Archive of Our Own

It’s been over two months since that night.

New Year’s Eve.

You and Maca, a few drinks, an awkward photograph, and dancing interrupted by four party crashers and a corresponding number of holes dug in the dirt.

Afterwards, it was just the two of you again, alone in the RV. A single lick of bitter white powder each. Strands of Christmas lights blinking soundlessly from one color to the next. Warm hues playing over flannel and gray cotton and soft, soft skin. And loud, ethereal music drowning out the distant booms of fireworks as an inquisitive finger traced gentle lines over your face just before two pairs of hands and lips were suddenly everywhere all at once…tongues dragging along earlobes and necks, teeth teasing over breasts, and fingers digging into tender flesh and finding their ways into mouths and underwear, pressing deep inside wanting bodies.

Dios, how the feel of her breath ghosting over your skin and her palms running everywhere sent the most unexpected and wonderful chills up your spine.

You can still feel them now if you allow yourself to.

But the following morning when Maca had called the whole thing a tontería as she handed you a cup of hot tea, you’d agreed with her. It was far less messy to attribute the escapade to a momentary lapse in judgment precipitated by a shitty night and potent drugs than to dwell on what else it might have meant. Or on how much you’d enjoyed it.

Yet, you couldn’t help but make a dig about sex with women not being all it was cracked up to be. Maybe you needed to regain some sense of balance or maybe you just said it to be an asshole. Either way, you weren’t surprised when she immediately returned the favor by calling out your inexperience and insulting your prowess in bed. You were careful not to let even a hint of indignation register on your face though, and just casually changed the subject to the next heist. You didn’t particularly care what she thought, anyway.

Still, you felt a little better when you poured that puto tea out onto the ground as she walked away.

The two of you never talked about it after that.

But sometimes you still think about it.

/////

At the moment, however, you aren’t thinking about enticing smiles or captivating green eyes or sexy blondes dancing around half-naked just out of reach. No, tonight you are cold and tired and cranky. The rain has been coming down nonstop and without the benefit of shelter or protective clothing you’ve been taking the full brunt of the downpour since it started this afternoon. You’re soaked from head to toe; even your thick-soled boots couldn’t prevent the water from leeching down your socks and you know you’ll have more than a few blisters in the morning from wet fabric rubbing against sensitive skin.

The temperature has been dropping steadily too, ever since the sun went down, and it has only gotten harder to navigate over the muddy terrain with just moonlight to guide you. Your back and feet ache from hours of walking, you’re bleeding from a fresh abrasion across the front of your chest, and the newly formed bruise decorating your ribcage is making it difficult to catch your breath, puffs of white mist gusting from your mouth in irregular intervals highlighting every laborious exhalation. On top of all that, your empty stomach keeps growling and your only pack of cigarettes fell victim to the rainwater hours ago.

But the cold and pain and hunger and even the nicotine craving all pale in comparison to the utter exhaustion that’s pervading your body.

All you want to do is to get to the damned RV, fall into bed, and sleep for about twelve hours straight.

/////

You checked out of the motel before dawn this morning, not that you’d slept more than twenty minutes all night anyway; the relentless throbbing inside your skull, courtesy of the alien residing there, had made sure of that.

But you took advantage of the darkness to inconspicuously access the electrical boxes and wiring necessary to disable an alarm system of interest and a few inconveniently positioned CCTV cameras. It wouldn’t prevent law enforcement from eventually identifying you; the goal was just to buy enough time to get the job done and put some distance between you and the cops before they pieced everything together.

The sun was just starting to peak over the horizon as you were wrapping up, so you snagged a freshly delivered copy of El País from a sidewalk stand then climbed up a fixed access ladder onto the roof of a single-story tanning salon on the same street. The upscale salon was just one of many posh establishments that catered to the wealthy elite in the ritzy downtown shopping area. And paying money to get melanoma while baking under a heat lamp like a god-damned reptile in a terrarium wasn’t your style, but the salon had one irrefutable good quality: its rooftop offered a clear line of sight into the swanky jewelry shop across the street, the one that was about to get robbed by Zulema y Macarena, SL.

Maca had discovered the joyería toward the end of last year and it was a good find. It was close enough you could ditch the getaway car and head back to the RV on foot if necessary but far enough away not to have to worry about the police pinpointing which town you lived in. Moreover, it wasn’t in a province you’d hit before, so there was less chance of being recognized or running into resistance. Still, the blonde had astutely suggested you postpone the job until after the hustle and bustle of the holidays as an extra precaution.

Since January, however, you had been scouting out the place regularly, identifying the types of security, studying the layout, memorizing employee routines, and getting a feel for the ebb and flow of customer traffic. You didn’t always go through so much trouble for a golpe, but you and Maca had garnered so much unwanted attention over the past two years that it was getting hard to do things the quick and easy way. It also happened to be a good excuse to spend a lot of time away from the RV. Even though things had pretty much returned to normal since New Year’s, there’d been a few occasions when the two of you started arguing over one thing or another and it suddenly felt like all the oxygen had been sucked out of the camper and replaced with an electric charge; it was overwhelming and suffocating and made you want to pin her against the wall and kiss her just so she’d shut the Hell up. Instead, you put as much distance between you and her as possible before you did something you knew you shouldn’t.

Anyway, it had worked out well because you had learned a lot from your little field trips. For starters, even though jewelers are among the few private citizens who can actually get a firearm license in Spain, none of the employees carried a gun or kept one on site. The shop employed an armed private security guard named Marcos instead.

In his early thirties, Marcos was clean-shaven with short brown hair and above average in height and weight, oversized muscles bulging out from underneath his dark blue uniform. He was into hitting the gym and more than a few performance enhancing drugs too. The guy was more brawn than brains though, his social media posts all topless selfies and acts of machismo aimed at getting women into bed rather than anything remotely intellectual or even vaguely interesting. And despite the radio on his chest and Beretta on his belt, he didn’t he carry himself like police or military and your online research into his background didn’t uncover any real-world law enforcement experience. Still, with his size, weapon, and potential for ‘roid rage, it was best to remove him from the equation altogether. You’d just as soon have taken him out with a bullet, but Maca frowned upon shooting people “without justification.” God, she made things so damned difficult sometimes. Luckily for her though, you enjoy a challenge, and you’d quickly figured out how to get around the douchebag, or more accurately, when to get around him.

After weeks of surveillance, you’d discerned that 11:00am was one of the shop’s least busy times and just one salesman was on duty. More importantly, it was when the extra tall cup of café con leche and super-sized order of deep-fried churros con chocolate that Marcos consumed every morning on his way to work hit his bowels full force. Everyone had their vices, you supposed, and aside from injectable hormones Marcos also liked caffeine and fatty foods. Apparently, they didn’t like him so much though because every day like clockwork he disappeared into the back of the store with a newspaper in hand and a pained look on his face. It was clear where he was heading, and you’d never seen him return sooner than twenty minutes later. It was the perfect time to hit the place.

The building itself was a large, single-story structure with white stucco walls, a slanted red terracotta roof, and a front facade that was almost entirely comprised of clear glass, including the pair of double swinging doors that formed the combined entrance-exit. High ceilings with crown molding and palladium-style windows that let in plenty of natural light gave it a spacious and elegant feel, while the expensive hardwood flooring, stylish leather furniture, and eggshell-colored walls adorned with paintings and tapestries added a touch of sophistication and opulence.

Offset from and parallel to the rear wall were three long mahogany counters that together formed an incomplete physical partition that separated the employee-only section from the area designated for customers. Behind the leftmost of the three, as seen from the perspective of the street, was a door leading to the back offices, supply rooms, and lone restroom. The rear of the shop was also accessible from the alleyway behind the building, but that entrance was for staff only and always left deadbolted.

Most of the jewelry was kept in one of several lighted, rectangular display cases that were artistically dispersed throughout the wide room. Measuring around a meter tall and twice as long, they had solid marble bases and see-through glass tops with simple locks that could be opened with a key carried by each of the salespeople. But your target was the much smaller, secured case that housed the shop’s most valuable pieces. It was less than half a square meter in area and accessing it would be a bit more involved, but the limited number of items it held could garner more than the rest of the jewelry in the place combined.

Mounted directly into the back wall behind the mahogany barrier furthest to the right, the fortified chamber had a thick, bullet-proof glass door in the front that allowed for viewing from over the wooden counter, but staff were the only ones who were supposed to get near it. There was a CCTV camera trained directly on the area, but it was among the ones you had disabled so it wasn’t a concern. The real problem was that the glass door could only be opened using an electronic keyless entry pad that required an employee thumbprint and access code. Your attempts to obtain the code, which changed weekly and was sent to staff members via encrypted email, had been unsuccessful; you couldn’t see the keypad from your lookout spot across the street and both you and Maca were total shit at anything related to hacking. And you had to get it right the first time, because if a print wasn’t recognized or a code was entered incorrectly, the door wouldn’t open and a silent alarm would be triggered. So you needed an employee; but even though any of the salespeople could open the case at their own discretion, it wasn’t the norm, and usually required a scheduled appointment, legal identification, and the direct presence of the armed guard. It was the one security measure you couldn’t bypass, but that’s what you had Maca for.

You tossed the small camera bag holding all your tools into one of the front corners then plopped yourself down next to it on the salon’s flat rooftop to wait for the blonde to show up. You sat against the decorative front cement ledge because it was taller than the others so you wouldn’t be visible from the street as long as you stayed near it and kept low.

You reached into the pocket of your black leather jacket, pulled out the green apple you’d stashed there earlier, and sunk your teeth into it relishing the crunch and tartness of that first bite. Hardly anyone was out yet and the only sounds you could hear were from your own chewing and the birds in the nearby trees rustling around and chirping excitedly at the blossoming new day. You always loved that time of the morning, when it felt like you were the only person awake in the entire world; so you leaned your head back against the cool cement and ate the rest of the apple while you watched reds and oranges stretch across the horizon and reveled in the warmth of the sun as it slowly spread from the tips of your toes up to your face.

Moments like those were as close as you ever expected to get to God.

The serenity didn’t last though, and by the time the sun was fully up the sounds of people and traffic and the smell of exhaust were already reaching up to the roof, making it far less pleasant. You took some time to thumb through the paper, checking for articles about you and Maca and lamenting the fact that most people got their news online nowadays; you didn’t dislike technology, you just preferred things you could touch and feel.

Once you discerned that there were no articles for the guard to stumble across, which wasn’t too surprising since you hadn’t pulled a job since last year, there wasn’t much to do except sit and wait and occasionally peak over the ledge to watch fancy cars pull in and out of parking spots and equally fancy-looking patrons come and go from the various boutiques, parlors, cafes, and eateries. Though, all-in-all, there was relatively little foot traffic and it seemed like conditions were ideal for the heist; and as the minutes ticked on, a familiar mix of glee and excitement was growing inside your belly, one that you only ever got when pulling off some sort of criminal endeavor. It felt like 11:00am was never going to come.

Usually, you didn’t have a problem waiting; you had the patience of Job when you knew the payoff would be worth it in the end. But after a few long hours on the roof, you were questioning the decision to hold off until the guard’s bathroom break and starting to think that going in guns blazing may have been the better option, whether Maca approved or not.

The blue sky had gradually turned gray and ominous dark clouds had covered the sun, bringing a frigid wind along with them that was making you cold despite the jacket you had on. You really wanted a cigarette, too, but didn’t dare risk someone noticing a mysterious plume of smoke emanating from the rooftop, and the lack of nicotine was making you restless and irritable. Moreover, your ass was sore from sitting for so long on hard cement, your back was stiff from having to remain hunched over whenever you did stand up, and your thighs were aching from squatting to peer over the ledge.

And ok, so you probably would have benefitted from doing some exercise these past couple of years or at least a little yoga, but repetition and routine bored you. Besides, improving your muscle tone and endurance wouldn’t have helped with the fact that more than anything else you were just getting tired of being alone with your own thoughts, which lately tended to wander to places you didn’t want them to go or got interrupted by an unwelcomed visit from the apparition of your former self dressed in an old prison uniform; and the longer you remained idle, the more likely you were going to have to deal with that perra.

But the plan was already in action, and it was too late to change it now. So you just stretched out on your back and watched the clouds above to pass the time and tried to think of anything other than the tumor in your brain or all the years you’d lost in prison or the blonde you were waiting on who you couldn’t seem to ever get out of your head anymore no matter how hard you tried.

When it finally got closer to go-time though, you hunkered down behind the roof’s ledge and kept a keen eye on the goings-on below, and it was 10:29am exactly when an expensive-looking black sedan pulled into an empty space near the front of the jewelry shop. You watched from your perch as a striking, long-haired pelirroja with bangs down to her eyebrows emerged from the driver’s seat and strode over to the ticket machine to purchase a parking pass. She was wearing a backless cherry-red sundress, revealing but tasteful, accessorized with matching red heels, dangling diamond earrings, and a white leather Gucci handbag. Haughty aristocrat was never really your type, but you had to admit she looked good. More importantly, she looked the part. Because today she wasn’t Macarena Ferreiro, former prison inmate turned full-time thief wanted on multiple charges including attempted murder, kidnapping, armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, grand larceny, motor vehicle theft, and vehicular battery on a law enforcement official; granted, that last one was actually your doing, having run over a cop’s foot with the getaway car during a particularly hairy police chase, but it’s not like you were going to complain if the younger woman got pinned with it.

Wanted status aside though, today Maca was posing as a wealthy, attractive bachelorette in search of new jewelry and a little male attention, and so far, she was pulling it off, big time. Her wig was high quality, one you hadn’t seen before, and her clothes were brand-name and expensive. Even the car was believable; normally one of you just hot-wired an older model, but this was luxurious and new and undoubtedly had an antitheft tracking system she must have had to disable; you weren’t sure when she’d learned how to do that, but she never failed to impress.

Still, you probably should have consulted on the outfits, because you chose a long-haired red wig too, and with your green pants suit and Maca’s red dress, the Poison Ivy and Jessica Rabbit jokes practically wrote themselves. Regardless of the disguise mishap though, your heart had started pumping faster the second you’d laid eyes on her, and you couldn’t wait to get to work.

You watched Maca from over the top of the cement barrier as she placed the parking pass in the windshield and locked the car door with the key fob before strutting towards the shop entrance. Christ, she was even carrying herself like someone who belonged among the super-rich; you might not have recognized her yourself except that after almost two years of living together you’d gotten to know her unique mannerisms, gestures, and body movements so well that you couldn’t miss her if you tried.

“Really went all out on the car today, eh Rubia?”

“You like? We’ve been chicas buenas all year, so I thought we deserved a little reward.”

The sound from the earpieces was crystal clear and with practically everyone wirelessly attached to their cell phones nowadays, no one would even look twice at Maca’s. She sounded calm and ready, but you could hear the underlying enthusiasm in her voice too. No matter how hard she tried to downplay it, you knew this stuff exhilarated her as much as it did you.

“Aaand I’m sure we don’t need to worry about the owner having already reported it missing?”

You knew you didn’t, she was as meticulous as you about covering her bases. You only asked because it annoyed her when you questioned her methods and sometimes you just couldn’t help yourself.

“The owner is lying on some topless beach in Brazil with a caipirinha in his hand right now. I promise you his car is the last thing on his mind.”

The younger woman paused momentarily and then added with phony indignation and a crooked smile, “When are you gonna start trusting me, Zulema?”

You just huffed in response and kept your head as low as possible while you watched her step through the front doors of the shop and walk inside.

Thanks to all the windows, you had a virtually unobstructed view all the way to the back and tracked Maca’s progress using a small pair of binoculars you pulled out from your camera bag. The salesman approached her right away, introduced himself as Antonio, and offered to assist with anything she might need. An impeccably dressed, debonair, silver-haired man in his forties, the salesman was a consummate professional who took pride in his work and, as you knew from your research, had a beautiful wife and two kids at home. He had a lot to lose so you didn’t expect any trouble from him, but you also didn’t expect his role as loyal husband and loving father to get in the way of your intended goal. Maca could command the attention of virtually any man who had an ounce of heterosexuality in him regardless of moral values, personality traits, or relationship status, especially dressed like that.

So for nearly half an hour you just watched and listened as the blond-turned-redhead employed her feminine wiles while she pretended to peruse the merchandise, inquiring about various items and feigning interest as Antonio prattled on about carats and clarity and the uniqueness of certain pieces. He was clearly showing off to her and she in turn was coyly flirting with him and subtly stroking his ego; she even snuck in an offhanded remark about how maybe someday she’d have a husband who was as knowledgeable about so many fascinating subjects as him.

The salesman was gobbling it up but that wasn’t a surprise; these morons fell for it every single damned time. That body and innocent-looking face of hers got Maca into all kinds of places a hardened criminal really should never be allowed into. For instance, at the back of this very jewelry store standing just in front of the fortified display case. It had taken her mere minutes to charm her way behind the counter even though it wasn’t protocol to allow customers back there; apparently rules were made to be broken when you had hot girl hanging all over you and on your every word.

Just a pane of glass away from the grand prize, Maca was leaning in and touching her fingers lightly against Antonio’s arm while she chatted and laughed and looked down to the floor bashfully as she flashed a demure smile at him. And you smiled too, watching her, because she really did have a knack for this shit. She had the salesman eating right out of her hand and was just waiting for the guard to head to the back, and as soon as he did, she would ask to see an item from the fortified case. You could tell that there was no chance Antonio was going to deny her, and the instant he swung the glass door open she would have him at gunpoint and near tears while she waited for you to join her inside.

It would take you less than a minute to descend the ladder, causally walk across the street, and enter the shop. Once inside, you would lock the doors behind you, put up the cerrado sign, and draw the blinds to give you privacy. Then, you would head to the back to slide a wedge under the restroom door to silently lock Marcos in. Finally, you would tie up and gag Antonio (and any customers, if need be) while Maca helped herself to the finest jewelry, which the salesman would have inadvertently given her direct access to. If there was time, she could even snag his key and help herself to the less-valuable items in the regular display cases too, but that would just be icing on the cake. And as soon as all the stolen goods were bagged up, which should only take a few minutes, both of you would calmly exit, relock the shop doors behind you, and nonchalantly drive away. By the time the guard realized he was trapped and radioed for assistance, you’d be out of town and well on your way to the industrial park where you planned to ditch the car before splitting up. No fuss, no muss. Just a quick smash and grab, sans the smashing part.

And while it was more complicated than a routine stickup, you’d learned from experience the whole process was a lot more effective this way. Because if you pulled a gun too soon and started hollering commands, sometimes workers would just freeze up in terror and then there was no way you were getting access to the most protected inventory. Well, not unless you shot them in the leg or cut off a fingertip or threatened to slaughter their families, but since Maca wouldn’t let you go there, this was the next best thing.

You missed being inside for this part though. Being forced to wait on the sidelines made you antsy. Unfortunately, too many of your fellow countrymen had heard at least vague stories about dos ladronas who liked to target joyerías, and you were less likely to trigger anyone’s memory or draw attention if you went in separately. So, the past few robberies you had split up, leaving Maca to get the process started while you monitored for signs of trouble outside. If any potential threats materialized, you could either deal with them or call off the job altogether, not that you usually called anything off; you almost always found a way to accomplish the task at hand.

Improvise, adapt, overcome.

Karim was the one who’d taught you the well-known motto favored by the United States Marine Corp. He always liked to familiarize himself with the methods and practices employed by the world’s most elite military and police forces. In fact, whenever he wasn’t running weapons or girls or drugs, he was educating himself about various techniques to evade capture, outmaneuver his enemies, and eliminate any potential threats to his criminal enterprises. You never saw anyone spend so much time with their face in a book, and you were sure it was from him that you got your love of learning and deeply ingrained understanding that knowledge was the only thing no other human being could take from you.

As much as you looked up to him though, a few months after running away to his place, you’d started having second thoughts. You were struggling to adjust to life in a new town, having trouble finding a way to pay your share of the bills, and missing your grandmother; some part of you even wanted to see your mother again too, despite all the shit she’d done. It was one of the only times in your life that you ever wavered, but you were still just a kid after all.

When Karim noticed your ambivalence, he said you needed to learn a lesson in perseverance, so he taught you the Marines’ motto and had you memorize it in both Arabic and English. The next day, he sat you down and told you that obstacles were put there to differentiate the predators from the prey and it was time for you to decide which one you were; then he slid a prepaid bus ticket back to your mother’s town into your pocket and kicked you out without any other money or provisions.

God, it had been tempting to take that bus ride back to your mother’s. It was the first time you’d had to completely fend for yourself. It was also the first time you slept on the streets, got beaten up over a few scraps of old food, stole something from someone else, and fled from the police. But when you returned to Karim’s place two weeks later - dirty, tired, hungry, and bruised - you handed him a wad of cash thick enough to cover your expenses for a month and reimburse him for the bus ticket you’d traded for shelter. A huge smile had spread across his face as he put his hand on your shoulder and said he knew you had it in you. It’s one of the only times you remember anyone being proud of you and a lesson that you never forgot.

There weren’t any obstacles in sight today though. There weren’t even any actual customers in the store, just the security guard and salesman and neither one appeared the least bit concerned about the flirty redhead eyeing the most valuable merchandise. Maca’s disguise was working, and everything was going exactly as planned.

And right on cue, at 11:02am, the guard played his role perfectly, exiting the shop to buy a newspaper from the rack outside. As he walked back in, heading toward the rear of the store, you slung the strap of the camera bag around your neck and across your chest and raised the binoculars back against your face. The store was still devoid of other customers and the street was virtually empty. You wouldn’t get a better opportunity than this. Maca knew it too because when she asked to see a necklace from inside the secured case just a minute or two later, she was already sliding the fingers of her right hand towards the designer bag that was hanging from her shoulder and concealing her nine-millimeter pistol. You focused the binoculars on Antonio and saw him smile and nod before reaching toward the electronic keypad to type in the code and scan his fingerprint. Your own fingers were tapping eagerly against the grip of the Smith and Wesson in your jacket pocket, and you couldn’t stop a devilish grin from forming on your face. It had been too long since you last pulled a job and the real action was just seconds away and you could feel the adrenaline kicking in and fuck, you LOVED this part.

You watched attentively as the salesman swung the door of the secured case wide open.

Bingo.

But before you could even lower the binoculars, there was a loud WHAM as the door dividing the front and rear areas of the shop flew open and the guard came charging back through. He had his hand on the butt of his holstered gun and was walking right toward Maca, barking a stream of orders at her: show her identification, put her hands in the air, freeze, drop her bag, move away from the display case!! His commands were all over the place, frantic and disorganized, a predictable result of the dangerous combination of drugs, inexperience, and panic. The salesman threw his own arms in the air, clearly at a loss as to what was going on. He looked distressed and confused, head rapidly swiveling side-to-side as he looked between his would-be customer and the yelling guard.

The situation was total chaos, but Maca was the very picture of composure, and you were confident she would do what it took to get herself out of this. You watched through glass eyes as the younger woman put her left hand in the air to show she wasn’t a threat and calmly explained to Marcos that she didn’t know what he was talking about and that she was reaching into her purse to get her ID. Her right hand was already buried inside the leather bag adjacent to her hip, but she definitely wasn’t grabbing any wallet. You were sure she already had ahold of her gun and knew that she would have chambered a bullet before stashing it, so it would just take a quick flick of her thumb to disengage the safety. Maca was a great shot, and the guard was a huge target; she couldn’t miss. And when you saw a look flit across her face that was both focused and absent at the same time, almost the same look you’d seen in her eyes on New Year’s when she offed the four would-be rapists, minus the fury, you were certain she was going to shoot the guard right through her Gucci bag.

