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Amaru leaves her body the same way she invaded it — full-force, bloody, painfully, and at the cost of someone else's life (so many lives).
Kate is carried out of hell’s gates by Seth, with Richie and Scott right behind them (armed to the teeth and at the ready in case there are any lingering monsters). The sun touches her face with harsh claws, making her squint from the blinding light. Freddie is there, standing among ash (just how he stood over Ximena’s). He looks beaten, worn out, slashed up, but the glimmer in his eyes when he sees her is something keen to relief (the same relief he expressed when Kate managed to break past Amaru to save Margaret and Billy before they were sacrificed). She looks away now as she did before because she is not worthy of it, not after everything she (Amaru) had put him through.
She feels Seth mutter comforting words against the side of her neck as he cradles her, as he clings on to her ravaged body like he is afraid the hot, Texan wind will blow her into unreachable pieces across the desert. She is too tired to listen to the voices in her head, so she closes her eyes and drifts into the black she is too familiar with now as someone drives them out of the battlefield.
Through the haze of unconsciousness, Kate sees white glimmers of her old life. She sees herself as a child, dressed in a ruffled pink dress, chasing butterflies at the park during one of the church’s picnics, her momma following close behind with a beautiful smile. She sees herself in her early teenage years, sitting at the foot of Scott’s bed, both of them playing one of the approved video games, laughing hysterically at the absurdity of it before their parents call them down for dinner. She sees herself a few years back, standing in her clean, pastel clothing and hair tied up in a ribbon beside her family, all of them greeting the congregation to their annual fundraiser as the wholesome, perfect unit she believed with all of her soul they were.
Then those white glimmers are drenched in red and black, leaking the colors as the walls of her skull fill with screams, bullets, and cries. Her mother’s death comes back with the sound of their car scraping against lonely pavement, her eyes are overwhelmed by demons in a temple that hunt down and devour humans, she feels the stake plunging into her father’s chest after he asks her to send him back to God, the smell of wet dirt fills her nose as she helps her brother bury her old friend in their backyard, she hears that innocent nomad beg her not to kill him, then two bullets leave hot, bleeding holes on her skin before she is left to die at the side of a bloodwell.
But she does not die. Xibalban blood enters her body, forcing it to become the host for Amaru, Queen of Hell.
Kate becomes the monster.
“Jesus, Katie,” Richie grunts when his blue eyes fall on her. “When's the last time you slept?”
She looks at the glass behind him. She sees the knotted, dirty red hair fluffing around her shoulders, she sees the sick, translucent color of her skin, the rims of purple around her swollen, red eyes—
“Easy. Easy, Kate, fuck,” Seth growls from behind her when she jabs her palms into her eyes, trying to rub away the red. He is quick to reach for her hands, pulling them to her sides, but she recoils at his touch.
She steps back from him, from Richie, from their proximity, and shakes her head. “Can't sleep,” she mutters (half a cry and half a plea). “Can't sleep. No. She's there. I see it all. I can't. Don't make me. Don't.”
Seth makes a move to reach for her again, but Kate backs up against the crook of their office wall, flinching.
“She's there,” she gasps, her head weighing her down along with her eyelids. She sees shadows following her.
They all look like her.
Seth looks behind his shoulder. He closes his eyes, shoulders falling in defeat.
Nothing is there.
“Kate,” he starts, but she interrupts him with, “She takes my momma from me. She takes daddy. She takes Scott. She's there. She's there.”
“She's where, Katie?” Richie asks, taking a cautious step forward.
“There,” she points to the wall behind Seth, making both brothers look back again before she brings her finger to the side of her head, twisting it harshly, “and in here.”
Seth keeps his lips pressed into a tight line, his dark eyes flashing with inability to help, inability to cure her of her demons, but Richie moves. He circles back to his desk, grabbing a glass and filling it with different liquids.
“I know,” Richie tells her, “I see her, too.”
Seth’s hopeless gaze turns to dark, narrowed daggers when he looks at his brother.
Richie ignores him. He moves forward again, just as carefully, extending the glass to a shaking Kate. “This helps get rid of her. I promise.”
She is so desperate to get rid of the shadows that she forgets she can't trust Richie Gecko. She takes the glass and sips the liquid. It barely burns down her throat before her bones grow heavy and she slumps against the wall, her eyes closing to welcome back the darkness.
There never is a time Kate is not trembling. Everything unnerves her: the harsh wind passing through the leaves, the sound of a door closing, loud voices, confined spaces, pitch-black rooms, mirrors, large groups, fire, open roads, Tanner and Seth, Richie and Scott, Freddie and his family.
