The only thing she even asked for was a beautiful, special Christmas together, and I only did that halfway, not even thinking for a second what would be a nice thing to do, not even trying to make her happy, just trying to get her to shut up.
I’m nothing but a self-serving dick.
I glance at Violetta. “I can make this right.”
“I know you can,” she says. “I know you will.”
I feel a hit of relief but then she goes on. “But we have one last thing to see.”
I get to my feet. “No. No, I am done. I don’t want to see anymore.”
“I have to take you to the future. To show you what will happen if you don’t change your ways. If you don’t start taking your family more seriously. If you don’t choose love over your very selfish core.”
I gulp. I have a feeling I don’t have much of a choice.
The thing is, now I have to know what happens.
“Fine,” I tell her. “Do your worst.”
“I’m not doing this Javier. Everything I’m about to show you is all your own doing. No one else to blame but you.”
She turns and opens the door to the pitch-black hallway.
I give Luisa and Vicente one last look, my heart pinching at the sight of them, at Vicente finally going to sleep, then I follow my sister.
She grabs my hand and pulls me into the darkness.
Gives it a squeeze.
And then the darkness of the hall dissolves to something else.
A scene.
A field.
We’re back at home.
At the compound, I think?
Except things look…different.
It’s dark out and drizzling and lights illuminate the grassy lawn.
And a war is going on.
It takes me a while to focus on everyone.
Guards are shooting from the trees, while three men fan out with guns. I don’t recognize any of them, except the tall one with dark hair. I don’t know who he is, but still, I know him.
And then behind them are two women.
One of them I immediately recognize as Ellie.
She’s much older than I last saw her, maybe in her late forties, but it’s her. She’s still attractive as hell, covered in tattoos, dark hair, looking somewhat wild and feral, like she’s on the hunt.
And I’m guessing the girl is her daughter. She’s got to be nineteen or twenty.
Same long dark hair, beautiful with fine features, just like her mother, except for a fresh V-shaped cut on her cheek.
And her leg.
The sight of her leg makes me feel breathless.
It’s scarred and bubbling and raw, just like the scars on Ellie’s leg, only it looks like it was done very recently.
And I know it can’t be a coincidence.
“Holy fuck,” I say softly. “Is this…is this the future?”
“Yes. This is what happens.”
“I don’t understand…why is Ellie here? In Mexico again? Is that her daughter?”
“That is her daughter.”
“And her leg?”
Violetta gives me a pointed look. “You did that to her leg, Javier.”
“I would never.” She’s wrong. I know I’ve done my share of fucked up things in this world and I know I’ve tortured, mutilated, and killed many. But I would never do that to someone innocent like a young girl, and especially not Ellie’s daughter.
“I would never,” I say again.
“But you do…unless you change things.”
And then Ellie looks at her daughter’s leg like she’s seeing it for the first time. Perhaps she is. Then she looks at the man who looks familiar to me, as if she expected him to do this to her, her face cracking with raw rage.
“It was my father,” the man says.
And that’s when it all slides into place.
That man is my son.
That’s Vicente.
The twinge of pride I feel swelling in my chest at seeing what a handsome, strong, confident-looking man he’s become only lasts a few seconds as I realize that my son just threw me under the motherfucking bus.
And sure enough, there I am.
Me in the future.
Thank fuck I still have my hair.
Future me comes out of a grove of trees with Luisa by my side. She looks great too, good to know. There’s blood running down the side of his head. Makes future me look distinguished, I think.
And then the future me starts smiling.
Oh god, why the fuck is he smiling? What a psycho.
“Have some remorse!” I find myself yelling at him.
“Oh, you do,” Violetta says. “You’re not one hundred percent evil.”
Somehow that doesn’t make me feel any better, because I have a feeling the number ranges in the nineties.
And so I watch the scene unfold.
Ellie loses her shit, and rightfully so.
She runs across the field toward future me and tackles him.
And she fucking rails into him.
It’s painful to watch.
She bites, punches, claws.
And he doesn’t even fight back.
It looks weak. It looks so fucking weak and I hate myself for thinking that way, that future me is letting himself getting beaten up by a woman.
But I also know the truth, and that truth is the same now as it would be in the future. I think I deserve her wrath and so I’m letting her do her worst.
Perhaps karma, if I believed in it.
Now she’s choking him, and I think she’s actually going to kill future me.
Can’t say I blame her.
Then I hear shouts. People are getting upset. People scream.
But Ellie continues to choke the life out of him.
“Fucking hell, Violetta, is this how I die?”
She doesn’t say anything.
The suspense is too much.
Then Ellie loosens her grip.
Stares into his eyes.
And from this distance I can see her realize what she almost did, that she almost killed him, and that she didn’t want to follow through.
The future me smiles at her.
A real genuine smile.
I can only imagine what I’m thinking.
That Ellie cared enough about me not to kill me.
“Keep your eyes on your wife,” Violetta says.
I pull my eyes off Ellie straddling future me in the middle of the field and look at Luisa, who has a gun in her hands, aiming it at Ellie’s back.
“No!” I yell, attempting to run, but Violetta pulls me back into place. I’m forced
