because you got to spend some time away from me?”

The answer was yes, obviously. But that might tick him off too, and given Pablo’s behavior all day, I was better off treading lightly.

“No, it’s just– I’m getting to know everyone a little better,” I shrugged. “They were actually really nice with me.”

“Who’s they?” Pablo muttered.

“Well, Gustavo and Oscar have been quite supportive, and I guess Andrea is also kind of sweet, and even–”

Pablo cut me off as he threw his head back and loudly guffawed. He rolled, and wheezed, and laughed at me for a good minute.

“Gustavo and Oscar?” he snarled. “Gordita, please. Gustavo and Oscar, seriously? Those guys want you dead. Did you know that?”

My heart dropped in my chest. Pablo’s words sounded neither real nor right, but as we all know, out of the mouth of babes and shit-faced drunks, comes forth truth.

“What– Why would they want me dead?” I stammered.

“Protocol, Gordita,” he shrugged. “To them, you’re still the hostage who saw my face, and could bring down our whole operation. And now you’ve seen their faces too, so, you know, now it’s personal.”

I let out a breathy chuckle. Now it was obvious. This was just a lie, fabricated by Pablo to keep me away from anyone who wasn’t him.

Because in Pablo’s world, Mafer was nothing more than my maid and a gossiping slut, and I knew he’d only said that so I would stop confiding in her. Just like when he’d pretended I was cheating on him with Oso, and he’d threatened us both. And now that I was starting to trust Gustavo and Oscar, and taking so much as baby steps away from Pablo, he’d made something else up, just to scare me and reel me back in.

“Alright, I’ll keep that in mind,” I shrugged. “Is this what you wanted to see me for? To remind me I’m not allowed to trust anyone else but you?”

I was ready to walk out the door, and back to my room, so that I could fall asleep in my comfy bed and pretend this awful day was nothing but a bad dream.

“Not really,” he answered. “I was mostly wondering if you could be a good girl and help me get out of these damn handcuffs.”

“No.”

“Pretty please, Gordita,” he groaned. “My darling little lovely, beautiful angel.”

“Even if I wanted to, I don’t know where the keys are,” I chuckled, shaking my head at him. “Besides, you look great in them. Very cute.”

“Thanks, Gordita. Honestly, I’d have to agree, hot pink goes well with my skin tone,” he grinned, and I almost laughed at his joke. “Can you help me with something else, then?”

A desperate sigh escaped my lips, even before I heard Pablo’s plea.

“What do you want?” I mumbled.

“Coke.”

“Coke? The soda?”

“Not the soda,” he drawled. “I need cocaine. Blow. Nose candy. Premium crack.”

“You don’t need cocaine, Pablo,” I huffed. “You’ve already had enough.”

“It’s already worn off. That shit wears off really fast. Come on, Gordita, please. Give it to me. It makes me sober. It’ll make me feel better.”

The more Pablo begged, the angrier I felt, and the more I believed that my arm had gotten infected and this day was just a very strange fever dream.

I suddenly remembered what Andrea had told me, on the day we went shopping in San José. She’d said Pablo had a thing for snorting cocaine off of prostitutes’ tangas. Maybe that now I was around, he couldn’t do it as often as he wished, and maybe he thought I’d be a good substitute for a hooker.

“Who do you think I am, Pablo?” I spat. “One of your whores? Do you think I’ll let you snort a line out of my butt crack or something? Is that what you’re expecting?”

“I wouldn’t expect you to make a line on your own ass, it would be very hard for you to make it straight,” he sighed. “Also, if it gets in your anus, it burns really bad.”

“How do you–”

“Gordita, I need this now,” he cried, moaning like an animal in pain. “Just make the line on your hand or something.”

“I’m not hand-feeding you drugs, Pablo. There’s no way my hand is going near your face,” I retorted. “It’s disgusting. It’s covered in blood.”

“Then just spit on it and wipe it off, whatever,” he said, and rolled his eyes.

“You want me to spit on your face?”

“No, Gordita,” he huffed. “I want cocaine. You just do whatever you want, as long as I get cocaine in the end.”

“I’m not going to spit on your face,” I muttered.

