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“You killedherwhen she was already dying.”
“That an accusation?”he says sharply.
“You silenced her on purpose.”
“Because her threats were pissing me off.”
“She called me a ‘Hurtados’.” Edier’s refusing to let it go, even though I can see how angry it’s making his father. “No one’s called me that in six years.”
“Is that whatyoufeel you are?”
He grits his teeth and shakes his head. “My name is Grayson.” He throws another look my way. “My future is with Santiago.”
“Then forget this ever happened.”TíoJoseph starts to lead me toward the house. “The witch came here to make trouble and I killed her for the insult.”
Peeking over his huge shoulder, I see Edier hanging back, looking like all the words he could never speak before are now finally wanting out.
I want him to follow.
I want him to be okay, to smile, to draw, to tell me thatTíaAnna is cookingarepasfor dinner—my favorite—and that it’s going to make me feel so much better.
But he doesn’t look my way. He doesn’t even turn his head. He just gazes off into the distance, as if that other world is calling him away from his home, and away from me again.
Only this time he isn’t coming back.
3
EDIER
The flames catchin the late evening breeze, rising higher and higher, until the whole sky is on fire—bright, orange, and savage.Bodies burn different.I should have remembered that.This pyre was built in haste but it’s already an inferno, as if the oldbrujaherself was made of gasoline.
Here, superstition is a pop song not a mandate. Santiago scorns it as much as myPádoes, but their men insisted on it. By setting fire to the body, we’d release the curse, or so they said…
Too bad they can’t set fire to my past at the same time.
With shaking fingers, I slot a cigarette in between my teeth and light it up, the first hit of nicotine tasting more like chaos than calm. All I can see in the flames is thatbruja’sface and the triumph oozing from her dead black eyes.
She knew what I’d done.
She knew what I’d promised.
She knew my secret.
But how?
I was led to believe my entire family was dead, and the Hurtados cartel destroyed…
Did someone make it out alive?
Fuck.
My cigarette doesn’t last long. Fear and guilt work faster on nicotine than the disease it causes, eating up the stick until I’m sucking on air.
So now what?
I spark up another, and then a third, just to avoid thinking about it.
Eventually, my adoptive father wanders over to join me, sliding his hand back and forth across his head in irritation, making no bones about the fact he’d rather be anywhere else but here. Burning bodies isn’t his idea of a good time but his men are edgy, so a cynical presence is required.
