I tried my best not to fall asleep. My eyes were heavy, but so was the pit in my stomach. I kept thinking of the things Pablo would do to me when he found out, and every time I did, the pit grew like a black hole that sucked in my guts.

I had cleaned the mud off of my legs and scrubbed the dirt from my clothes. I prayed that Pablo would believe the lie that Oscar told him and that he wouldn’t notice the gash on my dress, but my tears kept washing away the makeup I used to cover the scratches on my face.

Pablo would find out, if he hadn’t already, and when he did, he’d kill me. By the time the Sun came up, he would have figured it out, and he’d greet me with a ′Morning, Sunshine’ and a gun pressed to my temple.

Perhaps he would drug me and quietly drag me down to the basement, where my blood wouldn’t stain his nice silk sheets. Maybe he’d torture me first, break my bones, carve out pieces of my flesh, pull out my nails or my teeth with a pair of pliers until I spat out the name of the person who helped me.

I would have rather been awake when he came to find me, but once I had cried my eyes dry, I couldn’t keep them open. I had screamed out any strength I had, deep into my pillow, burnt myself out with racing thoughts, and exhausted myself with a galloping heartbeat. I lost that battle, just like every other one I fought, and I fell asleep.

I gasped when I woke up and saw him sitting right next to me.

“Morning, Sunshine,” he crooned.

Pablo was slouched on the bed, stretching his hairy legs in the warm sunlight. My fearful silence was interrupted by the dings and bleeps and boings chirping out of his phone.

He gleefully tapped on its screen, humming along to the annoying theme song of whichever game he was playing, until a robotic voice sounded the words ”Game Over" and he turned his attention back to me.

“How are you feeling today?” he asked, as his thumb stroked the edge of my jaw.

Rather than hold a knife to my throat, he curled a finger under my chin. I held my breath as his nail grazed my skin.

“I’m fine,” I said, but the words I uttered hardly made any sound.

“Are you hungry?” he chirped. “I’m in the mood for French Toast.”

That means I’m toast, I thought. But what do the French have to do with this mess?

I wondered if Juan had booked us plane tickets to Paris. Maybe that’s where he’d planned to go before we made our way to Budapest, and Pablo had found out about it.

Faced with my stunned silence, Pablo arched an eyebrow.

“You don’t like French Toast?” he muttered.

Or perhaps I was just overthinking.

“I like French Toast,” I answered robotically.

“Good,” he mumbled, staring at me out of the corner of his eye. “I’ll ask the kitchen to make some.”

I stared down at my hands, as if watching my fingers would stop them from trembling. Even without watching him, I could feel his searing glare burning holes into the side of my face. He knew. I knew that he knew, and it was only a matter of time before he mentioned it.

He sent a text to someone - either it was about French Toast, or it was some secret message that would ultimately lead to my death. Then, with a sigh, he threw his phone onto the bed. He stood up and walked towards the window, where he stood quietly for a long while.

His husky voice shattered the silence as if it were a piece of brittle glass. “What did you do last night?”

“I had a long chat with Andrea,” I replied, spitting my lines as if I’d rehearsed them all night. “Someone spilled wine on one of her favorite dresses, so she was really sad. I stayed with her to cheer her up while Oscar dropped her off at home.”

“So you left the house?” he asked. “I checked the logs. Nowhere is it written that you left the house.”

I gulped. Here it comes.

“The guards didn’t check the back seat,” I mumbled.

“They should have. And you should have filled out a form,” he groused. “This is a category one violation, you know.”

I tried not to choke on my words as the taste of bile rose at the back of my throat. “I’m sorry.”

“I was very worried, Gordita,” he said gravely. “And you didn’t even come and see me when you came back.”

“We got caught in the rain, I went upstairs to change, and I was so tired that I laid down for a minute and fell asleep.”

He let out a huff. Both of us could see clearly through the other’s lies, and I began to wonder why we were still avoiding the truth.

“I’ll let it slide,” he replied, his voice too high-pitched to sound honest.

A bead of sweat rolled down the back of my neck. I let out a quiet, shaky breath.

“Oscar is outside,” he said, and the sing-song tone of his voice sounded like a creepy lullaby. “We should join him.”

He helped me out of bed and as he dragged me out of the room, my fingers turned red in his hand’s harsh grasp.

This morning, the garden didn’t feel as quiet and peaceful as it usually did. A festering, wet heat weighed on my shoulders like a hundred tons of lead. The lush trees seemed to be weeping, last night’s raindrops still sloughing off their drooping leaves. Flies flew low and all around us, and their constant buzz made my migraine grow tenfold.

