The party was over, and it had left its mark. A loud, humming, throbbing migraine, threatening to burst through my skull. A sheen of stinking sweat all over my feverish skin, as if it oozed pure liquor. A sickly taste at the back of my throat, a heaving feeling in my chest, tugging on my guts like on a coarse rope.

Poison seeped into every cell of my body, rattling my bones and stirring my blood. The worst songs of the previous night still rang in my head, like an agonizing, screeching earworm. Somewhere among the shrill cacophony, the voice in my head cursed me out for drinking so much.

Sunlight seared through my squeezed-shut eyelids. I burrowed my head into the side of Pablo’s chest, and he wrapped an arm as heavy as a concrete beam over my trembling shoulders.

“Morning, Sunshine,” he muttered, his breath filled with the acrid smell of stale alcohol.

I tried to speak, but my tongue felt like a dry sponge, clinging to the roof of my mouth. Instead, I let out a pitiful groan.

“Water?” he asked in a gravelly whisper.

I nodded, and my headache grew tenfold. I clung to him as he reached towards his bedside table, rocking me and the contents of my stomach like a boat in a seastorm.

My fingers could barely hold onto the cold glass of water without letting it slip. He tenderly brought it to my lips, tilting it a little to let me take a few desperate sips.

“What did you drink last night?” he chuckled. “You look even worse than I do.”

“Everything,” I mumbled.

The ceiling was still spinning, and so was the floor, swirling, blurring, meddling in a colorful spiral with the crumpled sheets, scattered clothes, and the few confetti we’d dragged in beneath the soles of our shoes. The train of my dress was still wrapped around my ankle, clinging to me like the memories of the last night.

The softness Juan’s kiss had left on my dry lips was the only good thing I felt amidst this awful hangover, and it was tainted by the bitter taste of the secrets he’d revealed.

My face melted onto Pablo’s shoulder, our skins fusing together where my cheek rested. He ran his fingers through my tangled hair, gently brushing it away from my tired face. He pressed his lips on the top of my forehead, but it wasn’t his kiss I craved. I smiled anyway, because when I shut my eyes, I could picture another man in his place.

There was a faint knock on the bedroom door, and just as a young maid walked in, he pulled up the silk sheets to cover my bare chest. She wore a baby blue uniform that reminded me of Mafer’s, and held a bag of pills she left in the palm of Pablo’s hand.

“Gracias, Luisa,” he thanked her. “¿Están listas las maletas?”

Thank you, Luisa. Is the luggage ready?

The maid stayed eerily quiet. All she did was nod and stare at me out of the corner of her eye, before she scampered out of the room with her head bowed down and her hands behind her back.

“What is that?” I asked, staring at the pills.

Pablo fished one out of the bag, and handed it to me. “Painkillers.”

The longer I stared at it, the deeper my frown grew.

“For horses?”

“No,” he said, after swallowing a pill with a gulp of water. “The regular stuff.”

“Why did you just take one, then?” I muttered. “You told me they don’t work on you.”

“They do, they’re just not as strong,” he sighed.

He raised his eyebrows and nudged me with the glass of water, urging me to take the pill.

“I hope you’re not trying to drug me,” I told him.

Pablo shrugged. “I thought you liked drugs.”

“You saw what happened the last time I started to like drugs,” I hissed, as I felt my jaw clench and my eyes narrow.

“What, that you’re somewhat less annoying once you start nodding off?” he scoffed.

My throat tied up in a knot. “Swear on your life that these aren’t drugs.”

Pablo rolled his eyes, turning a cold shoulder to my face as he settled the glass down on the bedside table.

“Why are you acting so weird?” I cried. “Are these drugs?”

“For the last fucking time, Gordita, it’s Tylenol,” he huffed.

“How do I know you’re not lying?”

The more we argued, the worse I felt. My headache singed my brain, and nausea filled my chest.

“You don’t,” he groaned. “You take the pill or you don’t take the pill, I don’t care. It’s not my fucking problem. But if I were you, I’d take it, because we’re going to have to drive a few hours today.”

“Why, where are we going?”

He let out a fake, mocking laugh. “We’re going on a honeymoon.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re invited.”

My head hurt even more as my face scrunched up in confusion.

“What, to Juan and Manée’s honeymoon?” I asked.

Pablo replied with a curt nod and another loud huff, probably trying to signal that I’d already asked enough questions.

“How long is the drive?” I mumbled.

“Eight hours.”

“Oh my fucking God,” I whined, slamming my sore head back down onto a soft pillow. “Can’t we go by helicopter?”

He ground his jaw and balled up his fists, with a look on his face like someone had just farted right up his nostrils. I couldn’t help but wonder if there were days when he wished he’d aimed that bullet at my head instead.

