Page 6 of Spiders in the Grove

He yanks on my arm and I follow him out into the hallway, trying not to stumble, but I do anyway. My head is pounding; I can barely feel my legs carrying my body forward, but I manage to follow—my life depends on it. Entering a larger room, the size of a modest banquet hall, and then outside into the cool night air, I’m unsurprised by what I see. This isn’t the same compound I spent most of my young life, but it could be, the way it feels the same and smells the same and how the desert landscape that surrounds it stretches out for miles in every miserable direction. And the buildings are almost the same, made of concrete and aluminum and wood; unbarred windows dress the bricks with a very false sense of freedom; a great fence climbs high past the rooftops, wrapped by barbed wire and guarded by armed men.

“Where are you taking me?” I ask weakly.

The man never speaks.

He escorts me across the compound and toward a truck; he opens the door and shoves me on the passenger’s seat.

We drive for six hundred sixty seconds—I made sure to count every single one in case I need to find my way back for Naeva later—and pull onto the paved driveway of a stucco mansion perched amid the desert like an oasis.

Before I’m taken inside, the man leads me to a side building that reminds me of a guest house, where a woman awaits. Older, abuela-type, with gray-black hair pulled loosely around her plump face; she’s wearing a long, blue dress that hugs her lumpy figure and drops to her thick ankles. She stands in front of an open shower, a long-handled scrubbing brush clutched in her hand.

I fall forward when the man pushes me in the back toward her, barely catching myself before I hit the floor.

The man leaves us, and without even introducing herself, the old woman gets to work, stripping me of my soiled clothes. And, to my disappointment, she undoes every braid, her rough hands pulling and yanking my hair; I watch the birth control pills I’d so carefully hidden within the braids, clink against the tile floor and disappear. My heart sinks. But then again, in the back of my mind I knew I’d never get to use them; I only brought them with me to make me feel better—the effort has to count for something, right? If I make it out of this alive, I’m getting the surgery I should’ve gotten a long time ago. No kids for me. A life like mine doesn’t need or deserve them. I accepted that fact even before I became what I became. I accepted it shortly after I met Victor. It was the number one reason I went back to Mexico the first time; why I killed Javier’s brothers…

Scalding water blisters my skin as it gushes from the shower head onto my back like acid from a water-hose. I cry out, and almost hit the old woman in the face, but I refrain. I close my eyes and bite down on the inside of my cheek and let her wash me, scrub my skin raw with the brush; the soap stings and burns like vinegar poured into open wounds. And when she’s done, she dresses me in a plain black T-shirt and a pair of black cotton shorts. She combs the tangles from my hair and she sprays underneath my armpits with deodorant and she brushes my teeth—I wonder if she’ll wipe my ass, too.

Afterwards, the woman takes me outside where the same man from before is waiting.

As we approach the front entrance of the two-story mansion—it’s small for a mansion, but lavish and expensive—I feel strength somehow without water and food and sleep, returning to my neglected body. And more important, confidence returning to the rest of me. If the blonde-haired woman, who I know waits for me somewhere on the other side of those double-doors, was going to kill me, she’d have done it by now. I wouldn’t have been given a shower, or clean clothes to wear. This ‘plan’ that I made up on a whim, was nowhere in the realm of what I expected to happen; I thought for sure I’d come here and end up the same tortured slave girl I was when I escaped in the back of Victor’s car a couple years ago. I envisioned, and mentally prepared myself for all of the awful things I know, in my heart, Naeva is going through right now. But this, whatever it is, whatever it turns out to be, I never saw coming. And although I’m still unsure in which direction this is going, I can honestly say I feel better about it. I’m not sure why, but deep down, I know I’m in a better position to pull this off than I ever could have imagined.

Izabel

“You look better,” the blonde-haired woman says with a smirk as I’m escorted through the front door. “Probably smell better, too. How has your stay been so far?”

“I’d give it four stars, at least,” I say. “But I wasn’t too impressed with the lighting in my room. Might want to have maintenance check that out.”

A slim smile appears at her red lips, and it glows in her deep brown eyes.

With the backward tilt of her head, she orders the man to leave; I hear his footsteps echo behind me and then the door shutting softly. I feel the woman’s eyes on me as I take in my surroundings: the high ceilings and Spanish paintings, the young women moving every which way, tending to chores, always silent and willing and broken. Like I once was. I’ve seen this same image too often in my life, been to too many damn ‘mansions’ filled with monsters, and after this I hope I never have to do it again. No, I take that back—I’ll do it for as long as I have to if I get kill more of the bastards that put these girls here.

“Now, why don’t you tell me your real name, Lydia?”

That certainly gets my attention; I break away from the scenery; she looks smug standing there in the center of the room, dressed in a black silk dress and a mysterious smile; her legs stretch for miles, even if she wasn’t wearing five-inch stilettos.

“I don’t know what you mean,” I lie.

She walks toward me slowly.

“Oh, come on,” she taunts, “a girl like you—fearless, bold, with that I-don’t-give-a-fuck attitude—either you’re not who you’re pretending to be, or I really did strike gold when they brought you here.”

I shrug, and raise both brows. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know why I’d be pretending to be someone else—what does it matter who you are in this place?” I laugh a little, shaking my head. “Strike gold? I can’t even begin to understand what that’s supposed to mean.”

“One thing at a time,” she says; she stops in front of me, looks me over with the sweep of her painted eyes. “It’s just I’ve never seen any girl brought here that hasn’t cried and groveled for her freedom—everybody cries. Not only did you not cry or beg, even when you were about to have your throat slit, but you stand here in front of me now almost as if you own the place.”

I raise my chin, pushing my scarred neck into view. “If you haven’t noticed,” I say, “been there, done that already. As far as my attitude, well, I think once you’ve had your throat slit and lived to tell about it, and you’ve killed someone who tried to kill you, and you’ve been kidnapped, shot at, and touched by disgusting men, you’d probably not give much of a fuck, either.” I open my hands and shrug once more. “Believe what you want, I don’t care. And my name is Lydia. And there’s not much more about me worth telling, really.”

She smiles. “Oh, I doubt that. People like you, there’s always something to tell.”

“What do you want from me?” I ask bluntly.

“I’m not sure yet”—she circles me again, sizing me up—“If you’re a fraud: nothing. If you’re what I hope you are: everything.”

I look over at her, and she stops on my left; I can smell her perfume, and feel the heat from her body.

“What were you doing in Mexico?” she asks. “My men told me where they found you, and who you were with; how’d you end up with a coyote? White girl, English language, obviously far away from home. I’d say you escaped one of the compounds if I didn’t know better. That scar on your neck, your age; you don’t fit the profile of a girl soon-to-be sold. So, my only guess is that you weren’t trying to get out of Mexico.” She looks at me with expectation.

“I told you,” I improvise, “I killed someone. In Arizona. Cops were after me, and I headed straight for the border—I’ll die before I go to prison. The man driving the van saw me walking, asked if I wanted a ride. I asked where he was going. He said Mexico so I got in”—I gesture my hands—“And here I am. Never expected to end up in this place, but it is what it is. What’s a coyote? I’m guessing you’re not talking about the animal.”

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