I stood upright, my eyes blurred by tears, and Julio was still there, examining me. His face—all those angles, all that hatred—was familiar to me, as though it were part of a long memory of mine. But it was Emilia’s memory, layered into my own through her stories.
I was terrified of him.
The force of this fear trembled throughout my body as he continued to stare at me. “What is wrong with you?” he said.
Chavela put a hand on my back. “Chica, do you need agua?” she asked, her voice soft and concerned.
“Emilia,” I choked out. “Where is she?”
“She left you.”
My gaze snapped up to him. He was smiling.
I spun around.
There was no one there.
This space was so much larger than I had realized, and I searched the room, desperate to find Emilia, to see her shadow, to see anything. There were sleeping rolls scattered around, cooking supplies on the southern edge of the building, some tools hung on the walls to the east. Most of the place was bare.
And Emilia was definitely not in sight.
“You’re lying,” I said, using Chavela’s arm to keep myself steady. “She wouldn’t.”
“She ran away, like she always does,” he said. “She is a coward.”
No. Impossible. Why would she leave me here?
“You were a friend of his, weren’t you?” Julio stepped forward.
I shook my head and moved back, Chavela at my side. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Another step toward me. “Manolito. Did you like what I did to him?” He grinned, and his mouth turned up in a sinister curl.
He unsheathed his blade, one of the smaller curved ones that his men always carried, and it shone in the bright light cascading in from the open door behind him. “I don’t like liars,” he said.
“Señor, please,” Chavela said. “Just leave. Leave this place. Déjala en paz.”
“You know what’s wrong with this world?” he asked, moving closer and closer. “You all wait. You wait for someone else to solve your problems. You don’t want to take a chance and—”
He was so certain. So lost in himself.
So he did not see the shadow fall over the open doorway behind him.
He did not see the axe raised up and to the side.
It whisked through the air.
It landed in his neck.
His eyes went wide.
His tongue lolled about in his mouth.
His hands went up to the blade now buried deep in his flesh.
He ran fingers along the edge.
Felt the blood leaking out of the torn skin.
Then he pitched forward, and Chavela and I screamed as his body hit the ground hard, and he twitched there as el sabueso had, and she stood there, a shadow in that brilliant light, and she panted.
He tried to roll over.
He stilled.
His life leaked out.
And Emilia walked over to her papi, her face a cold mask, and she ripped the axe from Julio’s body, ignored the spray of blood, then looked up at the two of us.
“Emilia…,” I began.
“Don’t,” she said. “Just help me carry the body out.”
She set the axe aside and grabbed his legs, dragging him toward the door, and Chavela and I silently followed.
Julio was dead.
I had forgotten about the stench, how the heat seemed to press up against us so fiercely. Chavela had one arm, I had the other, and the three of us dragged him through the dirt. To the east. Toward the source of the smell.
There was a large pit, dug deep out of the earth, and I watched as a man upended a large waste pot over the edge, and the contents tumbled down the side, into the depths below. It was deep enough to fit an entire home. There was so much refuse piled at the bottom, and insects buzzed and flew all around it. I coughed again, and Chavela raised her free hand to make Emilia stop. We set Julio’s body on the ground, and then she dug into her tunic until she produced a small glass vial. “For the smell,” Chavela said, and she put a couple of drops on her finger, then approached me. She dabbed it under my nose, and an intense floral scent invaded me, made my eyes water. She did the same for Emilia.
Emilia took a breath, then gestured with her head. “In he goes,” she said.
Maybe I should have protested. Or said anything. But my body and my mind were numb, unable to fathom what I had witnessed. So I did as I was told. We set Julio on the edge of that pit, and Chavela backed away. She grabbed my arm as I moved toward Emilia.
“No,” she said. “Let her do it.”
I watched as Emilia stared down at his lifeless body. She didn’t say anything, and her face was as unreadable as ever.
She put her foot on his torso.
She kicked out.
And he rolled down, his arms flopping about, and he landed facedown in a pile of human waste and refuse.
Emilia stared at him, then walked back to the building we had come from. I couldn’t move, stilled by my own confusion. She came back out, the body of el sabueso cradled in her arms, and she tossed it over the side, and it rolled down to meet Julio’s body. Her clothing—already filthy from her journey—was now covered in blood and remains, stark flashes of red that stained the fabric. She spun quickly and made for the gray building once more, her hair following behind her.
She looked eternal and terrifying.
Chavela took my hand and led me inside. My eyes went up to the ceiling, to the long blocks of wood that crossed above me, to the high windows that allowed light into the place. Chavela let go and headed back to the removable board in the floor, stomped on it three times. “Navarro! It’s Chavela,” she shouted. “We’re safe now.”
I looked for Emilia. Where had she gone?
They came