“You’re not getting into one of those stupid things,” he spat. “Although if I’d have known you made it your day’s mission to get on my nerves, perhaps I would have let you. Just once.”

“So if I annoy you enough, you’ll let me ride a helicopter?” I asked.

“No. The helicopters are already at the finca, along with everyone else,” he muttered. “Best you’ll get is a piece of duct tape on your mouth for the next eight hours.”

A long sigh escaped my lips, my shoulders sagged in defeat, and I finally swallowed the damn pills. Drugs or not, I was going to need them.

•••

“You’re allowed to talk, Gordita.”

Pablo’s mumbling voice was barely louder than his car’s roaring engine, rumbling the whole cabin every time he accelerated.

“Am I?” I answered, watching how my hand moved like ocean waves just outside the open window.

“Yeah,” he replied. “I forgot to bring the duct tape.”

A steady flow of air escaped through my nose. I felt too sick to fake a laugh at his stupid joke.

“You don’t really talk to me anymore,” he said.

I gulped. I didn’t know what to talk about with Pablo. He already knew most of my past, and he’d always used it against me. Any other meaningful conversation would lead him to a secret, for there were too many things I was hiding from him. The kiss I’d shared with Juan, my dreams of Budapest. The fact that at least half of the Sandovals knew my real name, and the fact that I knew he’d slept with Mafer. Even the blandest small talk always seemed to end up in an argument.

Pablo rested his fingers on top of my hand and glanced toward me.

“What happened, Gordita?” he asked softly.

The car sped around another bend, and my stomach began to churn again.

“I just have a lot going on,” I mumbled.

“Is this about Juan?”

For a few seconds, my head went blank, and my vision went black. I stared at the road ahead, and felt swallowed by my seat and the Earth beneath my feet. My heart raced, stopped, and started pounding again. At the mention of Juan’s name, I felt myself falling, falling, falling with no end.

“Gordita?” Pablo murmured.

“Sorry, this headache is killing me,” I lied.

“No worries,” he said. “I was just asking if this was about Juan.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, coughing to stop my voice from climbing three octaves. “What’s about Juan?”

“Is he bothering you about the spy thing again? I told him to let it go, but the kid can be hard-headed.”

“Oh no, it’s fine,” I replied. “He still tries to probe me from time to time but–”

Pablo frowned. “Probe you?”

“Yeah, uh, like, investigate me,” I stammered. “That’s what he calls it. He’s just weird.”

“He is, but he’s a good kid, too,” he answered, agreeing with himself through a series of nods. “If he ever causes trouble, just tell me and I’ll sort it out. He listens to me.”

“Good, thanks,” I muttered.

“I practically raised him, you know. He looks up to me a lot,” he continued, making my jaw lock tighter with every word he added. “He might be a little stupid, and also Hernan’s son, but he’s one of the few people I know I can count on. I’ll talk to him when we get there, and–”

“Pablo,” I cut him off. “It isn’t about Juan.”

“Then what is it?” he sighed, his gentle tone turning into a whiny groan. “A few weeks ago, you told me you loved me, and now you’re acting like I’m the worst thing that ever happened to you, and like marrying me is this stupid, outlandish idea. Did anything change, or were you just lying?”

I kept my lips shut, swallowing the lump in my throat as I watched the lush landscapes, trees and stray animals, rolling outside the window. Even I didn’t know the answer to that question.

“Well, you made me kill my best friend, Pablo.”

“Mafer betrayed us, Gordita,” he retorted. “She betrayed you when she put your life in danger, she betrayed me when she disobeyed my orders, and then betrayed you a second time when she tried to pin it on you.”

My teeth were so clenched, I could have ground my molars into thin powder.

“So now you remember her name,” I mumbled.

We stared at each other out of the corner of our eyes, our faces as pale as their whites, necks straight and chins upright.

“Yeah,” he said cautiously. “I spent a while looking at her file.”

“What for?”

“Just making sure we tied up a few loose ends,” he murmured.

I remembered the sight of the children’s bedroom, in Mafer’s house. Where the loose ends had been tied, shot dead, and drowned in an ankle-deep pool of blood.

“Can you stop the car?” I whimpered. “I feel sick.”

“Do you think you can wait until the next gas station?” he asked. “It’s half a mile away.”

I nodded meekly, wrapping my trembling hands around my coiling gut. It was somewhat of a miracle that I managed to hold onto the contents of last night’s dinner until the car stopped.

“I’ll grab some snacks for the rest of the trip,” said Pablo. “Do you need anything?”

“Can you get me some cigarettes?”

“Sure,” he answered with a gentle pat on my shoulder.

I sat still in my seat as he walked away from the car and into the gas station’s humble excuse for a shop. My fingers gripped the dashboard as I quietly dry-heaved, waiting for my head to stop spinning.

As soon as the dizziness slowed down enough for me to stand, I stepped out of the car and into the day’s blistering heat.