They know it, too. They look at her like she is about to shatter. Someone always lingers behind her, casting a shadow over her own and the many that follow after her. They think she doesn't notice, but she does. She is aware of them, of every shift they make. Kate counts their every move, studies them; she prepares to shield herself in case of an attack.
She starts to carry a butterfly knife in her pocket. She took it from Richie’s collection. He knows it's gone; his blue eyes always follow her hand reaching into her pocket, holding the blade there like a lifeline. He doesn't tell her to give it back. He doesn't tell the others it's there.
Even when everyone knows she's terrified of everything.
“Kate?” Scott opens the door to her room. He finds her inside the small closet, the dim light casting down on her, making the silver of her blade glimmer. “You okay?”
“I can hear them,” she murmurs, bringing her knees further up to her chest.
Worry flashes across Scott’s dark eyes before he kneels before her. “Voices?”
“Bullets.”
Scott lets out a breath. “That was Freddie and Richie. They were testing out new stake guns Burt—”
“I can feel them, too,” Kate tells him, her exhausted eyes dripping tears down her sunken cheeks. “The ones that killed me.”
The shred of relief Scott felt is erased from his expression. Dread replaces it.
“Kate—”
“I want to die,” she cries, squeezing the butterfly knife between her thin fingers, “but I'm scared she's going to be there, waiting for me.”
Tears burn in Scott’s gaze. “Don't say that,” he pleads (orders). “God brought you back, Kate. I'm not losing you again.”
But he had already lost her.
And God did not bring her back.
How could He? He wasn't real. He was the thing of fairy tales, the kind her momma used to tell her during bedtime.
Except those stories had happy endings. Except those stories had better, redeemable villains than God .
“Kate!” Freddie shouts, eyes wide as she bashes the altar in the rundown, abandoned chapel they came back to clean out (to make sure no Xibalbans survived the war).
They had split up: Richie and Freddie had taken to search the other rooms while Seth and Scott circled the perimeter outside. They left Kate sitting on the first pew, hands trembling as she glared at the golden cross hanging over lit candles.
God is not real. If He was, He would not have allowed so many innocent souls to be consumed by the Queen of Hell in His chapel, in a place built to praise Him.
God is not real. If He was, He would not have allowed her to be possessed by a monster. He would not have allowed her to be imprisoned inside her own body, feeling every life her hands took. He would not have allowed her body to be sliced, pulled, and beaten by others to defeat Amaru while she felt it all.
God is not real. If He was, He would not have allowed a madman to shoot her twice when all she wanted to do was save her brother. He would not have allowed her to die for nothing.
God is not real. If He was, He would not have allowed for two thieves to kidnap her and her family. He would not have allowed her to end up in a temple filled with Culebras. He would not have allowed her having no other choice but to stake her father in the heart so he would not become another monster. He would not have allowed her to lose her brother to the enemies.
God is not real. If He was, He would not have allowed her momma to die at the side of a road. He would not have allowed the oncoming dissolve of her family.
God is not real. He let her be possessed by Amaru, He let so many innocent people be drained of their souls by her, He let her be tortured and shot, He let her die alone and angry, He let her be taken from her good life and thrust into a world of Culebras and thieves, and He let her momma die.
“Kate!” Freddie shouts again, making the others race back into the chapel, guns and fangs out.
Scott gapes back, scared of the sight (scared of his sister renouncing her faith). The Geckos flinch at the scene (they did this to her).
A scream of fury she has been keeping inside since the night Carlos shot her rips out of her mouth, burning and painful as it travels inside out. It echoes around the shabby walls, making it louder, making it mix with the sound of the cross and altar shattering beneath the crossbow Freddie had left behind for her.
“Why did you do this to me?” Kate yells (cries) as she brings down the crossbow on the face of the cross again. “Why did you leave me?”
God doesn't answer her. Just like He did not answer her prayers since before the Twister.
God is not real.
It is not just in God whom she loses faith in. It's herself, too.
Despite being forced to be a part of this world riddled with things from nightmares, Kate believed in her heart. She believed she was pure, kind, innocent enough to find the silver lining to it all. Over and over again she was proven wrong.
There is no salvation.
There is no Kate Fuller.
She avoids mirrors and prolonged eye-contact in fear that she will get a glimpse of what Amaru left behind (the shell of a naive girl).
