“Can we go over the plan again?” I whispered. “Just one more time.”

My trembling hand hovered over my heart, to stop it from tearing through my skin and beating out of my chest. This was the night I’d escape. I could already hear the first songs of a party upstairs, a party that would keep Pablo and his men busy enough that they wouldn’t notice that I had disappeared.

“So, Majo’s bedroom is at the very very end of that hallway, right?” said Mafer.

I took another deep breath and nervously clawed at the sides of my throat. It was frightening. Tonight was the night I’d either break away, or break apart.

I tore myself away from my daunting thoughts and focused on what was important: paying attention to Mafer.

“Right,” I breathed.

“Just outside Majo’s bedroom window, there’s a camera,” she continued. “It’s super easy to reach. You just hit it and it’ll tilt up. Majo and I have done it a thousand times, when we want to take a smoke break after lights out, or when we want to meet up with our boyfriends.”

The peaceful tone in her voice should have reassured me. Mafer had thought this plan through and through. She’d done this herself many times before, and it would work out just fine. There was only a tiny difference. For me, the stakes were a little higher than being caught with a cigarette just after my bedtime.

“We have the same shift today so she won’t get off work until 10:30, so you’ve got until then,” said Mafer. “But the later you do it, the smaller the chances are that someone will notice.”

“Ten thirty,” I repeated, nodding to seal the mental note.

“Once you’ve moved the camera, you go down to the pantry,” she kept on going, while I shut my eyes to picture the path, and concentrate a little more. “If you climb out one of the little windows, and you’ll be right under that camera you just tilted. You’ll be in a little courtyard– well, not a courtyard. It’s more like a path, really– with a hedge on the side. If you manage to get through, or over, or under the hedge there, you can get past the other cameras. And then, if you’re super quiet, you can get past the guards too.”

If, if, if. So many ‘ifs’. So many ways this could all go wrong. If it was just me, if this was a rash decision, another ‘genius’ plan I’d cooked up after one too many cocktails, I would have run for it. I had nothing to lose, aside from a few hundred square feet to roam in, and all it took for me to win back Pablo’s favors was doe eyes and a few one-liners. But now Mafer was involved, and the sheer thought that something might happen to her froze the blood in my veins and the cells in my brain.

“Are you listening?” she mumbled.

“Yes, sorry–” I stuttered, rubbing my hands down my face to erase the fear and the sweat sticking to my skin. “I’m just... trying not... not to forget anything.”

“It’s okay,” she murmured. “So, the bus stop is three hundred meters away, right-hand side at the end of the driveway. The last bus to San José is supposedly at eleven, but it’s always fifteen to thirty minutes late.”

“What if I miss it?” I gulped.

“I’ll give you my watch so you can keep track of time,” she said. She didn’t wait for an answer, and immediately began to unlatch it from her wrist. “But if you leave here at say, ten, or ten past ten, it gives you more than an hour to get there. It should be enough to get to the bus stop, and you’ll be long gone before anyone notices.”

She dangled her watch right in front of my eyes for a solid minute before I even noticed it. I could barely wrap it around my wrist, and it felt painful from how tight it fit. It hurt me to have to take anything more from Mafer, but I needed all the help I could get.

“Should we go over it again?” she whispered, as she sat down beside me on the bed.

“Tilt the camera in Majo’s room, climb out the window in the pantry, crawl under the hedge, and run to the bus stop,” I repeated.

“You got it,” she answered with a smile.

“Majo’s room, pantry, hedge, bus stop,” I muttered. “Fuck, Mafer, I sound like Dora the Explorer.”

“Yeah, it’s just like Dora the Explorer,” she chuckled softly. “You even have your backpack.”

She glanced over at a black bag we’d thrown in a corner. It was almost ripping at the seams from how many comfy clothes we had tried to fit inside it. Mafer had also packed a big bottle of water, Emilia’s passport –which had been left lying around the lavender room– and a little under two hundred dollars, all of her savings, that she insisted I take with me just in case.

“Like Dora the Explorer,” I echoed. “Except Swiper is out to kill me.”

“Yeah, and your little monkey won’t be tagging along,” she sighed.

The crack in her voice broke another chip off my heart. Leaving Mafer behind, where she’d have to deal with the backlash was the hardest part.

“I wish you could come with me,” I sniffed.

“I know,” she whispered, as her hand gently rubbed my shoulder. “But I have too many strings attached.”

I nodded, and pushed a tear back in my eye with the tip of my pinky finger. We’d talked about it many times. Mafer had a family she cared for, a boyfriend she loved, and a job she couldn’t leave without endangering everything.

“I did make something to remind you of me,” she confessed quietly, while her sparkly eyes looked up at me. “It’s really cheesy, though, so don’t laugh at it.”

“What is it?”

