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He was confused if he thought I’d ever develop a tolerance to treating humans like commodities. If he thought my mother would want that for me.
We stopped in front of a gate. The walls were thick enough that their stone housed checkpoints, as if we were crossing a border. Men with guns and clipboards stepped out as the gates opened inward.
Blocking my view was a grumbling semi. I craned my neck as we passed it. Men hopped out of the back and pulled down the door, and I glimpsed people in the trailer.
Who were they? Were they arriving or being taken somewhere? I needed to ask. But what would I do with the answer? I was as stuck as they were. I squeezed my legs more tightly to my chest and inhaled a breath to calm my racing heart as we entered “las puertas del infierno,” as Tepic had called them.
The gates of hell.
To mentally prepare myself, I closed my eyes and envisioned the worst—a scorched earth ghost town, patrols with AR-15s nudging beggars and prostitutes along, heavy chains weighing down exits and people. Brothels and abandoned storefronts, warehouses of guns and drug labs, failed absconders hanging like examples from trees.
Medieval but effective.
When my curiosity became too much, I opened my eyes and looked out the windshield.
Envisioning the worst had proved futile.
Nothing could’ve prepared me for this.
3
Natalia
It could’ve been Main Street in any affluent town. Clean and maintained buildings spread before us, tucked under the verdant, towering mountainside that would’ve shadowed the Badlands had the sun been out. This wasn’t a ghost town—whatever the Calavera cartel had done to the people who’d lived here, the structures and homes had not only remained intact, but seemed to have been improved. Their red brick facades were bright, stucco white walls clean, and not a crack could be seen in the pavement or concrete.
It was in even better shape than where I came from.
No longer bumping and jostling, we started a slow tread as the road into the Badlands smoothed from potholes and rocks to paved roads and cobblestone. We drove down the wide, main road bordered by shops that went directly from the gates to the foot of the mountain.
I took my chin off my knees and released my legs to scoot closer to the window. Though the walls were high, the town was big enough that I couldn’t see where it began or ended. Just beyond was the ocean, taunting the prisoners with salty air and the promise of an endless horizon they couldn’t see. I wondered if anyone ever tried to escape that way, and how far they got.
Two young girls in t-shirts and shorts stood under a deli awning, watching us pass. They had plastic bags of groceries in their hands and umbrellas tucked under their arms. Their freedom had been stripped, but at least they were dry, I thought wryly. Men on horses steered to one side, nodding at us. A group of women traveled as a pack and carried baskets of fruit on their shoulders; one smacked another on the shoulder as we drove by.
The rain started and stopped, and hardly a passerby didn’t stop to stare as we drew closer and closer to green foothills dense with trees. I didn’t know what to make of what I saw. Disoriented and slightly dizzy, I sat back in my seat.
“More than meets the eye?” Cristiano lowered the partition. Clouds darkened the sky, but the driver switched off his wipers as the rain became a drizzle. “You can see the house ahead,” Cristiano said.
I didn’t try to hide my curiosity. I ducked to peer through the windshield and spotted it instantly—a multi-story house built into the mountainside with white walls, a red terracotta roof, and crisp lines that offset curved archways.
“I can keep an eye on things from up there,” he said.
I didn’t doubt Cristiano had eyes everywhere.
It turned out the main road didn’t go straight through to the base of the mountain. We made our way around the perimeter of a large plaza, not unlike the one we’d just come from, also anchored by a church. I wasn’t fooled. Diego and Tepic had suggested the Badlands used storefronts and mundane businesses for money laundering. The church could’ve been a decoy for something else or just a cruel joke for false hope in a godless land.
People had set up stands in the same manner they had back home, though most were packing up their goods, and some stalls had been abandoned in the rain. A pair of children ran barefoot from booth to booth, jumping up and down with their hands cupped, tugging on the dresses of women who were boxing up everything from painted, wooden knick-knacks to talavera tiles to vibrant clothing.
“Begging for chocolate,” Cristiano said.
“So sad,” I murmured.