Her body is not the same since. It has thinned out, hollowed out, paled to an almost lavender shade (consequences of not being able to digest food or wanting to be out in the sun), but there is residue from hosting the Queen of Xibalba.
She can't bleed for too long. Once, in the middle of the night, when Scott was off playing a gig and Richie was tending his bar and Seth was sitting outside her bedroom door, cleaning his gun like a habit, she sat in the shower, slicing her wrists. She cried out in desperation, wanting to bleed out, to escape this life, but only a few droplets mixed with the running water. No matter how many times she cut, she would not die.
She could still control people. Nothing like Amaru rendering people as her puppets, but if Kate meant it, really meant something, the other person was forced to comply. She figured that out when she screamed for her brother to get out of her room after Seth told him of her sliced wrists. Scott tried to resist, but he was out the door the next second (five minutes later he returned after her order had worn off).
She retains the Xibalban language. Often, when the voices inside her head got too loud, she could make sense of what they said. She could even talk back to them, begging them to go away, to leave her to this doomed life without their company. They stay, screaming against her brain cells because they are not real, not anymore; they were echoes of all the demons and souls Amaru had owned.
Far worse than the residue of being a host is what it did to the inside of her body. Amaru’s hate—her evil— stretched out Kate’s bones, carving them up with foul words, she disfigured Kate’s heart, making it black with rage and fear, she extinguished Kate’s light, dimming it to then breaking it to glass fragments that could never be put back together.
It doesn’t feel right. Like the size, sense, smell, feel of it is all wrong.
Kate is a stranger in her own body.
Her body is the virus and her soul is infected.
“I'm sorry,” she cries, sinking sharp nails to her hollow cheeks as Billy shrieks, the sound clawing at the walls of the Gonzalez home. “I didn't mean to, I—”
Margaret takes Billy into her arms, rocking her back and forth, whispering motherly, comforting words, all while looking at Kate with sympathy (apprehension and disdain).
“It's not your fault, Princess,” Seth tells her, putting a hand on her shoulder.
Kate shakes it off just as Margaret walks out of the room with Billy. She turns to Freddie, eyes dripping tears (just like always). “I didn't mean to scare her.”
“It's not you, Katie,” the Ranger starts to say, but she cries louder.
“It is me!” she hisses. “She's afraid of Amaru, but I am her! She is always going to see my face and be scared! I did this to her!”
Kate starts scratching at her face again, wanting to pull off her skin, to remove every trace of herself until only new, raw, red flesh remained.
Seth cages her in his arms, pulling her hands from her face, forcing them down. He doesn't let go, not even as she screams, not even as she falls apart, over and over again.
They say it takes seven years to grow entirely new cells (a new body). Kate starts tallying up the days on the wall of her bedroom.
Two-thousand five-hundred and fifty-five days.
She doesn't sleep for the first nine days. She doesn't care how many lights Seth turns on, or how delusional the insomnia makes her; she is not closing her eyes and allowing Amaru back in (eventually, Richie sedates her).
She hides in the closet every night for the first thirteen days. She doesn't care how many times Scott tells her it's safe on the other side, or how long Seth sits outside her bedroom door keeping watch. She stays there, counting the seconds until sunrise, drowning out the voices in her head (eventually, Scott nails the closet door shut).
She doesn't eat more than a granola bar for the first eighteen days. She doesn't care for the Big Kahuna burgers Seth brings or the home-cooked meals Richie learns how to make by eating a chef, she can't stomach anything. It all tastes like blood and souls (eventually, Freddie has Dakota McGraw hook her up to a tube).
She remains in her room for the first twenty-six days. She doesn't care how many peaceful walks Freddie promises, or how many long drives Seth offers, Kate is not going outside. The world is filled with monsters she is not willing to fight (eventually, Seth drags her out to the garden he had planted just for her).
She avoids her reflection for the first thirty-nine days. She doesn't care how many times Richie replaces the mirrors she breaks with her fists, or how many times Scott encourages her to embrace herself, Kate never wants to see Amaru again (eventually, she looks at the reflection the edge of her butterfly knife gives).
She keeps her silence for the first forty-three days. She doesn't care how many times Scott lingers around her, prolonging a conversation she never participates in, or Seth’s longing, conflicted eyes following her every time they are in the same room (eventually, they all have enough).
“What the fuck do you mean you're leaving?” Seth growls after Kate walks into his and Richie’s office, a tattered bag over her shoulder.
Scott and Richie look just as confused and upset.
“I can't stay,” Kate hears herself say, her voice raspy and low (certain). “I can't stay with you.”
