CHAPTER 11
Life
3 days until Ari's birthday
ÁMBAR
I had been awake for a while, listening to sobs. It surprised me because it sounded like a little girl crying, or at least her voice made it seem that way. She was begging to be let go.
I was blindfolded and my hands were tied. I couldn't understand why one leg felt heavier than the other.
I was lying down, immobilized.
My abdomen still ached from the wound. My mind had gone into shock when I saw his hand inside me, making the cut bigger… which made me feel weak.
And maybe I was.
I wasn't.
The screams of the other girls began to echo, but somehow I knew it wouldn't work.
I knew how the system was.
Sometimes it's better to accept that they won't feel any pity for you.
"Help me, please," one of the girls said through sobs. "I'm begging you… please."
I heard another one whimper. Maybe she was injured, like me.
But I felt a bandage on my abdomen.
Suddenly I was caught off guard and forced to stand.
I tried to pull away violently, but they untied me and then shoved me, as if they wanted to get away from me.
I looked around. To my right, I saw women and men of different ages watching us; some armed, others not. All of them staring at us.
Then I turned to the left. Ten people, showing their faces without fear. And among them, my eyes locked onto one in particular.
I felt the air leave my lungs and covered my mouth.
No. No, it wasn't true. How was that possible?
So we had been right.
Tears started to fall. I shook my head over and over in desperation.
He had told me he was like family.
"Why?" I asked, looking straight at him. "Why did you do this to me?"
The words came out broken. My eyes were fixed on Ari's father.
Mr. Gabriel.
He looked at me seriously. He didn't answer. He just shifted in his seat, looking so comfortable… so calm.
"Don't address him that way," a voice said—one I recognized immediately.
He was standing in front of me, but all my attention was still fixed on Ari's father, and I didn't notice him.
I fell hard to the floor, tripping over myself. Behind him, another guy watched me with a serious, almost cold expression, while the one who had hurt me before approached slowly, as if savoring every step.
I looked at my left leg. It was chained.
The chain yanked me, dragging me a few inches across the floor. My body slammed hard against the ground. I stopped, dazed, and then his laughter began to echo—deep and mocking—filling the entire space.
"I really like how stupid you are," he said, while I tried to get up and looked at the scrapes on my leg.
I'm not stupid.
The other girls were also staring at their chains, desperate.
I searched for help in him, but his gaze… his gaze was no longer the one I knew. There was something in his eyes I didn't recognize.
"Oh, no… no, he's not going to get you out of here. Not for now. Right, boss?" he said, turning his head toward Ari's father.
Mr. Gabriel only looked away to the side, avoiding my eyes.
The guy turned back to me, this time with an even colder expression.
"Why can't you do your job?" the other guy behind him asked. "You stress me out, seriously, Eduardo."
So… that was his name.
"Brother—"
"I'm not your brother, you fucking idiot," he spat with rage.
Eduardo stepped back at that and shrugged, as if he were already used to being treated that way by him.
"Whatever you say, Víctor," Eduardo replied calmly.
Eduardo began clapping and looking around. I felt the stares drilling into me, low laughter slipping out, as if everyone were waiting for something to happen to me.
Then I looked behind Eduardo and Víctor.
Was that… a child?
"You arrived at the exact moment, just when our bosses are here," Eduardo said, turning toward the ten people seated comfortably, all with their eyes fixed on us.
I felt their eyes pierce through me, and then I saw him: a man who wouldn't look away from me.
His suit bore an embroidered diamond. Beside him was another, younger one… no, the youngest of those ten.
He had the Joker—the playing card—tattooed on him.
He noticed my gaze, and when I realized it, I looked away immediately, lowering my eyes.
I lifted my gaze toward him… and he was smiling, but it wasn't a cruel smile. It was measured, contained.
Then I felt Víctor's grip; his eyes were still fixed on me, serious, filled with something that wasn't just threat, but… caution?
He leaned in just enough for only me to hear him.
"If you want to get out of here, stop looking at them. Not even at your friend's father. Do you understand?"
"Believe me," he added in a whisper, almost warm, "I'm telling you this so you survive."
"If you really wanted to help me, I wouldn't be here in the first place," I shot back immediately, contained rage in my voice as I pulled away from any contact.
I stepped back, trying to put distance between us.
He was pretending to be the good one now, but to me he was still the same piece of shit as the rest.
