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Due to the months in captivity and the subsequent hard work, he wasn’t in the best shape physically. He was a little too skinny, and though his muscles had developed from the unorthodox working hours, he was still too lean to have any real strength.
But he didn’t let that stop him from attacking the guard head on, capitalizing on his speed rather than strength. He evaded the powerful blows from the guard, while laying a few strategic ones of his own.
It wasn’t long between the confrontation turned into a full-on brawl.
In the beginning, the slaves held their own against the guards. But when they realized the fight was becoming serious, the guards rang the alarm and started using their weapons.
From a small argument, it turned into a fiasco as people yelled in pain, and shots were fired.
Everyone was crowded together into a corner, the guards pushing them so they could kick them better.
Though Rafaelo started on a good note, keeping up with the fight, he ended up taking more blows than he found parry, the pain mounting every second.
When he got hit in the stomach, his breathing got cut off and he fell to his knees, wheezing as he felt as if he was suffocating. That opened him up for attack, and the guard he’d started the argument with saw him, coming forward and punching him in the face once, twice, three times. He kept on punching until Rafaelo felt his consciousness slipping from him.
In no time, the guards had all the slaves under control again, and hope was lost once more.
Yet despite losing, Rafaelo couldn’t help but be pleased with the outcome. He’d fought for what was right. How could he possibly be mad at himself when he’d seen an injustice and taken a stance against it.
If anything, losing was just the beginning.
eight
It wasan hour later that he woke up.
He struggled to open his eyes, but the effort was in vain as he’d been hit so badly, his lids were swollen shut. He could make out a vague contour of his surroundings, but it was all swathed in darkness.
He had no idea where he was except that the room was awfully cold—a feat considering they were in one of the warmest and most arid regions of Mexico.
There was a distant piano melody, a sweetness bursting on his tongue when his body was completely wrecked. Somehow, that sweet sound made everything bearable.
Rafaelo groaned as he moved to the side.
Everything hurt.
He rested against the wall, taking a deep breath as he focused on the music, instead of everything that was going wrong around him. He didn’t know how long he spent like that. Considering he couldn’t even see because his eyes were too swollen, he couldn’t take note of the passage of time. One moment blended into the next, one hour in the nex—maybe even one day.
Ignoring the physical pain, he tried to retreat into his mind as he’d done time and time again. The piano helped soothe his soul, making him calmer, more relaxed.
Yet even that stopped.
“Fuck,” he whispered when he realized just how alone he was without that sweet sound. He was truly on his own in the darkness.
Although he tried to sleep a little—anything to pass the time and help the healing process—he found that the pain was too loud for him to get one moment of rest.
Oddly enough, the music had helped mute that.
But without it…
“Don’t move,” a soft voice whispered.
Raf startled. His first instinct was to believe he’d made it up in his head. Especially as he recognized it and what it meant to him.
It was…
“Lucero?” he croaked, the mere effort to speak taking a toll on him.
He thought he was imagining her voice, conjuring it out of his memory as he’d done countless times before.