“Why the fuck not?” Richie is the one to demand now.
She swallows the knot in her throat, the one that formed when she made the choice to leave (the one that burns every time she remembers what they all did to her).
“Everytime I look at you,” she breathes, “I can feel myself dying again. I see you and Scott standing there as Carlos kills me—”
“I tried to get you outta there!”
“I meant what I said,” Kate tells Richie, tears swimming in her eyes before she turns them to Scott. “There's no more love left to give.”
“Kate,” Seth says, his voice thick, his eyes flashing with a vulnerability she has not seen in so long. “Please don't go.”
She winces when his hand cups the side of her face. She pulls herself away, holding her breath when her brain bursts with memories of him stretching her body to torturous limits.
Seth lets his arm fall to his side. Kate doesn't have to say the words for him to understand that she is afraid of him—that she doesn't forgive him.
With green eyes overflowing with tears, Kate takes a deep breath and looks at the three men that somehow became the most important people in her life (and the ones to break her the most).
“Don't look for me,” she tells them, knows it is going to be hard for them, that they will object, that they will sic trackers on her the moment she steps out into the open road without them, “ please ,” she adds for manipulation (a residue of Amaru).
“Kate,” Scott says through clenched teeth, pained expression and glistening, remorseful eyes, “Don't ask me to lose you again.”
She says it this time: “You already have.” It is directed at all three of them.
They know it, too.
Then, because if she does not say it now, she never will, she finishes with, “If I stay here...if I stay with you, I don't think I will ever get better. I only feel alone, abandoned, angry... betrayed when I look at you. If I stay, I will find a way to kill myself to escape you.”
It's harsh, cruel, but she means it, wraps it with bitter, sharp honesty.
Scott (her little brother) forsakened their familial ties for Carlos. He darkened her soul when all she wanted to do was save him—be with him when they had no one else. She loved him until she was bleeding out for him.
Richie (her connection) put her in the line of bullets for a throne, she who had trusted him—believed in him when no one else did. She put her faith in him until she was condemning him to hell with her last breath.
Seth (her partner) abandoned her at the side of the road when they no longer could outrun reality, she who had become his family—who had loved him when he did not believe in love. She believed in his vow of protection until she died surrounded by hate and broken illusions.
All three are reminders of everything she had lost, everything that had shattered her, leaving her open for evil to overpower and use her.
So Kate steps out of the Geckos’ operation, alone , and takes a deep breath.
On day forty-seven, she leaves Texas for California. She does not know what she is looking for, least of all where she is going, but somehow she ends up at the beach. She sits on the sand, surrounded by seashell fragments, the sun setting pink and orange on the horizon, and as the waves crash and recede, she tells herself live , Kate . Live .
That night, she leaves the gun she took from Seth’s collection (the single bullet still in the barrel) on the hood of a police car.
It isn't easy retaking her life. Most days (most nights, too), Kate is on her knees, bruised, beaten, sobbing, surrendered, but willing herself to see a new sun break past the dark sky (it's what keeps her alive).
She thinks of her momma those days. She thinks about how hard Jennifer Fuller fought her own demons to keep herself living. Kate is aware her momma lost her own battle, but she also remembers her momma saying, you're going to be someone real special in this life, Katie-Cakes. I bet I will see you shine wherever I am.
It is day sixty when she dips a toe in the pool of society. She managed to survive off minimal contact with others (Freddie stocked the car she took with a load of essentials), but she grew tired of the voices in her head. So, she books a motel room, wishes the cleaning lady a good day, and closes the door. She checks under the bed, the closet, and the bathroom for any lingering demons. When she finds nothing, she sits at the edge of the worn mattress and listens to the noise outside (it doesn't scare her too badly).
When she returns to the beach, it is under the rising sunlight, sitting on a populated section of sand. Her heart picks up in rhythm, a lick of fear on her skin, but she inhales the ocean mist and tells chants live , Kate . Live .
On day seventy-three, her skin starts gaining color, her hair is no longer blood red (chestnut brown now, courtesy of a bottle), and she knows three elderly women by name (Maria, Eloise, and Nancy walk the shore every day as their form of exercise).
She still cries most nights (after waking up from the rare hours of sleep she gets), but she manages a genuine smile when she greets the married couple next door (they are on their babymoon, Kate learns when she asks).
Kate considers that progress.
Eventually, she learns to start conversations again (a seven minute chat is her record to date).
On day eighty-nine, she weighs twelve pounds more.