But you were wrong.

Because this time the look vanished as quickly as it formed and was replaced with something you couldn’t decode; and instead of firing a single shot, she hesitated.

And that hesitation cost her the one and only opportunity she had to maintain control of the situation because a split-second later Marcos had his weapon drawn and was closing in on her, and this time his directive to Maca was clear: to drop the purse and put her hands up.

You watched in disbelief as she slowly set her bag onto the counter and started to raise her empty hands into the air. But before she could even fully comply, the asshole guard blew past the terrified salesman, knocking him to the floor and out of sight, and yanked Maca’s arms down behind her back, securing her wrists together with zip tie cuffs he cinched so aggressively that it made her wince. Then he holstered his gun and tilted his head down to talk into the portable radio clipped onto his shirt and you listened as he notified the main office that he currently had wanted robbery suspect Macarena Ferreiro detained at his location but the whereabouts of her known accomplice Zulema Zahir were presently unknown. He made a hard ‘h’ sound when he pronounced your last name and for some reason it pissed you off even more than it usually does and made you want to kick the dickhead right in the fucking teeth. You had no idea how he’d suddenly figured out who the two of you were, but you knew you were totally fucked. The security agency would notify the local police and in less than ten minutes half the force would be breathing down your necks.

God damn it, Rubia.

As the dispatcher verbally confirmed that she understood and would contact the proper authorities, Marcos reached past Maca and dumped the contents of her bag onto the counter; when her Glock tumbled out and landed on the hardwood with a solid clack, you could see actual rage in the guard’s eyes as he realized just how close he’d come to getting killed.

And if you’d had a shot, you would have taken it right then, regardless of how Maca felt about it, because this situation was rapidly spiraling out of control and you weren’t sure you could get out of it without putting a bullet in the asshole. But the guy was too far away and behind too much glass to be accurate. Not to mention he was right behind Maca, roughly dragging her towards the middle mahogany counter and away from her gun, not that she could grab it with her hands bound behind her back anyway.

Your mind was running through a million possible scenarios and every single one ended badly. Getting her out of this shit without either one of you going back to prison or getting your head blown off seemed next to impossible. You were mentally kicking yourself for not having stashed a high-powered rifle on the roof because sneaking up on the guard wasn’t an option thanks to the glass windows in the front and you couldn’t get through the deadbolted back door without firing a gunshot which would immediately give away your location.

But you were abruptly ripped away from your thoughts when you heard the guard’s voice in your ear asking Maca where the “zorra mora” was at. You weren’t worried about him seeing you from that distance and angle, but Maca never so much as glanced in your direction anyway. She just smiled innocently and asked, “Who?”

You could tell the guard was getting agitated. He was clenching his teeth and fists and fidgeting as he curtly replied, “Tu pareja, puta. Where is she?”

This time Maca laughed out loud and replied with a knowing grin, “I can assure you that I do NOT have a pareja.”

But Marcos clearly didn’t see the humor in her answer because he responded by placing a thick fingered hand around the base of her skull and slamming the side of her face down onto the countertop, hard. A mixture of blood and saliva dribbled out from the side of her mouth onto the glossy surface.

Mother. Fucker.

You had known the prick would be aggressive and unpredictable, but he was getting riled up even more easily than you expected. Goddamned steroids.

With her head still pressed into the countertop, the uniformed behemoth stuck his thumb and finger into Maca’s ear canal and dug her earpiece out. He waved it in front of her face and asked sarcastically, “’Who,’ huh?”

When the younger woman didn’t reply, Marcos looked out the front windows, held the small piece of black plastic up to his own mouth, and said right into the microphone, “Dónde estás, perra? Aren’t you even gonna help your amiga?” As he spoke, he leaned forward and gratuitously pressed his crotch against Maca’s ass as she was still bent over the countertop. You were positive was trying to goad you into reacting hastily and giving away your location; he probably assumed you had some sort of eyes on the place. And in response, your index finger was twitching against the trigger of your gun as you stared down at him from your makeshift watchtower across the street; it had been a long time since you’d wanted to kill someone so fucking badly.

“So is your dick so tiny because of all the steroids, or do you use steroids to compensate for having such a tiny dick?”

Joder, Rubia, are you trying to get yourself killed??

And as if he were answering the question you’d asked in your own mind, Marcos suddenly unholstered his Beretta and pressed the barrel against Maca’s temple, clearly infuriated by her brazen insult to his manhood. And when you saw him click off the safety and cock the hammer, it occurred to you there was a good chance you were about to find out what ‘till death do you part’ really felt like.

But if anything else happened after that you missed it, because you had already tossed your earpiece and binoculars into the camera bag and were off the rooftop running full speed toward the store with your gun in hand before your brain could stop you.

Your legs were moving as fast as they could, and your mind was reeling even faster. This should have been an easy job. You must have missed something because everything had been going perfectly and in less than a second it all went to Hell. You wondered if the cancer was already affecting your cognitive abilities. Maybe you wouldn’t be able to keep doing this much longer, if you even got out of this in the first place. But whatever had gone wrong, the guard knew you were here so you wouldn’t have the element of surprise on your side and that left only one option-

So rather than slowing down as you approached the entrance, you sped up, kicking your heels and plowing right into the double glass doors shoulder-first with a clamorous THWACK; and as you barreled through them at maximum velocity you had just a single thought in your head-

Improvise, adapt, overcome.

“Ya estoy aquí, Marquito!”

You shouted the words as you burst inside, spinning your body around in a half-circle and firing wildly and unremittingly into anything that wasn’t near the back of the store as you ran toward and dove behind the nearest display case for cover. It was neither as elegant nor as well-thought out as you would have preferred, but it did the trick, because it caught Marcos by surprise and he instantly released his hold on Maca to fire at you.

Shattered glass and debris flew everywhere as bullets from both your guns penetrated jewelry cases and furniture and art hanging on walls. The piercing sounds of gunshots inside the enclosed space was making your ears ring so badly that it was throwing off your equilibrium, and you thought to yourself that if you lived through this you were going to need fucking hearing aids.

Fortunately, though, the guard was as green as you suspected; you were pretty sure he’d already emptied his entire magazine and hadn’t even hit you once. Maca must have been counting his shots too because you crawled to the edge of the case and peeked around the corner just in time to catch her forehead making direct contact with the hijo de puta’s nose, headbutting him so hard you heard a sickening CRACK and saw blood pouring from his nostrils before he dropped to the floor behind the counter. But as satisfying as it was to hear the guard’s nose get smashed to bits, the sound was accompanied by an even better one: that of metal clacking and sliding against polished flooring.

Marcos had dropped his gun.

You scrambled to your feet and tried to get a visual on the guard, but you couldn’t see him or the runaway pistol behind the solid wood counter. But he must have caught Maca’s foot in his hands just then and pulled her down because she suddenly fell backwards and disappeared behind the counter too, followed by a loud, “Oomph!” as she presumably landed on her back. And with her hands still bound behind her and no way to brace herself, she’d be lucky if she hadn’t cracked her head open or at least dislocated a shoulder.

You darted toward the far end of the shop and by the time you had them in sight, Marcos was crawling on top of Maca, a hundred and twenty kilos pressing down on her small frame, blood from his nose dripping onto her face and clothes. Spittle and expletives were flying out of his mouth, “Perra!” and “Puta loca!” and his arm raised up and fell back down quickly as he backhanded her across the right cheekbone. It made a loud WHACK, and you knew it had to have hurt like Hell, but after the impact Maca just turned her head back toward the cretin bearing down on her midsection and started laughing right in his face, like she was privy to some inside joke he wasn’t included in. The infuriated guard responded by wrapping his fingers around her throat and pinning her in place as his free hand felt around the floor trying to locate his gun.

Maca should have looked terrified. Her face was already turning red from the impeded blood flow, the guy could easily crush her trachea, and she couldn’t even expel enough air to laugh anymore, but she just kept smiling and looking defiant as Marcos continued frantically feeling around for his weapon and screaming at her at the same time, enraged because he couldn’t understand what she thought was so fucking funny; but he never got the chance to find out, because you raised your pistol high up over the top of his head and brought it down against the back of his skull with as much force as you could and the fucker immediately went limp and slumped down right on top of the younger woman.

A memory of a hug and an iron and your own body crumpling to the floor flashed across your mind.

A whoosh of air came rushing out of Maca’s mouth as the deadweight of the guard collapsed on top of her, and her smile abruptly turned into a grimace.

You squatted beside her and helped push his body off hers and onto to the floor. The sound of coughing and gasping and pained breaths filled the room as she rolled to her side and tried to draw in oxygen through an irritated airway.

And yet, she somehow still managed to squeeze out, “Took you long enough.”

Un-fucking-believable, esta maldita mujer.

But you ignored the jab and helped her to feet, freeing her hands with a couple quick snips of the wire cutters you had in your bag of tools. Then you walked over, grabbed her gun off the other counter, and returned to her side to hand it to her. She was vigorously rubbing her wrists where the cuffs had just been, and you could see they’d left deep red welts in her skin.

“Estás bien?”

She spit out a mouthful of blood and nodded as she took the Glock from you, but you weren’t convinced. She was hunched over, hands on her knees, still trying to catch her breath, and given the amount of red liquid she’d just expectorated onto the floor, she must have sliced open the inside of her cheek with her teeth when her face hit the counter. She was bleeding from a split in her lower lip too and had a large red blotch on her face and thick pink lines with fingernail indentations in the sides of her neck.

Nonetheless, she slowly stood completely upright and walked over to snatch up the Gucci bag you’d left laying on the counter, then came back to start filling it with jewelry from inside the open case.

You hadn’t really expected that. She was pretty banged up and looked like she was hurting and you didn’t have much time before the cavalry arrived. But after everything that had just happened you supposed she didn’t want to leave empty-handed.

Neither did you, really.

So as she stuffed shiny bracelets and necklaces and rings into her bag, you went to work on securing the area. You glanced around and saw that Antonio had crawled off into the back left corner where he was curled into a ball, cowering and covering his eyes, and returned your attention to Marcos instead, who was still lying motionless, flat on his stomach. You scanned the floor around him for his Beretta, but it was nowhere to be seen and you wondered if it had somehow ended up underneath his massive body. You held your own gun in one hand and reached underneath him with the other to check for the missing piece, but when you didn’t find it, you turned away to check if it had slid into the open space between the two counters.

That’s when you felt a blinding flash of pain radiate across your entire right side, knocking the wind out of you and making your eyes water.

You gasped, automatically grabbed ahold of the area, and whipped back around to find Marcos had regained consciousness, flipped over, and landed a solid punch to your ribs. You wondered what kind of hard ass skull the fucker had because you were sure you had hit him with enough force to knock out a bull. But even though he had managed to push himself up onto his knees, you could see he was wobbly and moving slowly and that his eyes were glossy and unfocused.

You leveled your gun pointblank at his forehead and pulled the trigger.

Click.

Son of a bitch.

Apparently, you had emptied your own magazine in the midst of the melee too.

Marcos lunged for your neck, but you quickly leaned back and his fingers caught the collar of your shirt instead. He was trying to drag you down to the ground, but you were pulling against him; and it was at that precise moment Maca stepped between the two of you and clocked the shithead right in the face with her own gun. He went down again, this time slumped against the wall, and you went down too when the material he’d had hold of slipped from his fingers and you went flying backwards and ultimately fell flat on your ass.

You were way past done with this fucking ape.

You stood up, grabbed a fresh mag from inside your jacket pocket, slapped it in, and racked the slide, closing back in on him in seconds.

But as you raised the barrel to his head, Maca grabbed your arm from behind and gasped out, “Zulema, DON’T!”

She was standing directly behind you and had clenched the fingers of her right hand around your right arm, trying to force you to lower it. Her mouth was adjacent to your ear and her voice wasn’t particularly loud, but it was firm and stern and tinged with a hint of desperation you weren’t sure what to make of.

You couldn’t believe that after all of that she still didn’t want you to shoot the bastard. And you really couldn’t believe you hadn’t done it yet because every ounce of your being was telling you to pull the trigger regardless of how pissed she would be; she should have shot him to begin with.

And anyway, who the Hell did she think she was giving you a god-damned order? The two of you had agreed to be equals and you did your best to honor that, but you weren’t her fucking subordinate.

“Zulema…por favor. Déjalo.”

This time it was softer, a request more than a demand and she loosened her grip on your arm, sliding her hand back to rest it lightly on your elbow. It was like she had suddenly remembered who she was talking to and that trying to force you to do anything you didn’t want to do was a useless endeavor.

And as livid as you were with her, there was something about her proximity and the tone of her voice and her touch that quelled the rage inside of you, just a tiny bit. It made you picture tight knots being loosened and unwound and you could feel your resolve faltering.

You turned, shooting an angry glance at her over your shoulder.

She was looking at you imploringly.

“Porfa. We have to go. I can hear sirens.”

You could hear them too. They were distant but there were a lot of them.

You turned your head back to the imbécil lying slumped against the wall and sighed. You supposed it was better to not give the cops a reason like murder to hunt you down even more ferociously than they were already going to.

Maca released a shaky breath and let her hand drop away from your arm entirely before starting towards the door, like she could tell that you had made up your mind. And apparently you had, because you lowered your gun and slipped it under your belt.

But that didn’t stop you from reaching down and snagging a pair of zip tie cuffs from Marcos’ cargo pants pocket, slipping them around his wrists, and pulling them as taut as you could, even putting your foot against the wall for leverage to make sure they were as tight as possible. His hands swelled up and turned bright pink almost instantly.

In addition to the traumatic brain injuries he had sustained, maybe the asshole would lose a couple of digits too. Or at least you hoped so.

You turned away from the concussed guard to head towards the front of the store, but much to your chagrin that’s when you finally figured out what had happened to his Beretta. Apparently, it had slid far enough across the floor toward Antonio for him to pick it up without anyone noticing, and the salesman had it pointed right at you.

He was sitting with his back against the far left wall, arms held straight out in front of him, shaking hands wrapped around the grip of the pistol. His finger was on the trigger.

You really did not have time for this and knew you should just draw your gun from your belt and put two in his head.

“Zulema, vamos!” Maca called urgently from somewhere near the front door. She obviously couldn’t see the man behind the counter pointing a gun at you.

You didn’t answer her. You just kept your eyes trained on Antonio and kept your voice even and calm as you slowly stepped toward him.

“A ver, tío, I don’t want to hurt anyone else today. To be honest, it’s been a shitty morning and I’m tired and I just want to get back to my place and take a fucking nap. I couldn’t sleep last night. Headache, you know?”

You motioned toward your skull as if to emphasize your point and kept slowing walking toward him.

“And anyway, Antonio, it’s Antonio, right? That gun doesn’t even have any bulle-“

POP! POP!

Two rounds whizzed right past your head, missing you by millimeters.

Fucking Hell.

You turned around and saw two large caliber holes in the dry wall behind you and then exchanged a look with Maca who was frozen in place with wide eyes and a dropped jaw.

OK, so apparently the guard hadn’t emptied his gun entirely. Maybe you had miscounted or maybe he had purchased an extended mag. It didn’t really matter because it was definitely empty now, which you only knew because Antonio was still desperately pulling the trigger to no avail.

You started towards him again, this time closing the distance quickly and as you approached you saw beads of sweat had broken out across his brow and his cheeks had gone pale, all the blood having drained from his face. You figured he was probably in shock.

And as you squatted down in front of him and reached out and pried the gun out of his fingers, he looked utterly petrified.

“Tienes cojones, tío,” you commented, nodding approvingly.

“A ver, next time hold it like this, así.” You pressed the pistol back into his hands, fashioning his palms and fingers into the two-handed grip you preferred. “Then line up your target with one eye, solamente uno, using the sights, aquí y aquí,” you said plainly, pointing out the front and rear gunsights as you spoke. “Vale?”

Antonio just nodded slightly like he was too stunned to form any actual words. So, you took the gun back and slid it into your tool bag, then gave him a couple of light, playful slaps to the face and winked at him before turning to head out.

As you spun around, you almost smacked into Maca, who had apparently quietly rejoined you behind the counter and had been watching your interaction with the terrified man on the floor. Her face was almost as pale as his, but the sirens were a lot louder by then, so you didn’t have time to give it much thought.

Nor did you have time to stop to consider why you weren’t even a little annoyed at the salesman who nearly blew your head clean off your shoulders, but you still wanted to fill the unconscious security guard full of holes and watch him bleed out.

You and Maca quickly made your way to the front door and exited the shop together. Two cop cars were pulling around the corner just as you stepped out, so she tossed you the keys as you ran for the car. You were the better driver and whenever shit got real the two of you didn’t argue about who got to do what; and it had never been more real than it was right then.

The cops spotted you, but you peeled out and away from the curb before they could block you in. They gave you a pretty good chase through the streets in town, but thankfully the sedan was compact enough that you were able to squeeze past an impromptu roadblock by driving up onto the sidewalk and powerful enough to outrun the cruisers on your tail and ultimately elude them. But the car was compromised, so instead of driving halfway back to the RV before ditching it as originally planned, you needed to get rid of it before the police set up real roadblocks or sent up a helicopter. And that was going to mean a very long walk home.

So much for a smooth getaway.

So, instead of driving toward the highway, you headed in the opposite direction toward the nearby hills. Maca didn’t question the change or press for details. She would have known you’d have a backup plan in case something went wrong; you always did. She just left you to the driving while she turned her attention to the backseat, wedging the upper half of her body between the two front seats to reach into the rear. You knew from experience she was preparing a bag of supplies for each of you to carry once you were on foot, most likely a backpack for herself, in which she would stash the jewelry, and a sling bag that draped across the chest for you, because hands-free is imperative when you’re being chased down by police.

You felt her tug on the strap of the camera bag, which was still hanging around your neck, so you leaned forward and lifted your arm off the wheel so she could slip it up and over your head while you kept your eyes on the road. She would pack it alongside the extra ammo, cash, snacks, bottles of water, and whatever other miscellaneous items she thought might be helpful. She always threw spare supplies into the backseat before a job so she could pack items as needed depending on how things had gone and how difficult the trek back to the caravan might be. And when things went sideways, you were usually grateful for her scout-level of preparedness; but today it was her fault everything had gotten so damned screwed up and you were too angry with her to even fathom appreciating it. And none of it would even matter anyway unless you could evade the police long enough to get the two of you to a safe location to dump the car.

Your heart was racing, and you were sweating. You were driving way faster than was safe, flooring it on the straightaways and taking turns at dangerous speeds, forcing Maca to grab onto the headrests just to stay upright and even unintentionally flinging her into the passenger window once. She didn’t complain though, just continued her work in the backseat; she knew you needed to put some distance between you and the cops right away if you had any chance of getting out of this.

She finished with the bags quickly though and then righted herself in the front seat, burner phone in hand, undoubtedly opening the police scanner app she’d downloaded a few nights ago that she had been wanting to try. She turned up the volume and set the phone in the center console and you could hear what sounded like radio chatter, but the reception was poor and you couldn’t make out anything useful. So Maca lowered the volume but left the phone on and kept watch for cop cars as you sped towards your alternate destination in the sparsely populated hills bordering the town.

You didn’t slow down until you reached the dirt road you were looking for a few minutes later, and even then only because the tires were protesting the high speeds as pavement gave way to dirt and gravel.

After checking the mirrors again, you turned around to look behind you, but there were no other vehicles in sight. So, you tapped the button to roll down the driver’s side window automatically then craned your neck out to check the sky above. There was no sign of a helicopter and the only sirens you could hear sounded far away.

Maca was looking and listening too, her gun in hand, not that she was apparently willing to use it, you thought to yourself derisively.

“I don’t see anyone. I think you lost ‘em.”

You rolled the window back up but didn’t otherwise reply.

“Nice driving,” she added earnestly.

You just kept silent and didn’t acknowledge her. You were biting your tongue, knowing full well the second you opened your mouth you weren’t going to be able to keep from laying into her.

“Gracias Maca, for stealing such an awesome fucking car with a turbo engine so we could outrun those putos cerdos,” she said facetiously, flashing you a toothy grin when you looked over at her.

You knew she was joking and that made you want to stomp on the gas pedal and yank the wheel to send her flying into the window again. You weren’t sure whether you were more ticked off that she almost got you both killed or that she was being so damned flippant about it.

“Qué cojones, Rubia?”

You managed to keep your voice measured despite your anger.

“Perdón?”

She sounded irritated. She had a lot of goddammed nerve.

“Why the fuck didn’t you shoot?”

“A quién?” she asked, feigning ignorance, like she didn’t know exactly who you were talking about or why you were so upset. She was really pissing you off. You kept your eyes fixed on the road and your hands on the wheel; you were pretty sure if you didn’t, you were going to punch her right in the face.

“You had the shot, I saw it.”

“I see, so you wanted me to shoot a man for doing his job. Es eso?”

The argument over how far to push it during a heist was nothing new. You’d never been particularly concerned about collateral damage, but Maca insisted you try to keep “innocent” people from getting hurt. Innocent. For fuck’s sake. You always rolled your eyes at that. But the pretense of it all is what aggravated you the most, because you knew exactly who she was, the things she had done, and what she was capable of.

“His job is to send you back to prison, Rubia. Or maybe that’s what you wanted. Es eso?” you asked mockingly, throwing her own words back in her face.

When she didn’t respond, you turned your head toward her and saw she was staring out the windshield. She looked a little lost, like she didn’t quite know how to answer you and it crossed your mind that maybe on some level she did want to be punished. Your thoughts immediately flashed back to New Year’s, when the two of you were burying bodies in the woods while you should have been drinking and watching fireworks, and to the look on Maca’s face when she’d admitted she felt nothing.

A sick feeling was growing in your stomach.

“You should have shot him,” you said definitively as you refocused your attention on the road ahead.

“No soy tú, Zulema. I’m not you.”

The way she said it, contemptuously and overflowing with disdain, you knew she meant it to hurt.

“Vale, pues tell that to the four assholes you wasted on New Year’s.”

You meant it to hurt too.

“Jódete, Zulema. I did what I had to do,” she snapped back, her voice growing louder and chocked-full of frustration.

“Bueno, so why didn’t you do it this time?” you retorted, practically snarling the question at her. You were infuriated and letting it show in a way you seldom did.

Your inquiry was met with silence.

You kind of felt like you didn’t want to know the answer anyway.

Maca had shot plenty of people but had never actually killed anyone on a job before. It hadn’t been necessary. But technically, it hadn’t been necessary on New Year’s either; an argument could be made that the first two were in self-defense, but the last two-

She killed them because she wanted to.

You glanced over at her again and found she had returned her gaze to the front, absently staring out past the glass. She looked tired, almost defeated in a way.

For some reason that wasn’t enough for you, and you kept pushing.

“Anyway, if it had been me, we wouldn’t be in this fucking mess.”

“No?” she asked indignantly. “Aren’t you the one who was supposed to vet this place? What the fuck happened?”

The fact that you didn’t have an answer to that was making your stomach churn. You pressed your fist into the top of your abdomen as if it would somehow force away the acid building up there and alleviate the burning pain.

“All the preparation in the world won’t matter if you do stupid shit, Rubia. I told you that asshole would be volatile and yet somehow you thought it would be a great idea to antagonize the ogre-on-steroids. I wasn’t even off the god-damned roof yet!” you snapped.

You weren’t sure why you added that last part, except that you kept envisioning a gun firing and Maca’s body slumping over onto the counter and you being too far away to do anything about it.