I wondered if this was the place where I’d stopped on my first day in this country. Gas stations tended to look similar, but this one had a few details I swore I could remember.

The ramshackle outhouse in a corner, how its walls tilted as if the wind had blown them over. The scattered trash rattling in the warm desert wind. The patterns the dry dirt had drawn on the buildings and their decades-old paint. If I was right, then we were parked right in the same spot where Ana had left our car, back on that day.

I twirled her necklace between my fingers. It seemed to throb with every beat of my own heart.

Wherever she was, I hoped she was happier than me. It was a low bar, but if I could survive this, then she would too. She’d always been stronger than me.

If she was in my shoes, she’d already be home. She wouldn’t be stuck here wondering if Juan loved her enough to run away with her, or if she was better off learning to live with her captor. She would have beat both of their asses and ran away.

Walking to the edge of the road, I wished I could have had half of what Ana had. The strength to stand up for herself, the courage to escape from this place, and most of all, a loving home at the end of the road.

“What are you doing out here?” asked Pablo.

“Just stretching my legs,” I mumbled.

He stuffed a pack of cigarettes in the palm of my hand, his traits pulled back by a stern look and a deep frown. He grabbed my shoulder and turned me around.

“Get back in the car, Gordita.”

We didn’t speak much for the rest of the trip. He put some music on the radio to fill up the awkward silence, while I chain-smoked out of the open passenger-side window. I smoked so much that we had to stop a few hours later to buy me another pack of cigarettes, and some more Tylenol.

By the time we got to our destination, I’d traded my hangover for a parched mouth, a sore chest and a hoarse throat.

I doubted this was Juan’s dream spot for a honeymoon. It was a nice mansion, for sure, but it was far from being one of those luxurious, exotic destinations where he could live his jet-setter’s life to the fullest.

I figured this trip was tailored to Hernan’s taste, and Juan wasn’t going to waste his breath arguing in favor of a fun, private honeymoon with a woman he hated anyway.

Hernan’sfinca,as Pablo had called it, was a fancy log cabin, about as large as a small palace, burrowed in a deep valley that smelled of cows, pine and smoke. The air was fresh but the home felt warm, its lights shining bright like the hearth of an old fireplace, wrapped in a blanket of evening fog.

The outline of a smoking volcano cast a shadow on the early night sky, and every other minute, it spat out small spurts of lava that shined in the distance like the beam of a lighthouse.

The capital must have been nearby, or so I imagined, watching the light orange glow of a million streetlights reflecting on the clouds on the other side of the mountains.

I stepped out of the car and into a field of dew-drenched grass. The engine sighed and its hum went silent, and all I could hear was the sound of the breeze whispering through the forest, and the echoes of distant laughter. Pablo’s silhouette was a few steps ahead, so I pressed my step to catch up with him before he reached the lodge.

As expected, we were the last to arrive. All the others were sitting around the patio, nestled in the center of the U-shaped building. Juan was the first to greet us, once he’d climbed out of the steaming hot tub where he, Andrea, and Manée were sitting.

“There you are,” he said with a grin, shaking a few droplets of water out of his wet hair. “I thought you’d never make it.”

“Hey Juanito,” Pablo cooed, in a soft tone I’d only ever heard him use when talking to his godson. “Sorry to crash your honeymoon.”

“No worries. We love having you here,” Juan said, although his wife’s face seemed to state the complete opposite. “How was your trip?”

Pablo rolled his eyes. “Would have been nicer if Gordita wasn’t so hormonal."

“Hormonal?” Juan snickered.

Pablo sighed, and patted him on the shoulder, before he walked over to the cozy sitting area where Hernan, Oscar, and a few other men I’d only met once or twice sat in a cloud of cigar smoke and whiskey vapors.

“Would a margarita help with your hormones?” Juan snickered.

A smirk tugged at the corner of the corner of my lips.

“Shut up,” I whispered. “Yes, it would.”

We headed over to the hot tub, walking along the edge of the patio’s dark blue swimming pool. I stayed two paces behind Juan. I still didn’t trust him around bodies of water.

Andrea greeted me with a smile, a soaking wet hug, and a kiss on the cheek, while Juan went to grab me a drink, and Manée tried her best to ignore me.

“Are you coming for a swim?” asked Andrea.

“Maybe. I’ll have to check if I packed a bathing suit,” I chuckled awkwardly.

“You can borrow one of mine,” she suggested, hoisting her boobs up in her skimpy, shiny, champagne trikini.

“Thanks,” I muttered. “It’s been a while since I last flossed my butthole.”

She tried to frown, but her forehead stayed smooth. “Huh?”

To be honest, I didn’t really mean to say the last part out loud. I just thought about it too hard, and it slipped out of my mouth. I blushed a little, feeling kind of rude, but the grin on Juan’s face made it all worth it.