“Just give me some fucking cocaine,” he exploded.

“Alright, alright,” I appealed, putting my hands up in defense. “Where is it?”

“Night table,” he muttered. “Top drawer.”

I jumped off the bed and knelt in front of the night table. I whispered a silent prayer to whichever God might be listening, hoping that by some miracle, giving Pablo cocaine might suddenly turn into a good idea, and began shuffling through the drawer. I pushed away all the strange objects, the handguns and the knives, before I pulled out several bags of different pills and powders.

“Is it this one?” I asked, pulling out a random bag of white dust.

“What’s written on it?”

“Nothing, there’s nothing written on any–”

“Then just pray it’s the right one,” he groaned, rolling over to the edge of the bed.

His ethylic breath blew down my neck, and, with my hands still shaking uncontrollably, I hastily spilled a little bit of powder on the bed.

“Pablo, are you sure this–”

Before I could finish, Pablo slid his face back and forth across the sheets, sucking up whichever remnants of powder came within his nose’s reach, and thrashed around the bed like a shark that had finally caught its prey.

He threw his head back and let out a guttural scream, as his face twisted into a look so inhumane, that I couldn’t tell whether he was smiling ecstatically or wincing in pain. I leaned back, crawled away from him and sought refuge on the furthest corner of the bed.

I should have stood up, and walked away. I should have left Pablo alone, and just called it a day. But I stayed put, quietly sitting on the edge of the bed as I watched him squirm like a morphing creature whose transformation never came. I gazed upon him with a lump in my throat, as my eyes filled with half-formed tears, fear and concern.

“What is wrong with you?” I cried.

"You’re wrong with me,” he slurred.

“What? I’ve only been here for two weeks,” I scoffed. “Your problem clearly predates me.”

“I didn’t have problems before you, Gordita,” he muttered.

He was quiet for a while. He stared at the ceiling, licking his lips, flaring his nostrils, twitching his nose and eyebrows as he tried to sniff up the few leftovers of cocaine dust trapped in his mustache.

“I was rich, successful, people fucking worshiped me,” he ranted. “Parties every night, dozens of whores at my feet, hundreds of friends, and all of them trusted me. My ransom scheme was amazing. We were making so much money, and because it was just a few of us handling the business, we didn’t even have to split it that much. I’m forty-three years old, and I was going to retire in two years. I’m telling you, Gordita. It was amazing. I had a fucking Dream Team, and I ruled everything.”

“There’s nothing amazing about kidnapping people,” I seethed, my heart thumping in my chest and throbbing in my sore temples.

“I know that. I know that now,” he mumbled. “But I never felt bad. I never had to look a hostage in the eye. I never saw their faces. Most often, I didn’t need to know their names. Sometimes I didn’t even know they were there. I only got involved when there was a problem, and I always solved it. Everyone went home and I was their fucking savior. I felt good.”

“Did you feel good about all the women you trafficked?” I croaked.

“I never had to traffic anyone. That was just our plan B. We never went past plan A. I’m a fucking genius, Gordita. I always find a way. And then you girls came along, and within seconds we were stuck at plan... K.”

A cold silence fell onto the room. A silence so deep I could hear him gulp. I let myself fall onto the soft mattress, laying close to him enough that I could see his face, but at enough distance that I was just out of his restrained reach.

“K for Kaitlyn ran into an open door?” I said with a bitter giggle.

“K for Kill. I had to kill you,” he mumbled.

“But you didn’t. I’m right here.”

He turned to me once again, but his reddened eyes stared right through me. His gaze was lost in a void that stood behind me, probably shuffling through the racing thoughts and blurry memories of his cokehead brain.

“I killed Sarah Kennedy. I shot her in the head. She was a sweet girl, who had never done anything wrong, and had enough problems for a lifetime, and I killed her,” he stated, and his voice choked up ever so slightly.

“Do you regret it?”

He stayed silent, but his head twitched. Just a tiny movement, almost invisible, that could have been as much of a shake, a nod, or a shrug. And it still seemed like he couldn’t bear to look me in the eye.

