Carmen shook her head. “No, he’s the wolf that mutilates the shepherd, and then eats the sheep.”
I thought about it for only a second before nodding in agreement. She was right about Javier, and I had known that since the day my mother brought him into our trailer in Arizona and he first laid eyes on me. They were not kind eyes. Javier had the eyes of a predator.
“And if that woman was your mom,” Carmen said, and then she pointed at me, “that mean you are sheep he after all along.” She gestured at the other girls in the room, and added, “Welcome to the flock.”
My stomach sank.
To my left, I heard another girl whisper harshly in Spanish, “Callate Carmen! Por que te pueden escuchar!”
Carmen ignored her.
“So you said was.” She waited for a response, studying my face, and at first I didn’t understand what she was talking about. But then she added, “Javier kill your mama?” and then I understood perfectly.
I lowered my eyes, shook my head. I couldn’t bring myself to answer. My mother was the last thing I wanted to talk about.
Then I looked up, making the wounded girl with her head on Marisol’s lap, my only interest.
“Why did they beat her?” I asked.
Carmen glanced back at the girl.
“No they,” she said, and looked right at me again, “Izel. Javier’s sister. Puta gets off on it.”
“Carmen!” the same girl from before hissed. “Por favor! Por favor! Solo cierra la boca!” Her eyes darted back and forth from Carmen and the wooden door. Admittedly, I was as worried as she was about those men coming in here again.
This time, Carmen lowered her voice so that no one could hear her but me. She peered in closer. “And Huevito beaten because she tried escape. Como te llamas?”
“Sarai,” I answered, understanding her probably accidental Spanish there at the end. She had introduced herself, and the rest of the girls, when I was brought to the room yesterday, but I had been too traumatized to talk before now. Traumatized by what was happening to me. And by what I did to my mother.
Carmen reached out and touched my wrist; the look she regarded me with could only be described as motherly, even though she was as young me. “No ever try escape, Sarai,” she warned, and then crawled on her hands and knees back to her spot underneath the window.
Suddenly, I felt in danger just thinking about it—escaping—as if Izel, who I was already quite familiar with having had several unpleasant run-ins with her before, could hear my thoughts. But this—I looked across at the wounded girl again; the deeply-cut gashes on her back glistened in the eerie moonlight and were the most colorful thing in the room—this was so very different from a few unpleasant run-ins.
Just then the wounded girl they called Huevito, began to stir.
Marisol tried to help her adjust her position on her lap, but we all knew there was nothing any of us could do to ease her pain. I felt terrible for her. And I became angry. At the woman who did this. At Javier for allowing it to happen. At my mother for bringing me here.
I stood up, to the gasps and Spanish whispers of the other girls, and I walked quietly across the room, and crouched in front of Huevito. Her eyes were open, though just barely. Marisol stared at me, a terrified look spread all over her pretty features—had it been because I stood up? It’s what I assumed.
“I’ll talk to Javier,” I whispered to Huevito, and then I reached out and touched her sweat-drenched forehead with the back of my fingers. “He’s kind to me; I’ll tell him what happened to you, and I’m sure he’ll do something about it.” Everything I said, I knew in my heart was a lie. Javier may have been ‘kind’ to me, but I wasn’t stupid—it was just a show; he wanted me to like him, to trust him, probably the same way he did all of the other girls here at one time. But I had to say something; I had to at least try to give the poor girl some hope.
Marisol, finally snapping out of her shock that I had stood up in the room, reached out and slapped my hand away from Huevito’s forehead.
“Alejate de nosotras!” she said in Spanish, and I didn’t understand the words, but her body language set me in the right direction. “Vete! Tu vas hacer que nos lastimen a todas!” She clenched her white teeth amid her caramel-colored skin; her long, black hair sat ragged around her square-shaped face.
I looked over at Carmen, hoping she’d translate, but then I heard the voice of Huevito, weak and hoarse, and no one cared about me or Marisol or Carmen anymore.
“Promise…me,” Huevito said, with great difficulty.
I leaned in closer, took her hand into mine.
“Promise me…if they kill him…” she had to stop to catch her breath, and with every word, every movement the muscles in her face aggravated, the pain in her body became that much more evident in her expression.
“It’s OK,” I told her, and softly patted her hand. “Take your time. Catch your breath.”
Her eyes opened and closed from pain and exhaustion; her hand was weak and clammy in my own. I could feel everyone’s eyes on us, all around me, and the warmth of their breath as they all leaned in to hear what Huevito struggled to say; it didn’t matter that it was in English.
Huevito’s eyes opened a little wider, and she looked right at me. But I got the feeling she didn’t even know where she was, that she’d been beaten so severely that she was hallucinating. And when she continued to speak, I became more convinced of that assumption.
“I won’t let them kill you,” she said. “Te amo mucho, Leo. I won’t live without you.” She started to cry, tears tracked through the dirt on her cheeks; her breathing began to labor.
I held her hand more firmly, and I started to cry too. Who was she talking about? I didn’t know, but whoever Leo was, even my heart ached tremendously for him—for both of them.
Huevito closed her eyes, caught her breath once more, and then opened them again. Her lips were so dry and cracked that the skin began to break apart right in front of me; slivers of blood appeared in the tiny slits.
“If they kill him,” she repeated, “promise me you’ll let me die—promise me!” I couldn’t tell then whether or not she was coherent.
Then the door burst open, and Izel stood in the doorway like Death in a short skirt, tall and dark and lethal. And I learned before she dragged me out, kicking and screaming, why no one ever stood up in that room at night—Izel was always watching from her room in the house next door, for walking shadows to move along the walls.
But that night, as Izel tormented me about my mother’s death, and how I belonged to her then, all I could think about was Huevito. And I never saw her again.
TWENTY-SIX
Until now.
I stare at Naeva blankly; words have abandoned me; I can feel my heart beating in my ears. I raise both arms, gun still clutched in the right hand, and I rest them on the top of my head. I hold them there, the gun pointed at the ceiling; I shake my head, trying to sort out what’s happening: why she’s here, how she’s here. My God, she’s Victor’s sister; she was in Javier’s compound—with me. What could that possibly mean?
I can’t…
It’s too much. I don’t know where to begin with any of this. My mind is racing. I feel dizzy. Finally, my arms come back down. And I just look at her. And out of the hundred or so questions I want to ask, I settle with, “Why did they call you Huevito?”
Naeva smiles softly.