Eduardo's expression was pure confusion, as if he couldn't understand Víctor's attitude.
Then, slowly, he smiled to the side and looked toward another girl sobbing next to him…
As if, somehow, he had found in that scene the answer to what Víctor was doing.
An answer I still couldn't understand.
But that thought vanished instantly when I saw the little girl walk forward. She wasn't chained like us and could leave if she wanted.
Víctor, meanwhile, headed toward the exit. As he pushed the metal door, making sure to close it.
Now he stood there, guarding.
The metal cage that held us seemed reinforced with thick wire mesh, cold and rusted. Every inch reminded us there was no escape.
And the entire atmosphere—the echo, the suspended dust, the shadows—confirmed what my mind could barely process.
"Shall we begin?" Eduardo asked, looking at the man with the diamond embroidery.
He nodded, without a single word.
I instinctively stepped back, as if moving a few steps away could give me a false sense of safety.
Víctor shot me one last look, a mix of warning and resignation, before opening the door.
Five men entered.
We were five girls.
The first went straight for the blonde. She started shaking her head, sobbing, her voice barely a trembling thread. She tried to resist, to push him away, but he grabbed her hard.
When she tried to break free, the blow came—dry, brutal, direct.
She fell to the ground without being able to react.
The man yanked her up, and this time… she didn't fight.
The second came straight for me.
I saw Víctor barely shake his head, a silent warning… but I still stepped back. I knew it didn't matter how much I ran: we were locked in, with no way out.
I lifted my eyes to him… to Ari's father.
"Please! I'm begging you, please! Help me!" I screamed with all my strength, my voice torn apart.
All I saw was his eyes glazing over, as if something in him wanted to react, but he didn't move. He didn't say a single word.
He behaved like all the others.
That's when I knew I couldn't count on him.
He pretended.
He pretended all this time.
"I don't understand why you're doing this to me," I managed to say through sobs. "I was always good to Ari… you know very well that we… that we're like sisters."
The guy was holding me tightly, dragging me out of the cage. I struggled desperately, trying to free myself from his grip.
"You never deserved that family! You never deserved Ari! Your brother was right!" I screamed, filled with rage and pain.
Then he opened his eyes wide, as if my words had pierced him.
For a second, I thought he would stand up, but he only glanced at the man beside him—the one who seemed to be the leader—and sat back down.
Pretending again.
But I knew it.
What I had said had hurt him.
There was truth in my words.
And when I understood that, I felt my strength return.
And then I understood why Ari and I were so different… and so alike at the same time.
The guy covered my mouth.
My desperation exploded.
Everything disgusted me: his violence, his body so close to mine… I felt all his control over me, and I hated feeling that way.
From my adolescence until now, everything was the same.
They always taking advantage of the situation.
It made me feel insignificant.
I felt so dirty.
"Shut up already," he whispered in my ear with a rough voice as he forced me up.
He opened a door and shoved me inside; I fell to the floor, unbalanced, the dull impact ringing in my ears.
I looked around.
It was an elegant, spotless place, like a corporate building, a company where no one would imagine what really happened inside.
The blonde was standing. Her clothes were dirty with dirt. She came toward me and, trembling, took my arm to help me up.
The door opened again.
The others came in, holding the remaining girls.
First, a young dark-skinned girl fell to the floor, who looked Mexican like me.
Then one with dreadlocks, Afro-descendant, her breathing broken by fear.
And finally… the little girl, no older than ten.
"Well… can you hear me, girls? Can you hear me, little one?" Eduardo's voice echoed through the building's speakers.
I watched as, one by one, the guys lined up next to the door we had entered through.
Each of them looked us up and down, evaluating us as if we were food.
I didn't take my eyes off the one who didn't flinch.
His eyes showed satisfaction at seeing my fear, at noticing how clearly terrified I was.
Then I saw the little girl let out a shriek when she felt watched.
I couldn't imagine someone so young in a situation like this, nor what her parents must be going through with her gone.
She was terrified of the man covered in marks and scars, the one who stared at her eagerly, with a sick gleam in his eyes.
The girl ran toward me on instinct, because I was the closest.
She clung to my leg and lifted her little face to look at me.
Her breathing was frantic; she was shaking with pure panic. Without thinking, I picked her up, pressed her against me, and made her curl her head in, hiding it against my chest.
Then I felt another gaze fixed on me.
The guy let out a laugh, amused by seeing me try to protect the girl.
