It was one of those normal mornings like I hadn’t seen in a while, when I sipped some hot coffee and slowly chewed on a freshly-baked pastry, while the men passed a phone around the breakfast table to look at new pictures of beheaded farmers.

“Want some?” asked Andrea, as she handed me a jar of strawberry jam.

I stared at the jar for one second too long. A bad taste spread out inside my mouth, and I could feel something gross crawling up my throat.

“I’m good,” I muttered.

Days had passed, and it didn’t get any easier. If anything, it only got worse.

All it took was a wafting smell of perfume or copper, the sound of a door slamming, or the sight of a red flower. They always took me back there, in the basement, with a smoking gun between my trembling fingers, watching as blood engulfed Mafer’s uniform like an abyss of crimson.

“Are you okay?” Andrea whispered. “You look so pale.”

I nodded, giving her a faint and tight-lipped smile I hoped would soothe her worries and turn her attention away from me.

“I know what you need, ” she continued, wrapping her delicate hand around my wrist.

I frowned. “What?”

“Olive oil,” she said with a beaming grin. “It makes you tan faster.”

My dead eyes strained to stare ahead, rather than glare right at her. My mouth opened a little. There were many things I wanted to say, mainly “AAARGH” as I gouged her eyes out before running away into the jungle, still screaming my head off. I sucked in a sigh as I shut my mouth again. It wasn’t worth the drama.

“It’ll also make you smell like a chicken shawarma,” Juan added.

I let out a tired chortle as I looked up at him, but he avoided my gaze, like he always did.

Every passing day, every splash of red, and every guilting glare thrown my way added a rock to the mountain of guilt that weighed down on my shoulders.

Eyes turned to me again when I pushed my chair away from the table, and its feet loudly rattled against the stone floor. I bowed my head down and swallowed the lump in my throat. Lately, I often wished I was invisible.

"Provecho,” I mumbled.

I often heard people say that word when they were the first to leave the table, which was something I did all the time now. They all excused me with a cold smile and a polite nod, and I walked back toward the house with my head bowed down and a sharp breath stuck halfway down my throat.

I was almost through the door when someone grabbed me by the shoulders, to stop me from bumping face-first into their chest.

“Baby Dog!” cheered Oso.

I wanted to fall into his arms, close my eyes, and sleep there for eternity. The best I could do was to wrap mine around his wide shoulders, and squeeze him as tight as possible, for as long as he let me.

There weren’t many people left I could rely on here. Everyone else had either betrayed or forsaken me. I didn’t know if I could truly trust Oso, but even if I didn’t, it wouldn’t matter to me. I just needed someone to talk to about something else than the fact that I had killed somebody.

Or about lathering myself in olive oil to tan more easily. That was another thing I’d spontaneously added to the short list of things I didn’t want to talk about.

Oso wiped away a tear I’d left in the crook of his neck, and I sniffed back a few drops of whiny snot.

“Hey, Big Puppy. How are you doing?” I asked him.

“Great,” he replied with a beaming grin. “Much, much better.”

He happily tapped his fingers on his stomach, as if he’d just had the best meal of his entire life. It made my heart melt like butter in the sun, and it made me smile for the first time that morning.

“Look how good it is now,” he whispered as he lifted a corner of his shirt to reveal his scar. “So cool.”

There was a small scab a few inches away from his belly button. It couldn’t have been much bigger than the bullet itself, an almost-perfect circle of dry flesh. It was bright red, except for a few white streaks of scarring, and surrounded with a greenish-blue bruise in the shape of a moon crescent.

My jaw clenched and my throat tied up, I could hear a ringing in my ears and a churning in my gut.

I was sick of the blood, the violence, and the gore. Sick of death, and the constant threat of it hanging above everybody’s head. Sick of the hurt I’d caused, either by pulling a trigger or merely just existing.

Oso’s wounds had healed, but Mafer’s never could. And mine, buried deep inside my mind rather than carved in my flesh, would keep on aching, bleeding, and rotting forever.

I wanted to slap myself for letting my mind wander down a dark path again. I should have been happy that Oso was better, and that one of the most frightening moments of my life was now nothing more than a distant memory. Instead, all it sparked was sorrow and self-pity. I hated being pitied. Especially by myself.

“Hey Juan, why don’t you show her your scar?” Hernan hollered.

I rolled my eyes, not bothering to turn around and glare at the people loudly snickering around the breakfast table.

“Let’s go walk, Baby Dog,” said Oso.

He grabbed my hand and we took a long stroll to the other side of the garden, finally settling down somewhere where the flowers were white and the house was hidden behind the curve of a small hill.

“How are you?” Oso asked me.

“Alright,” I lied. “What about you?”

