I try to catch a glimpse of him through the tiny gap between my eyelids, but everything’s fucking hazy and bright and it all hurts so goddamn bad.
“Dios mio!”
“Papa?”
“He’s alive,” the man sighs. “Barely.”
“We gotta take him home, Papa. We gotta get him help.”
There’s a long silence.
“He’s been shot. More than once. This man’s involved in some nasty business, Carlita. Best we leave him here.”
“Papa!”
“I don’t want any trouble, mija,” he says, his tone softening. “And this one here is trouble.”
“He’s still a person,” the girl argues. “We’ve got to help him if we can. Mama would have wanted us to. She would have told us that we shouldn’t judge.”
The man sighs like he knows he’s lost the argument. “Alright then.” He shifts around. More leaves crunch. “Come on. We’re gonna need the wheelbarrow. This chico is a beast.”
I want to protest, but I just sigh and let it all happen. I’m not in control of anything right now.
Sometime later, when the man starts to move my body, fresh pain scorches through me. It’s too much to handle. The blackness claims me once again.
I don’t fight that, either.
* * *
I don’t know whether it’s hours or days later when I come to consciousness in brief spurts and drags.
I start to notice little things.
The subtle light of hanging lamps just above me.
The smell of something cooking. Rosemary. Chicken.
The sound of singing in the background. An old hymn that I used to know the words to, a lifetime ago.
When I finally ease back into consciousness, I know it’s been days since I was left for dead in the woods. I can feel it in my body.
It still aches. There’s still pain.
But it’s a healing pain.
I wince as my muscles complain at the movement, but I force myself upright all the same.
I’m lying in a single bed pushed up against a clean adobe white wall. There’s a narrow two-door wardrobe in the corner and a rickety wooden writing desk right next to it.
A muffled voice comes through the walls. “Vamos, Gaspar! Let’s go check on Poncho.”
Poncho? Who the fuck is Poncho?
Two seconds later, a young girl rounds the corner and steps into my room. She freezes the moment she sees me, her hazel eyes going wide with shock.
“Y… you’re awake?”
I lick my chapped lips. “Apparently.” My throat is croaky from disuse.