You could feel her eyes on you, but you just stared straight ahead so you couldn’t see the expression on her face.

“I knew you’d figure something out,” she eventually said, softly.

“Eres gilipollas o qué? How many times do you have to learn this lesson, Rubia? No one’s coming to your rescue, and no one in this world is ever going to save you but you.”

“Pues, YOU did,” she replied smugly without skipping a beat.

You looked over at her and she just held your gaze without faltering like she was challenging you to disagree. But you couldn’t. It wasn’t even the first time you’d gotten her out of a tricky situation, and she’d done the same for you, but the extent to which you were willing to help each other wasn’t something the two of you had ever formally discussed. Nor had the circumstances ever been so dire and outcome so uncertain as they’d been today. And she had definitely never placed you in a position where you’d had to put your freedom on the line like that before.

You still weren’t even out of danger yet.

You looked away from her and countered bitingly, “Yeah, and had I decided not to, you would have been totally jodida.”

She snorted and then leaned forward to insert herself back into your field of vision like she wanted to be sure you didn’t a miss a word of what she was about to say.

“Zulema, I know where you live, what you drive, where you keep at least some of your money, your routine, your contacts, and even a surprising amount of information about your future plans. We both know there is no way in Hell you would let me fall into the hands of the Civil Guard. Zulema Zahir always has and always will act in her own self-interest. Siempre.”

She wasn’t wrong so you weren’t sure why that stung so damned much.

“Bueno,” you replied, pausing to consider your words carefully before stating coldly, “I could have just shot you instead.”

You both knew you weren’t lying. It would have been relatively easy to fire indiscriminately into the store until no one inside was moving, then take the jewelry and drive away alone. And it wasn’t outside the scope of actions you might have considered reasonable given Maca’s colossal fuck up today. Except you weren’t exactly sure how much truth was behind your words either. You hadn’t been sure of that for a long time.

She smiled humorlessly and nodded, and you thought you saw something like hurt flash in her eyes before she turned away to stare out the passenger window, but it might have been anger. Sometimes you couldn’t tell with her.

You just kept driving. The road had narrowed to a single lane and gotten bumpier, and the tires kept losing traction and slipping on the steeper grades.

So much for your deluxe automobile, Rubia, you thought but didn’t say out loud.

“How long can we keep this up?”

She said it so quietly that you weren’t even sure she’d meant for you to hear it.

At first you thought she was asking how long your argument was going to drag on. When she kept her eyes trained on the side of the road and wouldn’t make eye contact though, it struck you that she was talking about the bigger picture. About the two of you and this thing you had been doing together all this time, whatever it was exactly.

She was thinking about ending it.

It wasn’t completely unexpected. She had made clear at the beginning that this was temporary for her, but it was the first time in almost two years she’d said anything that remotely suggested she might actually want to leave.

And maybe enough time had passed that you’d managed to convince yourself that she might want to stay for good.

She was silent for a long stretch after that and you were too, the only sounds coming from the hum of the engine and the rumbling of tires on dirt.

“A ver,” you eventually proclaimed, “no more going in separately. Even if we have to drive across this whole fucking country to find a place that hasn’t heard of us, from now on we go in together. Juntas.”

You said it like it was some sort of solution. As if the only thing bothering her was the fact that your faces were plastered on wanted posters all over the country and that the jobs were getting riskier and harder. While she probably was concerned about all of that, and with good reason, you knew damned well it wasn’t the real issue.

She didn’t respond but you sensed she was staring at you.

And after a few beats, she leaned over and reached her hand into the inner pocket of your jacket, taking out the pack of Ducados and Bic lighter she knew would be there. She removed a single cigarrillo and lit it before returning everything to its place. She didn’t smoke often, usually just when she was drinking or stressed, and even then, she mostly just took a few puffs off of yours.

She sucked in a long, deep drag and blew the smoke out the side of her mouth slowly before handing the burning cigarette over to you. You took it from her fingers and inhaled a drag of your own feeling a wave of relaxation roll through your body as the nicotine flooded your bloodstream and worked its magic on your neurotransmitters.

You cracked the windows to let the smoke out and glanced at Maca as she leaned back against the headrest and closed her eyes.

“I put some extra bottled water in your bag.”

You didn’t look back over at her again, but after a few seconds you replied, “Gracias.”

That was how it always was with the two of you. Straddling the fine line between war and peace, forever on the verge of some sort of cataclysmic event but then drawing back at the last moment. Your battles could be fierce but they often ended as quickly as they began because you both recognized that if they ever turned into an all-out war, neither one of you would make it out unscathed, and maybe not even alive. So, despite your anger and frustration you swallowed things and you knew she did too because it was the only way to move on. But all of it was still there, smoldering under the surface, just waiting to ignite.

On New Year’s she had said this entire thing was just a marriage of convenience that would blow up sooner or later, and it hadn’t been what you’d wanted to hear but you’d known she was probably right. And you couldn’t help but think that the fuse leading to that inevitable explosion had somehow gotten lit today.

As you crested the final peak at the top of the foothills, you suddenly heard crackling and tinny sounding voices emanating from between the two of you coming from scanner app on Maca’s cell. You had finally reached a high enough elevation and wide enough clearing to get a strong signal. You exchanged a glance with her and she reached over, snatched up the phone, and quickly raised the volume.

From the radio transmissions, you learned the police had decided against a helicopter, but had already set up four vehicle checkpoints, one in each direction, and were considering more. Marcos, the security guard, was stable and conscious and being transported to a local hospital, where he was expected to make a full recovery, unfortunately. They were already hailing the prick as a hero. It turned out he had only recognized Maca though, because his employer happened to send out an electronic bulletin that morning about a string of robberies throughout España replete with descriptions and photographs of the two female suspects. You guessed he must have opened his email as he headed to the bathroom, so the entire mess was nothing more than really bad fucking timing. Putos smart phones.

Well, at least you knew the scanner app was worthwhile and you could use it again for future jobs. If there were any more, that is.

You took one last drag from the cigarette and tossed the butt out the window as you slowly rolled toward a set of locked chain link metal gates. Behind them were row after row of cars and trucks and rusting metal frames as far as the eye could see.

You’d found the junkyard a month ago and locked it away in the back of your mind as a viable place to ditch the getaway vehicle if things went awry with Plan A. It was in an isolated location that you could get to reasonably quickly, was adjacent to a wooded area that would give you cover as you left the scene, and provided easy access to the backroads and trails you planned on following back to the RV. It was also only open three days a week, and today wasn’t one of those days. Moreover, it had very little security, just one padlocked gate which was no match for a moving car.

You glanced over at Maca, who knew exactly what you were thinking and braced herself with one hand on the door and the other on the glove box, and then you floored it. There was a very loud, painfully discordant, screeching noise akin to nails on a chalk board as the car tore through the chain links. Paint chips and little bits of fencing shot out like shrapnel in every direction, but the gates gave way easily and you were inside in seconds.

You drove towards the rear of the yard and parked among a cluster of other vehicles. As soon as you cut the engine, Maca opened her door and started to step out, but she was greeted with low-pitched snarling that would impress Cujo and immediately reeled back in her seat, yanking the door shut behind her.

Right. There was also a junkyard dog. Wasn’t there always?

The perro was a mixed breed, large with unkept, greasy brown fur and sharp-looking canines protruding from beneath curled lips. His hackles were up as he circled the car cautiously. Maca shot you a dirty look, undoubtedly irritated that you hadn’t bothered to warn her, but you didn’t feel the need to explain yourself. You just reached into the back and snagged the bag she had packed for you earlier, then pulled your gun from your belt and grasped the doorhandle. She immediately grabbed your arm and shot you a worried look.

“Qué haces?”

“Tranquila, Rubiecita,” you replied, your tone deliberately condescending.

You opened the car door and stepped out into the cool air. The dog immediately came at you, growling and barking with slobber pouring out the sides of his mouth, but he didn’t lunge. Instead, he just eyed you warily as you slipped the gun back into your belt and calmly reached inside your bag to pull out the small container of beef jerky you knew would be there. Ever since you gave her shit for packing you nothing but “rabbit food” during one of your first heists, Maca had started omitting veggies and carbs and anything of any long-lasting sustenance from your bag altogether, packing nothing but jerky instead. And even though it wasn’t the most useful food to have on long hikes through rough terrain while trying to evade police, it had become a sort of running joke between the two of you and she never failed to include it.

You peeled back the plastic lid then tossed the dog a piece that he caught in his jaws. He wolfed it down in a single bite then sat and looked at you expectantly, tail wagging and tongue out, waiting for more.

You turned to look at Maca, who appeared relieved and annoyed at the same time, and you probably got more satisfaction than you should have from having made her think that you might actually shoot the dog. But it felt good to get even a little payback for all the crap she had put you through today. And really, what kind of a monster did she take you for anyway?

You walked over to the mutt and scratched him behind the ears, which you’d learned a month ago was his favorite spot to be pet, before you handed over the rest of your jerky. Then you reached into the camera bag and pulled out a bone-shaped chew toy, an expensive meat-flavored one you had picked up a few days ago. You handed it to him and he snatched it with his teeth then immediately ran off, presumably to gnaw on it in private or bury it for later.

As soon as he rounded the corner, Maca was out of the car exchanging her red wig and dress for dark blue jeans, a light blue sweater, and a gray windbreaker. Once she slid her backpack on, and a pair of reading glasses she’d gotten from who knows where, she looked just like a college student, which you supposed was the point.

You followed suit, stripping off your own wig and outfit and changing into an all-black get-up comprised of jeans, a hoodie, and a zip-up nylon jacket that covered the bag slung around your chest.

The plan was to walk along separate, parallel routes, Maca taking the dirt road that ran adjacent to the town and you following along the river, before meeting back at the camper.

Once you’d grabbed everything you needed from the car, the two of you doused it with gasoline from jugs stashed in the trunk. Maca suggested you do the same with a few random vehicles in the lot, which was smart; it would take the firefighters longer to extinguish the blazes and therefore take the police longer to realize that one of the incinerated vehicles was the car used in the robbery. With any luck, the two of you would be halfway back to the RV by then.

You pulled out a spare lighter from your bag, flicked it, then tossed it toward the sedan, stepping back to a safe distance as heat and light flared up. The trail of gasoline you’d poured between the various automobiles caught fire too and one by one, each of the vehicles lit up. Maca waited until the fire reached the last car then nodded at you and turned and left, but you stayed behind for a few more minutes to witness it all burn and to watch her walk away through the flames.

It made you think of Sole’s makeshift funeral from all those years ago. Her body lying peacefully atop the burning pyre, the entire prison in attendance to pay their respects and say goodbye. You were sitting by yourself behind the group and Maca was up front with everyone else but turned to look back at you.

You’d often wondered what she was thinking at that moment but had never asked her.

She didn’t turn around to look this time, though, and once she disappeared from sight you just headed toward the riverbank, thinking about Sole and Sandoval, and about your best friend who had dispatched one so lovingly and finished off the other so brutally, both in the same night

/////

You’ve seen Saray a few times since you’ve been out.

She’s married now and lives with her wife and daughter in an average-sized city far away from both Cruz del Sur and Cruz del Norte. The neighborhood is questionable at best, their rental home is too small for the three of them, and Saray has to work shitty hours at a nursing home just to barely make ends meet, but she is free and in love and has a family who accepts her exactly how she is.

You have never seen her so fucking happy, and you think if any of you hijas de puta deserves that kind of happiness, it is her.

Maca came with you once, on one of your visits. She and Saray had gotten pretty close after they finally got past all that bullshit drama with Rizos. The three of you spent half a day sitting around a small metal table on the patio drinking beer, smoking, catching up, reminiscing, and laughing like old friends at a puta reunión.

And when it was eventually time to go, Maca disappeared inside to use the bathroom before the long ride home and you lit another cigarette, trying to delay the inevitable you supposed.

It was so unlike you to want something like that to last, but you did.

You gazed out past the courtyard toward the street and took a long drag. You could feel Saray staring at the side of your head like she wanted to say something.

But she didn’t.

So, you waited. But when she was still silent by the time you got to your third drag you couldn’t take it any longer.

“Qué?” you asked brusquely, blowing out the lungful of smoke and glancing toward her to catch her eyes.

She shook her head and shrugged her shoulders and replied, “Nada. No importa,” but the expression on her face belied her words.

You had a bad feeling you weren’t going to like where it was going, but you asked again anyway.

“Gitana, qué??“

There was another pause and then, “Puesss…y la rubia?”

Yeah, you really didn’t like where it was going. You returned your gaze to the sidewalk beyond the yard and focused on a young couple walking by holding hands.

“What about her?”

You asked the question even though you were already sure what she was getting at. You and Maca had history and Saray had been around for a lot of it. She knew there was no sane reason for the two of you to be working together, let alone living together.

You tapped your cigarette and watched the ashes float to the pavement below.

“A ver. You know I like Maca, but how many times did the two of you fuck each other over in the past? And you thought it would be a great idea to partner up?”

You looked straight ahead at the cars going by as you took another drag and exhaled through your nose.

“She’s a good thief.”

It wasn’t a lie.

“Mhm.”

Saray sounded unconvinced and you didn’t need to look at her to know she was smirking.

“Apparently de la puta madre since you’ve been doing this shit together for months now.”

She was waiting for you to say something, but you just scrunched up your nose and ran your tongue along the front of your of teeth and studied the cigarette burning in between your fingers.

“No me jodas, Zule. I know you.”

You drew in a new mouthful of smoke and puffed out a circular ring from your lips, watching it contort and change shapes as it drifted up into the sky, hoping that Saray would drop the subject; and when she was quiet for a few moments, you thought she had.

You were wrong.

“You like her.”

She said it gently but matter-of-factly, as if there were no room for doubt.

You picked up your near-empty bottle of beer from the table and swallowed the remnants that had settled at the bottom. They were warm and bitter and unpleasant.

Your head was starting to hurt.

You pinched the sinuses at the top of your nose and finally turned to face your former cellmate, who looked amused and a little too sure of herself. You rolled your eyes and sighed.

“Basta ya. Enough.”

“Vale, vale,” she said, putting her hands up in mock surrender, knowing full well you weren’t going to contribute anything pertinent to the conversation. But she seemingly couldn’t resist adding, “Pero sí, te gusta ella.”

There was a smile on her face as she nodded her head up and down in agreement with herself.

You shook your own head and thought the worst was over, but then her smile faded and her voice turned serious as she asked, “Pero, Zulema…what are you gonna to do when she wants to leave?”

All the playfulness had disappeared from her face, replaced by something that looked a lot like concern. Or maybe even pity.

Either way, you were glad the blonde returned just then so you didn’t have to answer the question.

You didn’t say more than two words to Maca on the drive home that day. You just pulled your hood up over your head and stared at anything other than her. And even though she didn’t understand the reason for your sudden shift in demeanor, she was used to your mood swings and didn’t remark on it. She just drove the whole way back keeping silent while you looked out the window at factories, pastures, and rolling hills, not really seeing any of it, angry at her for no good reason and wishing for something you couldn’t quite put your finger on.

/////

When you finally make it to the path that leads to the RV, you’re about ready to collapse. You’re out of breath, every muscle in your body hurts, and the few calories that apple provided this morning are long gone. Why had you given that dog all your damned jerky?

You hadn’t expected your trek along the riverbank to be quite so grueling. But a surprisingly expansive police presence had forced you to stick to the more desolate, wooded areas for most of the journey and while the foliage offered some cover from law enforcement, it provided little protection from the storm that eventually hit. Then, because God apparently does have a sense of humor, the batteries in the flashlight Maca packed for you failed as soon as it got dark, and you tore the front of your hoodie and scraped up your chest pretty nicely when you slipped in the mud and caught yourself on a sharp, protruding tree branch.

So when you happened across an abandoned barn not long afterwards, but still hours away from the caravan, you had broken in and considered staying the night there. And the temptation to dry off, get warm, and go to sleep had been almost too strong to resist. You knew there was a chance of being found if you stayed in one place too long, though. And for some reason you kept thinking about that question Saray had asked you all those months ago, the one you left unanswered; and it, combined with what Maca had said earlier, were gnawing at the back of your mind relentlessly.

So in the end, you’d just smoked a few cigarettes, rested awhile, and then moved on.

And now, you don’t think you’ve ever been happier to see the RV. But when it comes into full view as you round the corner, you stop dead in your tracks, because it’s completely dark, not a single light is on, and you suddenly have a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach.

She should have been back by now. She’s younger and in better shape and had the easier route. And you swear if she went and got herself caught or shot…

Or, your mind adds without your consent, if she just decided to never come back at all-

“I told you to wear the raincoat."

Puta madre!

You actually jump at the sound of her voice coming from just over your shoulder, the pouring rain having covered up the sound of her approaching footsteps.

As she walks past you, she turns her head and gives you a once over, taking in just how drenched you are with a little too much pleasure showing in her eyes. She’s swinging the backpack in one hand and not even trying to suppress the wry smile on her lips, looking dry and incredibly fucking smug under the protection of her hooded rubber jacket and boots.

Any relief you may have initially felt is quickly being overshadowed by irritation, made even worse by the fact that you can’t even argue with her. She’d brought a complete set of rain gear for you too and had stashed it alongside hers in the backseat of the getaway car. But when she’d mentioned it, instead of showing any semblance of gratitude, you had burned it to bits along with your former outfit and the car itself. You were being obstinate because what should have been a good day had turned to total shit thanks to her; and since she hadn’t even let you shoot that fucking guard in the head, you were still itching to take it all out on someone, or apparently on a pile of protective rubber clothing.

As you start up towards the trailer again though, following behind the blonde, it’s hard to stay mad because you’re honestly ecstatic to be done with this fucking day. You can already imagine yourself drying off, changing into one of your oversized hoodies, and curling up on your bed under your comforter before passing out for the night.

But then you see it.

Your mattress.

The one that doubles as a bench cushion and should be lying at the far end of the RV just under the back windows, is currently lying outside in a pile of mud and sand about ten meters away from the awning.

Your feet stop dead in their tracks for the second time in as many minutes.

It’s not just the cushion either, you quickly ascertain, but also your sheets and blankets, special-order Ramones’ comforter, and even your damned pillow, which with all the water it has taken on looks more like a gigantic, drowned naked mole rat.

It takes a few seconds for your brain to process the waterlogged muddy scene and make sense of what you’re seeing, but once it does you realize exactly what this is and why. This is payback for you not having fixed the ladder that leads to the caravan’s roof that you had promised to repair ages ago. Which ok, may have inadvertently resulted in a minor accident and a fairly deep gash over Maca’s left eyebrow when the ladder you had propped up slipped out from under her and she cracked her face against it as she fell to the ground. You had stitched up the wound for her though, and the entire thing happened weeks ago, but apparently she wasn’t over it and figured dragging all your bedding outside while you were away last night was somehow suitable retribution. You could almost picture the cabrona smirking as she dropped armfuls of it all unceremoniously into the dirt.

These petty acts of vengeance are nothing new for the two of you. It wasn’t all that long ago you used her brand-new flat screen TV for target practice after she took your last cigarette without replacing it. And before that she burned your favorite hoodie to a crisp on the grill when she discovered you had thrown out all her tofu. Then, of course, there was that time you dumped out the contents of all her lotions and hair care products and filled the empty bottles up with mojo rojo because you were tired of them taking up so much counterspace and who needs that many damned bottles of anything, anyway?

So, this shit with your bedding isn’t unprecedented, but after a sleepless night and highly unpleasant, day-long hike, you are not in the fucking mood.

You turn your head away from the soggy carnage to see that Maca has already made it to the RV. For her sake, she is really fucking lucky that she isn’t within reach right now.

She grasps the doorknob but before turning it she pauses on the step, looks over her shoulder at you, and unapologetically offers, “In my defense, there was only a fifty percent chance of rain today.” And with that, she turns back around and disappears inside, leaving you to stare at the door that she pulls shut behind her.

Puta. Rubia.

You briefly consider emptying your gun into the side of the camper, bullets hitting whatever, or whomever, happens to be in their path. But ultimately that feels like overkill, even for you. So instead, you close your eyes and take several slow, steady breaths, letting the rain continue to pelt the side of your face as you contemplate a different approach.

You could postpone retaliation for a day when you’re warmer and drier and haven’t been awake for nearly forty hours straight. But going to a motel would be too risky in the middle of an active police search and it’s way too cold and wet to sleep outside, so the car would be your best option. You keep a spare set of keys hidden in a crevice of a nearby boulder because you never know when you might need to make a quick getaway, or when an hija de puta will leave all your bedding out in the rain, apparently. You could sleep in the back, then drive to town tomorrow morning and buy a new bed set and while you’re out maybe even procure a poisonous little friend to surreptitiously plant in between your roommate’s sheets at the soonest opportunity. You ultimately dismiss that idea though. While the thought of letting Maca unknowingly roll over onto a scorpion brings you immense joy, it doesn’t change the fact that staying in the car tonight feels too much like submission, and you don’t submit to anyone, especially not to her.

You trudge over to the saturated mound of material and fabric in the hopes that perhaps there’s something you can still make use of but quickly deduce there’s no point in trying to salvage any of it. So, you just wipe your eyes with the back of your hand pushing aside the water and wet hair that has gathered there, then head toward the RV. You aren’t even sure what you’re going to do when you get inside and it’s not like you to jump into something without a clear strategy in mind, but plan or not, you are way too fucking angry to let her get away with this.

/////

You honestly don’t know how you’ve made it this long without killing each other. Sometimes you’re not even sure what you were thinking when you walked into that laundromat almost two years ago and asked her to be partners. Bueno, not partners exactly, more like business associates with equal standing. And she had agreed, which only proved she was as totalmente loca as you because if any two people had reason to avoid one another for the rest of their existences, it was the two of you. But here you are, almost two trips around the sun later, and you aren’t just working together but living together as well, just you and her, in a tiny travel trailer parked beside a shallow lake on the edge of town.

And the truth is, you are better at all of it than you thought you would be. But then again, you didn’t survive half a lifetime in la cárcel without learning which battles to pick and which to let go. Granted, maybe you’ve compromised a bit more than usual these past couple of years. But you recognize just how fragile this relationship between you and Maca is and have always known she might just walk away if you ever pushed too much; and you never had any intention of letting that happen. So from the very start you’d split everything right down the middle and shared power and command evenly, whether it pertained to jobs or your living arrangements. Money, responsibilities, decision-making…everything has always been fifty-fifty. And in your opinion, that was a Hell of a concession for you to have made just to keep her on board, but she hadn’t given you a whole lot of choice; you were equals or you were nothing. So you had acquiesced, figuring that the trade-off would be worth it, and for the most part it has been.

Because the fact is you make a good team. Maca is smart, gutsy, resilient, and a Hell of a lot tougher than she looks. You are shrewd, strategic, unflappable, and willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done. And together, you make a lot of pasta. Hell, the first year you were making so much that after a while you weren’t quite sure what to spend your part on; you were never really doing it for the money anyway. Nonetheless, you reached out to an old contact and now you have an untraceable offshore account under a fake name earning a respectable amount of interest. Along with the counterfeit passports you secured ages ago, it would be enough to facilitate a quick escape out of the country and a fresh start somewhere else, if needed, for both of you.