She opened the drawer of her night table, and pulled out a piece of paper she’d torn out of her notebook and folded in four.

“It’s a bit symbolic," she chuckled as she opened it up, “but it’s a game of Tic-Tac-Toe we never finished. Maybe it got interrupted by Mr. Juarez or something, but if you look closely –here are my crosses, and then you have your circles here– it was your turn to play, and all you had to do was put a circle here and you would have won the game.”

“Me winning a game of Tic-Tac-Toe against you?” I giggled. “That’s a first.”

“Let’s say it’s not very common,” she answered with a beaming smile. “But the meaning I gave it was that you just need to make the winning move. I hope it can bring you some courage, and maybe a bit of luck, and once you’re safe you can draw that last circle, and call it a victory. You can also keep it so you don’t forget me.”

We shared one last hug, and tore away from each other. Our goodbye was bittersweet, and painfully unceremonious.

She went back to work, and I stayed in her room, staring at the night sky as it turned a deeper shade of blue, and watching the hands of Mafer’s watch tick closer and closer to the right time to leave.

9:53 PM.

By now, Pablo must have been drunk and high on a cocktail of several different drugs, celebrating his recovery from his mild concussion. Good for him, I thought. Now his brain was the same sick and twisted blob of flesh that it was before.

He was probably distracted by how many people had come to see him, how many women were lining up to sit on his lap and kiss the corner of his lips, pretending to have missed his cheek, like they always did when I stood further than a few feet away from him.

Pablo didn’t miss me. Not yet, anyway. And I wouldn’t miss him for the rest of my life, not for a single day, a single hour, a single second– at least, I hoped it would be that way.

9:55 PM.

I walked out of the bedroom, as anxious thoughts gnawed on my nerves like little droplets of acid. There were shadows around every corner, either a maid, a guard, or another problem waiting for me to take a wrong step.

I’d left the backpack behind, for the moment, and hidden it under the bed. I’d pick it up on my way to the pantry, and make sure I’d be seen by as few people as possible while I carried it. I didn’t want to raise any suspicions.

My outfit was inconspicuous enough. I’d put on an olive green silk button-up, black slacks, and black boots with a small heel. It was a camouflage that would work just as fine in the garden as it would in the maid’s quarters. It was comfortable, but just a little too fancy to make me look like a girl who was about to dive under a bush and army crawl her way to safety.

Majo’s room was easy to find. Just as Mafer had said, it was right at the end of the hallway, on the far end of the house. There was a window above her bed, and a camera fixed to the wall just outside.

I quietly opened the window, and quickly checked the path below to make sure no one was watching. I hit the camera, just as Mafer told me to, and it didn’t move.

“Fuck,” I hissed, and took a deep breath.

I hit it again. Nothing. I grabbed it, and tried to push it up. It didn’t budge. I noticed two brand-new silver screws had been drilled through the hinges of the camera, and sighed. Majo and Mafer had pulled that trick a thousand times, maybe one time too many, and now that loophole had been fixed. For a second I told myself that this was a sign that it would all go wrong, and I should just give up.

I sat on the bed, and forced myself to think. Who knew when I’d get another opportunity like this. Who knew which other convenient fault in the security system would be fixed next. If I wanted to get out, I needed to get rid of that camera.

I searched around Majo’s drawers, looking for something I could use to either break or cover the damn thing. All I found were uniforms, pajamas, skimpy lingerie, rolled up carelessly and stuffed in random sections of the wardrobe. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t really blame the girl. My closet at home looked exactly the same.

I found a sock, lying on the floor, sticking out from under the bed. That would do the trick. As I bent over to pick it up, I heard the sound of someone brushing past the wall outside, and I froze into place.

“Hola Majo,” said a man’s voice right outside the door. “A tiempo, como siempre.”

Hey Majo. Right on time, as always.

I glanced over at the watch on my wrist. Even in the dark room, I could make out the time. 10:06 PM.

“Cállate,” I heard her mutter. “Me pusieron a limpiar baños. Tuve que escaparme.”

Shut up. They made me clean some bathrooms. I had to run away.

The man chuckled, and someone pressed the handle. Right before the door opened, I rolled under the bed. The light flicked on, both of them walked in, then the door shut, and I heard the nauseating sound of an overly-passionate kiss.

“Déjame cerrar la ventana antes que entren los mosquitos,” said Majo.

Let me close the window before the mosquitos get in.

The man fell onto the bed, and kicked off his fancy leather shoes right in front of my face.

“Acaso por allí se escapó tu amante?” he snickered.

Is that where your lover escaped?

“No tengo amante, Juan,” she answered.

I don’t have a lover, Juan.

Juan. Juan Sandoval. I recognized his voice, and the snarky tone that tinted all the words he said. I could have sworn that God put that man on Earth for the sole reason of ruining my life and every single thing I did.

