Falling With Grace

“I have been.” I bit down on my fingernail again, my eyes rolling into the back of my head. My leg shook, and my knee bobbed up and down.

“Chingado.Pull over.”

My spine grew rigid as I sat. I shifted my attention across the men in the vehicle as it pulled over to the side of the road in the middle of the desolate desert with nothing but fencing and power lines.

Javier jumped from the vehicle as it rolled to a complete stop, then yanked open my door.

“Out. Now.” He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder and stepped to the side, his hand braced against the door.

My shaking hand unbuckled the seatbelt, and I groaned as my stiff muscles and ready-to-burst bladder shifted when I stepped out of the vehicle.

“Pee.”

My brows furrowed as I glanced up at him, the night sky a darkened backdrop behind him. “Here?”

“Yes. Here.” He sighed. “I think Andrés has lost his touch with hisputas.”

I winced, my shoulders rising as I cowered. With a soft exhale, I pivoted to the back tire, my eyes blurring.

My feet scuffed against the gravel as I pulled my pants down my bruised legs and squatted.

For three years, I’d shared a communal bathroom. On the good days, I was able to use Andrés’s, but I never had someone standing over me, watching as I relieved myself.

My throbbing bladder froze, and I couldn’t pee. “Can you…” I paused and shifted. “Can you look away?”

Javier chuckled before clenching his jaw and rubbing the tattoos on his hand. “Listen,niñita.If you don’t make it quick, I’m going to drag you behind the SUV the rest of the way home. I’d rather hear your body thumping along the road than what you’ve been doing this whole drive.” He paused and leaned on the door. “So what will it be?”

10

Grace

We pulled into a broken-down warehouse, its corrugated panels peeling away as though it rotted like an over-ripened banana. Two men stepped out dressed in jeans and t-shirts and pushed the floor-to-ceiling doors to the side, allowing our vehicle to pass through.

Long black military-style rifles hung along their bodies, and the strap cinched around their shoulders.

“Where are we?” I glanced around the deserted area and back to the front through the windshield.

“Your last stop.”

I curled in on myself, hugging my damaged arm, my chest tightening with sharp pained pinches.

The vehicle stopped in the middle of the building, where a group of men stood huddled around a tight circle, some cheering while others wore frowns.

A deep hum struck my ears as the driver turned off the vehicle, my body vibrating from the road.

The men stepped out of the vehicle, their doors slamming shut one after the other.

Javier leaned in, and I gasped, his presence looming as he snatched my upper arm and tugged me out.

I tripped over my bare feet, but he held me upright as we walked toward a metal hatch in the floor.

Nausea swirled in my gut with a sickening doom lurking in the cement.

The two men from the car lifted the hatch doors, harboring concrete steps illuminated with a yellow bulb no doubt out of circulation.

“What’sdown there?”

Javier moved me down the steps with a grumbling in his throat as I glanced at the huddled men cheering. Two roosters fought in the center of the crowd, their claws flying toward one another as they flapped their wings.