And with a commanding gesture, he pointed to the one who seemed most eager to approach… giving him the green light to act.
"I haven't given the order yet, idiots," Eduardo said when he saw one of the guys trying to approach me.
I clenched my fists, trying to memorize every feature, every detail of them… in case I made it out alive.
The one who had stepped toward me had fists covered in poorly healed wounds; the reddish tone of his skin was still visible, as if every punch he'd thrown had left a recent mark.
His eyes were slightly slanted, but I doubted he was Asian. Maybe mixed, or maybe he just had that naturally sharp gaze.
His hair, shaved and dyed white, contrasted with his marked skin. He was muscular, though not as much as Eduardo, and not as tall.
You could tell he hadn't been training for long, that his strength came more from instinct than discipline.
And even so, there was something in his expression—that mix of impatience and contained pleasure—that made you understand he was dangerous.
"You have five minutes to hide inside this building. If, when the timer ends, you're not found, you'll have survived. But they'll have five minutes to search for your hiding place. The game lasts an hour, and you'll have time intervals to find another hiding spot, and none of my companions will be allowed to touch a single hair on your heads… but during the trial, they have permission to do anything," Eduardo finished, and I knew that even if I couldn't see him, he was wearing that smile—that damn smile.
Immediately, a screen lit up high on the wall, showing a timer counting down the five minutes for us to hide.
We looked at each other, searching in one another's eyes for a plan, a signal, something.
Nothing.
Just fear.
I held the girl in my arms tighter and turned, desperately searching for an exit, any corner that could serve us.
We started running. Footsteps echoed through the empty corridors while the sound of the timer dropped second by second. The other girls followed me, panting, some sobbing.
"What do we do? Do we split up?" one of them asked, looking down the dark hallways while trying not to trip.
We were already far from where they were.
I was exhausted too, my body heavy, but I couldn't let the girl walk on her own.
I knew she could, but fear gnawed at my mind: if something scared her, if she ran… I could lose her.
And in this place, losing her would be condemning her.
"There's one minute left before they start looking for us," I said, and sighed when I saw an open door.
[•••]
ARI
I looked down the hallway searching for her. I felt like I was walking in circles, that every step brought me back to the same place.
I needed to find her, take her home again, give her back the normality they took from us. My eyes felt heavy, exhaustion burned at my temples.
Ámbar, I'm going to save you… I promise.
My vision blurred. I managed to make out a figure in front of me. Its head lifted slowly and looked at me.
I couldn't see its eyes.
There it was again. I was fed up. When I walked toward it, the figure vanished, as if it had been an illusion.
I looked to the side and there was Ámbar; she was terrified, crawling along the floor, escaping from something. I looked behind her and screamed immediately:
"Ámbar!"
I jolted awake in the hospital bed and sat up abruptly. My mother was asleep in the armchair beside me. I touched my head, feeling everything spin.
I lay back down and covered my face.
Ámbar wouldn't leave my mind, and it made me feel so sensitive. I felt the urge to run out, I wanted to do it, but since I've been here they haven't let me leave.
I told them I'm fine, but the doctor refused; Officer García refused; my father and my mother didn't object to that decision.
After they found me desolate in the middle of nowhere, they took me home.
I had a breakdown because of my dreams; I wanted to go out looking for her at dawn, and they took me to the hospital.
I'm not crazy.
She doesn't deserve this, because she's a great person…
But we talked about trust. I trust her.
Jeff hasn't come to see me because he thinks I'm angry, but I was just trying to stop them. It wasn't his fault the blow knocked him out.
Even so, he made a good decision by not coming to look for me right away; I wasn't thinking clearly, and my mood has been terrible. I'm angry at absolutely everyone.
The door opened and Liam's presence filled the room.
He was carrying a bag of food. When he came in, he looked at me and then at my mother, who was still asleep in the chair.
I propped myself up to sit, and he shook his head several times, as if he already knew what I was going to ask.
I wanted to get out of that room.
"Help me," I whispered when he came closer. He set the bag on the small table and walked toward me.
I barely lifted my head to look him in the eyes.
"My parents are going to scold me," he said softly, casting a nervous glance at my mother, as if he were afraid she'd wake up or think something strange seeing us so close.
I held out my hands for him to help me up. The medication was still working; my body felt numb, heavy.
Liam hesitated for a moment. He looked at me with that thoughtful expression he always has, then met my gaze again. I smiled faintly, trying to convince him, and that seemed to work.