“Don’t worry, Andrea,” he jeered as he handed me an ice-cold margarita. “Em is just hormonal.”

“Oh,” she whispered, as her lips formed a soft, plump circle. “Do you need me to lend you a tampon?”

“I’ll be fine,” I answered curtly, feeling a fire of shame burning up my cheeks.

I didn’t have time to go unpack my luggage and find out if I’d have to spend the trip wearing one of Andrea’s tiny tinfoil thongs. Hernan loudly proclaimed that he was starving, and everyone quickly gathered around the dinner table.

I dove my nose into a glass of wine, and let the others do the talking, only ever looking up to check if Juan was staring at me. He did, every once in a while, but always between two weary glances in Pablo’s direction.

Hernan’s personal chef had cooked a seven-course meal, which sounds like a lot, but the plates were all ridiculously small, and even though I still felt sick, I was able to finish every dish.

Everyone gushed about how much they enjoyed their translucent slice of steak, their thumb-sized sliver of mashed potato, and a single chip of tapioca with a stingy side of brown sauce. Pablo didn’t care for it too much, as he kept groaning about how it wasn’t enough to keep his stomach full, and how everyone would pass out after two shots of liquor.

He must have been a psychic because as he’d predicted, everyone was drunk before the meal even ended.

“I’d like to propose a toast to my son and his wife,” Hernan slurred, raising his seventh glass of wine. “This is their honeymoon, after all. Let’s not forget that.”

“To Juan and Manée,” Pablo hiccuped. “May their love be endless and may they have lots of lovely kids, and all that stuff.”

“Don’t forget Oscar and Andrea,” added Manée, a fake grin plastered on her flushed cheeks. “They got engaged at my wedding, remember?”

Pablo nodded, and all but knocked out his brother out with a happy slap on the back. “I’m sure these two weeks are going to be filled with nothing but love.”

He kicked me under the table to make me raise my glass along with the others, and I obliged, but not without a half-concealed eye-roll.

“We need more weddings,” drawled Oscar, rubbing his shoulder where his brother had just punched it. “I like weddings.”

“Are you guys planning on getting married?” Juan asked, staring right at me.

“God no,” I spat.

My words echoed in an uncomfortable void of silence. Aside from the one guy who’d fallen asleep, everyone stared at me. I kept my eyes on Juan, so as to avoid Pablo’s glare, shooting daggers in my direction.

Andrea put on her most diplomatic, pageant-queen smile, and turned to Pablo.

“Don’t worry,” she said in the loudest whisper I’d ever heard. “It’s just that time of the month.”

The party never really picked up after that. Within a minute, half the table had wished us a good night and walked away, and soon enough, Pablo was walking three strides ahead of me, ushering me back to our own bedroom.

I shuddered as the heavy wooden door slammed behind me.

"God no,” Pablo imitated me, his voice dripping with disgust. “How does that make me look, Gordita?”

“I didn’t–”

“Why would you humiliate me like that?” he spat.

“It’s nothing you don’t deserve,” I muttered under my breath.

“What have I done to you?” he cried out.

“What have you not done to me?” I spat back.

His eyes widened, glowering like two moons in the darkness of the bedroom, and his face froze in a bewildered expression. He wasn’t shocked by the fact I was fighting back. I’d done it before, and almost bit his fingers off one time.

It looked more like fear, with a tinge of sadness. Some kind of helplessness, pouring through his slack-jawed mouth and dribbling down his sagging shoulders. He’d finally realized, a little later than I thought he would– his precious Gordita was slipping away.

Frankly, the man was delusional, if this was the first time he’d noticed it. It had been a long time coming, and the signs weren’t exactly hidden. I’d tried to run away a few times, cursed him out a thousand times more often than I called him pet names. Even when I flirted with Juan, I wasn’t anywhere near as discreet as I should have been.

But Pablo was so used to being worshipped and praised by social-climbing liars, members of his cartel, or women he’d paid to spend a few hours by his side, that he hadn’t seen it coming.

There were only two ways he knew to keep his power. He could either be loved, or be feared. And even he, as insane as he was, knew that dropping to his knees and begging me for forgiveness wouldn’t cut it.

Instead, he took a step forward, pinning me between his chest and a cold cobblestone wall. Veins throbbing in his jaw, nostrils flaring like a beast’s, he looked right into my eyes and wrapped a hand around my neck. I could feel pressure building inside my head, poisoned blood thrumming in my temples as his nails sank into my flesh.

“Nobody treats you like I do,” he uttered, spelling out every word to drill them into my mind.

He pinched his lips, while his jaw began to tremble. My legs felt weak, and my skull was about to explode.

“Thank fucking God they don’t,” I croaked.

My body fell limp as he crushed my throat.

Kerning

Honeymoon

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