You suppose it doesn’t matter much anymore though, since you’re living on borrowed time and Maca is thinking about getting out of the game altogether. You never even mentioned it to her anyway, and for all you know she already has a safety net of her own. You aren’t sure what she does with her extra money; she doesn’t offer that information and you don’t ask. Because while there is mutual respect between the two of you, you still don’t trust one another. Moreover, the characteristics that make Maca a good accomplice also make her a formidable adversary. Even though your relationship isn’t as antagonistic as it once was, you’ve always known that someday she could take you out or maybe even get you sent back to prison. You aren’t complaining; the never-knowing part is one of the things that makes this arrangement so damned exciting. Though if you ever found out she was working with the cops to put you away again, you wouldn’t think twice about killing her, because she knows you’d rather die than spend another day trapped in a cold steel cage.

But while working with someone who could turn on you at any time is one thing, living together is sometimes a bit more complicated. The RV had been your idea. Discreet, practical, and mobile, it’s an ideal place to rest, recuperate, and discuss jobs freely without being overheard. It’s small as fuck but after years in prison cells neither one of you really minds that. Though it does make it a little difficult to get away from one another which can cause some occasional…tension.

You’re used to being able to easily manipulate and manage the people around you, but you and Maca are more evenly matched, and she doesn’t let you push her around. So, in some ways this little domestic experiment of yours is a lot like putting two alphas together in a locked room and seeing what happens. But keeping a household functional necessitates cooperation, so you divide up the chores and take turns running errands and somehow learn to coexist in a shared territory without tearing each other to shreds.

And between the two of you, things stay pretty clean, bills get paid, and no one goes hungry. Though, if it were entirely in Maca’s hands, you would both probably waste away from protein deficiency because whenever she’s in charge of a meal she tends to make it vegetarian, or worse yet vegan. So, you cook more often than she does because she’ll eat fish or even chicken and pork as long as you make it and there’s no way you’re wasting your precious freedom on faux meat and kale. But she compensates for falling short on her fair share of dinners by making dessert at least a couple times a week, and you’re satisfied with that because she is far and away the better baker of the two of you.

The very first meal you made together after moving into the caravan was grilled turbot with roast potatoes and baby vegetables. You cooked but you made her do the shopping and pay for everything; you figured she owed you that much. You didn’t really eat together at first, though. You preferred to sit on your bed or go up to the roof and enjoy your food in peace. But Maca always set two places at the table for dinner, regardless. You figured it was some kind of hold-over from having grown up in a close-knit family, something so deeply ingrained that even years in prison hadn’t changed it. And as time passed, instead of taking your plate somewhere else, you started joining her every once in a while. Initially, it was just when you wanted to talk about a job; planning a well thought out heist takes a lot of discussion. But now it’s not uncommon for the two of you to sit down and eat together at the table or outside on the patio and find yourselves talking about how your days went or some random thing that happened on your drive back from town or someone that you saw who reminded you of one of your old prison compañeras.

And every so often your conversations get more personal. Like when she told you how during her freshman year in college her roommates invited her out to Karaoke, and she agreed to go even though she was painfully shy because she wanted to fit in and make friends. But then they plied her full of drinks until she could barely stand and convinced her to go up on stage solo and filmed the entire humiliating episode, posting it all over social media and making her the laughingstock on campus for months. She admitted that the worst part was that she used to really like to sing, even though she wasn’t good at it, and they took that away from her. It made you realize that you’d never heard her sing before, not even along with the radio in the car. And what you said to her was, “Well Rubia, only dorks go to Karaoke bars anyway,” but what you were thinking was how much you’d like to scratch those bitches’ eyes right out of their heads.

Or there was the time a little more recently, when you mentioned to Maca that you had never seen snow in person, and she didn’t believe you because you had traveled around so much. It was true, though; most of the places you’d been to or lived in to didn’t get cold enough or have enough precipitation. Spain is the exception, but so much of your time here was spent locked away in a cell or in solitary that you’d always managed to miss it when it happened. And even though you detest things that are cold and damp, you accidentally let slip that you still kind of felt like you were missing out on something and wanted to see it in real life someday. You kept the part about wanting to do it before the cancer made it impossible to yourself.

When they do occur, however, those sorts of conversations are harder to navigate. And certain subjects are always off-limits for obvious reasons. Deceased family members, old boyfriends, and abortion rights, for instance. But sometimes your conversations get perilously close to dangerous ground anyway. Like the first time you brought take-out pizza back for dinner and it reminded Maca of the summers she had spent at camp with her brother. She started reminiscing and as she talked, you watched her demeanor slowly change from pleasant to gloomy and ultimately to something bordering on hostile.

Román is the only living relative she has left, thanks to you, but she cut him out of her life years ago after you nearly caused him to lose a hand. She did it for his own safety and sanity, after all he had already lost his stepdaughter to your machinations; but you knew she missed him in ways that words couldn’t adequately describe and that she hated you for that. And that night with the pizza you could tell she was feeling the loss acutely, it was written all over her face right along with her feelings about you. So, when she pivoted from telling stories about her and her brother’s youthful exploits to ask if there was anything you missed about your own childhood, you knew it wasn’t out of curiosity, but out of spite. She was well-aware you never talked about that period of your life, that there was something painful there you didn’t share with anyone, and you suspected her passive aggressive question was an attempt to prod at it and make it bleed a little. And when you didn’t answer, but just got up to rinse your plate before going outside to smoke, she looked at you like she knew she had succeeded a bit.

It was weeks before you sat together for another meal and you haven’t had pizza since.

Underlying rancor aside, you spend a surprising amount of your days and evenings with each other. It’s not that you hang out exactly, but you’re at the trailer site more often than not and living in such a small space means that you’re pretty much together even when you’re doing your own thing. So whether you’re taking shots at empty cans, smoking on the roof, or listening to music on the patio, Maca usually isn’t too far away. At most, she’s on the opposite side of the lake because she likes to jog around it when the weather is nice. You don’t go with her because the closest you come to doing cardio is dancing around to good music, and even then it’s usually with a cigarette in hand.

On really hot days though, you’ll both get in the lake to cool off, so you figure that counts as a swim even if you usually end up splayed out on rafts with drinks in your hands afterward. And though you always try to keep a bit of a distance from one another, for some reason the gentle movement of the water inevitably seems to pull you together until you’re floating virtually side-by-side. Still, whenever that happens, you don’t really talk much; you just lie there sipping on your drinks and soaking up the sun. Maca hates unnecessary conversation as much as you do, it’s one of your favorite things about her. And the two of you have always been comfortable sharing silences, both content to sit there quietly and occupy the same space and just be.

Some nights you go out, though, and that’s one thing you always do alone. Most often you go to places with loud music and dim lights where you aren’t likely to be recognized and even if you are, no one is likely to give a damn. You smoke and drink and sometimes dance or shoot some pool. Occasionally you let yourself get into a bit of trouble too, especially when you need to blow off some steam. On those nights, you might find some douchebag’s face to smash in or some hombre que está como un tren to drag into a dark corner of an empty parking lot and fuck it away instead.

Maca goes out too. You aren’t quite sure where, but you assume she meets people and sometimes spends the night with them, just like you do. It isn’t something you really talk about, though. It’s not like you’re friends.

Most nights, however, the two of you sleep at opposite ends of the RV, she on her mattress and you on yours (you let her take the bigger bed because she likes to spread out and bury herself in pillows and you couldn’t care less about that stuff). Sometimes you think about how bizarre it is to be lying just a few meters away from one another and not by circumstance, but by choice. It’s funny, too, how you’ve gotten used to the sounds of her breathing and funnier still how those sounds are the only thing that lull you to sleep on the nights when you can’t get the images of Fátima’s body lying motionless on the asphalt out of your mind.

But even though things are mostly good, relatively speaking, you still argue and fight as much as anyone who shares a space. You both have bad days and shitty moods and sometimes just get on each other’s nerves. Granted, it’s possible that you have a few annoying habits, like kicking your boots off in the middle of the floor and leaving them there for her to trip over or smoking inside the enclosed cabin of the caravan even though you know how much it makes her eyes water and burn. And if someone you lived with were to describe you as tempestuous and temperamental, they wouldn’t necessarily be wrong. Also, you may occasionally put certain things off, like fixing the ladder to the roof; but you’ve never had an issue climbing the extendable one and you’re loathe to waste time on unnecessary, tedious projects, especially since your diagnosis. Besides, Maca can be a real pain in the ass about those kinds of things and you both know she could fix the damned thing herself if she really wanted to, so maybe that’s made you put it off even longer.

Anyway, it’s not like she is such a fucking perfect roommate. When you first moved in together, she would hit snooze on her cell phone alarm fifty goddamned times before getting up in the morning even though she had zero reason to even set the damned thing because she literally had no fucking place that she needed to be. She finally stopped doing it after you threw her phone into the middle of the lake and she had to buy a new one, but you haven’t been successful at correcting all her obnoxious behaviors. For instance, whenever her allergies act up, she sneezes on everything, leaves wads of tissue everywhere, and snores so loudly you have to sleep in the car to get any rest. And then there’s the way she claims to love doing laundry but somehow an awful lot of her dirty bras and underwear seem to end up mixed in with yours. Also, you can always tell exactly when she is about to start her period because she is just that much bitchier; and for someone who can take a punch like fucking Muhammad Ali, she sure gets whiny as Hell over a few damned menstrual cramps.

Neither one of you has the best conflict resolution skills, either. And while it seldom gets physical anymore, sometimes your arguments still escalate into shouting matches, heavy objects being lobbed at heads, prolonged silent treatments, or someone storming off and disappearing for a few days without so much as a call. That last one is pretty much your go-to nowadays. Whenever you just can’t take it, you spend a few nights somewhere else, at a motel or even in the car. Sometimes alone, sometimes not. Mostly you just need some time and space away from the RV. Away from her. But in the end, you always come back home.

Home.

The word still sounds weird to you.

/////

You step into the trailer just in time to catch your asshole roommate slipping under the thick pile of blankets she’s amassed on her bed. You get a glimpse of blue cotton panties and a long, gray t-shirt with the image of a lioness on the front just as they disappear underneath the covers. Seriously where does she find these cheesy-ass prints anyway? Apparently, money can’t buy fashion sense.

You’re dripping water onto the carpet as you glance toward what should be your sleeping area and see only an empty and very hard-looking wooden platform where your mattress usually sits. Normally it wouldn’t be a problem for you to make do with the bare board. You’ve spent so much of your life in conflict zones and institutions sleeping on threadbare mattresses, hard cement, and even on the ground, that stretching out on a piece of plywood wouldn’t be a big deal. But that isn’t going to happen tonight because what you want more than anything right now is a good sleep in a warm bed and there is no way you are going to let her rob you of that.

You toss your wet bag of gear onto the counter then turn your head back toward Maca and see that she’s watching you, blonde wisps and amused eyes peeking out from under the covers. And when you discern the hint of a smirk playing at the corners of her lips, you are on the verge of fucking snapping.

You pride yourself on self-control, seldom allowing your emotions to override logic and reasoning. But you can literally feel the rage building up inside you and an explosion seems imminent. Your blood is boiling, your ears are hot and probably beat red, your lips have pulled back around your teeth into a snarl, and the fingers of both of your hands have balled into tight fists. But if Maca notices any of that she doesn’t acknowledge it, and instead just yawns loudly and stretches in exaggerated fashion before casually turning over onto her other side, leaving you to stare daggers at her back.

Hija de puta.

You envision yourself grabbing two fistfuls of blonde hair and using them to drag her the fuck off the mattress and onto the floor and from there outside into the cold rain and then locking the god-damned door behind her. Instead of doing it though, you are angrily ripping off pieces of your own rain-soaked clothing, which have suctioned tightly against your skin, and tossing them aggressively onto the floor where they are making loud wet splats and sending water droplets flying over everything in the vicinity.

Once you peel off your socks, you’re down to nothing but your black bra and boxer-briefs and they’re wet too, but before you get the chance to replace them with something dry you hear, “Zulema?”

You pause and wait.

It’s possible she’s finally feeling a little guilty and is about to offer you some of her blankets. You think maybe you’ll accept them just so you’ll have something to strangle her with in the middle of the night.

“Will you turn out the light before you go to bed? Gracias.”

It’s sickeningly cloying, and she practically sings the last part. She isn’t even trying to hide the fact that she is delighting in your misery.

So when she follows it up by emitting an unnecessarily drawn out and contented-sounding sigh, that is fucking it.

You smack the light switch off and before your eyes can adjust, you’re making a beeline for her bed.

Just because you saved her ass earlier doesn’t mean you won’t kill her now.

/////

You try to control everything. Your emotions. Your environment. The people around you.

And any person you can’t control is a threat, and therefore an enemy by default.

The truth is you make a much better enemy than anything else; you’ve never had much luck connecting with most people, or desire to connect with them in the first place. And when you do engage in relationships, it’s only ever with people you can dominate.

Like with Hanbal. There was no question you were the one in charge. You were so much older, more experienced, and could always get him to do what you wanted him to do.

Even with Saray, things started off with an imbalanced power dynamic; you acting as the wise teacher providing life lessons and guiding her to embrace who she was and live freely, regardless of what anyone thought. And in the beginning, she would have done almost anything to please you. Things changed with her over time, though, and you’ve determined that for some reason she is a special case, an exception to the rule that you don’t quite know what to make of, and to be honest you’re still trying to figure that whole thing out. You think she might be your Achilles’ heel.

But then there’s Maca.

You’ve never really had any control over her. Right from the start when she refused to turn over the sim card you needed to access the stolen money and escape and then told you outright that she had implicated you in Yoli’s death. And later, there was everything that happened with Hanbal, and the kidnapped girl, and her damned near shanking you in the hen house at Cruz del Norte. You never even told her you knew about that last thing.

But the point is that at best, you’ve only ever been able to manage Maca briefly here and there through deception, brute force, or fear. But it’s gotten harder to fool her, you doubt you could overpower her physically anymore, and she hasn’t been afraid of you in a long time.

And all that should be reason enough to stay the fuck away from her. But here you are, living with her in a travel trailer like you’re fucking BFFs and having a spat with her like you’re a goddamned married couple.

But you and Maca aren’t friends and you aren’t lovers.

You aren’t exactly enemies anymore though, either.

You don’t know what the Hell you are.

/////

As soon as you get to Maca’s bedside you lift the edges of her blankets and plunge yourself underneath, slamming your nearly naked, very wet body into hers full-force and shoving her as hard as you can toward the back wall. The impact propels her forward and some part of her body thumps loudly against the window; you hope it’s her face.

“Coño! Qué cojones?!”

You respond by roughly yanking her blankets away and quickly wrapping them around yourself before rolling over, this time giving your back to her. You settle on your left side and plunk your head of wet hair down on her overly fluffy pillow, leaving her stunned and coverless in the cold dark air.

You don’t know what she had been expecting from you, but you know it wasn’t this.

And you can FEEL her fuming behind you. You don’t care how pissed she is though; you are resolved to stay in this spot on her bed tightly wrapped up in the middle of all her blankets and you will be damned if you are moving. Not for her. Not for the entire Guardia Civil. Not even if a fucking zombie apocalypse topples the caravan as you lie here. So, you take a deep breath and brace yourself for what’s coming because you’re sure you just started something that is likely to trigger that war that’s been brewing under the surface for so long.

You think there’s a good chance one of you is going to die tonight.

But maybe Maca thinks that too and isn’t quite ready to leave this earthly plane, because instead of a violent kick to your backside or punch to the kidneys or even a chokehold, you just hear what sounds a lot like annoyed exasperation as she quietly sighs, “Zulema...”

You can picture her closing her eyes in frustration, the syllables of your name leaving her mouth through gritted teeth as she tries to suppress her own rising anger. You know it’s meant to be a warning. She’s giving you an opportunity to fix this before it erupts into something neither one of you can contain.

You close your eyes and ignore her.

It’s quiet for a few moments but presumably she’s still staring at the back of your head, contemplating her next move. She knows you, your capacity for violence, and just how far you’re willing to take things, which means she’s probably internally debating whether it’s worth pushing this.

“Zulema, it’s freezing.”

She sounds as tired as you feel, and you fleetingly wonder if she had a hard time sleeping last night too. But if she’s seriously trying to appeal to your sense of empathy, she really ought to know better. She is right about one thing, though, it is damned chilly inside the trailer; and with only a thin tee to protect her from the cold, she’s probably already starting to get uncomfortable.

The thought makes you smirk and you pull the blankets even tighter around your body, reveling in the warmth that is rapidly building up inside your little one-woman cocoon.

You aren’t sure how many minutes pass by in silence after that, but you should probably be at least a little worried that Maca is almost certainly plotting some elaborate, painful form of retaliation. You can’t seem to bring yourself to care though. The sleep deprivation is catching up to you and between the quiet and the warmth, it’s getting difficult to keep your eyes open. You can feel yourself starting to nod off.

Your eyelids immediately fly open when you hear her sit up behind you, though.

You wait.

And listen.

But she isn’t moving or saying anything, she’s just sitting there. And as the minutes tick by something feels very wrong about all of it. Because there’s no way she can let this slide. She HAS TO react. You made sure of that. You could have just snagged some of her blankets and gone to your side of the caravan but instead you forced her into a corner. You wanted her to do something. But the yelling or physical violence you expected isn’t coming and it doesn’t make sense; she’s been intentionally pushing your buttons ever since you made it back to the RV as if she were hoping you would blow up at her but now when you finally react, she won’t even give you the satisfaction of a fight.

/////

Whatever’s going on with the blonde, you’re certain it has to do with New Year’s. Because even though she hasn’t brought it up once since then, you know she’s been struggling to come to terms with the fact that she killed four men that night and didn’t even feel an ounce of remorse. Personally, you think she should be happy to be free from such a useless emotion. But if today was any indication, it seems like she is desperately trying to cling onto the part of herself that operates on sentiments like that, even if she doesn’t feel them anymore.

Because you could see in her eyes that she was fully prepared to shoot that idiot Marcos the moment he came bursting back through the door shouting commands, if for no other reason than because it was the only viable option available to her at the time. Yet, she still made the conscious choice not to, deciding it was better to risk going back to prison or dying than to pull the trigger. And later, when she found out what a scumbag he truly was, you were certain she wanted to kill him as much as you did, but instead she persuaded you not to.

And for what? To prove to herself that she isn’t you?

“No soy tú, Zulema.”

Those words haven’t stopped echoing in your mind all day.

The two of you aren’t as different as she would like to believe, though. You know Maca has a dark side, one that rivals your own. Maybe before New Year’s she could pretend otherwise, but she can’t hide from it anymore. She can’t hide from who she really is.

You wonder if that’s the problem. Perhaps she’s torn between who she is and who she wants to be. Because she is the kind of person who can kill in cold blood, but she wants to be the kind of person she grew up believing she always was. Someone kind and honest and virtuous who values ideas like morality, justice, doing the right thing, and the pursuit of transcendence and light.

You live by a different set of values. Freedom. Survival. Vengeance. These are the principles that guide you. Concrete priorities. Not some illusory and subjective sense of goodness, righteousness, and ethical behavior. Those sorts of abstract ideas were largely unhelpful in the world you grew up in and you found it made better sense to follow your more primitive, darker instincts.

But Maca’s still trying to hold onto that piece of herself she perceives to be “good,” even if it’s against her nature. You remember exactly how exhausting, painful, and futile that was, and how much better you felt when you finally just let it all go and embraced who you were.

And just like that, you understand exactly why she’s thinking about parting ways-

Because when Maca looks at you, she sees what she is becoming, and that scares the Hell out of her. So she is rejecting the darkest parts of herself.

She’s rejecting you.

/////

When you finally feel her start to move around behind you again, you think she is going to crawl over you and take off.

Maybe she’ll just leave you stranded here without the car for a few days. But you’re pretty sure if she walks out that door tonight you won’t ever see her again.

Suddenly it seems too hot under all those blankets, and you feel a little nauseous.

Instead of feeling limbs clamber over you though, you feel hands clench tightly around the blankets you’re wrapped inside of. You barely have time to tense up and grip onto the mattress before your whole body is rocking back and forth violently as Maca yanks at the covers determinedly trying to rip an edge free while ferociously pushing and kicking and smacking you and shouting profanities all at the same time.

“Hija de puta! Puto elfo! Déjalo, coño! Dame eso! Devuélveme las putas mantas, joder! Suéltalas!”

There it is…

This build-up that started sometime before noon today has finally erupted into an actual fight. Even though the two of you probably look more like petulant children than hardcore ex-cons right now, you don’t really mind that it has devolved into this, because a minute ago you were almost certain she was going to walk out and away from all this forever and that isn’t something you can handle, but this is. It’s childish and stupid, but tangible and manageable; and anyway, it kind of feels like your first win all fucking night because you made her snap before you did. And this is a Maca you can deal with, the one who wants to punch you and kick you and probably kill you.

Not the one who wants to leave you.

You have to applaud the younger woman’s efforts. She is pulling and shoving you so hard that she’s practically out of breath from the exertion, but that hasn’t stopped her from punctuating each action with a new swear word. You cringe every time she strikes your injured ribs and you’re definitely going to have a few more bruises to add to your repertoire, but you aren’t giving in and she isn’t getting anywhere. It’s pissing her off to no end but it’s making you grin underneath the blankets.

When you feel feet against your ass though, you quickly work out that she’s bending her knees and bracing her back against the wall to try to get enough leverage to catapult you off the bed entirely. So you do your best to ready yourself for the impact. But before she gets that far, you feel an unexpected rush of cold air against your back and know she’s succeeded in prying an edge of the blankets loose. She lets out a gleeful, “HA!” as she rapidly gathers and secures as much loosened material as she can with her hands. And you are about to turn over to punch her right in the gut and reclaim it all, when you feel cotton and skin brush against your shoulders and back, and socked feet nudge your bare ones, and you immediately realize that she’s just slid under the blankets with you.

Carajo.

Her body is barely touching yours, only a few areas are making any actual contact and you can’t even be sure which parts. Still, you can feel the heat radiating off her and it takes all your willpower not to jerk away. But you don’t move, you don’t even breathe, because you don’t know what this is just yet. Your heart immediately starts to race though, and whether it’s from anger or anticipation you can’t tell.

You’re not even sure what you might be anticipating.

Maca tugs firmly on the freed edge of the blankets a few more times, presumably trying to get enough slack to cover the portions of her body that are still exposed. She fails to budge it any further though, and asks impatiently, “Are you seriously not going to let me have any more than this?”

When you don’t answer, because you honestly have no fucking idea how to respond to that, you expect her to resort to her strongarm tactics again.

But instead, after a few beats, she just scoots closer to you until the entire front of her body is flush against the back of yours.

Son of a bitch.

And now, it is very clear indeed which parts of her body are where. Her breasts are pressing against your shoulder blades, her stomach is molding into the curve of your spinal column, and her bare thighs are grazing against the backs of your own and rubbing against your ass cheeks. And while she may well be trying to escape the cold air by fitting herself under the small sliver of blankets she liberated, you think it’s far more likely she’s doing this to solely fuck with you. There’s no way she has any intention of actually sharing the bed with you and she knows you can’t stand having your personal space invaded, especially so…intimately. So she’s trying to provoke a response, you’re just not sure what kind she is hoping for; possibly more violence, but you think her ultimate goal is probably capitulation; she’s hoping to make you so uncomfortable that you’ll just give up and let her have her bed back.

But you refuse to take the bait. You just remain still and focus on keeping your breathing steady. It doesn’t matter how damned close she gets, or how warm her body feels pressed against yours; you won’t give her the satisfaction of reacting, just like you wouldn’t react when she called you inexperienced and clumsy the morning after you slept together.

Why the Hell are you even thinking about THAT right now?!