“Me tienes a mi,” he murmured.

You have me.

They laid down on the small bed, and the coarse sheets rubbed against their clothes. I shut my eyes, as if that would hide me any better from their unsuspecting gazes, and bit my lip. Not this, not now, not ever.

“Pero no tengo otro,” she whispered.

But I don’t have another.

“Que aburrido,” he chuckled.

How boring.

Mindless chatter was followed by sloppy kisses, zippers opening, lascivious moans and clothes slipping off of their naked skin.

“En serio, me crees aburrida?” Majo worried.

Do you really think I’m boring?

“Bueno, hay peores,” he sneered.

Well, there are worse ones.

For God’s sake, Juan, I wanted to scream. Just leave. Just fuck her, be quick, and leave.

“Quién?” Majo asked.

Who?

“Tu amiga la Mafer,” said Juan.

Your friend Mafer.

“Ay, es que no la conoces...” Majo giggled. “Esa chica puede ser bien loca.”

That’s because you don’t know her. That girl can act pretty crazy.

“Invítala, entonces,” he replied.

Invite her, then.

“No, pues, es que su novio–”

No, well, it’s just that her boyfriend–

“Majo, la verdad, si quería una platiquita te hubiera invitado a tomar un té,” Juan cut her off.

Majo, honestly, if I wanted a little chat, I would have invited you over for a cup of tea.

Her mint green uniform floated to the ground, and Juan knelt by the side of the bed. I wish I could have moved, even just a bit, to get out of his way, or just to cover my ears and not have to suffer through the sounds of kissing, moaning, licking, slobbering, or Juan sucking in his spit and some other unholy fluid.

Under the bed, it was too dark for me to see the watch. I was losing precious time, and god I hated it.

He flipped her over and slid inside her, and I tried my best not to vomit. The bed squeaked, and Majo shrieked, and Juan wouldn’t stop grunting. She screamed in pleasure as he thrust against her, and the bottom of the mattress bounced half an inch away from my head.

This was the first time ever that there was a man on top of me and I was praying that he’d last under five minutes.

They switched positions, one, two, three times, and I refrained from trying to guess which ones based on the position of their feet and which part of the bed frame was creaking the loudest.

They moaned, and groaned, and cried out in ecstasy. They breathed even louder, and gasped, and panted like dogs as they fucked each other with the romanticism of two wild beasts. Harder, faster, with no end in sight, they unknowingly assaulted my ears until they climaxed.

Juan let out a low growl as he pulled out, and I exhaled a sigh of relief.

“Porque me miras así?” he mumbled.

Why are you looking at me like that?

“Solo me quieres por el sexo,” she whined, still rolling around in her bed.

You only want me for sex.

“Y tu solo por mi dinero,” he shrugged as he bent over to pick up his underwear.

And you, only for my money.

“También porque sos guapo,” she said, in a cutesy-pouty voice.

Also because you’re handsome.

“Igual eres guapa, Majito,” he answered curtly, and punctuated his sentence with a short kiss.

You’re pretty all the same, little Majo.

“En serio? No pienso que soy tu tipo,” she mumbled.

Really? I don’t think I’m your type.

“Cualquiera que tiene un culo para mamar es mi tipo.”

Any girl with an ass I can lick is my type of girl.

She called out his name in an outraged gasp, and either one of them slapped the other one somewhere. I didn’t want to know where. I just wanted to die.

They kissed and chortled and giggled some more, while I prayed that they would at least start to put their clothes back on and leave.

“Pues, no sé. Yo vi como mirabas a la novia de Pablo,” muttered Majo.

Well, I don’t know. I saw how you were looking at Pablo’s girlfriend.

“Ay, Majito, no me hables de ella,” groaned Juan. “Esa chica me da putos escalofríos. Yo sé que está escondiendo secretos, pero este cerote de Pablo ni se da cuenta.”

Oh Majito, don’t even talk about her. That chick gives me fucking cold sweats. I know she’s hiding some secrets, but that motherfucker Pablo doesn’t even notice.

“Secretos? Como brujería?”

Secrets? Like witchcraft?

“Si, exacto, brujería,” he sighed. “Le está chupando el alma por la verga. Así.”

Yes, exactly, witchcraft. She’s sucking out his soul through his dick. Like this.

A gross, loud, slurping sound followed his words, like a very poor imitation of a sloppy blowjob. Majo let out a disgusted moan, and I frowned so hard I gave myself a headache.

“Sos inmaduro,” she hissed, and I couldn’t help but agree.

You’re immature.

"No pero en serio, algo peor que brujería,” he chortled. “Pero no te puedo decir, porque son secretos.”

No but seriously, something worse than witchcraft. But I can’t tell you, because it’s a secret.

“Dimelo. Tu me conoces, soy bien calladita,” she murmured.