“I already said I am good,” he answered, awkwardly patting down the baby hairs on top of my head. “But you know, I miss Mafer a little bit.”

My heart jumped to my throat, and I struggled to choke out an answer. “You do?”

“Before, she visited my room a lot, but now she stop,” he mumbled. “She has not tell you why?”

I stared down at my feet as they nervously rubbed against each other, and my spine snaked down my back as I wrung my neck between my shoulder blades.

“She’s gone, Oso.”

His lips mouthed a pained ”no“, and his brow furrowed with sorrow.

“I liked her,” he whimpered.

“Yeah. Me too,” I croaked, my tone sounding drier than I thought it would.

“She didn’t tell you where she go?”

I mashed my lips together, wishing the ground could split up between my feet and Hell could finally just swallow me whole.

“She died,” I admitted.

His mouth hung open in disbelief, and his hands started to shake as his fingers dug into his knees. His grief smothered the eternal flame of playful joy that had always burned in his kind eyes.

“No,” he let out in a broken breath. “No, no, no.”

My whole face welled up with tears, burning and swelling with shame and regret.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered.

“No, Baby Dog, I am sorry,” he murmured, as he wrapped his arms around me and held me tighter than he ever had. “I am so sorry.”

Held by his embrace, I finally let go. I cried, and I sobbed, and I let the tears flow. Muted wails poured out of my mouth, and my entire body ached and shuddered.

“What happened?” asked Oso, worry digging deep lines on his face.

I clenched my jaw so hard my teeth could have cracked. I held my breath for as long as I could, until my blubbering cries threatened to come shooting out of my nose.

“They thought she was the mole,” I answered. “So they killed her.”

Oso buried his head in his hands. “Fuck.”

I nodded silently. I couldn’t tell him the rest of the story. If I did, he would never forgive me.

“This is dangerous place, Baby Dog,” he muttered, and I could see some anger bubbling beneath his despair. “So many bad people. But I keep you safe, okay?”

Little did Oso know, the hand he squeezed was the same one that pulled the trigger and murdered Mafer.

His gaze was lost in the distance. His face was strained, wincing his pain as he held his own stomach.

“I’m so sorry, Oso,” I repeated. “I really am.”

“It’s not your fault,” he sniffed.

He meant well, and didn’t know the truth, but his answer was what broke me. It was the grain of sand that crushed me, the tiny piece of guilt and grief I couldn’t bear to carry.

Without a word, I stood up, and my fingers slipped out of his. With tears blurring my eyes and a thick fog settling down on the garden, I somehow made my way back into the house.

I didn’t come across a single soul as I walked back to the bedroom. Not even a maid, not even a guard, let alone somebody whose name I knew. The hall seemed larger than ever, and yet so empty, aside from the brown eyes in Pablo’s portrait bearing down on me.

The marble didn’t shine, the gold didn’t shimmer, and everything looked dim and dead, like a desert in winter.

The bedroom was just as barren. The air was cold and humid, because someone had left a window open. I shut the window and turned the light on, even though it was almost midday. Even when an artificial golden glow flooded the room, everything still seemed so gray.

I knelt down by the bedside table and pulled the drawer open. I sighed. It was empty too, of course. I’d made sure of that during one of my last fights with Pablo, when I ripped it out and spilled everything it contained onto the floor.

There were no guns there, no pills either, not even a sliver of leftover powder or pair of hot pink fluffy handcuffs. I had nothing to relieve the pain or help me forget my mistakes. Not that the fuzzy handcuffs would have helped much anyway.

My tears had dried, but it was now sweat that rolled down from my forehead to my cheeks. I wiped it off with the back of one hand while I kept the other pressed against my chest, desperately trying to still my racing heartbeat.

I crawled around the bedroom floor, running a finger between the slats to check if a lone pill might have slipped in there. Every two seconds, I glanced over my shoulder to check if Pablo hadn’t walked in.

I was trying my best to relapse, and didn’t even feel bad about it. It was the only thing I could do. My whole body ached for numbness, every inch of it throbbing with the desire for respite, hurting from the craving to heal, and screaming as it begged for silence.

I could see a little white bump sticking out from a crack in the wooden floor, underneath the bed. I split my fingernail in half trying to pry it out.

It was just what I needed–a small tablet of an unknown substance, or at least the three quarters of it that I had managed to lodge out from its hiding spot. Hopefully, it was still enough to do the trick.

The pill was all grimy and dusty, but a glass of water made it easier to swallow. I spent a few minutes cursing it for not acting fast enough, but soon my whole body started to tingle as the drug seeped into my bloodstream.

