I looked back towards the winding slope that set off from the cable car platform. The ghost that I thought I had seen between two rickety buildings was now under the light, walking toward the cable car. Another one also in SWAT like uniforms appeared at the right corner of my view, coming out from behind a ramshackle of a house. He was the one who shot Renato. And I realized I had come to a dead end.
A hide-and-seek game. After I had been found, I ought to hit a home run, or my freedom was gone.
A deep, dragon-like roar thundered in the sky, lightning strikes painting the night white. I cringed under the din of nature and noticed, beside my feet, the pistol that had been in Renato’s hand.
“What do you want from me?” I cried. My voice mingled with the stormy weather delivering both the power of nature and the sorrow of a desperate life in a single blast of sound.
The men in SWAT uniforms did not respond. They came closer, uniforms wet, rifles glistening—ready to take another life. Higher in the slope, other figures protected from the storm by small, black umbrellas. They were the devilish counterparts to Mary Poppins and descended the hillside in black suits.
“Haven’t you killed enough people? What do you want from me!” I screamed.
Officer Paulo Pinto and Roberto Rôla shuffled down the slope with the sway of a demon. They did not offer any reaction. It was as if their affairs had been settled on top of Gloria Santa.
Their goons in uniform kept closing the distance between us.
Then I saw it. It was in the span of a couple of seconds, between the flashes of a night sky crackling apart. Tucked beside the cable car platform. Between one of its foundation pillars and the foot of a three-storey building that seemed on the verge of collapsing. Into where a stream of churning rainwater flew down. I saw the chance to hide again. I would run for home base in this deadly hide-and-seek game taking place in Rio.
I looked at Renato’s body and immediately regretted it. Instead of the memory of a last kiss, of his warm and tanned body, I would take with me the picture of his lifeless eyes. His body laid on the ground, motionless, coated in white only when lightning hit Rio, otherwise draped in shadows of gray.
I reached down and picked up the pistol. Then I ran. Out of the coverage. Into the falling sky. My face dripping from the fresh drops of rain and the sour taste of tears.
When I plunged into the only way out, it all went black.
Chapter 26
I clutched my fingers around the pistol grip as my body slid through the crack between the buildings. A narrow slope that slithered past walls of brick, serving as a gutter during storms and an alleyway in dry weather. I slipped and landed on my ass. And then I went down a jagged-surfaced water slide, which ripped my jeans apart and opened cuts on my skin.
I raised my hands to protect my head. The tide of rainwater flowing downstream splashed against the nape of my neck, and pushed my floating body to the bottom of the alleyway. I looked up and found only darkness. Wet darkness. Then thunder rumbled in the sky. I saw at walls like clouds blurring past me.
“You better reach for it, Emily.” I heard Marlon’s voice inside my head. I was climbing a tree to where our cat, had hidden himself away. The Neighbor’s dog had attacked him on the street. Even though the dog was gone, Joshua would not come down from the tree. I tried soothing him out both with low and loud calls, tried to lure him down with treats, tried to get him out with a broomstick, but all attempts failed. Seven hours later, already exhausted and freezing, I latched onto the tree and clambered up.
Marlon stood waiting, uttering motivational words. Yeah, I better rescue Joshua. And I better find a way out of this ill-fated slide fall.
The blackness receded as I rounded a corner into a new, steeper, slicker human-sized gutter between buildings. Looking down, toward my feet, I saw light specks accelerate toward me. I bounced against the rocks, heard a buzz inside my head after grazing my temple, and had air forcibly expelled from my lungs. When I breathed, mouth gaped open, I filled my lungs with equivalent amounts of air and dirty water.
I fell into a coughing fit. My arms and legs waved, longing to hook themselves on to whatever might help reduce my speed toward the end of the line. The lights came in closer, and I figured that at the end of that channel, instead of a flat terrain over which I would be able to slow down to a stop, I would take off and plunge into a sea of roof tiles and red bricks.
Then I felt it. A steel chain across the ditch. One of my legs clashed against it, a flash of pain. My body swiveled around the chain, I was sliding headfirst down the trench. Headfirst into rooftops.
I bent my knee out of instinct. It gripped the chain but I continued to slide—past the last barrier into an iminent free fall.
But the chain went taut. It snapped, steel against bricks, and tugged on the back of my right knee. Everything went white. After a whip-like effect, my body swung like a pendulum and got pitched at soaking wet terrain. I was finally out of that ditch. And I still had the pistol in my hand.
***
I opened my eyes at dawn. The storm passed, the sky less laden with clouds, but it left behind a fresh smell of morning dew. A violet horizon painted the sky opposite the rising