“There you go, Katie,” Eloise says one morning as she and her friends stop by Kate’s little corner of the beach (where she practices her breathing with every wave that ripples back into the ocean). “I knew my homemade casseroles would do the job.”
Maria scoffs. “Mis tamales y caldo de pollo did the job,” she corrected. “They can cure the dead.”
Kate almost flinches. When she doesn't, she laughs as she says, “Thank you to both of you. And Nancy, too. I think I just needed something done with so much love.”
They smile sweetly at her, like grandmothers would. All genuine affection and concern.
It makes Kate miss her family.
One that doesn't exist anymore.
On day one-hundred and one, she encounters a culebra.
Kate is walking back to her motel room, carrying a bag of groceries for the week, when she feels it nearing her (just how Amaru was able to sense her creatures from miles away). It corners her in a dark, lonely alley. She is not scared of it or its sharp fangs; she just watches it charge at her as she drops her bags at her feet.
When it sinks its teeth into her neck, Kate learns she has another residue of Amaru left inside of her.
The Culebra chokes and foams at the mouth—Kate’s blood (which had mixed with the Queen’s) is poison to the creatures that once were slaves of her underworld.
She picks up her discarded groceries and walks back to her motel. She locks the door behind her, but feels the pull of a smile at the corner of her mouth.
Kate can't be turned.
Kate can't be consumed.
Never again.
On day one-hundred and thirty, she meets Santos (translation: Saint ).
He rents the motel room beside hers after weeks of it being empty. She encounters him an hour before sunrise, just as he exits his room and she locks hers. He bids her buenos días with a smile and she barely has time to register his words when she is overwhelmed by the kindness in his eyes.
She sees him at the beach, jogging by, just ahead of the Eloise, Maria, and Nancy. She thinks he won't see her, but he does; he jogs up to her and asks if he can sit in her little corner. They watch the sun come up together.
Santos walks with her back to the motel. She has been doing well with speaking to others, but Kate can't seem to form words with him.
He still tells her all about himself.
He is the bastard son of a catholic priest and the married woman he broke his celibacy vow for. Santos is unashamed of this, for it brought him the knowledge of God and the reality of the world around him.
“I have faith,” he tells her, “but I'm not blind to the temptations of this world. I don't pretend to be perfect. I'm not. No one is. But God is forgiveness, and all I can do is live my life as best as I can without being afraid of hell, which might not exist at all.”
Kate can almost hear Amaru laugh at him inside her head.
She also learns that he has moved back to California from Guadalajara, Mexico after completing a semester of history and cultural studies there.
“It's beautiful there,” he says. “Ever been?”
Once , Kate wants to tell him, when I was Bonnie and had a Clyde.
Instead, she says, “No, I've never been.”
On day one-hundred and thirty-one, she is asked on a date. A real date.
Kate paces in her motel room for an hour, feeling more terrified than she has been in weeks.
She should have said no. She should have said she was not interested, but she couldn't think straight (or breathe) when Santos smiled at her. His grin lit up his entire face, making the flecks of gold in his eyes overpower the green. It exposed a kindness she had not seen in so long.
She digs through her rucksack and finds a pastel dress from another life.
She wears it like a lie.
Santos knocks on her door at exactly eight and has a bouquet of roses in one hand. Kate blushes pink like them.
He takes her to a quaint Italian restaurant and fills in the gaps when she can't find her voice.
“You've been hurt before,” he points out after the waiter brings a new batch of fresh bread, “Sorry if I’m being blunt, but I’m sorta an expert on it. It's often the expression my mother wears.”
“I've had my heart broken,” she tells him, doesn't know why, but perhaps she is finally ready to unload. “I’m still trying to put the pieces back together.”
“God heals all wounds, Kate.”
“I don't believe in God.”
If she expects him to be outraged by her proclamation, he doesn't show it.
“Everyone has faith in something.”
“I don't.”
He reaches over, touching her knuckles gently with his fingertips. “If I had to have faith in someone, it'd be in you, Kate. You say you've been broken, but here you are, living , and that counts for something.”
Kate kisses him goodnight when their date is done.
On day two-hundred and ten, she leaves the motel.
Santos left a week after he checked in when he finds a small apartment near his university (that his mother pays for, he tells her, completely unafraid to admit the financial help he gets). Oddly, it makes Kate breathe easier knowing there's distance between them other than a thin wall. Some nights she still wakes up screaming, and it's better to do so without him near.
After two months of dating, he asks her to move in. She thinks he's crazy, but he feels it's right.
