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Me.
It was me.
I picked it up tenderly and then found another. Beneath the two pictures, my eyes fell upon a letter that had been resting inside. The familiar, looping handwriting belonged to a younger version of myself, a girl full of dreams and desperate hopes.
Sweat beaded across my brow, and I took a deep breath as the memories surrounding writing the letter returned. When Antonio won the tournament, he visited the Quinta Isla to give a speech during a post-tournament celebration.
Antonio was larger than life. He was young, charismatic, and I had never heard of him before he accomplished this enormous feat. I wrote a letter asking him to save me.
I had lived with so much guilt over that moment, and it intensified as I looked down at the opened letter. My hands trembled as I unfolded the delicate paper.
My heart already knew the words, but rereading them felt surreal.
Querido Antonio,
I know you don’t know me, but I saw the strength and power it took to scale La Dama. Everyone calls you the best competitor in the history of the Blood Tournaments. I can’t help but hope that someday, you’ll use that power to save me, too.
I work hard—harder than anyone you’ll ever meet—and I am loyal. You won't regret it if you have a place for me to work. I am pretty talented at dancing as well. There’s a program called La Bailarina Escandalosa that we watch sometimes…
The words blurred together, emotions from the past flooding through me like a tidal wave. I remembered that night vividly—the Niñeras at the orphanage had forbidden me to leave, forcing me to send Pablo in my stead. He had been so eager, his eyes alight with excitement as he raced into the darkness, unaware of the tragedy that awaited him.
My friend Pablo had taken this letter to Antonio.
Pablo died in the bombs that came after.
A tear slipped down my cheek, splattering onto the ink-smeared page. I squeezed my eyes shut, the memories of the bombs exploding in the distance echoing in my mind, shattering the fragile peace we had known.
The silence that followed seemed to answer me, mocking my childish naivety. As much as I wanted to believe that Antonio would have used his powers to save me, I couldn’t shake the feeling that he might have been secretly laughing at my pain all this time.
Antonio must have known who I was all along. He’d kept this letter, this proof of my desperate plea for help, tucked away behind his impressive collection of books. My heart beat faster, fear and confusion warring within me.
I remembered all the times he’d shown me kindness, teaching me how to fight and survive in this cruel world. Why would he lie about this? Or, at least, intentionally withhold information?
As I left the study, the weight of the letter’s discovery hung heavy around my heart. The world outside was a battlefield waiting to be conquered, full of people to manipulate, but it was hard to understand why Antonio would do this to me.
He wanted me to trust him and he kissed me.
He had called me his.
The embarrassment I felt was unfounded. The moment was so twisted up in pain and horror that I had forgotten the man I’d been with for the last four months. I gazed down the way to my room and then continued in the other direction toward Antonio’s room.
It had only been mentioned in passing, so I wasn’t sure which door would bring me to him. Sweat beaded on my palms. Sense told me it was the only one at the end of the hall. Surely it would be much larger than my own.
As I reached for the doorknob, my breath felt shallow, and my heartbeat roared in my ears. I was still so mad at myself for succumbing to my emotions. But it had been more than that. For one, I had to know what he felt too. It was complicated because I had fallen for him over the past few months like a butterfly fell for the tricks of a venomous plant. This poisonous attraction trapped me before I ever knew what was happening.
My hand grasped the handle nervously, and I wondered what he would think to find me in his room so late at night. I slowly pushed down on it, stepped inside, and surveyed his dimly lit bedroom. It was lavish and large, as had been expected, but there was a light on his nightstand, with a book open under it. No other sign of him working lingered, but the light cast shadows over his beautiful, relaxed face. His deep breathing was the only sound after the door gently closed.
I immediately felt out of place. “Antonio?” My fingers grazed the note in my pocket.
He woke with a start when he heard me say his name, and my whole body flushed with heat. The lines along his bare shoulders and arms were detailed, and his face softened almost immediately into something resembling relief despite its scruffy appearance from being awakened abruptly in the middle of the night. He propped himself up on his forearm, the blanket pooling about his waist to reveal the expanse of his broad chest. Soft curls were scattered across the muscles, and my eyes dropped to the deep scars.
I had felt those perpetual reminders of pain.
The night he first kissed me flashed before my eyes. Heat pulsed through my body, churning like molten lava in my core. He scrubbed at his face with one hand and then squinted past the light to where I was standing in the shadow. “Carmen?”
His voice was rough, and he blinked before yawning sleepily as I mustered the courage to enter the light. The lamp illuminated half of my body, and his eyes widened. “Is this a dream?”
My breath caught in my throat, and I shook my head. “No, Antonio. I need to speak with you.” My voice was unexpectedly raspy. Was I what he dreamed of?