Tell me. You know me, I’m really quiet.

“No mames Majo, sos la peor de las chismosas,” he scoffed. “Pero paciencia, pequeña saltamontes. Estoy trabajando con Gustavo, y pronto todos van a saber de qué se trata.”

Don’t fuck with me, Majo, you’re the worst gossip there is. But patience, young grasshopper. I’m working on it with Gustavo, and soon everyone will know what’s up.

I choked back a nervous gulp. An alliance between Juan and Gustavo meant nothing good, especially not for me. It meant I needed to leave as soon as possible, before everything blew up in my face. Good thing I was leaving tonight – if I had enough time left to run to the bus stop, anyway.

“Majo, ¿has visto mi otro zapato?” asked Juan.

Majo, have you seen my other shoe?

I opened my eyes. The outline of Juan’s shoe was right in front of me, close enough that I could tell it smelled brand new, and not like sweaty feet Thank God. It also meant that if one of them crawled under the bed to grab it, they’d notice I had been hiding there all along. Fuck that.

I gently pushed the shoe out from under the bed, just enough for Juan to see it, but not too far that I’d risk them seeing it moving on its own. The seconds that passed before they noticed it felt like another endless torture, as painful as the weeks I’d spent in the lavender room.

“Allí está, estupido,” muttered Majo.

It’s right there, stupid.

“Bueno, ya me voy, Majito,” he grunted as he tied his laces. “Muchísimas gracias por el agradable momento.”

Alright, I’m leaving, Majito. Many thanks for the enjoyable moment.

“Viernes, a la misma hora?” she breathed.

Friday, same time?

The door opened, then slammed shut. Majo muttered something that didn’t sound polite, and I saw her bare feet scuttle into the bathroom. Once the shower started running, and Majo began to sing, I crawled out from under the bed. The breath I took right then felt like the first one in a long time.

I wanted to sigh, to scream, to gag, to puke, to wash my skin and brain with bleach and boiling water, to down half a bottle of rum and forget all about this terrible moment. But I couldn’t. I didn’t have time to do that.

10:47 PM.

I almost choked in panic. I buried my face in my elbow to stop myself from coughing. I placed my hand on the door handle.

“Fuck,” I cursed under my breath. “The camera.”

In as long as it took me to gasp, I had grabbed the sock, opened the window, and rolled the little piece of fabric over the lens. I quietly closed the window, and slipped into the hallway.

Wiping the sweat from my brow, pulling out the dust in my hair, I made my way back to Mafer’s room. I tried to look as calm and composed as possible, so as not to alert whichever eyes I’d come across in the hallway.

There were so many eyes I could have met. The big brown eyes of a young maid. The gray ones of that handsome guard, who always seemed to stare at me in a weird way. The red dots of a camera, following me as I walked down the hallway.

Black eyes were the ones I met. Eyes I could have recognized even without a face. Deep, dark and looming, ready to suck my soul through the flushed skin of my face.

Slurp, slurp. I winced.

“What are you doing here, Emily Smith?” he muttered, pressing his hand against the wall to bar my way.

“Hi there, John Glade. I live here, this is my house,” I shrugged, in a tone I hoped came across as naive and innocent.

“I mean in the maid’s quarters,” he spat.

“The maid’s quarters are also a part of the house, yes.”

“So you’re a maid now?” he snickered, arching an eyebrow and sputtering in my face.

“No,” I retorted. “Are you?”

“You’re getting on my fucking nerves,” he groaned. “What are you–”

“Uh, Jungle Jew,” I mumbled as I looked down at his pants. “Your fly is open.”

As soon as he lowered his eyes to check, I slipped away from him. Only his heavy gaze followed me down the corridor, and once I turned around the corner, I was alone.

I carefully shut the door to Mafer’s room, and pulled my backpack out from under her bed. I took a deep breath before I glanced at the watch again.

10:51 PM.

With my luck, the bus would be on time today. In the silence of Mafer’s bedroom, I could hear my pulse thumping against my temples, and my heart threatening to beat out of my chest. I could have given up. I could have waited, and tried to escape again on another, better day.

Right, let’s wait, I sneered at myself. See what happens if you stay. Let’s see what Juan and Gustavo have planned for you. Let’s see how much worse Pablo can get. Let’s see how many doors can shut in your face before you grow the strength to do this again.

I swung the backpack over my shoulder. If I wanted to make it out of here alive, I had nine minutes at worst, and half an hour at best. I could do it. It wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t impossible. I could make it in time.

I took the torn and folded piece of paper Mafer had left on the night table, and held it tight in the palm of my hand. I pressed it against my heart for a split second, three racing beats, before I stuffed it in my backpack. I headed out of the room with my chin held up high.

All I had to do was make the winning move.

The Winning Move

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