But you know exactly why. It’s because you haven’t been this physically close to her since then and her proximity is making it impossible not to think about all the things you did that night and all the things you still want to do, with her, and to her…and fuck, with your mind spinning out like this you’re starting to think maybe this entire maneuver is just a ploy she’s using to distract you and the real retaliation is on its way. So when she reaches her arm around you and presses her fingers against your bare stomach you instinctively grab hold of her wrist and yank it away from your body, unsure of what you expect to find. But you quickly discover it’s just her empty, cold hand and she was probably just doing it for the sheer schadenfreude of causing you discomfort as icy fingers seared into hot flesh. And now you KNOW this entire thing is just to fuck with you because she lets out an amused snort and you’re certain she is smirking behind you.

You should have slept in the fucking car.

Without meaning to, you can’t help but notice that while her hand is freezing, her body seems to be getting warmer and warmer against yours. Christ, how is it possible for her core to be so hot and her hands to be so cold? It’s as if the woman has no circulation to her extremities. It crosses your mind that you’re lucky she is wearing socks, or she’d probably be sticking ice cold feet against your legs too.

But with the fingers of your right hand still gripped tightly around her carpal bones, something else entirely crosses your mind, then-

An old memory…

Maca sitting on an exam table in Cruz del Sur and you hopping up next to her, grabbing her sprained wrist and tweaking the already inflamed ligaments mercilessly to deliver a painful warning she wouldn’t likely forget. Back then, she was too scared to do anything other than sit there and take the abuse until you let her go.

You aren’t sure what she’s waiting for now, though. Because even though your grip isn’t quite as vicious as it was all those years ago, it’s firm enough to be uncomfortable; yet she isn’t demanding you release her or trying to yank her arm away and you aren’t too sure what to make of that.

You can feel an indentation running along the circumference of her wrist where plastic zip ties dug into her skin earlier and it surprises you that it’s still there; the cuffs must’ve been even tighter than you’d realized. She tenses up when you rotate your hand to trace along the mark with the tips of your index and middle fingers all the way to the underside of her wrist. Her radial pulse is bounding rapidly under your fingertips, and you know her heart is beating just as wildly as yours.

So maybe she is still a little afraid of you after all. Either that, or…

You don’t let yourself finish the thought.

Whether it’s fear or something else though, you don’t hurt her this time, but you also don’t let her go. Instead, you drag her hand up and over your abdomen and sternum and press it tightly against the center of your chest before releasing your clasp on her wrist in favor of covering her cold fingers with your warm ones.

You aren’t sure why you do it. Maybe the oncologist forgot to mention a few symptoms like poor impulse control and bad judgment. Maybe you’re just too damned tired for this fight tonight. Or maybe it’s something else altogether, something about a gun barrel pressed against blonde hair, or muttered words that could too easily turn into goodbye, or glimpses of a woman dressed entirely in yellow who doesn’t exist anymore reminding you that all of this is about to come to an end one way or another.

You’re guessing that Maca doesn’t know what to make of your unexpected gesture either because she let out a disbelieving huff when your fingers wrapped around hers, but she isn’t protesting or moving away. She’s just allowing it. You wonder if maybe the day affected her more than she let on. Whatever her reasons, after a few awkward seconds of total motionlessness, you feel her body relax behind yours, and the muscles in her arm loosen as she lets it come to rest on your side. And when she lays her head down on the pillow right behind yours and you feel her breath on the back of your neck, you know the battle is over.

You have no idea who won.

Or what to do now.

So you just lie still with Maca cuddled against your back, her arm wrapped around you and her hand in yours.

For a few minutes all you can hear is the pitter patter of the rain on the roof.

It sounds like it’s lightening up.

“Gracias.”

She whispers it out of nowhere and doesn’t add, “for saving my life and keeping me out of prison.” She doesn’t have to though; you know exactly what she means, and that she’s being genuine. You can hear it in her voice. You guess she wasn’t quite so eager to get locked up again or wind up in a coffin, after all. And somehow knowing that makes it a little less difficult to draw in a deep breath despite your throbbing ribs.

You nod your head in place of saying “you’re welcome” and then close your eyes. Or rather, your eyes close themselves because it’s pretty much of their own volition at this point, you just go along with it…

“Really, you couldn’t even dry off a little before getting into the bed?”

She shifts and wriggles around behind you as she says it, like she’s trying to find a single spot that isn’t cool and damp. She sounds slightly annoyed but not angry. You think she may even be teasing you.

“Cállate, Rubia,” you answer, but there’s no venom behind it and you don’t even bother opening your eyes. Anyway, she has a point. You are kind of regretting not having at least towel-dried your hair or put on new clothes, because water has seeped into the sheets and the pillow and even though your body is mostly dry now, you still feel chilled almost everyplace that she isn’t touching you.

She eventually stops squirming and instead slips her left arm under the pillow beneath your head, wraps her other arm more snugly around you, presses her body more tightly against yours, and burrows her face between your neck and shoulder. You assume she’s doing it for her own benefit to suck up as much heat as possible, but you aren’t complaining and within minutes you don’t feel cold at all anymore. And as your brain starts to feel fuzzy, you don’t even fight it, you just let the warmth of her body and all those blankets pull you into a deep, long overdue, and very welcomed sleep.

As you’re fading off though, your thoughts wander to another girl who had her arm wrapped around you like this once, ages ago. One with short, bleached hair, who was sweet and weak and feckless. She was trying to break away and you wouldn’t let her, but you promised to set her free one day.

Then you put a bullet in her.

.....

You awaken with a start, remnants of an unwanted dream still lingering. You remember running water and a cell phone and blood and brain matter splattered all over porcelain and tile; and a blonde liar who knew exactly what she was doing when she convinced you of a betrayal that never happened.

People seem to have forgotten about that.

You haven’t.

The fact is that almost everyone who interacts with Maca misjudges her. They reflexively assume she is innocent, feeble, and naïve. A helpless baby animal in need of protecting. To them she is all doe eyes and fragile features and a wholesome smile. And regardless of how it conflicts with reality, that is all they ever see, which means that no matter how heinous her actions are, people always find a way to excuse them away.

But you know better. You saw her for who she really was a long time ago. And the woman currently sleeping with her arm wrapped around your chest is the same one who set the events in place that resulted in Casper’s untimely death. You were the one who shot her, but Maca set the stage knowing full well what the outcome would be. So, anyone who believes Macarena Ferreiro to be some sort of hapless bystander or victim in this world would be wise to remember that story, lest they suffer the consequences of underestimating her.

You’ve never underestimated her. You know she’s capable of being just as ruthless as you are.

Maybe even more so.

You reach your hand up to your face and rub your eyes with your thumb and fingers, tying to dispel the blurriness and maybe the images from the dream too. You’re lying on your side in the same position as before and can feel Maca against your back.

It’s still dark out but you can’t hear the rain anymore and moonlight is making its way into the trailer through the open curtains, casting dim yellow light over everything inside. You can see the dark void where your bed should be, the pile of wet clothes you left on the floor, and the reflective surfaces of the stove, sink, and countertop. You can even just barely make out the blue sky and white clouds that the younger woman had insisted on painting onto the ceiling the night of your second heist together. It was the first time you’d targeted a jewelry store and Maca had to pistol whip the manager to stop him from running off. She scared him so badly that he gave up the combination to a hidden safe you hadn’t even known about and the two of you got away with a fuck ton of cash in addition to all the jewelry.

You remember how she returned to the RV with armloads of supplies from some home improvement store, giddy and talking excitedly about her little reno project, high from all the adrenaline you supposed. And at first you were amused, watching her mix colors and choose brushes and transform the boring, blank paneling into something completely new; you’d never even known she could paint before then. But amusement quickly changed to annoyance when she ended up keeping you up all night, intermittently requesting your assistance with handing her this or that, kicking you out of your own bed to finish that part of the ceiling, and dripping paint all over your sheets and comforter. Ultimately, she somehow even managed to turn your mattress into her primary workspace and between her incessant chattering and the suffocating fumes, you barely slept at all.

But in the end, you were glad she did it. Because having the wide-open sky overhead reminds you that you’re freer cooped up in this tiny camper with Maca than you have been for most of your life.

Probably freer than you’ve ever been.

Yet, in the dos años that you’ve been sharing this living space with her, this is only the second time the two of you have shared a bed together.

New Year’s was the first.

/////

You never even really thought the damned MDMA would work on you.

Maca sure as Hell knew it would though.

You remember how she leaned over you while you were lying on your back in your bed, her hair dangling down tickling your cheeks. She was searching your face for some kind of evidence the Ecstasy was taking effect, as if she knew exactly what it was going to do to you and was just waiting for it to happen, and then she giggled. Fucking giggled.

Qué tonta.

She had called it though, much to your surprise. And afterwards, when you’d worn yourselves out dancing and laughing and fucking, and the drug had finally worked its way out of your systems, you both pretty much just passed out on her mattress, hardly touching and with most of your clothes still on, you might add.

The next morning, when you had woken up to soft snores and a head of messy blonde hair laying much too close to your own, you’d extricated yourself as quickly and quietly as possible, grabbing your thirty-eight before heading outside into the crisp morning air to fire rounds at empty bottles.

You spent hours shooting that day, trying to make your brain cells stop regurgitating every detail from the night before. Like how Maca’s hair smelled like coconut and her skin tasted salty and sweet at the same time. Or the utterly shameless pride you felt at having to support her body against your own when you turned her legs to jelly. Or how the sounds she was making made you wetter than you’d ever been.

You don’t know how many times you emptied your mag desperately trying to replace every touch, every sensation, every emotion, with the pop pop pop from your gun, wishing all the while that Ecstasy caused black outs and memory loss.

Since your symptoms started getting worse though, the truth is you’ve been dreading the day you might actually really forget it all.

Fucking cancer.

Death doesn’t scare you. The thing that guts you is knowing you wasted so much time in la cárcel only to finally get released just to be diagnosed with a terminal illness that’s going to make you lose your mind before it wipes you out. And the mental decline is the hardest part to accept. Your mind has been the one thing you could consistently rely on, your keystone. You’ve always been able to learn quickly, think on your feet, and problem solve your way out of virtually any situation. But the hallucinations are already getting more frequent and who knows when the memory loss and confusion will kick into high gear. You can’t trust yourself anymore. And the one thing no person could ever take away from you is being taken away by a goddamned tumor.

It’s ironic, you think, for it to be a disease that finally does you in. With all the people who’d love to kill you and all the times you’d narrowly escaped a gruesome ending, you just kind of always figured you’d go out with a bang, on your feet, guns blasting, fearlessly clawing and scratching and fighting until the bitter end because you aren’t afraid of dying but you fucking love life. Real life. FREE life. All of it. The good. The bad. The painful. The elation and the misery and everything in between. The endless goddamned challenge of it all. And when death comes for you, you want to be able to look it in the eye knowing you did everything exactly like you wanted to, and that you went out kicking and screaming, not slowly losing your faculties and wasting away in a shitty hospital bed somewhere.

But the cancer makes you feel powerless and resigned to your fate in a way you never have been before. You’ve never felt so feeble and helpless and fucking pathetic. Because you’ve always been a great enemy, Hell, the best. But with this affliction, you’ve finally come across an adversary you can’t control, subdue, manipulate, bargain with, outsmart, outgun, or even just plain fucking beat to death.

And it’s a total mind fuck that in the end, the one opponent you can’t best is yourself. Well, a part of you anyway. But how do you combat a foe that’s inside your own head? Fighting yourself is pointless and this time huir isn’t an option either. You can’t outrun the cancer any more than you can outrun your past. That raven-haired ghost dressed in amarillo keeps showing up to remind you of that.

And you know that all the drugs in the world won’t cure you or cleanse your soul. But you didn’t let that stop you from taking the Ecstasy that Maca offered you on New Year’s.

Or from winding up in her bed afterwards.

/////

And here you are, in her bed again.

But this is nothing like New Year’s.

This time you are both fully sober and far from fully clothed.

And touching.

A lot.

So when you feel movement behind you, you reflexively tense up, because you don’t do this sort of thing and you have no clue how to act.

You quickly discern that Maca isn’t getting up or repositioning herself though, she’s shivering. You look over your shoulder at her and see that most of the small portion of blankets she won back earlier has slipped off her body and is laying crumpled in a useless wad between the two of you.

Sigh.

Gingerly, you release her hand from your own and try not to dwell on the fact that it was still there to begin with. Then you carefully roll over to face her, keeping your movements slow and deliberate; you really don’t want to wake her up and have to deal with whatever the fuck this is before you’ve even had a full night’s rest. Her eyes are closed but her face is scrunched up into something that looks like discomfort as tremulous shaking motions sporadically ripple through her body.

You prop yourself up slightly on your right elbow, careful not to jostle the arm she still has draped over you. Then you grab hold of the blankets with your left hand, and pull them up and over her body, making sure she has plenty of coverage and slack this time. But as you’re reaching over her, she curls her arm around your midsection and pulls herself closer and suddenly the front of her body is pressing up against the front of yours and her face is laying so close that you can feel her breath against your lips.

Fucking Hell.

There is no damned way you’re staying like this. Ni de coña.

You slowly attempt to return to your other side but only get as far as lying on your back when Maca shifts again, this time tightening her hold around your abdomen, and bending her knee to fold her leg over yours before lifting her head off the pillow and setting it on your shoulder. Her eyes are still closed, and you know this is probably just some sort of unconscious attempt to seek out warmth but COME ON!

You feel the weight of her arm laying across your belly, soft fingertips pressing into the fleshy area on your left side just below your ribs, the cool skin of her thigh resting on top of your own, the contour of her body where her stomach and chest are touching yours, and hot breaths tickling the tiny hairs on your neck. You’re breathing harder than you ought to be and your pulse Is ticking up again and this time you know it has nothing to do with anger.

Tu puta vida.

You close your eyes and will sleep to return.

But that’s easier said than done when she has half of her incredibly soft, exceptionally toned body draped over yours. Especially when your right arm has somehow ended up tucked underneath her and your fingertips are inadvertently grazing against the skin on the small of her back, exposed where her shirt has worked its way up and around her torso. You can’t exactly help but notice how cold it is to the touch, and that she’s still shivering a bit. So, it’s almost a reflex when you flatten out your palm and press it firmly against the area, letting the heat transfer from you to her; nothing more than an urge to create warmth where there is none. Anyway, she doesn’t seem to mind because you can feel the rise and fall of her chest against you and know the pace of her breathing has picked up. And if you start gently rubbing your palm over the chilled, uncovered skin maybe it’s because you aren’t entirely convinced she’s still asleep anymore, especially when you notice the faintest of exhalations gradually traveling up the side of your neck toward your ear and you’re pretty sure you feel lips brush over the cartilage there. So, when you let your fingers start slowly tracing light circles into the small of her back and then slide your hand further up under her shirt to repeat the pattern there, you aren’t completely surprised when you hear her breath catch in her throat.

What the fuck are you doing?!

Your brain is telling you to go back to sleep, that it’s not too late to change course, but your fingers keep drawing patterns into Maca’s back and your other hand has found its way to the arm she has laying across you and has started stroking the area between her wrist and elbow. You aren’t even sure of your own end game here, but your heart is pounding and your breathing is uneven and you can’t seem to stop your fingers from tracing over smooth skin.

It doesn’t help that her arm has moved higher, settling just below your breasts, or that her fingers have started lightly caressing the skin over your ribcage, or that she is currently nuzzling your neck, literally nuzzling it for fuck’s sake. It’s subtle but impossible to miss, her cold nose and warm lips and hot breath tracing delicately over your skin, moving between your ear and jawline and collarbone and back up the side of your neck again. You think about the fact she once looped a noose around that very spot and wonder how you went from that to this. The absurdity makes you want to laugh.

But you don’t, because soft nuzzles have changed to soft open-mouth kisses.

Joder.

On New Year’s, the Ecstasy provided a reasonable excuse for everything that happened. But there is no excuse for this. Both of you know you shouldn’t be doing it, you aren’t even sure who started it, but neither one of you is doing a damned thing to stop it.

And when wandering lips finally find their way to your own you don’t even hesitate, you just kiss her, because Dios, it feels like you’ve been dying to do this forever.

/////

You didn’t kiss on New Year’s. High or not, you both probably recognized you wouldn’t be able to uncross that line.

Even so, there was a moment at the start of it all when you thought it might happen. Maca was staring at your mouth, dragging a single finger over your lips, and she leaned in so slightly that it was almost imperceptible. But you didn’t miss it, you never took your eyes off her. It seemed like she had just gotten caught up in the moment because as soon as she realized how close she had come, she stopped herself. She didn’t back away though, and you remember inquisitive eyes and a provocative smile just centimeters away from your face, daring you to do something. And God, you wanted so badly to kiss her, but instead you just panicked and told her the two of you weren’t going to fuck, as if it was something she alone wanted.

Not of afraid of anything your ass.

And you can tell yourself that the reason you ultimately grabbed her and pulled her back to you was to prove your point, to show that she did want you after all; but in reality, she was willing to walk away and you were the one who caved.

You see that moment as a sort of microcosm of your larger relationship with Maca. Because to you it feels like you’re always chasing after her and she’s perpetually on the cusp of getting away. Forcing her to come along during your first escape, searching the entire prison for her after her run-in with the Chinese, trying to convince her to stay and help you take revenge on Sandoval, asking her to become your partner-in-crime. Hell, even today, when you should have left her in the jewelry shop to fend for herself but didn’t even think twice about running into the fire after her like an idiot.

You keep pulling her toward you even when you know you shouldn’t and she keeps pushing away from you because she thinks she should, because she wants to do the right thing, and you are definitely not the right thing. So she resists and argues and sometimes she even manages to stay away for a bit, but inevitably she relents and returns. Because like it or not, she is drawn to you as much as you are to her.

You’re like two solitary celestial bodies who accidentally got caught up in each other’s gravitational fields and have fallen into a sort of tenuous orbit with each other, unable to either converge or break free, destined to circle forever and ever. Sometimes outside forces, like different prison release dates or hospitalizations or the ingestion of illegal substances that lower your inhibitions, may temporarily separate you or thrust you together, but you always ultimately return to a state of equilibrium in which you neither come too close nor get too far. As if doing either one of those things would somehow break a dogmatic law of the natural universe, where coming together would mean mutual destruction, an explosive collision of matter and antimatter, but falling apart would mean infinitely floating adrift and alone, like being nothing at all.

And maybe that’s what has kept Maca from ever straying too far from you. Because she doesn’t know who she is without you. You guess in a lot of ways you don’t know who you are without her anymore either. The two of you have been feuding so long that somewhere along the way your rivalry with one another came to define you both. And now, you give each other a reason to get up in the morning when neither one of you has anyone or anything else; and being near each other is exciting and gets your adrenaline pumping and makes you both feel alive.

Like Yin and Yang, you need one another to exist, or at least to matter.

The problem is you aren’t sure it’s a rivalry anymore. Which means that maybe she doesn’t need this or need you anymore either. She still has reasons to hope, things to look forward to, a chance at a good life away from you. She’s adaptable enough to resume a lawful lifestyle, clever enough to figure out how to settle into a new identity under the radar, and young enough to start a family if she wants. She’s mostly fallen out of touch with her friend Flaca since she stopped attending groups, but you know the scrawny little woman would do anything for the blonde the second the two reconnected. And Maca has her brother too, who you’re sure would welcome her back with open arms anytime she asked. So she has plenty of things, or at least potential things, in her life that have nothing to do with you. And you, well, you just have her.

Maybe the only reason she hasn’t left already is because she hasn’t realized any of that yet.

Or maybe she has figured out who she is without you but still can’t manage to walk away because something always brings her back. YOU always bring her back, you try not to think to yourself. That’s why she didn’t seemed phased by having a gun put to her head and nearly getting apprehended, because some part of her just wants this to be over, but she doesn’t know how to end it or doesn’t believe that she can.

Yet, you can’t help but think there’s at least a small part of her that wants to stay. The part that likes this life and that maybe even likes you a little, too. Because she agreed to work with you and live with you and she’s stuck around for nearly two years with you; and it’s been liberating and revitalizing and diabolically fucking fun for both of you. And because when you grabbed ahold of her on New Year’s, she let you pull her back to you, as if she were hoping you would; as if she had never really wanted to walk away to begin with.

Still, even if you’re right about any of that, she clearly doesn’t want to want this. She doesn’t want to want you. She wants to be someone better, someone she can’t be with you. And if you were a better person, you would stop chasing after her. Because she hates who she is with you, this lifestyle is untenable and getting more and more dangerous, and she wants out so desperately that it almost just got her caught or killed, and you along with her.

Together, the two of you are on a collision course headed straight for either prison or Hell.

If she doesn’t leave, you know that this can only end badly for the both of you.

And that realization alone should make you want to let her go, but instead it makes you want to pull her closer and kiss her until she agrees to stay. Until she wants to. Until it’s all she wants.

/////

It wasn’t supposed to be like this, though.

You were sure if this ever happened again, it would be in the heat of the moment, probably during an explosive fight, and that you would obliterate one another in a frenzied and bruising battle for dominance and control. You expected something fiery and violent and savage, a blazing inferno. Not this slow burn that emerged from a starting point you can’t quite identify and ended with her lips brushing lightly against yours and your hands moving to the back of her neck to pull her down into a soft kiss.

And it is soft. Your eyes are closed and her palm is cupping your cheek. Your fingers are tangled loosely in her hair and her lips are moving gently in tandem with yours. It’s tender and affectionate and you should hate it. But your breathing has picked up and you can hear your own heart beating in your ears and there is rush of heat between your thighs that you definitely aren’t prepared for.

You keep going regardless, and when you draw her lower lip into your mouth, she tastes like cinnamon and you wonder if it’s from something she ate, or her mouthwash, or if this is just how she always tastes. But when her tongue pushes tentatively past your lips and you let it slide between them, you notice there’s something else there too, behind the spice, something tangy and metallic. Blood. Probably from her split lip and maybe also from the cut inside her mouth, both injuries a result of that bastard having smashed her face into the counter.

It makes your chest feel heavy, like there’s a weight bearing down on it that you can’t get out from under.

Maybe because before now, the only other time your lips ever touched hers was the night you dragged her lifeless body out of a running washing machine in Cruz del Norte. She wasn’t breathing and you felt a pressure inside your chest that made it feel like you couldn’t either. You tried to force your own air into her lungs anyway, plugging her nose with trembling fingers and pressing your mouth against hers, calling her name and yelling at her to live between exhalations; and praying, fucking praying, she would come back.

In that moment, you had felt like you were drowning right along with her; and you had that same sensation today when that piece of shit put his gun against her head.

You are really fucking sick of her almost dying on you.

It makes you feel like pummeling something, or someone, maybe her for putting herself in harm’s way unnecessarily. You think about biting her lower lip until you draw blood of your own, and clashing your teeth against hers, and smothering her with your tongue and mouth, because if she is so keen on getting hurt, then maybe you ought to show her what real pain feels like.

But somehow you just can’t bring yourself to do any of that right now.

Hell, you can’t bring yourself to do anything other than kiss her back warmly.

Because she has slid her body completely on top of yours and is straddling your waist, though her mouth hasn’t left yours once. And even with the blood, you really like how she tastes, and the way she gingerly nibbles on your lower lip, and the feel of your tongues gently colliding together.

Her fingertips are lightly stroking up and down your arms and sides, leaving goosebumps in their wake. And your own hands are running along the outsides of her thighs and over her hips and under her shirt to her back and shoulders.

Her skin feels like silk.

And you feel like you’re unraveling.