“One day you have to leave that motel, Katie,” he tells her when they sit by the ocean for another sunrise, “start your life up again.”
The voice in her head chants live, Kate. Live.
The other voice in her head chants you can't love anyone, and no one can love you.
Still, it takes her a week to hesitantly say yes.
He helps her pack up the motel room.
All her things fit in one box.
Their first night in cohabitation leaves Kate wide awake. There's only one man she has ever shared a bed with. Even if Santos is respectful and warm, with his arm across her belly, keeping a decent distance between their bodies, she feels a twinge of nostalgia deep in her chest.
The next day, when she and Santos leave his ( their ) apartment, hands clasped tightly together on their way to breakfast, Kate swears she sees the taillights of a black Charger.
On day three-hundred and three, she loses her virginity.
Santos is sweet, loving, and careful.
But Kate still cries in the bathroom when it's over.
On day three-hundred and twenty-six, she finally mentions something about her past.
“What's the cake for?” Santos asks when she arrives home from her shift at the bakery a few blocks over.
Kate places the box on their kitchen table before pulling her freshly-dyed brown hair from the top knot it has been tied in all day.
“My brother would have been nineteen today,” she mutters as she opens the pink box, revealing the red velvet cake inside. She stares at it for a moment before reaching into her pocket, taking out a pack of candles and a lighter.
“I didn't know you had a brother.”
Kate says nothing as she places nineteen candles on the cake. Her hand shakes as she moves to light them up.
“Tell me about him,” Santos says as he wraps arms around her waist.
“He was adopted and I hated him,” she tells him, eyes transfixed on the small flames, the sight making her relive a memory she still could not forget. “I gave my life to show him how much I loved him. I tried to save him...he just couldn't be saved.”
Silence lasts until blue candle wax drips down on the cake.
“Do you miss him?”
“No. But maybe one day I will.”
She blows out the candles and makes a wish.
On day four-hundred and eight, she takes a drive to the Texas state line.
It has been a year.
A year since she last was under the Texan sun.
A year since she left behind the world that tore her to shreds.
A year since she has seen those three boys.
Kate is still not new. She still cries, she still hears the voices, she still can't look at her own reflection, and she still can't touch someone for too long without fearing she'll take their soul.
Above all, Kate still can't forgive the betrayal she suffered on the other side of that state line.
So she drives back to California where Santos waits.
On day four-hundred and fifty-two, she encounters a familiar face.
She had been feeling uneasy for a week. Everything was setting her off: Santos’ booming laugh, their neighbor’s cat (Sprinkles) running past their porch, the teapot steaming in high pitches, the random helicopters in the sky, and rushing people on the street.
Kate feared she was falling back down the hole she is still trying to climb out of, but when she walks the pier one night, she finds out why her senses have been going haywire.
She can feel Culebras now. As such, she sensed Santanico Pandemonium before she actually sees her.
Kate is looking at the dark, midnight ocean when she hears a laugh a few feet down from where she stands. When she turns, she sees a beaming blonde woman being amused by the queen of Culebras.
There is burning affection in Santanico’s ( Kisa’s ) eyes before she clocks in on Kate.
Both freeze at the sight of one another.
Kate is about to throw herself into the sea when Kisa decides to cross the space between them.
Kate shoves her hands into the pockets of her jacket.
She remembers Manola. She remembers what she (Amaru) did to her. She remembers Manola’s thoughts as she was being drained of her soul. She still hears them in her head.
They are all about Kisa.
In that moment, Kate decides if Kisa changed her mind and now wants to kill her, she won't fight it.
She owes her that much.
She owes her so much more than her own life.
“I'm glad to see you're alive.”
Kate is unsure the words actually left Kisa’s mouth until more come out.
“I knew you were, of course. I've been to Texas and the atmosphere wasn't filled with more despair than usual—”
“Why are you here?” Kate asks, not wanting to hear (to think ) about what she left behind.
A knowing smirk pulls on Kisa’s red lips. “Same as you,” she says, looking behind her shoulder for a second. “A new life.”
Kate nods, taking a step back, but Kisa isn't done.
“The only difference is that I'm not running from myself. I know what I've done and what I've lost. You can go to the other side of the world, Kate, but you can't outrun that. Trust me, I've tried and failed.”
Kate knows. She saw it all in Manola’s head.
“Take all the time you need to put the pieces back together again,” Kisa says with a strange sincerity. “Home will be waiting when you're done.”
