Page 58 of Tainted Blood

It’s not home.

It’s not hell.

It’s just…stagnant.

On the tenth day, the waters ripple. It begins with cigarette smoke wrapping its acrid scent around my senses. It continues with a presence so achingly familiar my eyelids flutter open of their own accord.

It’s nighttime. There’s the outline of a man standing by the window, a dark slur against the backdrop of neon. I listen to his vicious inhale, followed by a long, slow exhale—watching as the amber light of his cigarette rises and flares like a supernova, before falling back to his side. He repeats the motion several times, balancing his silence with weighted stares and history, before he finally speaks.

“Don’t go back there, muñequita,” he says roughly. “Not yet. Stay with me for a while.”

Muñequita?

Where have I heard that name before?

“Where’s Ella?” I rasp. “I want Ella.”

He pauses. “Your sister is in New York, as far as I’m aware.”

“College,” I whisper. “Did she—?”

“No idea. Call her up. Shoot the shit. I hear she’s desperate to speak to you, but do it on your own time. I’m only interested in one of Santiago’s daughters.”

I’m not in the mood to be mocked. I turn my back on him, only to find the mattress dipping right beside me.

“Talk to me, Thalia.”

“I don’t talk to liars.”

“How about the man who’s been living in hell since you were taken.”

His admission makes me blink. Here, in the dark, I swear I can feel his pain like it’s my own. But Santi Carrera doesn’t feel pain. He only knows how to give it.

Only in the darkness, can you see the stars.

“Did you burn it,” I croak, sitting up slowly with the help of a brace of pillows behind me. Wincing from muscle stiffness and a throbbing ache in my leg. “Did you burn it back to hell?”

“Yes, muñequita,” he says, moving closer until his face is a nodding silhouette, barely a foot in front of me. “The men who hurt you paid for it with their own deaths.”

This time, I can feel his anger. It’s a living breathing thing that fits the shape of my shadow perfectly.

“Even Lorenzo Zaccaria?”

There’s another pause. “Soon.”

It feels like a hammer blow to the chest. “He escaped,” I say dully.

“He will die, Thalia. As Santa Muerte is my fucking witness.”

It’s not good enough. Can’t he see? There is no future for us while that man is still alive. I can’t move forward. I’m too afraid to look back.

Stagnant.

“Give me your gun. Tomorrow, I’ll find him myself.”

“And shoot your own foot off in the process?”

The trace in amusement in his voice makes me reach out and fist the front of his shirt in the dark. “You have no idea what I’m capable of anymore, Santi Carrera,” I growl softly. “You have no idea what I had to do to survive…” My breath catches, and I release my hold.

---