Page 3 of Morena
Call it heartless, but the truth is, I don’t believe in love, in hope, in anything that pretends to last.
2 days before
Last night wasn’t sleepless just because I had no roof over my head. It was my mind haunting me again, reminding me of what I did. What I always did when I got too comfortable somewhere. I know I’m the problem. I’ve always been the one who needs fixing. But when you grow up with no one, you learn quickly that you’re not meant to keep anyone.
I’m broken, and I’ve never pretended otherwise. What I knew for sure was that I didn’t want to be fixed. I didn’t wish to move on, didn’t want to“heal.”I just existed. Every day felt like it could be my last, and I lived like I didn’t care if it was. Perhapsthat was the real problem: I don’t care. The fucks I should’ve given were buried deep in a past I barely remembered.
Beside me, on the bench, sat a black trash bag stuffed with clothes. On top of it lay an old burner phone Isabella had slipped me, her way of making sure I could answer when she called. And that morning, too early, with the streets still cold, she did.
The screen lit up. I stared at it for a good two minutes, weighing whether to answer, but in the end I did.
“Yeah,” I muttered.
“Hey,” her voice came soft. “How are you?”
I laughed. “What do you think?”
She sighed, and I could almost hear her guilt pressing through the line. She knew part of this was on her. Maybe she had realized I wasn’t good for her, but Isabella was one of those girls who wanted to possess whoever she wanted.
“Listen,” she went on, “10mi tíois looking for someone to work in one of his old properties.”
“What’s the job?” I asked right away.
“I don’t know,” she admitted, then paused, exhaling hard. “But you need it… just write down a number.”
I dug a pen from my jacket pocket, the same jacket I had pulled out of the trash bag, and started scribbling across my palm.
She fed me the numbers, and when she reached the last one, her tone dropped. “Whatever it is, take it,” she whispered. “And maybe you can call me after?”
I rolled my eyes.
11“Claro,” I said, chuckling.
God forbid Paco’s precious princess be seen with a homeless man. I was just her secret, someone she called for the night, when loneliness was too hard for her. She craved the kind of man her parents paraded before her, who could ever give.
So I didn’t say anything else. I just hung up and stared at the black screen.
I had been leaving everything for the last minute, delaying life itself as long as I could. But now there was no room left to stall. The delays had already caught up to me. For the first time, I acted immediately. And it was not because I wanted to, but because I had no choice.
I punched in the numbers she’d given me and pressed the dial. The line rang a few times before a man picked up.
“Who is it?” That was the first thing out of his mouth. No hello. No name.
“Matteo De la Cruz. Calling about a job,” I said, giving him as much as I knew, which wasn’t much.
He made a low sound in his throat. “I can’t talk over the phone. Meet me at Carrer de Montcada, thirty-three. Five this afternoon.”
12“Bien,” I said with a nod, even though he couldn’t see it. “I’ll be there.”
The call cut off the second the words left my mouth.
Carrer de Montcadawas about an hour’s walk from the bench where I’d spent the night. Since nothing tied me there, I started walking. The sun was already high, heat rising off the streets, making sweat form on my forehead with each step I took.
Montcadacarried its own kind of stories. Back in the eighties, it was the hunting ground of13El Trece, the serial killer who was never caught.
I didn’t know much about him, only the kind of details everyone had picked up. Every job I had, his name came up at least once. Even now, fathers still lock their daughters inside for the week around the 13th of every month.
The police had done their profiling. Victims were always young women, eighteen to twenty-five. All but one of them were found the same way: hung from the narrow balcony bridge that connected the monastery to the funeral home. Each girl was tied by the left foot with a triple knot, hanging upside down. Theirhair always loose, their eyes always wide, and their mouths open wide as if they still screamed in pain. Their fingernails were painted black, and their skin was carved into thirteen cuts that drained them dry.