/////

Castillo once said that you saved Maca so you could kill her yourself later. That it was your hatred for her that gave your life meaning and purpose and kept you going. That you needed her.

And at the time, you thought he was probably right. Because you had promised you were going to kill her, yet when you were sitting in that puddle of soapy water watching the paramedics lift her onto a gurney and roll her out of the laundry room, not knowing if you would ever see her alive again, it felt like the life had been drained right out of you.

That had bothered you immensely because letting yourself need someone else is a weakness. But you were able to justify and rationalize it because she clearly needed you too. And because that mutual dependence was rooted in your hatred of one another which somehow made the entire thing more tolerable.

So you came to reluctantly accept this strange form of need, this symbiotic relationship that benefits the both of you, where you rely on but don’t trust one another and are fully aware of the danger you pose to each other. Fuck, sometimes the danger is best part. Working with her, living with her, all while knowing how much she detests you. It makes life exciting. She makes life exciting. Hate really is a great motivator.

And until recently, it still felt like you had it all under control somehow. Because with your hatred for her, you always thought if it really came down to it, if she lost her utility or started fucking up or tried to screw you over badly enough, then you could either end this relationship or end her.

But it doesn’t feel like you hate her anymore and you’re starting to wonder if you ever really did.

And at the moment, you still don’t want to end things; not even after she damned near got you shot today and almost cost you your freedom. You don’t even want to hurt her, let alone kill her, and you should want to, if for no other reason than because she’s tried to kill you before and you aren’t one-hundred percent sure that she wouldn’t try again if a good enough opportunity arose.

Moreover, it has become very apparent that you need her more than she needs you, if she even needs you at all anymore.

And needing someone is bad enough but needing someone who doesn’t need you back, someone who you can’t hate or eliminate or stop needing, is far fucking worse. People are cruel and unreliable and selfish and will always betray you in the end. So if you are careless or stupid enough to tie your fate or your heart to another human being, then you deserve exactly what you get.

And what you will inevitably get is reincarcerated or buried under six feet of cold dirt.

It feels like you’re playing a game you know you’ve already lost, but still don’t want to stop playing.

Though, with the cancer, maybe there’s no reason to stop anyway. Your time is running out quickly and your final fate is a forgone conclusion; the only questions are when will it happen and what are you going to do between now and then?

And maybe also…

How will you be remembered?

Not by the rest of the world…

Just by her.

/////

Your heart is racing like it’s trying to keep pace with the intensity of the kiss, which has grown into something unrestrained and eager and needy, the result of what feels like a lifetime of pent-up longing coming to fruition.

If either one of you was holding back initially, you aren’t now. Her arms have wrapped underneath your body and you’ve got yours folded around her back, pulling her down against you. You’re holding onto each other like each is afraid the other is going to suddenly vanish. Or spontaneously combust, you think to yourself. Noisy breaths are filling the small space as both of you desperately try to draw in air through your noses rather than break apart. You don’t even care that you can barely breathe or that having her body weight collapsed onto you and her lips smashed against yours like this is making you feel an awful lot like you’re drowning again, because this time it’s in the best possible fucking way. And from the soft whines spilling from her mouth into yours, you think she must feel the same.

You should have kissed her a long time ago.

Now you don’t want to stop.

And when you feel her mouth leave yours, you actually lean up and try to recapture her lips with your own.

Still chasing after her, eh Zulema?

But she tilts your head back with a single finger under your chin so she can trail wet kisses down the soft underside of your jaw, instead.

Santo Dios.

Once her lips reach your throat, she runs her tongue from your voice box all the way up to your right ear, sliding the hand she had on your jaw down to your chest. And when she draws your earlobe into her mouth to gently suck on it and drags her fingernails over the cups of your bra, first one and then the other, you bite the insides of your own lips to keep them sealed together and squeeze your eyes shut; but neither of those countermeasures does a damned thing to stop your nipples from stiffening or your grip from tightening around her hair, or a shaky breath from escaping your mouth.

Your composure is rapidly deteriorating right along with your self-restraint, and you know this situation is quickly getting away from you.

Maca slides her hand back up and ultimately lets it settle on the side of your neck opposite to where her lips are, her thumb coming to rest in the small hollow between your collarbones. When she releases your earlobe, her lips find your pulse point and she has to know it’s very near the same area where she once repeatedly jabbed a syringe full of air into your veins. And while you wouldn’t go so far as to describe yourself as defenseless, with her body straddling yours, weight pressing down on you, fingers curled around your neck, and teeth dangerously close to your jugular, you feel exposed and unguarded in a way you never allow.

It’s ludicrous to let her hold this sort of dominion over you. This woman detests you, has tried to kill you on more than one occasion, and has every reason to keep trying. The things you did to her, to her family…they are unforgivable. Not that you’d ever ask for forgiveness anyway. But you wouldn’t blame her if she still intends to punish you for all of it someday, either. Maybe that’s exactly what she’s doing now, bulldozing through all the carefully crafted walls you’ve spent so many years erecting to strip you of the only thing you never relinquish to anyone.

Losing control is one of the few things in this world you’re actually afraid of.

And she knows it.

But something about the way she is kissing over that spot is making your brain feel like it’s on the fritz and it’s hard to focus on anything but how good it feels, how good she feels. And it doesn’t seem aggressive or hostile or like she’s trying to do anything other than turn you on and Jesus, she fucking is. And from the moisture you can feel where her panties are pressed against your lower abdomen, it seems you aren’t the only one who Is…affected.

Still, when you feel teeth drag along the side of your neck, your heart starts thumping like it’s about to beat right out of your chest, you can’t seem to catch your breath, and the room suddenly begins to spin. You think maybe it’s anxiety, but it could just as easily be exhilaration. Christ, you can’t even identify your emotions let alone get ahold of them.

Somehow you feel less in control now than when you had an illegal drug coursing through your system.

So when her hand leaves your neck and slides down between your bodies, and you feel fingers just barely dip into the hem of your underwear, you impulsively tighten your arms around her midsection and abruptly flip her over onto her back.

She lets out a surprised gush of air when your weight settles on top of her, but she doesn’t protest the sudden change in position. Her eyes are wide open though, as are yours, and with your face hovering just above hers, it dawns on you that this is the first time you’ve actually looked at each other since this whole thing began.

And she’s gazing up at you like she knows everything you’re thinking, including why you suddenly rolled her over, and she probably does. But you’re gazing down at her like you’re seeing her for the very first time.

God, she’s beautiful. It’s not like it’s some sort of revelation; it’s something you’ve always been aware of, an observable, objective fact. But you’ve never really let yourself think about it. Or appreciate it. And you’ve never seen her quite like this before either, in the soft glow of the moonlight that’s just bright enough for you to tell that her cheeks are totally flushed, her pupils are dilated, and her lips are swollen from all the kissing. But also, you see that a dark purple bruise has formed over her right cheekbone, there are grayish finger-shaped marks on the sides of her neck, and there’s blood collecting in the gap where you’ve reopened the split in her lower lip.

You sit up and lean back to get a better perspective. That’s when you catch a glimpse of the nearly healed laceration from her accident with the ladder peeking out from under the bangs covering her forehead; you think it will be permanent, but it’s lightening up fast and will probably be barely visible over time. You reach your hand out and trace a soft fingertip over the line of bumpy gray tissue that triggered this whole fiasco tonight; and when you exchange a knowing glance with her, she’s wearing a rueful smile and you can’t help the small smile that forms on your own lips in return.

But it fades as you run your knuckle down her temple and then gently over her bruised cheek.

“Te duele?”’

She shakes her head and answers, “Just a little,” but you’re sure she’s minimizing the severity of the pain.

She always does.

You move your hand lower and brush your thumb over the split in her lip, carefully wiping away the blood that has gathered there before delicately trailing your fingertips along the marks on her neck.

You feel like you want to say something about all of it, you just aren’t quite sure what. But when you return your eyes to hers you realize you aren’t the only one assessing the damage. She’s dropped her gaze down to your torso, where you’ve got your own fair share of injuries, some new, some old, all of which suddenly became visible to her when you sat upright.

A large, deep red bruise with dark edges has blossomed across your right side where that wannabe cop sucker-punched you; it hurts quite a bit, but you don’t think any of the ribs are cracked. Below that, and nearer to your back, there’s a small, circular bit of pale, slightly elevated tissue, where a shiv fashioned from a toothbrush was jabbed into you in a failed attempt to puncture your kidney soon after you arrived to your very first prison; it was the first and last time you let anyone shank you. The burns on your abdomen that were part of your botched escape attempt from Cruz del Sur healed long ago, but there are still a few small patches where the pigment doesn’t quite match up anymore. Higher up, across the top of your chest is a long, shallow, horizontal abrasion with dried blood still caked around the edges, a fresh keepsake from your perilous expedition along the slippery riverbank earlier. On your left, partially poking out from under your boxer-briefs, there’s a jagged, ugly-looking gray scar that runs along the outer aspect of your hip down to the top of your thigh, sliced open decades ago on a sharp, jutted-out piece of metal frame as you tried to break loose from the backseat of an old car in Egypt.

Maca is looking at every single one of those battle wounds, taking them all in raptly, but her eyes ultimately settle on a trio of small, oblong indentations that run in a diagonal line from just left of your belly button all the way up to your chest near your heart. They are the most prominent features on your skin, pink and misshapen and grotesque. Mementos from a too-short vacation to the Dominican Republic that ended with your best friend shooting you with an assault rifle to save herself and her unborn baby. It’s these that Maca has zeroed in on and you’re a little surprised when she reaches a hand toward them. But then she abruptly pauses and glances up at you like she’s checking to make sure it’s okay before she proceeds. You don’t say anything, but you drop your arms to your sides and hold still and just wait for her to continue, tacitly granting her the permission she was seeking.

She starts with the gunshot wound on your belly, timidly brushing unsure fingertips over the damaged tissue before following an invisible pathway to the one higher up on your abdomen, and then all the way up to the last one which is partly hidden under the bottom edge of your bra on the upper, far-left side of your chest. That particular bullet went into your pulmonary cavity and collapsed your lung and resulted in a weeks-long hospital stay prior to your return to prison. Maca runs the soft pad of her index finger over the visible portion, lingering there for several seconds and you wonder if she knows. She was still in a coma when it happened, and you’ve never told her about it, but maybe Saray did because she seems acutely aware of just how significant these particular lesions are. But she doesn’t say anything either way and just inspects the scar pensively for a few more seconds before moving on to all the others.

/////

When you last visited Saray, Estrella was there. It was the first time you had seen her since you’d held her as an infant in Cruz Del Norte and you couldn’t believe how fast she was growing up. She was smart and beautiful and every bit as strong-willed as her mother.

But all day long a sickening feeling kept rising from deep within your guts and turning to bile at the back of your throat and wouldn’t go away no matter how many times you swallowed or how many gulps of water you took.

Saray had long ago forgiven you for that night when you wrapped a seatbelt around her neck, almost killing her and Estrellita both. You had done it because you were worried that she’d sell you out and you’d lose your freedom again. And you didn’t exactly regret it, you don’t do regret and ultimately they were both fine anyway, but you didn’t like thinking about it either.

You still don’t.

Because Saray’s the best friend you’ve ever had. The only friend, really.

Tu gitana.

She had covered for you, lied under oath for you, committed crimes with you, escaped prison with you.

She’d stood up for you when no one else would.

She was brave enough to tell you when you were wrong but stuck by your side even when you were.

She had a scorpion tattooed on her arm in your honor, offered to swallow balloons filled with glycerin to prevent you from getting caught with them, and came to your rescue when those undercover cops found you at that costume party, ready and willing to go out in a blaze of glory together, pregnant and all.

She has been steadfast and honest and caring and is probably the only person in the world who’s ever cried for you.

And at the end of the day, she’s taught you way more than you have ever taught her. About friendship and loyalty and unconditional love, and that maybe, just maybe, freedom isn’t always the most important thing.

So over the years, you just sort of tucked the whole deplorable Dominican incident away in the farthest reaches of your mind, places so deep and dark and hidden that you didn’t expect to ever have to contemplate it again.

And watching Saray and Estrella together during your visit, you knew you’d just as soon wrap that belt around your own neck than ever hurt either one of them again. Yet you weren’t exactly sure where that left you because it made you feel debilitated and vulnerable and uncertain of who you even were anymore. And it didn’t erase what you had done or change the fact that because of it your own daughter was interred behind half a meter of marble.

Saray had said something died the night you tried to kill her; she had meant your friendship, but miraculously enough, that somehow managed to survive.

Yet, something was lost that night, and you think perhaps it was some crucial part of yourself.

The part that prevents you from second-guessing your actions, maybe.

Because it wasn’t the part that hurts people; you know that part will always be there. You’ve fucked over everyone you’ve ever cared about, even when you didn’t want to or intend to. Just ask Hanbal or Altagracia or Fátima or even Saray despite the fact that she’s forgiven you.

The truth is, you don’t deserve her forgiveness. Because while you meant it when you promised her you would never do something like that to her ever again, you aren’t sure you even have the capacity to keep such a promise.

Not when you have poison running through your veins.

So when you were saying goodbye that last time, you held her face in your hands and looked into her eyes as water welled up in your own and said, “Te quiero, Gitana. Te quiero.” And when she hugged you, she was crying too, and she held on longer than usual and it hurt like nothing you’d ever felt before.

You think she knew you weren’t coming back.

On the drive home that night, you didn’t make it more than half an hour before you had to pull over and vomit into a ditch on the side of the road. You kept retching long after your stomach was empty and eventually gave up on the idea of trying to get to the caravan and just lied down in the dirt staring out into space.

You stayed there for hours, thinking about your life and the choices you had made, thoughts bouncing wildly from Saray to Estrella to Fátima and back again, like you were on the verge of some damned epiphany that was never forthcoming. Instead, you just felt lost.

And broken.

By the time you finally made it back to the RV, it was after midnight and Maca was in bed. She’d left a light on for you though, and you went inside quietly, trying not to wake her.

You crawled onto your mattress, sat with your back against the window, and drew your knees up to your chin. You weren’t tired and the knot that had been in your stomach all day seemed to have migrated to your chest and was making it ache.

Maca was lying on her side, facing your direction, a sheet pulled over most of her body. Her breathing was even and her features were relaxed. Her jaw had dropped open just a tiny bit, like it often did.

You wanted to go over there.

To be near her.

To feel her near you.

You didn’t do it, of course. Instead, you just reached over and clicked off the lamp. And through the darkness, you watched the rise and fall of the sheet draped over her chest until your eyelids got heavy and you eventually fell asleep too.

/////

Scars are fascinating things, you think. Permanent disfigurations that more often than not, people want to cover or hide. But they aren’t some random defect we get saddled with by chance. They represent our old wounds, the very worst ones…the ones that had the most impact and shaped us as people. And taken altogether, they form a sort of roadmap of how we became who we are. You wonder if that’s why Maca seems so interested in yours.

She’s probably never seen any of these ones before; they’re usually under your clothes. You aren’t the type to show much skin. People let it go to their heads when they see someone else’s body, or at least the parts that are generally kept out of sight; it gives them a perception of power and authority even where none exists. But by withholding it, you maintain all the power and control because people always want what they can’t have.

Maca, on the other hand, has no qualms about parading around in a bra and panties when it’s hot out, changing clothes while you’re in the middle of a conversation, or sleeping in shirts that are so thin you can see right through them. But for some reason when she does it, it comes across as a strength, like she’s exerting control and wielding power in totally different way, though you haven’t quite worked out how.

But while you’ve seen her body plenty of times (it’s stunning and damned near flawless) she’s only caught glimpses of yours here and there. She’s never had the opportunity to really look at you, to take her time and study you, and that’s precisely what she is doing right now.

Her eyes are roaming over the length of your torso, her hand following in the wake of their path as she gingerly explores all your fresh injuries and old scars and every place in between. And as she’s examining you, you’re watching her. She’s completely engrossed in what she’s doing. She’s chewing on her lower lip and her eyes are lit up. And it’s making your mouth go dry, the way she is looking at your body. Like you’re the most fascinating thing she’s ever seen. Like she can’t get enough of you. Like she is dying to run her fingers over every last piece of your skin.

And you’re pretty sure that you want her to.

So you just let her, take you in and touch you…

But your breathing has gotten shallow and all of your muscles have tensed up, rendering you stiff as a board and almost as motionless as one. You’re not used to be scrutinized this way, to granting anyone this level of access, and Maca is aware of that. So her touches are cautious and uncertain, as if she isn’t sure that you’re going to continue being ok with them. Like you’re some kind of feral animal she knows she isn’t supposed to get this close to and she expects you to bite or bolt any second now.

It makes you remember something she once said to you, though you doubt she remembers saying it-

/////

She came home drunk one night about eight months or so after you started all this. Not just drunk, but completely fucking wasted. She was lucky to have made it back alive let alone without getting stopped by the police.

You heard the car pull up and then her stumbling down the pathway and went outside just in time to see her topple over into the bushes and puke her guts out.

So, you got her inside and cleaned up and changed, and then put her to bed. But as you turned to walk away, she reached out and grabbed your arm and implored weakly, “Quédate.”

You stood there for a few beats, unsure of how to respond. Ultimately though, you just sat down next to her on the edge of the mattress and used your free hand to brush back the hair that had fallen into her face, because she probably wasn’t going to remember a damned thing about any of it anyway.

But when she looked up at you, you saw that her eyes were puffy and bloodshot, and you were sure she had been crying. She hadn’t said anything, but you were very much aware it was the anniversary week of the death of her parents.

She looked sad and seemed kind of lonely too.

And you were the reason for it.

“You’re supposed to hate me, remember?” you teased as you tucked her hair behind her ear.

She huffed and shook her head. “Zulema, that’s like saying I should hate a caged animal for biting its captors. It doesn’t make any sense.”

Her words were mumbled and slurred but you were certain of what you’d heard.

She closed her eyes then, her hand still lightly gripping your arm, and you sighed and shook your head, annoyed that she’d put you in the awkward position of taking care of her drunk ass. Still, you stayed there sitting next to her, stroking her hair until you were sure she was asleep.

You think back on that night a lot. About her words and what she meant exactly and sometimes you can almost believe that she doesn’t completely despise you. But if so, it’s only because she still sees you as a scorpion, a dangerous, cold-blooded, venom-filled creature who stings simply because it’s in her nature.

She isn’t wrong to think that way; you’ve always known you were toxic, your own mother told you as much. And that sort of vileness doesn’t ever go away.

But the thing is, being with Maca these past couple of years has made you feel more human than you have in a very long time.

/////

When Maca’s eyes find yours again, she doesn’t say anything. She just settles her hands on your hips and lets them rest there like she’s giving you time to decide how you want to continue this. Or if you want to continue it at all. It reminds you of that moment on New Year’s when she was waiting for you to act, but this time, you aren’t going to risk letting it slip away from you, letting her slip away.

You lean down, eagerly recapturing her mouth with your own while sliding your hand under her shirt to caress the skin just below her left breast. She shivers a little bit at the contact like she wasn’t quite expecting it. You think maybe she’s a little surprised you’ve decided to keep going, but she returns the kiss hungrily, twining her fingers in your hair and craning her neck to seal your lips firmly together.

You let your hand explore under her shirt, roaming over the skin on her abdomen and sides, before finding its way to her chest, warm, pliant tissue molding into your palm as you cup her breast. You move your mouth to her neck and kiss over her pulse point gently because you remember how it made her knees go weak on New Year’s and you kind of want to make her melt like that again. And when her jaw goes slack and she lets out a desirous sounding sigh, you know you’ve hit your target. You think she likes it when you’re soft with her but you don’t want to think about why, so you just repeat the action on the other side of her neck instead. And as you do, you run your thumb across her nipple, eliciting a quiet but satisfying gasp from her lips that incentivizes you to let your second hand join the first under her shirt.

You cover the sides of her neck with countless tender kisses while gently squeezing her breasts and lightly rolling hardening nipples between your thumbs and fingers. She, in turn, wraps a leg over the backs of yours, calling your attention to the wetness collecting between your own thighs and to exactly how damned hot she makes you, and fuck, you could really get used to this.

When you return your lips to hers, she kisses you like you’re her air supply, gripping the back of your neck and pulling you down against her mouth while running her tongue along yours. You reach down to tug up on the bottom edge of her shirt, and when she sits up slightly and raises her arms you pull away just long enough to lift it up and over her head before immediately returning to the kiss, letting your tongue find its way back between her lips and your hands back to her breasts.

She’s breathing hard and humming longingly into your mouth and you can feel her heart thudding uncontrollably under your palms. Knowing that you affect her this way, in the absence of alcohol or illicit substances or even an acute adrenaline surge brought on by a fight, is giving rise to an unfamiliar sensation that you can’t quite make sense of, but it makes you want to find out exactly how good you can make her feel.

You keep your hands on her breasts as you slide your body lower to plant kisses further down her neck and along her collarbone. You notice a change in texture as your lips and tongue travel over a particular patch of skin there and you don’t have to look to know it’s where you bit her all those years ago, tearing into the tender flesh between her neck and shoulder and coming away with tissue and blood between your teeth, leaving your mark on her forever.

At the time, she’d had you tied up and bloody and had forced enough air into your veins that death was looming like something imminent. But the thing that had hurt the most was watching your hard-earned freedom slip away. You had been SO fucking close to getting out. Instead, you wound up with a heart attack, a flatline, and a lengthy coma before being transferred to that hellhole of a prison up north. If Maca hadn’t disrupted your escape plan, there would have been no Cruz del Norte, no sexual sadist prison directors turning you into a rat, no seatbelts wrapped around your best friend’s neck, and no young girls being violated and then pushed out of helicopters and landing on the pavement behind you.

The memory stirs old feelings of resentment and ill-will, and there’s a recollection of a promise to make her pay. And the pain and anger growing inside your belly make you kind of want to bite her again, to sink sharp teeth into delicate flesh until you draw blood and leave her with another inescapable reminder of you.

Instead, you just kiss over the old wound gently before letting your lips wander lower, exploring and tasting every centimeter of the delectable, porcelain skin along her chest and abdomen.

And as you do, you think about the fact that you are responsible for Maca’s most significant scars. The bite mark on her collarbone is the most conspicuous but the worst are the invisible ones you gave rise to when you took away the one thing she wanted more than anything else in this world, and left her with an empty womb instead; and then followed it up by orchestrating the events that resulted in the deaths of her step-niece and parents. But guilt and regret and remorse are all a waste of time and energy, and you would never apologize for doing everything you could to be free. So when you pause to look up at her as you press the very softest of kisses over her navel, you wonder why it feels like that is exactly what you are doing.

But instead of giving it further consideration, you just focus on the quiet breathy noises she’s making, the feeling of her fingers running through your hair, the way her stomach quivers each time your mouth makes contact, and the trail of wet evidence you’re leaving on her skin that is marking the pathway your lips are taking as you move lower and lower.

You don’t go down on people, and you definitely don’t let them go down on you. It’s far too intimate and toys with the notions of power and control way more than you’re comfortable with.

But when your chin brushes against the top of her underwear, you think about pushing the material aside and spreading her knees apart and kissing her even lower. You want to know what she tastes like, what kinds of sounds you might draw out of her with your lips and tongue, whether you could make her legs shake, and how it would feel to have her dig her nails into your scalp…

But instead, you feel hands on either side of your face motioning for you to crawl back up her body and when you do, she kisses you feverishly and one of her palms finds its way to your ass and pulls your center down against hers. The contact makes you groan, partly from the pressure but mostly because you can tell exactly what she wants, and how urgently she wants it.

How urgently she wants you.