On day four-hundred and fifty-three, she doesn't leave the apartment.
The voices in her head are getting louder.
None of them are of the people she (Amaru) killed.
They all sound like Kate.
They all want something she thought she'd never want again.
When Santos comes home, she strips him of his clothes and lets him dive into her, harder and far more carelessly than ever before.
It silences the voices.
Until Santos falls asleep and Kate hears them again.
On day four-hundred and fifty-five, she talks about her father.
“My father was a preacher,” she tells Santos when they drink their morning coffee at their kitchen table. There is an untouched silver cross necklace between them (a present from him). “We were Baptists. He gave beautiful sermons about hope, love, kindness, and family. He believed God was in everything. He believed God could fix everything...He made me believe that, too.”
Santos smiles. “I'm sure I would've liked him, Katie.”
“Maybe,” she mutters as she looks at the cross. “Maybe before...When momma was alive and he still had faith.”
“You don't have to take the necklace,” he tells her. “My mother just insisted I offered it.”
She forces herself to look back up at him. There is only understanding on his face.
“If I wore it, I'd be a liar. I don't believe in God. And if He was real, I still don't forgive Him.”
On day five-hundred and seventy-seven, the necklace turns into a ring.
One moment they are watching the sun burst orange and pink through the dark clouds, and in the next he is on one knee, a silver ring in his hand.
Kate doesn't remember what he says.
Kate doesn't remember saying yes.
Still, now there is a ring on her finger that weighs more than the world.
On day six-hundred, she thinks of Scott.
She thinks of the absurd video games they used to play.
She thinks of his impressive collection of music.
She thinks of how good he was (is) at his guitar (and how jealous she was she could never play).
She thinks of the family trips to the lake and how he taught her to swim.
She thinks of how much he cried when momma died (he lost two mothers in the course of his life).
She thinks of the bullies who forced him to carry a gun.
She thinks of him being lost in the Twister.
She thinks of how desperate he was to keep his family that he thought turning them was his only choice.
She thinks about how she left him in that temple.
She thinks of the torment he endured when she was running across Mexico.
She thinks of his face when she died at the bloodwell.
She thinks of how sorry he was when she found him again ( with Amaru as a passenger in her body).
She thinks of how hard he fought to get her back.
For the first time in almost two years, Kate doesn't think of Scott with resentment.
On day six-hundred and thirty-eight, she thinks of Richie.
She thinks of meeting him by the poolside of the Dew Drop In.
She thinks of his bible-selling suit and his horn-rimmed glasses and his bandaged hand and his cigarettes.
She thinks about how she felt when she was with him, like someone finally understood her pain (like someone could finally see it).
She thinks of his tortured soul the entire drive to the Twister.
She thinks of the fleeting kiss they shared in the backroom.
She thinks about how he won her the keys of the RV.
She thinks how he was manipulated by Santanico Pandemonium (she wasn't Kisa then).
She thinks about the look on his face when he sees her again, Malvado’s tight grip on her.
She thinks about how he didn't let Malvado hurt her.
She thinks about the car door he opened to let her out (to keep her safe).
She thinks about the tears in his eyes when she dies and the cruel words she said.
She thinks of Amaru’s possession of him, forcing him to do horrible things, further tainting his soul.
She thinks about the flames that devour him.
For the first time in two years, Kate doesn't think of Richie with hate.
On day seven-hundred and four, she is getting fitted for her wedding dress.
It's the first time she looks at her reflection for more than a fleeting moment.
Her hair is down to her waist in waves of chestnut brown.
Her eyes are a wide emerald green (no flare of red).
Her body is shapely and her cheeks are undertone with a lively pink.
She starts to look like Kate Fuller again.
On day seven-hundred and eighty, she thinks of Seth.
She thinks of the concern in his eyes when he thinks Richie might have hurt her.
She thinks of the promise he made to protect her.
She thinks of how he put her behind his own body when Freddie shot bullets their way.
She thinks about him punching that culebra outside the Twister (defending her honor).
She thinks about how she felt when he did.
She thinks on how he helped her and her father inside the safe room down in that temple.
She thinks about the many times he saved her life.
She thinks about the fear she felt when she watched him go (nothing but a good luck following after him).
She thinks of his face when she asks if he wanted company.
She thinks of the open dirt road with only him and a radio.
She thinks about how he never let her starve (even when he was hopped up on his venom).
She thinks of the times she woke up with his arms wrapped tightly around her body, keeping her safe even in his sleep.