“Why did you keep me alive?” I asked, my tone a little colder than I’d intended.

“I told you the first day. Pity. I know you don’t like it, but without pity, you wouldn’t be alive. The plan was that if a hostage saw anyone’s face, they had to be eliminated,” he muttered. “But then I saw you, with your bashed-up face, the beat-down look in your eyes, and yet still, that funny little attitude. And I just realized I couldn’t do it. Not then, not there, not when you were tied up in a dirty basement, covered in shit, with an empty stomach and a broken soul. So I told the guys we’d fake your death, carry you out and I’d figure out something. I just thought you deserved better. A shower, a last meal. Fried chicken felt right.”

“And they let you do that?”

“I’m their boss, so they didn’t question it, at first. Your friends were in the room with us, so it’s not like the guys could start arguing. But once we’d left the basement, I had to beg for you, like a kid at a funfair begging his parents to let him have a goldfish,” he said. “And they let the kid keep the goldfish because, whatever, you know, it’ll die in a couple days anyway. They thought you would. They thought you’d keep me entertained for a few days, I’d have some fun with you, and then I’d get bored, like I always do, and I’d find some quick and easy way to get rid of you. And I thought so too.”

Had I not been laying down,I would probably have fallen over. Even then, the room began to spin, and it wasn’t because of the booze – or maybe just a little. Mostly, it was because of the vertiginous bouncing of my heart that faltered between my stomach and my throat. It was the weight of his words, the strength of my confused feelings, and the crushing meaning of the teardrop that curled up in the corner of his eye.

“So you were going to do it, then. You were going to kill me,” I whispered.

“That was the plan, but I changed my mind. The more we spoke, the more I liked you, and I switched plans even before the first night. The second you let me call you Gordita, I think. Within an hour of that, I had called a meeting. I told them you were staying. They said I couldn’t keep you locked up forever, and I told them that was why I was going to let you out. That’s when shit hit the fan. They said you’d ruin their lives– that you’d run away, call the police, and we’d all fall. Guns were pulled out. Gustavo broke my nice vase. One of my main guys said he’d quit the cartel. Do you know how hard it is to leave a cartel? It’s almost a death sentence. And he preferred that, to me letting you out.”

“I’m sorry.” I looked down at the bedsheets and bit my lip.

“Hey, don’t be,” he said softly. “I don’t want to surround myself with that kind of brainless cowards anyway. That same night, I had the rest of them convinced I’d find a way to make you want to stay.”

“And did you find that way?” I chortled.

“Nope. But they don’t know that,” he grinned. “The next morning, I went through all my contacts in embassies to see if one of them could help me get you a new identity. I got a few answers, and I picked out the Hungarian one because it’s a strong passport. It lets you travel to a lot of countries without a visa. I was dreaming of taking you around the world one day, and I didn’t even think of Juan. That’s how I managed to fuck that up. But I was happy. The guy said he’d come that night, so I celebrated with you, with a nice dinner. When I handed in the paperwork that gave birth to Emilia Kovacs, I celebrated again. With some tequila. Do you remember that night?”

“I remember,” I whispered, as I fondly recalled that moment, which seemed so blissfully peaceful compared to where I was today.

My hand slid across the bed to find his, almost mechanically, hoping his fingers would intertwine with mine. But his hands were still tied in his back, and mine was left hanging, loveless and longing.

“It was a long way there, but we convinced them,” he said with a smile.

“We?” I muttered. “All I ever did was try to run away. If anything, I set you back.”

“Well there were a few bumps on the road, but I did my best to hide them. And you helped, too. When you stood at your door and called my name for hours on end. When you kissed me under the rain. When we spent time together by the pool. Sometimes, it’s even just the way you look at me, or you huddle against me when the others around. In the end, that’s what convinced them, even more than all the lies I told them.”

“Lies?” I asked. “Pablo, what if they heard you? They’re standing right outside the door.”

“If they heard us, trust me, we’d already be dead,” he chuckled. “And the bedroom is soundproofed. I could shoot someone by the door and you’d barely hear it from the other side.