And suddenly you feel like you are going to explode if you don’t give it to her right fucking now.

You lift your hips just enough to free up her legs and grab ahold of her panties and tug them down and off. It doesn’t escape you that she bends her knees and reaches down to help. As soon as they’re gone, you run your palm along the inside of her thigh all the way up to her core and when you feel how wet she is, you don’t hesitate to slip two fingers inside of her. She lets out a carnal “mmmph” and pulls you down into another kiss.

Fuuuck-

You probe into her gently, stretching her tight walls as you move within her.

And it occurs to you that you don’t think you’ll ever get over this…

The breathtaking sensation of having her body under yours. How hot she feels around your fingers. The way she arches her hips in response to your touches. The quiet, torrid noises she makes as you stroke inside her.

You’re never not going to want this over and over.

You alternate between kissing her mouth and neck while keeping your movements inside of her slow and deliberate as you search for just the right angle and depth and pressure. You don’t intend to leave any room for complaints this time, your pride won’t allow it. And when she lets out an uninhibited moan and wraps her arms around your neck and pulls you firmly against her, you know you’re doing something right.

So you speed up, but only a little.

To you, sex is normally just a means to an end; a way to release pent up energy or tension or anger, or sometimes to just satisfy an inescapable physiological need. And while you always get your partner off in the process, it’s not the kind of thing you intentionally draw out. And with men, that’s easy enough to accomplish with everyone leaving satisfied. But with women, you recognize that it can take a bit more effort. And with Maca, you don’t want to just make her come, you want to make her come apart. Which means you find yourself in the unusual position of wanting to take your time with her. So, you just keep pushing into her unwaveringly, exactly where you’ve discovered she likes, patiently fanning the embers you know are burning inside her without quite allowing them to catch fire.

And for a while the only sounds in the caravan are those of wet kisses, heavy breathing, your fingers working inside her, and her moans that are gradually growing louder and louder.

“Torpe, eh?”

You mean it to be light and humorous. But since when are you playful during sex?

She doesn’t reply but you can feel her grin against your neck.

And you grin too.

You don’t smile that often, not genuinely anyway. Usually it’s more of a smirk, or a means to an end, a way to manipulate and get what you want out of someone. But you’ve noticed yourself smiling a lot more over these past couple of years.

You wonder if she’s noticed too.

Her fingernails have started digging into your shoulders and she has wrapped her arms around you so tightly that it’s almost painful. But, fuck, you really like having her hold onto you like this, like you’re her god-damned life raft and she’s clinging onto you to keep from sinking. Because right now it doesn’t at all feel like she hates you, it just feels very much like she needs you.

And you know you might be misreading this. Maybe it’s all just finally hitting her, everything that happened earlier today. Exactly how close she came to going back to prison, how close she came to dying. Maybe this whole thing doesn’t really have anything to do with you at all, and it’s just something she needed to work out of her system and you happened to be the only warm body nearby…and you could almost believe that, if it weren’t for the fact that in between all the salacious little sounds she is making, your name has started falling from her lips too; and Jesus every time she says it there’s a flutter in your stomach and a rush of blood a lot lower than that.

She’s pulling you so closely against herself too, that it’s getting difficult to even continue your movements below and it’s contorting your body into a truly awkward position; your thigh is threatening to cramp up, your arm is aching, and your wrist is protesting the unnatural angle. But you just elevate your hips to give yourself some space and keep going because there’s no way you aren’t going to do everything it takes to hear the sound of your name spilling needfully from her lips again and again. The way she says it, half breathy sigh, half groan, and all desire, you don’t think even the brain tumor can prevent it from being imprinted on you forever.

And if you somehow manage to keep the memory of it from pervading your conscious thoughts, you’ll never be able to keep it from invading your dreams. And you already dream of her.

A lot.

“Zulemaaa-“

You know she’s close. She’s breathless and writhing around underneath you and the noises coming from the back of her throat sound less like moans and more like whimpers. But from the way her hands are clutching aimlessly at your back and she’s whispering your name like a plea, you can tell she needs more.

And you could go faster or harder or both, but you know that’ll send her toppling right over the edge and you want this to last…just a little longer. So you maintain your excruciatingly steady pace, rhythmically sliding your fingers inward and outward, pressing into her purposefully while planting kisses along her jaw and neck and using your free hand to gently pinch her hardened nipples.

You draw back to look at her, but just a bit, because you don’t want her to have to loosen her hold on you too much. Her forehead is scrunched up, her eyes are smushed shut, and her lips are parted and quivering. She’s almost smiling, you think.

You’ve never seen anything so fucking perfect in your life.

And you want her to look at you as well, to see you, in this moment. You don’t know why that’s so damned important to you but you recall trying to get her to make eye contact with you on New Year’s too.

You suppose that you just want her to look back someday and remember that you made her feel really fucking good, if only once or twice for a few, fleeting moments.

And you think you also want her to remember that you really liked making her feel this way.

You reach your hand up and curl your fingers delicately under her jaw.

The last time you held her face this way, you were squatting down next to her in her cell in Cruz del Sur and blood was pooling between her legs; and she had looked at you with anguish and hatred and utter disgust. You close your eyes momentarily to drive that image away and ignore the twisting feeling in your guts and force yourself to swallow, unsure you can even get the words out.

“Mírame, Rubia.”

Your voice is hoarse from the sudden lack of saliva, but you guess she’s understood you well enough because she complies with your request with hardly any delay.

And when bright green irises meet yours, she has a look that is wanton and needy and trusting all at the same time, almost a kind of surrender.

And you can’t decide how that makes you feel because there is a sensation in your chest like rippling water that’s somehow wonderful and terrible at the same time. But it makes you want to make her feel better than anyone has before.

So with her eyes still looking into yours, you finally speed up your movements.

And she clenches around you so tightly in response, that you have to thrust your hips against your own hand just to be able to keep hitting that spot inside her that she likes she much. Though each time you do, you are rewarded with a loud, breathy gasp and nails digging into your back.

So you keep driving into her more and more fervently, using your entire body to give her what she needs, exactly where she needs it, over and over and over again…

Until she is moaning nonstop, and you are dripping sweat, and your heart feels like it’s going to explode and not just from the exertion but because she is looking at you like you are EVERYTHING…

Her mouth suddenly drops open, and her eyes slam shut, and she climaxes with a shudder and protracted groan, folding her arms around you and hugging you against her while her body convulses beneath yours and her insides spasm around your fingers. Her hands briskly find their way into your hair and pull you into a kiss and this time you actually groan into her mouth. And as you feel the orgasm continue to ripple through her, there’s a new rush of heat and liquid that floods your own center and you think if you let yourself, you could come just from this.

But you don’t let yourself. You keep your focus on Maca, kissing her softly as the undulations gradually diminish, and coaxing a few more waves out of her with some gentle movements of your fingers.

Eventually the pulsations wane and then stop altogether, her breathing evens out, the rise and fall of her chest slows, and the kiss turns languid. So, you slowly remove your hand from between her legs and tuck both of your arms underneath her, wrapping them around her body as you lay your head on her chest. She smells like vanilla and sex and sweat and something else that you can’t put a name to but it’s on her clothes and bedding and everywhere inside the camper even when she isn’t, and makes you miss her when she’s gone. Her arms are folded around you still, holding you, one of her hands at the base of your neck where her fingers are lightly stroking the whispy hairs there. You can feel and hear her heart beating, the pace still not quite back to normal.

You want to stay like this forever.

Except you know you can’t.

You’re dying.

And she’s leaving. You’re suddenly sure of that. Even if it’s not today or tomorrow, it’s only a matter of time. You don’t get to wipe out her entire family and then get to have her. You took away everything that she’s ever loved. No number of tender kisses or soft touches or spectacular orgasms is going to change that.

You hope the cancer wipes you out before it happens. But your certain she’s already made her up mind, so it will probably be soon.

This might even be her way of saying goodbye.

You can feel the cold starting to sting your back. You’re sweaty and the sheets and blankets have long ago fallen away from both of your bodies. You think you should get up and find some clothes and go to your side of the caravan so that Maca can have her bed back.

But before you can muster the necessary energy to do any of that, her palms start to run up and down your back. They’re warm and the steady rhythm is soothing and reminds you that you’ve only gotten a few hours of sleep in the past couple of days. But when she switches to fingertips, it makes your skin tingle and sends familiar chills through your spine, and you wonder how the lightest, faintest caresses from her can turn you on so much.

You notice her movements seem more confident now, as if she’s gotten comfortable touching you and isn’t quite so afraid that you’ll punch her or run away. Because she isn’t being tentative at all anymore, she’s just being tender, letting her fingers wander down your neck, over your shoulder blades, along your spine into the small of your back, around to your sides, and back up across that ticklish spot on your ribs that no one knows about, then sliding down again over your hips and the curve of your ass, to backs of your thighs…

Somehow, the way she is touching you makes you feel like something inside you is crumbling apart.

You think maybe it’s your defenses.

/////

Last year, not long after you got the trampoline, you drove into town early one morning and came back with a carload full of decorations, food, wine, and ice for the new cooler chests you’d purchased to store all the perishables.

Maca was still in bed and though she wasn’t thrilled about being woken up for no discernible reason, she still staggered to the car to help you unload it all and then rummaged through the bags looking over everything you’d bought in disbelief. It was all strictly top-of-the-line, including a sizable portion of hand-sliced Jamón Ibérico de Bellota and a few kilos of rather costly dry-aged Rubia Gallega you had special ordered weeks ahead of time. And when she came across the half case of Teso La Monja limited release 2013 Toro Tempranillo, she held up one of the bottles and smirked.

“’Is this our last meal or something?”

You just told her to shut up and help you prep. When she gave you a look, you said it was to celebrate your most recent heist, which had been your biggest take yet, and added what was the point in making all this pasta if you weren’t going to enjoy it. She reluctantly agreed to the fiesta but said she wouldn’t eat the beef no matter what you had paid for it, though you sure as Hell didn’t hear her complain when she found the ham. Then again, vegetarian or not, no true Spaniard would dare turn down best jamón in the world.

You uncorked the first bottle of Tempranillo before 10:00am. It was smooth and decadent, and you’d never tasted a better vino in your life. But when you handed a glass to Maca, she said wasn’t going to touch the stuff until you promised her that it was your treat and swore that you weren’t going to come after her at a later date to collect financial compensation for whatever portion she consumed…to which you impatiently replied, “Just drink the damned wine, Rubia.” But you guess that must’ve been good enough for her, because after that she didn’t stop going back for refills until you ran out later that day,

And as the two of you drank, you put on some music and snacked on chorizo, Manchego, and pan de barra, and worked together to deck out the site with fancy streamers and confetti and balloons until it looked like you were celebrating a goddamned World Cup win.

You spent the rest of the morning and half the afternoon chopping, marinating, seasoning, and cooking, and in the end, you’d put together a seafood paella, patatas bravas, veggie kebabs, and homemade hummus to go with some hand-baked artisan pita bread you’d found at the market. Your grandmother had taught you the recipe for the dip when you were a kid, and it was one of the few good memories you had from your childhood. You even whipped up some gazpacho despite the fact that the weather wasn’t quite hot enough to justify cold soup. But it’s Maca’s favorite, so you told her you’d make it if she baked one of her chocolate cakes because she hadn’t made one in ages and Dios, you were craving it.

But the highlight of the meal was definitely the Iberian ham, which you served on a toasted slice of ciabatta with fresh tomato, garlic, and olive oil as an appetizer, and the Galician Blond beef which you grilled along with some asparagus spears and ate as the main course. And even though la Rubia got annoyed when you pointed out that she shared her nickname with una vaca (and later when you were really drunk, the fact vaca rhymed with Maca), she ultimately tried some of the steak, which you adamantly refused to let her insult by replacing with tofu; and even she couldn’t deny it’s sheer melt-in-your-mouth perfection and went back for seconds.

And after you were both stuffed and more than a little buzzed, you each grabbed a slice of cake and took your plates and last bottle of wine down to the lake to eat in the lounge chairs you’d set up there. It wasn’t a particularly sunny afternoon, but it was warm enough to relax by the water in jeans, t-shirts, and flip-flops.

With all the food you’d already consumed, you’re not even sure how either one of you managed to finish off your respective pieces of torta, but it tasted so fucking good that you figured it was worth the stomachache. And afterward, the two off you just sat quietly and smoked and sipped your last glasses of wine while digging your toes into the wet sand and watching the birds land for a drink then take off again as the sun gradually got lower in the distance.

Before it set though, you walked back up to the site and did your best to pack up the leftovers and fit them inside the cooler chests.

And while Maca was gathering up the garbage and wiping off the patio table, you disappeared to the car for a few minutes and came back with a large, bulky metal and plastic machine in your arms; but when you set it on the ground a few meters away from the awning and grabbed an extension cord to plug it in, the blonde laughed incredulously and raised an eyebrow.

“Really? Una cama elástica, thousand-euro wine, and now Karaoke? What is this, Zulema Zahir’s version of a midlife crisis?”

She was grinning ear-to-ear, but you just ignored her lame broma and powered on the machine, verifying that the LED display popped up before replying, “Oh no, Rubia, this isn’t for me.”

And then you held the microphone out to her.

Her cheeky smile disappeared immediately.

“No me jodas, Zulema.”

You sighed and waved the silver implement in front of her.

“C’mon Rubia, don’t be a buzzkill. You said you used to like this shit before college. So now’s your chance to reclaim your God-given right to sing as loudly, and as badly, as you want.”

“Dije que no, hostia!” she snapped, giving you a vexed look before turning to walk toward the camper, probably thinking you’d gotten her drunk just to make her relive her sing-along trauma for your own personal entertainment.

“You can use any song on your phone,” you called after her. “You just scan the barcode and download the app-“

She was inside the trailer before you could finish the sentence.

You set the mic down on one of the empty chairs under the awning and smiled to yourself.

Oh well, it was worth a try.

And even though Maca may not have been willing to make an ass of herself on the Karaoke machine for you, she must not have been too upset over the matter, because she did return from inside the camper a few minutes later with a bottle of tequila in one hand and a couple of shot glasses in the other; and you figured that wasn’t a bad consolation prize.

So the two of you spent the rest of the evening taking shots and smoking and dancing around to the alternative music that you were blasting through the outside speakers.

And once it got completely dark and a little chilly, you turned the music off, built a fire, wrapped yourselves up in hoodies, and stretched out under your respective blankets on top of the trampoline to look up at the sky.

The night was crystal clear, and you could see a million stars shimmering against the backdrop of total blackness. It reminded you of the desert and you couldn’t stop your thoughts from ultimately turning to your daughter. Without thinking, you said out loud that you thought maybe Fátima was out there somewhere, her energy or life force or soul or whatever the Hell anyone wanted to call it. Or, you added quietly, that maybe you just hoped that she was. You were drunk and talking too much. But before you could take it back or crawl down off the trampoline and pretend you’d never said it, Maca said she hoped so too.

You felt a lump promptly form in your throat then, and water building up behind your eyelids. You tried hard not to blink, but when you inevitably did, teardrops escaped from the corners of your eyes and ran down the sides of your face, and you had to keep sniffing to prevent your nose from running. Maca had to have noticed but she didn’t comment on it. She just stayed silent and kept her eyes trained on the twinkling lights above as you snuffled beside her quietly and wiped your eyes and nose with the sleeve of your sweatshirt and slowly got ahold yourself.

For a while afterward, the only sound was the crackling of the fire.

When Maca finally broke the near silence with a protracted yawn, and then slid to the edge of the elastic and hopped down, you figured she was heading to bed. It was late, and all the alcohol had to be making her tired. But instead, she just stood there, fiddling with her phone for a minute or two before she looked up at you and inquired, “Pues, qué prefieres? American? Latin Pop? Showtunes?”

It took you a few seconds to realize what she was asking, but when it hit you, you just grinned and rolled over onto your stomach to watch her.

“Bien. Singer’s choice, then,” she said over her shoulder as she headed toward the Karaoke machine.

You guess she must have set her playlist to random because after she scanned the barcode, she just laid her phone on the table and proceeded to sing along with whatever song happened to come up. And it was a mish mosh of a little bit of everything. Janice Joplin, Shakira, the Rolling Stones, Enrique Iglesias, the Cranberries, Beyonce, BTS, the Weeknd and so many others. You can’t even remember all the artists, just that as bad a singer as Maca had proclaimed herself to be, it turned out that she was in fact, much, much worse. You’d never heard anyone so incapable of carrying a tune. And as she belted out hit after hit wildly off-key, you laughed so hard that your sides were aching and tears were rolling down your cheeks.

You’re pretty sure that’s exactly why she did it.

You don’t think you’d ever seen her smile quite so much either. She didn’t care that she was awful. She just sang and laughed and danced around carefree like she didn’t give a shit because she was having fun and if the rest of the world didn’t like it, they could just go fuck themselves. Except there was no rest of the world, there was just you. And you did like it. Every damned bit of it. The way she scrunched up her face when she tried to hit a falsetto note and tucked in her neck and pursed her lips when she went for the lower octaves. The way she bounced around frenetically when something with a beat came on, spinning and shaking her hips and throwing her hands into the air. And especially how when a song was slow or sensual, she swayed her body seductively and closed her eyes as she sang along but stared right at you and smiled whenever she opened them again. She couldn’t sing, but she sure as Hell could dance, and watching her move like that while her eyes were trained directly on you was making your mind go places you knew you shouldn’t allow.

So, when an old Rat Pack tune came on, you jumped down and waited for her to finish singing before walking over and telling her that Sinatra was definitely rolling over in his grave.

“Bueno, if you’re so fucking great at it, here you go-“

Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game came on as she tossed the mic at you.

You caught it but said, “Ni en sueños, Rubia.”

You love to sing, and you’re good at it. But you wouldn’t be caught dead doing Karaoke and you didn’t perform for anyone.

“Qué? Tienes miedo?” she asked tauntingly.

And the answer to that question was yes, but it wasn’t because you were self-conscious or had stage fright. It’s because she had stepped closer to you and was staring right at your lips when she asked it.

And when she eventually met your eyes, you could see flashes of gold reflected in her pupils from the flames flickering nearby.

The world was on fire and no one could save me but you-

You tried to just hold her gaze, to fixate on the embers dancing within her green irises, but your own eyes betrayed you and dropped down to her mouth instead.

And when she licked her lips, all you wanted in that moment was to take her face in your hands and kiss her deeply.

It’s strange what desire will make foolish people do-

It wasn’t the first time you’d had that urge; you’d felt the impulse to claim her mouth with your own as far back as your time together in la cárcel.

But that night was the first time you thought you might actually falter and just give in and do it.

I never dreamed that I’d meet somebody like you-

But you knew if you did, it wouldn’t end there. That you wouldn’t be able to stop yourself from backing her up against the side of the RV and kissing her everywhere else too.

That you’d never want to stop.

And I never dreamed that I’d lose somebody like you-

You wanted so desperately to just let yourself go that night.

But as Chris Isaak crooned in the background about not wanting to fall in love, you just handed the microphone back to her and smiled a little and said, “Buenas noches, Rubita.”

Then you turned around and walked to the caravan and went in to go to sleep.

When Maca stepped inside a few minutes later she looked over at you lying on your back with one knee bent in the air and your hands behind your head, and for a second you thought she was going to walk over to your bed.

But after a brief pause, she just smiled sweetly and said good night before switching off the light and crawling onto her own mattress.

You knew it was for the best. You were both really drunk, and you think If she had come over to your side of the camper, you would have reached up and pulled her down on top of you and let her do anything she wanted.

So you just rolled over onto your side and closed your eyes and quickly drifted off to sleep, and for the first time in years, you didn’t have a single bad dream.

It was your birthday.

You never told Maca that.

It’s the best birthday you’ve ever had.

/////

Her fingers are still running along your back, and God you really like how she touches you and it would be so easy to just let her keep touching you. But it will be morning soon and she’ll be regretting this by then if she hasn’t already started to.

On New Year’s, when she said it didn’t make any sense that she would want to have sex with you, that had been the understatement of the fucking year. The two of you follando wasn’t just illogical, it was insane. It was a mistake then and it’s a mistake now and you know you need to stop it before it goes any further.

But when you unwind your arms from around her back and lift your head up so you can tell her that, you only get as far as, “Maca-” before her fingers wrap around the back of your neck to hold you in place as she presses her lips against yours, hard, cutting off whatever you were about to say. And ok, fuck, maybe she isn’t regretting this just yet, because her tongue is already in your mouth and it’s pretty damned clear that she doesn’t want you to put a stop to this.

And you’re certain she knew that’s what you were about to do.

When did get so damned good at reading you?

With her lips still occupying yours, she quickly snakes her free arm in between your bodies, sliding her palm down your abdomen and into your underwear without the slightest hesitation, like she knows if she gives you any chance to reconsider this, you’ll talk yourself out of it. And in response, you lift your hips up to give her access because you don’t really want to let yourself reconsider this either, you just want to feel her hands on you.

She immediately dips a finger into your warmth and drags it through your wetness; and if she didn’t already know how soaked you were, she does now, and it doesn’t help that a groan escapes from the back of your throat. But you’ve been pretending not to want this since it first happened on New Year’s (and for a lot longer before that) and suddenly every sordid detail about that night is rushing back: exactly how good it felt to have her touch you like this, how you’d wanted to call out her name when she first pushed inside of you, how easily she’d made you come…

And this time there’s no drug to hide behind and she knows exactly how badly you want this, how badly you want her.

She releases her fingers from the nape of your neck and places her palm flat on your chest, pushing against you gently until you roll off her and down onto your back, breaking the kiss momentarily but keeping her hand between your legs the whole time. Instead of crawling on top of you though, she stretches out next to you and drapes her trunk and legs across yours, sandwiching you within the soft, warm space between her body and the mattress without making you feel like your trapped there.

And when she doesn’t try to slide your underwear down, and instead just continues her ministrations under the material, you let out a tremulous breath you hadn’t even realized you’d been holding.

You notice, too, that when she returns her lips to yours, she’s softened her kiss, like she somehow knows that won’t argue now.

That you’ve given in, you think to yourself.

And it occurs to you in that moment that she knows exactly how far she can push you because she knows exactly what your limits are.

“Tú no tienes límites; no tienes miedo de nada.”

Those were her words to you on New Year’s.

Liar.

You’ve been living together for two years and have known each other a lot longer than that, and somewhere along the way she’s figured out exactly where your boundaries lie. And what she didn’t know already she is learning as she goes, testing the waters to see what’s ok and what isn’t and adjusting accordingly. All night long, she’s been going out of her way not to touch your defenses.

She isn’t knocking down your walls, she’s finding ways around them; and all the rest you’re taking down for her.

You think back to the start of the robbery when she jokingly said to trust her, and you had scoffed at that because you don’t trust anyone and Maca knows it. But what she probably doesn’t realize is just how blurry that line is getting with her lately.

And you’re not sure which is worse-

That you find yourself almost wanting to trust her sometimes.

Or that you don’t trust her, but you’re letting her in anyway.

She sucks gently on your upper lip and then on your lower one as her fingertips explore every contour and groove farther down, running through delicate, wet folds. She’s taking her time and taking in your reactions to all of it. And you are reacting alright. Because all the tension that’s been slowly building up and coursing through your nervous system since she first slipped under the covers with you seems to have migrated to one particular spot in the center of your thighs and now it’s screaming for release. And she’s touching you everywhere but THERE and kissing you unhurriedly like she could do this all-damned night; like that’s her exact intention. And you’re trying to just wait her out until she gives you what you need, trying not to let show that all her teasing is making you crazy. But your breathing has gotten erratic, your fingers are clenching her sides, and quiet moans keep sneaking out from between your lips, most of which she is capturing with her mouth.