“How’s my favorite little brother?” jeered Pablo, as he dug his nails into Oscar’s shoulder.

Oscar’s smile looked more like a wince, but before he could say anything, Beto’s voice echoed from inside the house.

“Pablo?”

“What?” he barked back.

Beto’s head peeked around the doorway. He coughed and raised his eyebrows. Pablo sighed, stomped towards him, and within seconds, they disappeared into the kitchen.

“Everything alright?” Oscar murmured.

I gulped, and Andrea softly patted the back of my hand.

“You’ll be okay,” she whispered.

My eyes were stinging, yet I couldn’t bring myself to blink. I stared at Andrea, then at Oscar, and back at Andrea.

“He won’t know you relapsed,” she added, and I allowed myself to take another breath.

“He knows,” I muttered, glaring at her boyfriend again.

Oscar frowned. “Did you tell him?”

I shook my head.

“Who did?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“I’m sure he’ll understand,” Andrea whispered, her voice laced with hope.

Oscar flashed her a cold smile, as white and tense as his fearful eyes.

“If he found out, he’d tell us,” he said with a nod, a pitiful attempt at self-assurance.

Restless, he shifted in his chair, wringing his neck to keep an anxious eye on the door.

“What the fuck are you looking at?” Pablo spat out as soon as he walked out into the garden.

He slapped his brother on the back of the head, a little too hard for it to be a joke.

Pablo knew, and now we all knew that he knew, except perhaps Andrea, who was a little confused about the true nature of the things Pablo might know.

A maid brought out the breakfast, and we all slowly nibbled at our French toast, sitting awkwardly silent and tensely still. Pablo hid his rage behind a frozen grin, hanging on his face like a mask.

The elephant stood proudly in the room, strangling us all with its devilish trunk.

I should have been grateful that Pablo didn’t bring it up. There was no way in Hell that a conversation about my latest attempt to escape could ever end well.

As Juan once told me, Pablo was like a volcano, and it was always nice to see him blow off some steam. But there was no vapor shooting out of his ears, no hateful tirade spilling from his lips. He hadn’t made any threats, he hadn’t yet turned violent, nor had he locked me up in an isolated room.

Yet I could feel the volcano was about to erupt. I could see anger, bubbling like lava beneath his skin. I could feel the pressure building and the ground rumbling under my feet, or perhaps it was just the table shaking above his bouncing knees.

A vein popped out of his neck whenever he stared at me. Every time he did, he’d blink, and keep his eyes shut for one second too long. He’d draw a prolonged breath and smile at us all, before cutting another slice of his French toast.

It was as clear as crystal. Pablo knew I had tried to run away. Now all I had to do was pick apart my racing thoughts and figure out who had told him. The answer was even more frightening than the question.

It was Juan.

He was the only one who knew. Until Oscar found out, that is, but now it seemed like Oscar had about as much to lose as I did. It made too much sense not to be true, and my eyes welled with tears as I thought of it.

I’d given Juan all the trust I had left, I’d put my life in his hands. I’d let him fill my head with dreams and hope, just for him to leave me stranded in the driveway, under the pouring rain.

And I, as stupid as I was, had fallen in love with him.

As I tried to sail away from Scylla, I had fallen into Charybdis. Pablo was a six-headed monster, and Juan’s dark eyes, a swirling abyss.

They were one and the same, vile monsters that sucked me in to eat me whole, with their lies, their deceptions, and with their empty promises of a better life, far away from home.

Now I had one question left on my wounded mind, and it wasn’t how I’d make it out without him. I understood there was no escape, only darker depths to drown in. I just wanted to know why he’d done it.

Was it his plan all along? Had he known since the beginning? Perhaps he’d changed his mind, unable to break his bond with Pablo and the life he’d always lived. Maybe he’d been lied to, or convinced to trade me in for a lifetime of sugar babies and lavish parties.

Clouds shrouded the sky like a thick blanket, and we retreated inside the house. We found shelter between the dark marble walls of a lavish lounge, where knife-sharp crystal chandeliers hung from the high ceiling. Potted plants in every corner seemed to wilt as we walked in, as if burdened by the atmosphere.

No one spoke, and Pablo smoked cigarette after cigarette, joint after cigar, filling the room with a suffocating gray mist. His arm slid around my shoulders, coarse and heavy like a noose for my neck. All I could hear was the rain tapping at the windows, and the low whirr of an overworked aircon unit.

They all stared empty-eyed at their phones, avoiding each other’s gazes. Meanwhile, I distracted myself by tracing a finger along the itchy golden thread of an old embroidered pillow.

