What did that mean? Did she know something about how el sabueso tracked her that she wasn’t telling me?
She guided me, and I didn’t want to, but I followed. We dashed down an alley, came out near a building that had to have been some sort of school. There were children playing outside it, and they laughed and cheered at us as we ran. My heart leapt at the thought of el sabueso finding one of the children, but we cut around a large fountain spewing water high into the air, and the moment passed.
But then the screams broke out behind us. Had an attack happened?
Emilia was now sobbing, stumbling step after step as we ran, leading me farther east, past more buildings that leaned into la calle, as if they were waiting for us to fall and would crumble upon us once we did. The effect was disorienting, and I swallowed down my nausea, the stories, the terror.
She pointed toward a nearby structure. “¡Allá!” she cried, and she slowed, for an instant, and I had to pull her along. “It’s calling to me, el sabueso,” she sobbed. “Please, keep moving. Get inside the gray building!”
The stench hit me first, and I coughed hard and spat on the ground, nearly pitching forward. It was the worst thing I’d ever smelled, something bitter and sharp, and tears sprang to my eyes.
“Get inside,” Emilia ordered, then stuck a hand over her mouth. “It should mask my scent long enough.”
Long enough for what? “But el sabueso—”
“Just go!” she screamed.
I did what she asked.
The building was tall, not so high as most of the others, but still bigger than everything in Empalme. I didn’t recognize the substance it was made out of; it was like smooth mud, but a pale, pale gray. I had my hand over my nose as we pushed through a wooden door and—
People.
There were people here.
A woman stood up, her clothing in tatters, her hair patched with gray, and she raised an arm to me. “No, you cannot just—”
She stopped.
“Emilia?”
The door slammed behind me, and Emilia rushed past. “Chavela, I’m sorry for the intrusion, but we need to hide.”
Chavela shook her head. “Emilia, chica, we can’t—”
The others—children, adults, an elderly couple—crowded around Chavela as there was a loud pounding at the door. I cried out in alarm, and it all happened so fast, so terribly fast. Chavela yelled something at the others—in a language I had never heard, the words quick and clipped—and they scurried away from her. A tall man with his hair in multiple tight, dark braids lifted a board in the floor, and they all disappeared below.
Pound.
Pound.
Pound.
“Emilia!” yelled Julio, and I heard el sabueso throw its body against the door again. “You cannot escape us!”
Emilia’s burlap bag slipped off her shoulder, and as it hit the ground, its contents spilled out across the floor. Clothing. Dried fruit. Her canteen.
The axe.
Emilia began to take steps toward the door. “I can’t stop,” she sobbed, and it looked as though she was fighting her own body, her own willpower. “I can’t stop it.”
I dropped my pack and fell to the floor, my knees banging against the wooden boards. I went for the axe and gripped the wooden handle as the door burst in.
As light spilled into that giant room.
As Chavela called out something in that language of hers.
As Emilia cried.
As I scrambled to my feet.
I ran forward.
El sabueso charged.
Snarled.
Growled.
Opened a mouth stained red with the life of others.
Leapt up off the ground.
Aimed for Emilia’s throat.
And I aimed at it.
The axe landed between el sabueso’s shoulders, bit deep into muscle and tendon through the dark fur, and la bestia shrieked as I slammed it to the ground. It tried to stand up, but its front legs no longer worked. Julio was motionless, silent, and he watched as I placed a foot on el sabueso’s head, right between its horns, as it whimpered and snapped at me, and the axe was in the air again, and all I saw was Manolito’s panic on his face, before he tried to escape his terrible fate, and when I brought it down, el sabueso went silent. Blood sprayed on my huaraches.
It trembled.
It went still.
And Julio burst into a rage.
The axe clattered to the ground, and Emilia did as well. The spell was broken, the magic gone, and I watched her wilt and deflate before me. Julio wailed and dropped to el sabueso, now in pieces, and his voice was tortured. “What have you done, puta?” He dropped the head to the floor. “Do you know what this cost me?”
I rushed to Emilia’s side, lifted her up from under her arms, and her relief burst into me, set my heart racing again. How can I feel that? Why is she open to me, so vulnerable?
Emilia coughed, spat on the ground in front of her father. She wiped at her face, stood up straight and tall, no longer leaning into me for support. “Is that all you care about, Papi? How much this cost you?”
“Watch your mouth, mija,” he shot back, and he took a step toward the two of us. “Or I’ll bury you.”
Chavela appeared suddenly, placing her body between us. “I need you to leave,” she said to Julio. “This is not your home.”
“I take what I want,” he said to Chavela. “And I’ll take your life, too.”
He raised his hand up, as if he was going to take Chavela’s story. Emilia sobbed and moved behind me. But Chavela did not wince, did not react. “Go ahead,” she said. “You wouldn’t be the first man to hurt me.”
His arm dropped. His patchy facial hair twitched about his face as he frowned, and I could see him working something out. He had not expected resistance. He never did. Emilia’s story roiled up within my gut, and I doubled over as it thrust barbs