I gulped. What that really meant, was that if I screamed for help, no one would hear me. Oscar and Gustavo knew it, and yet they’d lured me inside the bedroom with a false sense of security. What if Pablo’s right, I wondered. What if they do want to kill me?

“Have you ever lied to me?” I asked him.

“I didn’t lie,” he mumbled, “but let’s say I often had to choose my actions and my words to try and convince you that staying with me was the right thing to do. I’m sorry I manipulated you, Gordita. I should have told you the whole truth.”

When Pablo uttered the words ′I manipulated you’, I was pulled out of the strange, romanced trance his presence often seemed to put me into. He’d almost convinced me. Almost. All this time, he’d tried to both scare me and seduce me to keep me close to him.

And who was to say he wasn’t doing it again, right now, as he laid in bed by my side, with his hands tied behind his back and his own blood smeared across his face?

Pablo’s tongue was his deadliest weapon. It was sharp and dangerous, and it had the power to guide me the wrong way. And yet, I kept falling for him and his lies or half-truths, over and over, again and again. But I couldn’t keep swaying back and forth between blind trust and wide-eyed fear.

The effects of cocaine on Pablo’s system began to fade. The spark in his eyes fizzled out, and the tender grin on his busted lips turned into a lamenting frown.

“Gordita, I don’t know why it had to be you, that day, in the basement. I’m not one of those people who believe in destiny or anything, but now you’re making me doubt everything. You’ve made me question the choices I’ve made in the past, you’ve made me rethink the things I had planned for the future. Fucking hell, Gordita, you’ve even made me go to Church, you’ve made me beg God for either answers or forgiveness, and I got nothing.”

Pablo spoke, and spoke, until his voice sounded raw, as if his throat was shredded by anger and inner turmoil.

“And I told you I loved you, and I know it was rushed, and I don’t want to say it again until I’ve figured shit out,” he continued. “Because I know you’ve entered my life for a reason. What I don’t know yet is if you’re here to save it or destroy it.”

He was staring at me now, his eyes piercing deep into my soul, and hooking onto my heart, to the point that I thought I could feel his emotions, and hear every word he’d left unspoken. Either he was honest, or he was the greatest liar that ever lived.

“I don’t know either, Pablo,” I whispered. “I guess that’s up to you.”

“If it was up to me, and only me, I would let you go. Not just so you could be okay, but also so that I could forget you and not have to look at you every day and remember how you make me feel, and know I’ll never make you feel the same. But you know I can’t do that. They would kill you.”

He marked his words with a glance towards the door. I nodded silently, almost absent-mindedly. I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t say anything. I wanted to think, to reflect on what he said, but my thoughts raced around my skull like a squirming mass of slimy monsters with no heads or tails.

I was tired, I was drained, I was helpless as I faced the terrifying possibility that the only person I could ever trust again was also the one who messed the most with my brain.

“I think I need to go to bed, Pablo,” I whispered.

“Alright, Gordita,” he answered with a faint grin. “Good night.”

I smiled back, and walked back to the door, with slow, hesitant, staggering steps. It was a long walk back to the door, long enough for me to overthink everything Pablo had said, long enough for his words to get to my head.

When I opened the door, and locked eyes with Oscar and Gustavo, I froze. Maybe it was because of how they’d stopped snickering and smiling as soon as I stepped out in the corridor, as if I’d interrupted a personal conversation. Maybe it was because I remembered how eager they seemed to leave me alone with a dangerous man who was out of control. Maybe it was the sight of their holstered guns, and how uneasy their company would feel, compared to that of a handcuffed Pablo.

I felt lost in a mirror maze. Every time I thought I had found a way out, even if it was just a small step, I’d either end up in a dead-end, or slam head-first into an invisible wall. Every time I thought I’d found a semblance of peace, happiness, even just a little respite, it was swiftly, violently, cruelly taken away.

I shut the door and turned to Pablo. I didn’t want to believe him. It was the last thing I wanted to do. But if even a single one of the words he’d said was the truth, then I’d need him to protect me.

I bit my lip with both shame and worry, closed my eyes and sighed.

“Pablo,” I said softly. “Do you mind if I stay and sleep here with you?”

Smoke and Mirrors

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