When the Sandovals arrived later that day, their entrance felt like a breath of fresh air. I had both dreaded and longed to face Juan again. I didn’t need revenge, nor did I expect an apology, I just wanted to know why he did it.

But Juan pretended that nothing had happened. Worse, even, he acted like we’d never met.

He didn’t speak to me, he didn’t even look my way. When I dared to stand up and walk towards him, he quickly scuttered away.

He found himself facing a closed door, probably wishing we were in the garden again. Slowly, he turned around and glared at me like a cornered rat. Placing a hand on my chest to still my racing heart, I took a deep breath and a few steady steps forward.

“Hey,” I said.

He didn’t answer. He didn’t even dare look me in the eye.

“Can we talk?” I whimpered.

His eyes briefly glanced downward, his lips curving into a strained, plastic smile.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“Not here,” I whispered.

In an instant, his fake grin vanished, replaced by a cold touch of his hand on my shoulder as he carefully pushed me away.

“Excuse me,” he mumbled.

He strode over to Pablo, who had been caught in a conversation with Hernan on the other side of the room. As soon as he reached them, he laughed out loud at a joke he had only caught the tail end of.

I could feel my blood boiling, coursing like steam through my veins. I watched as Pablo gave Juan a friendly slap on the back, how he looked at him, his eyes filled with paternal love and pride. Ever since this awful day had started, this was the first time that Pablo’s smile had seemed genuine.

My fingers began to tremble. I wanted to wrap them around Juan’s neck.

They were in this together. They’d fooled me, tricked me, just so that Pablo could test my ability to lie and my loyalty. This was their plan, and it had worked just as they intended.

Thunder struck just outside the house. Manée, Andrea, and two maids screamed out in fear, and so did one of the guys. The men started to argue about who had done it, calling each other man-babies and little girls. Juan and Pablo started screeching like animals, trying to recreate the sound, and clutched their bellies from how hard they laughed at each other’s pitiful attempts.

A lightning bolt lit up the sky again, cutting short to their brainless banter. The walls shook and the windows chimed, the lights in the room flickered off, and the AC sputtered to a stop.

“It’ll turn back on,” said Pablo. “It’s just a power surge.”

“It better,” mumbled Manée. “I have to charge my phone.”

Hernan stomped over to the AC unit, and started jabbing every button and jamming his fingers in every nook he could find.

“Dad, there’s no power,” Juan told him. “You don’t need to fix it.”

“Don’t try to tell me what to do,” he barked back. “You’ve never even changed a fucking lightbulb.”

Pearls of sweat rolled down their foreheads, as they shed off their blazers and tugged at their shirts. Meanwhile, I stood frozen, shivering in the eerie blue glow of stormy daylight that seeped in through the windows.

I was cold, dead, and empty, feeling nothing but the wild winds of anger whirling inside of me.

What revenge, and how, those were details I still needed to figure out, but I was sure I’d come up with something once the numbing haze of shock and horror would fade.

“I’m going to die of a heatstroke,” whined Andrea as she fanned herself with her skinny hands. “I can’t live without AC.”

“You guys should come to our house,” suggested Juan. “We have generators.”

“We have generators,” repeated Pablo in a mocking mutter. “Fucking show-off.”

My discomfort grew stronger with every ticking second. Hernan’s hand brushed against my waist as he walked past me. Pablo held my wrist too hard as he led me out of the room, and the last thing I saw before the Sandovals hopped into their car was Juan’s malicious smirk, as he stared right at me.

It didn’t get better when we reached their house, a fortress of concrete and steel, a foreboding abode of darkness and secrecy. Save for the bright aseptic lights beaming out of the windows, it blended perfectly into the dark gray sky, and stood out like an evil lair every time lightning breached through the clouds.

The Sandovals popped a cold bottle of champagne, just to cool us down, they said. We drank through three bottles in what felt like a few minutes, and Hernan refilled my drink whenever he found it to be less than half full.

As we finished the fourth bottle, spirits began to heat up again. Pablo argued with Oscar about one thing, and with Hernan about another. Andrea cried over a lost rhinestone that ruined her manicure. Manée hissed something in Juan’s ear, and slapped his arm when he rolled his eyes at her.

I still hadn’t spoken a word or moved more than a single finger. I was stuck, trying to unmuddle the mess of my own feelings. If all Juan had ever done was betray me, why did I still long for him? Why couldn’t I tear my eyes away if I couldn’t stand the sight of him? And if I hated him so much, why did I still feel like a blade twisted in my heart every time someone mentioned his wedding?