She thinks of the rare times they found something to laugh at and how the sound made her heart flutter.
She thinks of the night strolls through a mercado (spending as much time looking up at him as she did staking out the new stand they were going to rob).
She thinks of the life he wanted to start with her away from culebras (before hell broke loose again).
She thinks about how he gave her the car and the money, hoping she would find a better life without him.
She thinks about seeing him again (being punched blue and black, but still coming out the winner).
She thinks of the hope his brown eyes flashed with when he realized she was alive.
She thinks about how he couldn't pull the trigger.
She thinks about the things his soul screamed when Amaru tried to take it (it was a blur between her name and Richie's).
She thinks of how much he believed in her soul (in her strength).
She thinks of his caressing hands on her face and his pleading words in her ear.
She thinks on how far he was willing to go to save her (and how he did).
For the first time in over two years, Kate doesn't think of Seth with a broken heart.
On day seven-hundred and eighty-one, she is set free.
She is standing alone in a small room, desperately pulling air to her lungs.
Santos walks in without a knock, dressed in a black suit and his kind face.
Kate doesn't even think on how he shouldn't see her in the wedding dress.
“Five more minutes?” he asks, putting a hand on her shoulder. “The priest doesn't mind waiting.”
She tries to laugh, but it only sounds like a choked sob.
“You're not nervous,” Santos says. “You just don't want this.”
Kate closes her eyes. “I do.”
“No, Katie, you don't,” he continues, no trace of anger in his voice. “That's okay. I think I've always known. I just hoped you might forget what you are running from.”
She opens her eyes, looking up at him. “How did you know?”
“You've been counting the days,” he says with a knowing smile. “It just took me a while to figure out it wasn't days until you were ready to move on. It's the days until you are ready to go back.”
Tears glimmer in her eyes, dropping down to her pink cheeks. “It didn't want to hurt you, Santos.”
He reaches over to brush them away.
“I know.”
Kate slides off the silver ring on her finger.
“I'm sorry.”
Santos is brokenhearted, but he still manages to say, “I hope you find him again.”
“Who?” she asks, even though she already knows the answer.
“Whoever Seth is.”
On day seven-hundred and eighty-two, she drives over the Texas state line.
She feels the Texan sun on her skin.
She dives back into the world that made her a fighter.
She drives toward the three boys that have been waiting since she left.
When she walks into the familiar warehouse, she is greeted by an assemble of Culebras working on moving guns and stakes into a truck.
“Come on,” Richie’s voice echoes around the steel walls, “Ranger Gonzalez is waiting for his shipment.”
“And unless you want him chaining you up to a post during dawn, pick up the pace, motherfuckers,” Scott laughs.
“Hey, fuck you,” Richie hisses. “Gonzalez blindsided me that time.”
“Whatever,” Scott snorts. “Just admit you can get your ass handed to you by a feedbag.”
“Kid, shut the fuck up,” then there is Seth, walking in from the back office, tucking his gun into the back of his black jeans. “We get it. You're fucking Bruce Lee. No one gives a fuck anymore.”
Scott glares, about to retort, but Kate chooses that moment to come out from beneath the shadows.
It takes all three of them a moment to notice her.
It takes all three of them a moment to realize she is not a figment of their imagination.
“Kate,” Richie breathes, the same devotion in his eyes that she remembers.
Scott crosses the distance in a blink of an eye. He is hugging her more tightly than her body can handle (she doesn't complain).
Kate looks at Seth, something warm and alive and overwhelming flooding her chest.
It's the same thing that reflects in his dark eyes.
“I was going to get married yesterday,” she says.
Seth swallows. “Was?”
Kate manages to lift her hand for him to see the bare ring finger.
Richie smirks. “You got blackout drunk for nothing, brother.”
“Shut the hell up, Richard,” Seth hisses before taking a step forward. “Why are you here, Princess?”
“I came home.”
Something like relief washes over Seth.
"Good," he says.
Kate doesn't count the days anymore.
Not since Seth put his arms around her.
Not since she kisses him under the shadows of his ( their ) bedroom.
Not since she laughs with her brother.
Not since she cheers for Fanglorious from the first row and wears their t-shirt every day (much to the Geckos' annoyance).
Not since she sits to watch old classics with Richie.
Not since she can understand him again.
Amaru might have taken her body hostage, but Kate kept her soul. It is scarred and bruised, but it is hers. She carries those she loves in it, their names etched in gold on the ridges of it.
This is the life she was dealt with.
So Kate will own it.
So Kate will fight for it.