My heart and head felt lighter, but my limbs were weighed down by a heavy sense of sluggishness. I was only able to drag myself up onto a red velvet divan before the numbness took over. The ceiling started to spin, its gilded moldings circling around me like a mobile above a baby’s crib.

I tried to move my arm above my head, but gravity won the fight and the back of my hand slammed onto my face. I didn’t bother to move it. I didn’t really sleep, either. I just laid immobile with my eyes half open, and the wits of a week-old corpse.

The lights flickered off, and on again.

“Gordita?”

The deep tenor of his voice pulled me out of my half-slumber, and his upside-down face leaned over mine.

“Have you been here all day?” asked Pablo.

“Yeah,” I mumbled, gripping the velvet around me as I struggled to sit up. “I was napping.”

“I told you to get ready hours ago,” he told me, arching one eyebrow.

“You did?”

He rolled his eyes and turned to the mirror, readjusting the collar of his ugly yet hypnotizing Gucci shirt. “Yes, I did, Gordita. You even told me you were going to take a shower.”

“Must have been talking in my sleep,” I shrugged.

“Whatever,” he sighed. “Just put some clothes on. You’re already late.”

Taking a shower while high was hard. I kept slipping, and falling, and could not, for the life of me, get the water to be the right temperature.

Putting makeup on was even worse. I lacked the coordination to apply my eyeliner in a straight line, and just looking in the mirror was an overall terrifying experience.

I slid into a long, black sequin dress that Pablo had left for me on the bed, and kept tripping on its floor-length skirt as I made my way downstairs.

The party was fancy and extravagant, but to me, it was just a sparkly blur. I could hear music, bellowing laughter, and quiet whispers, although I didn’t know whether people were talking to me or if they were on the other side of the room.

A champagne flute found its way between my fingers, and I discreetly spilled it on the floor when nobody was watching. I was already too fucked up to be drinking.

“Gordita, what is wrong with you?”

Pablo’s face emerged through a glittery mist. His seven eyes were glaring at me, staring down one of his three noses. No matter how much I rubbed my eyes, he still looked freakishly deformed.

Slurred words spilled from my lips like slimy slithers of drool. “What’s wrong with you?” I muttered. “Your face looks like a fucking accordion.”

He gently grabbed me by the shoulder, and I felt his warm hand melting onto my skin.

“Do you need some fresh air?” he asked, his tone softer than it had ever sounded before.

I nodded, and raising up his hand, Pablo excused himself from the group he was chatting with, before leading me out onto the patio.

The cool night hit me like a bucket of water, making my whole body shiver.

“Have you been drinking again?” asked Pablo.

I shook my head and he sighed, running his fingers through his slicked-back hair.

“How are you coping?” he murmured.

“Great,” I groaned. “As you might be able to tell.”

He made me sit down on a bench, and stood in front of me, his Gucci-clad frame towering above my head.

“You’ll get over it,” he said. “I promise.”

“Mhm. Sure.”

Silence stretched between us as he wiped a smudge of mascara from my cheek, and soothed the raised hairs on my arms with a warm caress.

“I’ll go get you a coat, okay?” he whispered. “Don’t wander off.”

“Can’t go very far,” I muttered.

As soon as he was out of sight, I did the exact opposite of what he asked me to do. I wandered off, dragging my feet through the rain-soaked grass, and made my way toward the pool.

The water was enticing, all lit up, bright and blue, standing out from the darkness of the night. I sat down on the edge, folding my legs beneath me.

I dipped a finger in the water, hoping it would be freezing enough to shock me out of my drugged-up haze and act a little more normal when Pablo came back. Alas, the pill had me so sedated that I didn’t feel a thing. I leaned over, and sunk my whole arm into the pool.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

It seemed like Juan had gone back to his old habit of following me wherever I went just to make my life a miserable Hell.

“Why not?” I muttered, swishing my arm around in the water.

“Because you’re obviously a mess, and if you fall in, you’re going to drown,” he retorted.

“You’d love that, wouldn’t you?” I huffed.

“A few months ago, perhaps, but not anymore,” he shrugged. “Just get away from the edge, Em.”

I scooted away from the pool, staring him down with the defiant frown of a jaded kid. Juan winced as the tiles scraped off a few expensive sequins embroidered into my dress.

“Get up,” he ordered, stretching his hand out towards me.

“I thought you hated me,” I mumbled as he helped me back onto my feet.

His hand ran down the side of my hip, brushing off the dirt and gravel that had stuck to the fabric. “I might be mad at you but that doesn’t mean I want you to die.”

Our eyes locked in a tense embrace, as an awkward silence filled the air.

“Where’s Pablo?” I asked.

“Why, do you already miss him?” he snickered.

I rolled my eyes at him. “He said he’d bring me a coat.”