Another strike of lightning startled a young maid, causing her to drop a whole platter of appetizers. Everyone stood and watched as she picked the food off of the floor, turning red in the face when Hernan mumbled a few insults.

I felt something tickle the palm of my hand and a gust of air in my back, but when I turned around, there was nothing behind me than an open door, leading into a dimly lit hallway.

A quick headcount was all I needed to figure out who had just left the room– it was Juan. And just like a siren, luring me towards the depths with his tempting illusions, I couldn’t resist his call.

I finished my glass and handed it to the maid, who was still wiping her tears in a corner of the room. I gave her a pitiful smile and an awkward pat on the shoulder, before quietly slipping out of the door.

There he was, standing in the hallway, leaning against a wall as he picked at his nails, the bane of my existence, that fucking sea snake.

“We need to talk,” he whispered.

“Oh, now we do?” I sneered.

He rolled his eyes, just like he did to his girlfriend when she got on his nerves, and ushered me into an empty living room.

“It’s safer here than at Pablo’s,” he mumbled as he carefully shut the door. “It’s getting dangerous, Em, I think he knows.“.

“Fuck yeah, he knows, after what you did,” I groaned. “I’m lucky to be alive.”

“Em, there’s a reason why–”

“Yeah, I bet,” I hissed. “What did he offer that I couldn’t give you?”

Juan frowned. “What?”

“Did you do it for money?” I spat. “Or do you just do everything he tells you to because he’s some kind of fatherly figure for you? How far back does this go? Did he find out and make you change your mind, or did it start before I even met you?”

“Holy shit,” he breathed.

“Didn’t expect me to find out, did you?” I said, forcing a smirk I hoped would hide my tears. “It’s clever, what you did. Pretended to hate me, so you’d slowly gain my trust and I wouldn’t suspect anything.”

He stood with his arms crossed uncannily high on his chest, his face pale and blank of any expression.

“Is that what you think?” he mumbled.

“I know what you did, Juan. I know you’ve been working with Pablo,” I hissed.

“Did you tell him?”

“No, we’ve barely spoken.” I muttered. “I don’t even want to see his face.”

“Good, because you, Emily Smith,” he sighed, poking my chest with his fingertip, “are fucking paranoid. And also completely wrong.”

“You can lie to me all you want, but your little game is over,” I sniffed. “I’ve figured it all out.”

Again, he rolled his eyes, and kept them closed until silence had settled in the room.

“Are you done?” he asked.

I answered with a quick nod, wiping the corner of my burning eye.

“I didn’t betray you. I was held up,” he said. “I had everything ready. I had the suitcase in my car, I had a bag ready with my passport, and a bunch of cash. I even bought some warm clothes and a fucking toothbrush for you. If you don’t believe me, I can show you. It’s right upstairs, in my bedroom closet.”

“You left me alone,” I cried. “I could have gotten caught. I could have been killed.”

He raised a finger in the air to shush me.

“I was about to walk out the front door, and one of the guards stopped me. He told me there was a mild security threat nearby, cops we hadn’t seen before, or something like that, and he told me it was best if I stayed inside the house.”

“How convenient,” I mumbled.

“It happens. Wouldn’t be the first time,” he shrugged. “The weird part is that when I told him that I didn’t care, he started asking a bunch of questions, like where I was going and what I needed to do. That doesn’t usually happen.”

“Still, it’s none of his business,” I muttered. “You could have just walked out.”

“I did, and he said he had to escort me. I figured they knew something was going on, probably with you. If I refused, they’d know I was involved in something sketchy, and if I let him come with me, they’d find you in the driveway. We were fucked anyway. So I asked him if the threat was that bad, and he said yes, so I told him I’d just stay. I thought you’d find a way back on your own.”

“So you just gave up on me.”

A fiery tear ran down my cheek, and Juan gently held my hand.

“Believe me,” he said. “I wish we could have run away yesterday. But I had to keep you safe.”

I shook my head. “I don’t believe you.”

“You keep thinking what you want, Em,” he murmured, lacing his fingers with mine so I couldn’t pull them away. “I’m not going to give up on you anyway. I can’t give up on you. Not now, not then, never.”

My lips trembled as I swallowed back a whimper, as Juan chased a tear off of my cheek with the tip of his thumb. His warm touch slowly melted away the ice that encased my heart. I looked up into his dark eyes, still wondering what lay inside that abyss. Either hope or deceit, either death or life.

So I lifted my chin, and chose to dare him.

“Prove it.”

Kerning

Tears on Fire

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