"It's okay," I said, lowering my eyes. I resigned myself, but then I felt his hands over mine.
"I'll just take you to get some air," he finally said.
I nodded. I stood up, making an effort not to put all my weight on him.
I managed to stand and took a few slow steps to get used to it.
He let go of me little by little… and I walked.
Slowly, but I did it.
[•••]
"Did you wake up because you dreamed about Ámbar again?" Liam asked while we looked at the buildings from the hospital rooftop.
The wind was cold and made the silence feel heavier. We had gone up by elevator without anyone seeing us.
"Yes…" I replied. "It's hard to think she's not here. That she might be suffering. And what scares me the most… is never seeing her again."
Maybe I sounded too sincere for how little time we'd been talking again, after everything that happened.
But I felt comfortable.
I needed to talk to someone. I needed to talk to him.
Whenever I needed comfort, I went to Ámbar, and now that she wasn't here, he was all I had.
Camila and I always sought help in her. It hurts not being able to do anything to save her… even if she says I already did.
"She'll come back, I promise you," he said in a soft tone, trying to encourage me. "She's strong, and you know it."
I let out a bitter smile and looked away, holding back the tears burning my eyes.
"It's not your fault, Ari."
"Yes, it is, Liam… and she doesn't deserve it." My voice trembled.
He took a step toward me, but stopped immediately, regretful.
"It's okay," I murmured. "I understand you."
"No, that's not it, Ari. It's not what you think."
Of course it was. He didn't want to get close to me so he wouldn't confuse me… or confuse himself.
"I think it is," I said without looking away. "I know what happened during the interrogation was to help me, and I appreciate it… it was liberating, in part. But I also know you're trying to keep your boundaries."
Liam ran his hands through his hair and sighed deeply.
"It's hard… everything comes so naturally to us. It scares me."
"Are you afraid something will happen to you for being close to me?" I asked, knowing that was what haunted my mind the most.
"I've never thought about walking away from you." His voice barely broke. "You have no idea what I think about you."
I looked at him, and our eyes met.
There was something in his gaze that stopped my heart.
"Then tell me," I whispered. "Do you think it's not hard for me?"
"I know it is," he replied in the same low tone. "But it's hard for me too. I'm afraid that this—" he gestured between us "—will disappear. I don't want to lose you, Ari. It scares me to never see your face again, to not hear your voice, for you to make decisions alone, to carry everything and be dying inside without telling me anything."
He paused and held my gaze with an intensity that made me want to start crying, but I held it in.
"If you're going to look for Ámbar, don't do it alone. I want to be there with you. I know I'm contradicting myself," he let out a slight bitter laugh. "I know what I told you when I fought with Jeff a few days ago, what I said when we drifted apart—that we'd just be friends, that I'd set boundaries… but I can't, Ari. It's impossible for me. Every time I see you."
His voice broke, and I knew what was coming wasn't just an impulse.
"If I could turn back time," he said, lowering his gaze, "just to prevent all this, so you wouldn't have met him and none of what you suffered would have happened."
I stayed silent. Neither of us took a step, because we knew that if either of us did, we'd break what was happening between us.
Both of our eyes were glassy.
"I sometimes thought… what my life would be like if I had never met you. And in reality, I accepted that I didn't want to get over the situation. Not because I didn't want to move forward…" I paused, swallowing. "I don't know how to explain it. What I'm trying to say is that I accepted I couldn't do anything and accepted this life because at least I had you."
My tears began to slide down my cheeks.
"But now we can't be together. It's not the time…" When I said it, everything we seemed to be holding back shattered.
He leaned toward me, then straightened, trying to stay calm, but shook his head. His tears started to fall like I'd never seen before.
I covered my eyes to hide my crying, which I could no longer control.
"Ari… why can't we ever be together?" he asked, his voice broken. His tears wouldn't stop.
It wasn't a complaint; it sounded more like a lament he couldn't accept, just as I couldn't either.
Not two years ago, not when everything began.
"Maybe… maybe we were meant not to meet," I whispered, and then he collapsed against me. We held each other tightly, as if that gesture could stop the world.
"If I had the choice…" his voice broke against my shoulder, "that I had never been drugged, that I were healthy, that I had never been accused… but that it meant never having met you… I would choose every single time to have been with you, even if it meant suffering through it, just to have you in my life."