She’s making you fucking squirm.

And when you can’t take her torture for a second longer and give in and arch your hips up, trying to get a little of the friction and pressure that you’re so desperately craving, she pulls her hand away entirely and stops kissing you.

You may end up killing her tonight after all.

“Sobrevalorado, eh?”

You feel her smile against your lips and hear amusement in her voice.

You aren’t sure whether to laugh or fling her off the bed.

But when you abruptly sit up instead, the smile immediately drops from Maca’s face as she slides her body off yours to let you move. She looks confused and concerned, like she’s thinking that she screwed up somehow and crossed some boundary line she hadn’t realized existed and now you’re going to put a stop to this after all. And the fact that she clearly doesn’t want that is doing something strange to your insides, giving you a weird feeling that for some reason makes you think of red and white balloons being filled up to capacity and released into the open air.

She pushes herself up to kneel beside you which leaves the two of you sitting face-to-face, and she’s watching your every move intently, probably expecting you to get out of the bed.

Instead, you reach your arms around to your back and locate your bra clasp with your fingers and unhook it before sliding the straps from your shoulders and pulling the material away from your body. Then you reach down and tug off your underwear too.

And judging from the way Maca’s still just sitting there frozen, staring at you with a dumbfounded expression on her face, you’re guessing she hasn’t quite registered what just happened or processed what it means.

She obviously hadn’t expected you to do that.

You hadn’t expected to either.

She isn’t taking away your control, you’re fucking giving it to her.

And at this moment, you know with absolute certainty that if anyone ruins you, it will be her. And that it will be because you let her.

You lean forward and sneak your arms under hers, wrapping your forearms snugly around her upper back.

“Ven aquí, idiota,” you say teasingly, with a half-smile, and then you kiss her as you let yourself fall back onto the mattress, bringing her down with you.

And by the time your head hits the pillow, Maca seems to have snapped out of her stupor and is kissing you thirstily, humming against your lips, sighing into your mouth, and holding your face in between her hands as she lets herself collapse on top of you.

It’s the most peculiar sensation, you think, having your naked bodies pressed together. It’s soft and warm and unexpectedly disarming; and it’s hard to tell where one of you ends and the other begins. Lips and tongues are dancing together. Supple, velvety breasts are smushed against their counterparts. Thighs and shins and calves are all jumbled up. Patches of hair at the apices of legs are brushing against one another, and their accompanying wetness is getting mixed together too. And you can feel both of your hearts thudding inside both of your chests, but you can’t tell whose is whose.

It’s like merging two beings into one.

And there’s something you find appealing about that.

So when Maca puts her hand between your thighs again, you bend the knee of your outermost leg and angle your hips upward almost automatically in response.

And she kisses your neck, then slowly presses two fingers into you.

Dios-

Your eyes fall shut and your head tilts back involuntarily and you can feel the air rush past your own lips as you inhale sharply.

Having her inside of you feels every bit as good as you remember it having felt.

But on New Year’s, even though the Ecstasy had altered your perception, heightened your awareness, and magnified your senses, it had all felt surreal in a way. But right now, everything is raw sensation and emotion and it all feels VERY fucking real.

And she is being so damned…soft…with you this time.

She’s stroking over your cheek and lips with her thumb while gingerly kissing the skin under your ear, on your forehead, over your tattoo, at the tip of your nose, along your chin, and periodically pausing in between to just...look at you.

And she is sliding her fingers in and out all the while, slowly and gently.

You aren’t sure how you feel about it.

Because having her touch you this way is simultaneously disconcerting and reassuring. Like she’s slicing you open and stitching you up at the same time.

And you don’t know whether you want it to stop, or to never stop. As if agony and ecstasy are battling it out in somewhere deep inside your own body.

It makes you feel out of sorts and in turmoil.

This whole thing would be a Hell of a lot simpler to wrap your head around if it was just base, animalistic lust. But you know that’s not what this is, for you or for her.
You just aren’t quite sure what it is exactly, either.

But there’s an alarm bell blaring somewhere in the back of your mind, screaming its warning at you, that this is too much. That you’re breaking a cardinal rule. That you’re breaking all the fucking rules…

/////

Intimacy is dangerous.

It’s not that you don’t enjoy things like affection or tenderness, it’s just that those are luxuries you don’t allow yourself because they come with so much risk. It’s too easy to grow dependent on the feelings those types of things elicit, to start to need them like a drug, and to start to need the people who provide them. Or worse yet, to start to care about those people. Because when you prioritize yourself over everything and everyone else, having anyone in your life who you care about is a risk to them and to you. Though mostly to them, you suppose, because a long time ago you made the choice to never let your feelings for anyone deter you from the things that matter most to you:

Freedom. Survival. Vengeance.

That’s how you were able to do what you did with Hanbal. Even though you loved him, as much as you’re capable of that sort of thing, you didn’t let it stop you from selling him out to the Ferreiros when he became more of a hinderance to your freedom than a pathway to it. It’s not that it wasn’t difficult, but the way you see it cutting him loose was like getting rid of a necrotizing limb; it hurt, and you missed it, but it was the best way to save yourself.

So you did what you had to do and moved on and didn’t look back.

And it was possible because from a young age you’d learned to regulate your feelings, to suppress them, and to never let them dominate you or dictate your actions. And you’ve been burying your emotions so long you aren’t even sure you’re capable of certain ones anymore, at least not fully. That’s one of the main reasons most people think you’re a psychopath, and maybe they’re right. Sandoval certainly thought you were, and you definitely meet the clinical criteria. But if that’s the case, you’re honestly fine with it because it means you’re incapable of true love, that all-consuming, shameless, honest, selfless, fall-on-your-sword-and-die-for-the-other-person kind of love.

Que jodido es el amor-

You meant it when you told Sandoval that love is fucked up, that it’s a deadly disease. Because if you aren’t in control, then you’re at risk, and there’s nothing more detrimental to maintaining control than falling in love.

So you deny yourself the chance to feel things, keep your emotions in check, and never form connections you aren’t willing to break.

Few people understand how someone can forgo something as seemingly essential as human attachment. So they see you as a lone wolf, a beast that prefers to be solitary. But that’s not entirely accurate. It’s just that loneliness is a consequence of the way you choose to live your life. And when you are willing to intentionally sustain second-degree burns across your midsection, risk getting a fatal intestinal blockage by eating a fistful of shredded prison unform, give yourself a potentially deadly gum infection, and swallow explosives that could blow up inside you at the slightest jostling, all on the small chance you could secure your libertad, foregoing a few basic human emotional needs seems relatively minor in comparison.

You’re never totally free unless you don’t have anyone to lose, and a little loneliness is a small price to pay for freedom, you think.

Except that you don’t feel alone at all right now; you haven’t in almost two years.

And you’ve always had difficulty keeping your emotions contained when it comes to Maca, whether it’s rage or exasperation or anything else, and right now you’re finding it especially challenging. But that’s partly because you aren’t entirely sure what all these feelings you’re having even are. Though you are pretty sure that fear is somewhere near the top of that list.

When Maca said you weren’t afraid of anything, you knew what she meant. You aren’t particularly frightened of inevitable events like pain and death, the scariest things for you are losing control and being powerless. That’s why you scratched your arms bloody when you couldn’t figure out how to solve your Karim problem and were counting down the days until he had you murdered in your cell. Though in the end, Maca solved that one for you. Even she can’t do anything about the cancer that’s taken over your body, though.

Still, keeping everything controlled is how you were able to break free from your mother, overcome a brutal sexual assault, survive in prison, and not die from a broken heart when your daughter was taken away as an infant and then killed in front of you twenty years later.

It’s also what’s kept you from getting caught and sent back to la cárcel these past couple of years.

But something you’ve come to realize lately is that being so in control all the time is almost like being in a self-imposed prison. Because you don’t allow yourself to do certain things or act certain ways or feel certain feelings…all the stuff that makes people human.

And even though you doubt you’re even capable of most of those things, or of being anything other than what you are and have always been, and probably wouldn’t even like any of it anyway…it’s a lot like never having seen the snow - It doesn’t seem all that special to you, just thinking about it makes you cringe, and you know you would probably hate it in real life, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a small part of you that yearns to find all that out for yourself.

And the thing is…if you’re going to die soon anyway and there’s absolutely nothing you can do to change that, then what’s the point of being so damned rigid all the time? Freedom and survival and vengeance will all be as nonexistent to you as you are to the world once you’re lying in a coffin someplace. So it seems kind of pointless to avoid new things on the basis that they might jeopardize those long-held priorities of yours.

After all, what’s the point of death if not to make us want to really live?

At least in theory anyway. Because the way your system is currently threatening to engage in full fight-or-flight mode, you’re not sure your body and brain are in total agreement here.

But forcing yourself to let go, allowing yourself to feel all these weird conflicting emotions and to have this experience with Maca…

Well, it’s freeing in an entirely novel way.

/////

“Quieta, no te muevas.”

She whispers it softy against your ear, stilling her fingers inside you and pressing her free hand down firmly against your hip to underscore the seriousness of her words. You hadn’t even realized you were moving, subconsciously trying to get the relief she seems so intent on denying you, you suppose.

And ok, so maybe she isn’t completely respecting all your limits because did she seriously just give you an order for the second time in less than twenty-four hours? And this time, IN BED?!

You think you might want to deck her if it weren’t for the fact that she immediately starts moving inside of you again and God, she makes you feel so fucking good.

Joder, this woman-

She rests her forehead on yours and lets her lips hover right above your mouth.

“Vale?”

She asks it so damned gently that even though you know the whole not-moving thing isn’t really a request, it doesn’t quite feel like a command either. She’s making it sound more like an invitation to do this her way instead of rushing through it like you’re used to doing.

She bumps the side of her nose against yours affectionately and you can feel her breath on your lips, but she isn’t making any attempt to kiss you. It feels like she’s giving you the chance to respond. Or RSVP to the invite, you quip to yourself silently.

And even though you don’t say anything, when she removes her hand from your hip you think she already knows that you’re going to accept it.

Just like she knew the moment you’d decided not to shoot the guard, and how to stop you from pulling the trigger in the first place.

She seems to know how to get exactly what she wants from you.

Or maybe it’s just that you want to give her everything she wants.

Either way, you just put your hands on the sides of her face as you lean up and kiss her and do your best to keep still.

/////

She was right. That day she picked you up from prison. When she said you weren’t the same and accused you of having fallen into line. It had pissed you off so damned much that you punched her right in the nose, but she was right. And you knew it.

After Fátima’s death and the whole Sandoval aftermath, you just didn’t have the same fight in you. You weren’t particularly interested in revenge, you didn’t have the usual drive to escape, and you didn’t really feel alive anymore. Even after you got out of prison, when you were finally free, life was just…mundane. It was like you lost yourself for a while or had forgotten who you were.

Until Maca reawakened something in you and brought you back to life every bit as much as you did for her that day that you rescued her from the washer.

But she didn’t come back the same and neither did you.

The person who agreed to this life of crime with you and now lives freely without regret isn’t the same one who once was so ashamed about being sent to prison that she hid it from her family, or who blew her chance at escape because she felt guilty that it wasn’t the right way to do things, or who recklessly went head-to-head with the Chinese trying to protect a weaker inmate because she felt bad about having used her as a fall guy.

And the person who came back to life inside this RV with her isn’t the same one that used to spend her days plotting and scheming and dreaming of nothing but libertad, or who was once willing to pay any price and go to any length necessary to ensure her own survival or to enact vengeance. Because now you find yourself questioning the cost of all your priorities and dreaming of things you never thought you wanted.

So neither one of you are the same people you used to be. But while Maca has gotten harder over the years, you have gotten softer.

At first you blamed the cancer for your mellowing. You thought it was making you weak. But you know it’s a lot more complicated than that. This isn’t just about you dying. This change in you started a long time ago and has to do with the things that happened with Hanbal and Karim and Saray and Fátima.

But you think it mostly has to do with the woman who is currently pressing her lips against yours and has two fingers buried deep inside of you.

/////

She’s sped up her movements, but her efforts are clearly more about precision and accuracy than speed. And Dios, there is definitely something to be said for technique. You suspect it’s got to do with position or leverage because she’s adjusted herself so she’s straddling just one of your thighs and Jesus…Ok, maybe you do have a thing or two you could still afford to learn, because she is doing something with her fingers that you can’t even identify and hitting a spot inside you that you didn’t even know existed before tonight, and it’s making your entire body tingle and legs quiver. Your hands are clutching the sheets on either side of you, guttural throaty sounds are pouring from your lips, and you know if you tried to talk right now you wouldn’t produce coherent words, just shuddery, breathless, nonsensical sounds. You can’t even form a rational thought outside of, “Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop…“

And even though she knows you were lying when you said sex with women was overrated, it still feels like she is trying to prove something, as if she wants this to be unlike anything you’ve ever felt before. And fuck, it is.

She knows she’s the only woman you’ve ever been with, and it almost seems like she wants to keep it that way. And if that is her goal then you’d say it’s working, maybe even more than she realizes, because everything around you seems to have disappeared except for her. Even that siren that was blaring in your head before has completely faded into the background. She’s in you and all around you, consuming your body and monopolizing your mind.

You are completely lost in her…

Maca-

Before she came along, you’d been residing on the dark side for so long you didn’t know there was any other way to be. And you were ok with that; you didn’t want anything else.

And then you met her.

She started off as a nuisance, your biggest source of aggravation and annoyance, a headache and nothing more.

But over time she grew into something, or rather someone, more…palatable. Someone who stopped trying so hard to pretend she was all rainbows and unicorns all the time. And you know you played a role in that, though you think you basically just nudged her in the right direction and that she’d always been a lot darker than she let on. But watching her transformation as she voyaged into total darkness intrigued you. She became a curiosity, and a challenge, and from there just sort of morphed into a nemesis.

And for a long time, the two of you were enemies, more-or-less.

But now the two of you are…something indefinable.

Because you would be hard pressed to describe exactly how you got to this place or provide a reasonable explanation as to what it is you’re really doing here and why you’re doing it with each other, or to even make an attempt to categorize this…relationship, let alone to try to verbalize how you feel about her or even venture a guess as to how she feels about you.

You think she still hates you. She has to, right?

But if she hates you so goddamned much then why is she kissing you like this? Touching you like this? Making you feel like this?

Maca-

Regardless of how she feels about you though, somehow along the way, on this bizarre journey to wherever and whatever the two of you are now, she has become the one person who you seek out when everything is falling apart, when you’re falling apart-

After Fátima died…

After you ended your friendship with Saray…

After your diagnosis…

You just wanted to see her. Couldn’t wait to see her. Needed to see her.

Even if she wasn’t always necessarily supportive or understanding or even kind. You didn’t need someone to hold your hand. You just wanted her to be there.

You always want her to be there.

Maybe because even if she doesn’t like you, she knows you and accepts you and gets you. And stays with you even when there’s no reason she should.

She’s supposed to be your arch-rival, and she is the biggest threat you face, but for some reason when you’re around her you feel a lot less alone and a lot more at ease and almost grounded in a way…like it’s where you belong.

Like you’re at home.

Sometimes you think maybe she is your home.

Maca-

You’ve recognized for quite some time that she’s changed you as much as you’ve changed her and that while she’s grown darker you’ve grown lighter.

But it’s all felt especially evident since la Nocheviaja.

Years ago, you were furious with her for not killing the fucker who tried to assault you on that beach in Morocco, but you hadn’t wanted her to kill those men on New Year’s. Not because you gave a shit about any of them, but because you were worried about what it might do to her.

You think you knew even then that it would be too much for her. That it was crossing a line she wasn’t ready to cross, or maybe wasn’t meant to. That it would ultimately drive her away.

Because despite the fact that you’re sure her dark side could contend with yours, she refuses to let it completely take over. It’s like she has this tiny little inner light she won’t let anyone put out, even you, probably especially you. And as aggravating as it is, it’s also something you like about her, admire even. Because in some ways you think she’s braver than you are. It takes a lot of guts to want to reside in the light where everything is illuminated, even the things we want to hide….to let yourself be open and vulnerable and risk getting hurt….to believe in and sacrifice for something beyond yourself…to be able to trust, and willing to love.

All those things send waves of panic coursing through your body when you just think about doing them. Because it means having to let go and give up control.

Sometimes you think you envy her a little though, and that maybe you want some of those things that you’ve been running away from your entire life. And it's weird for you to admit that to yourself, because you thought you stopped chasing after the light a long time ago…but here you are, chasing after her.

But we are attracted to what we fear, or at least you’ve heard that somewhere before.

It’s probably why Maca was drawn to you from the start; your darkness fascinated her because it was scary.

But you think what frightens her now is the thought of losing every last bit of her humanity to that giant, black void, and never being able to get it back. And on New Year’s, she realized just how real that possibility was, and it’s driving her away despite her attraction to the dark, and to this lifestyle, and to you.

But you want to tell her that she doesn’t have to go away. That she doesn’t need to be bad, or dark, or whatever anyone wants to label it. That none of that even matters to you. That you don’t even care that she didn’t shoot the guard. That as far as your concerned she doesn’t have to shoot anyone ever again.

That you’d kill a thousand hijos de puta just so she wouldn’t have to kill a single one, if it only meant that she would stay.

Maca-

But you think this whole thing is probably just a freak phenomenon, anyway. Like all the stars aligned just right to allow the past couple of years to happen.

It’s as if while Maca was passing into darkness, and you into light, there was enough temporal and spatial overlap that you ended up briefly superimposed on one another…like an eclipse that happens once in a lifetime.

And this moment, is like the pinnacle of that. The totality. You and Maca completely aligned. Not just in terms of having sex, but also her offering warmth to you and you accepting it, and you giving up control to her and she not taking advantage of it. It’s the rarest of all events and could only have happened at this precise time and place and will never happen again.

Because like an eclipse, all of this is transient and has to pass.

Maca can’t stay here in the dark with you any more than you can stay in the light with her. Because at the end of the day, you will always seek to shroud yourself in darkness and she will always search for the light switch. It’s just who you both are.

So, she was right. She isn’t you.

You aren’t her, either.

And thinking that the two of you could ever become one was nothing more than illusion. A trick of the eye, like watching the sun seemingly get swallowed up by the moon only to find out later that it was always still there the whole time.

You think a part of you has known that all along. That this thing with her could never be anything more than fleeting. That In the end she was never going to stay. That she couldn’t.

Because her only chance to be who she wants to be, to be someone better, is to break free from you.

And you’re sure that would be the best thing for her. Staying here with you is probably a death sentence; and death awaits you either way, but she could live a full life away from you.

The thing is, though, you’re also sure that if she were to walk away from this, it would kill you even faster than the cancer eating away at your insides.

And not just kill you but destroy you.

So, she is going to leave, you know that.

But you also know that you aren’t going to let her.

And you aren’t exactly certain what it’s going to look like when this all comes to a head, or how it will ultimately end.

But all relationships end badly, and whatever happens, you know she’s going to hurt you and you’re going to hurt her too. She because she hates you, even if she sometimes forgets that fact. And you because you’re toxic, even if you sometimes don’t want to be.

Maca-

She has finally stopped teasing you. Stopped trying to drag this out.

And she isn’t holding you back anymore, either. She’s just letting you move your body against her as you want to, as you need to. And her movements inside of you are relentless. You keep trying to catch your breath but every thrust forces another gasp from you and every time you try to draw in more air you are met with her lips and mouth instead.

MAca-

You know she’s about to make you come.

There is tension growing from the base of your spine and coursing throughout your nervous system. Every last neuron from your head to your toes feels on edge, overcharged and way beyond ready to fire. And no matter how hard you bite your lower lip you can’t stop yourself from groaning.

You think it’s kind of useless to even try anyway, because she already knows exactly how much she’s making you fall apart at the seams.

MACA-

When her thumb FINALLY lands on the one place she has purposefully avoided touching all night, you know that’s it.

And you instantly feel yourself hurtling towards the edge-

MAAACA-

So you bury your face into the side of her neck and close your eyes and hang on.

And she’s flicking and rubbing and just as you’re about to go over the drop-off, she curls her fingers inside of you and-

“MMMMM-“

You sink your teeth into the side of her neck before her full name can form on your lips, and bite down, hard, just as you plummet into freefall.

She grunts but she doesn’t pull away and keeps moving her fingers inside of you ardently. And you’re just flailing underneath her and moaning into the side of her neck as your center contracts and relaxes around her fingers over and over again.

Every time you think that maybe the waves are going to ease up, she moves her hand just slightly and manages to create brand new ones.

But with each crest and fall you loosen your hold on her neck little by little until eventually, finally you’ve completely released her.

And you just stay like that, trembling under her, panting into the side of neck, trying to catch your breath and regain your senses.

You’ve never felt anything so fucking satisfying in your entire life.

Nothing has even been close.

You hadn’t meant to bite her though. You’re not even exactly sure why you did it. Though it had probably kept you from calling out her name. And it made you feel a little less like you were plunging off a skyrise rooftop straight to the ground below. And a part of you kind of thinks she deserved it a little bit anyway, if for no other reason than to let her know that you noticed her thinly veiled attempt to disguise a directive to hold still as a mere proposition.

Or maybe you just did it because you could.

You are still a scorpion after all.

You’re not too sure how she feels about it though because even though you weren’t deliberately trying to hurt her, you’re sure it did hurt, and that it will definitely leave a mark. But she hasn’t reacted to it at all…yet.

You’re still breathing heavily when you press your lips over the injured skin, planting a lengthy, gentle kiss over it. You hope it’s enough.

And when she buries her face in the crook of your neck and kisses you back, you guess it probably is. Especially when she follows it up by using her free hand to stroke her thumb over your cheek and jaw.

It’s only then you realize your own arms are wrapped tightly around her back and your hands have found their way into her hair and you aren’t even sure when those things happened.

But you’re content to just stay that way.

And as you’re lying there, you realize you can hear the sounds of chirping outside and can make out faint blue along the horizon.

The sun will be up soon.

She eventually slips her fingers out of you and slides her body off yours and you immediately miss her warmth, the cold air hitting your skin almost painfully. But she lies right next to you, her front against your side and you feel her right arm moving around for a few seconds before soft, cozy blankets are pulled up and over your naked body. Over both of your bodies. Afterwards, she leaves that same arm draped across you, her hand lying on your chest, over your heart.

You glance down and see blonde hair cascading over your right shoulder and falling onto your chest and arm and stomach. You can’t see her face entirely, but you can tell her eyes are still open. You let your own wander up to the ceiling, to the blue skies and white clouds painted above the bed. Above her bed.

Her bed which you are currently resting in, welcomed in…wanted in.

You haven’t felt this calm and comfortable and safe…maybe ever. And for a fleeting moment you think about telling her about the cancer.

But you don’t.

And it isn’t too much longer after that you notice her breathing has evened out and the sounds of soft, rhythmic exhalations are reaching your ears.

So you let lips linger at the top of her head, taking in and enjoying the texture and scent of her hair. Maybe some people would call it a kiss, but you choose not to overthink it.

Instead, you delicately brush her bangs to the side so you can run your fingertips over the scar above her eyebrow one last time.

You smile to yourself.

There’s no chance you’re ever going to fix that stupid ladder now.

You stroke your fingers through her hair a few times and then curl your arm around her body, letting your hand settle on the soft skin of her belly just before you close your eyes.

You are asleep in minutes.

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