“I guess he forgot about that. He was just chatting with people in the Hall,” Juan sighed, eyeing the goosebumps on my exposed skin. “Do you want my blazer?”

I didn’t have time to answer before he took it off and wrapped it around my shoulders. Again, a quiet veil of unease enveloped us, and we both looked down at our feet.

“Why didn’t you just shoot him instead?” Juan muttered.

No matter how much he tried to avoid my gaze, I could see the embers burning in his dark eyes.

“Dude, I’m high as a kite and even I know that’s a terrible idea,” I laughed. “If I killed him, they would kill me too before I even got out of that room. Wouldn’t want that, would you, John Glade?”

His lips curled inwards into a bitter smile. “I just wish you hadn’t killed anybody.”

“Yeah, well, trust me– I would be happier right now if I wasn’t a fucking murderer,” I hissed. “But you know the worst part? I still think I did the right thing.”

The breeze in the sky made the trees around us shudder, and Juan shook his head. His face bent into a grimace, as if he had a bad taste in his mouth.

“I don’t recognize you anymore, Em,” he murmured. “It just– It wasn’t fucking necessary.”

“How can I make you change your mind?”

Juan shrugged and scoffed like I had just asked him to bring me a slice of the moon on a silver platter.

“Well, if you manage to find proof that Mafer was somehow an informant working undercover as a maid for the past few years,” he muttered as his eyebrows hiked up with sarcasm, “then maybe, just maybe, I’ll believe you.”

I answered with a stark nod. “Alright, I will.”

“Em, unless Pablo has a secret diary where he writes things like ‘today, I raw-dogged Mafer, and in return, she told me all of my little Gordita’s secrets’, then you’re not going to find anything,” he sighed. “And that’s assuming that you were right, and didn’t just hallucinate the whole thing.”

“What if I find clues?” I whispered. “Will you trust me?”

I wrapped my hand around his wrist to keep him close. Perhaps I sounded desperate, but that was because I was. I had to convince him as much as I had to convince myself that I was right. If not, I’d lose the two things I needed the most to get out of this house: my sanity, and an ally.

“What kind of clues, Em?” he grumbled. “And where the fuck are you going to find clues? Are you going to fish out a used condom from the trashcan in her room and check it for Pablo’s DNA?”

“I’m pretty sure they’ve emptied her trash,” I mumbled, and he shook his head in disbelief. “But I know they have these files in Beto’s office where they keep track of all their employees. If she was actually an informant, maybe there’ll be something written there.”

“Please, even if they were stupid enough to do that, there’s no way you’re getting in that room without anybody noticing,” Juan snorted.

“Beto will let me in,” I replied. “During my next security briefing.”

He let out a dry chuckle. “And while he’s reading his dumbass protocol, you’ll just rummage through his files?”

“You could distract him for me,” I murmured.

Juan laughed, gently pulling away from my grasp.

“Are you sure you weren’t a spy in a past life?” he asked, smirking a little as he rubbed his sore wrist.

I smiled at him, and gave him a humble shrug. “Maybe. So, are you in?”

“Of course,” he sighed as he rolled his eyes again.

“Great.”

Juan sighed and turned around, scratching his neck in frustration. Meanwhile, my eyes scoured the garden to find something to do. There was a pretty flowerbed just behind the pool bar, where bushes drooped under the weight of a day’s worth of raindrops.

Bunching my dress in my fist, I bent over, and picked up one of the big ornamental rocks that lined the side of the flowerbed.

I squinted at the camera in the pool bar, and climbed up on a counter to reach it. I stared it right in its single glass eye. A swift hit of the rock was all it took to shatter its lens. A dozen tiny screws and pieces of metal clattered to the floor, and I faced Juan with a wide grin.

“What the fuck, Em?” Juan cried. “I wasn’t being serious.”

“Were you?” I chirped sarcastically.

He stomped over and grabbed me by the shoulders, shaking me back and forth. I couldn’t help but cackle at the wild look on his face.

“Yeah, there’s no fucking way I’m letting you risk your life just so you can prove you’re right about murdering somebody,” he seethed.

“Well, too late,” I shrugged. “My next security briefing should be in a few minutes.”

Juan stared at me for a while, wide-eyed and pale-faced. He let go of my shoulders and squeezed his forehead between the palms of his hands, as if that would help him think.

I threw the rock back into the flowerbed, and hopped over the bar’s counter.

“Okay, wait,” he stuttered, trying to catch up with me as I walked away. “How the fuck am I supposed to distract him?”

“I don’t know,” I replied, flipping my hand over my shoulder. “But I’m sure you’ll figure something out. You’re a clever guy, Juan.”

Beneath The Surface

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