“Stop it.”
I pursed my lips together.
“I’m healing,” he said in Portuguese.
That got me to glance at him as even more tears filled my eyes. “I don’t want to be rude, but I don’t think you’re healing enough,” I told him in the same language.
His eyes popped open and slid toward me.
“You need to get better first.” Whether I was going to be alive long enough for that was something I’d worry about later. Maybe I would have more time. Maybe they wouldn’t come in here any time soon. And maybe I’d magically grow six inches. “I want to get out of here more than anything, and I hope I can figure out how to get us both out. I know we aren’t friends or anything, but…” I squeezed my hands together, desperation eating up my chest bite by bite. “Maybe we can be temporary friends. Until we get out of here.” I sniffled. “We only have each other in here.”
It wasn’t like either one of us had more options.
Oh boy, I could feel the sweat on my forehead thinking about it.
Part of me expected him to go back to being that grumpy, quiet pain in the ass, but eventually, The Defender shocked me when he muttered in English, “Fuck. Fine.”
Fine? Fine? All right. Someone was dying to be my friend. Oh boy. I almost laughed, but I did sigh.
“You need to get better, and in the meantime, I’ll think about what we can do. You think about it too; you know what you’re capable of and what you can handle. I’ll try and buy us as much time as possible.” And I wasn’t going to say it out loud, but I could tell that movement a minute ago—him pinning me down—had cost him. I hadn’t missed his flinch and the strain on his face. No matter how much more he was moving, there was still something wrong. He was getting better, but it wasn’t some kind of miracle.
He wasn’t that kind of superhero, I guess, who could regrow an arm in an hour.
Or at least not anymore for whatever terrifying reason.
I sighed and rubbed my face, wondering over that for a while until another familiar question popped into my head. I had nothing left to lose. Hadn’t I already come to terms with that? Peeking over at him, I just went for it. Back to Korean. “Is there something I can call you other than Defender?” It felt awkward to call him that after I’d spoon-fed him and called him a butthole to his face. If that wasn’t a solid foundation for friendship, what was?
I squeezed my hand into a fist, watching him lying there. “I promise not to tell anyone.”
Like I even had people to tell in the first place.
Some muscle in his face moved just slightly. Just enough so that I noticed only because I’d spent so much time staring at his features while he’d slept at my house.
“I don’t care,” he grumbled.
I gritted my teeth.
We were definitely working on this “being temporary friends” thing.
Reality was though: I didn’t trust him, and he didn’t trust me, but we really were all each other had. He was my best shot of getting the hell out of here, so one of us had to start somewhere. I could… I could give an inch. Everything I had tried to prevent had come to fruition anyway. But my voice still sounded funny and a little high as I said, “My real name is Altagracia, but no one has ever called me that.” It hit me then that he might be the last person to ever know my full, real name. My heart pounded a little bit; I was never supposed to tell anyone what it was, but I kept going anyway. “You can call me Gracie,” I whispered.
Not even my students knew me by my name. Packages showed up to the house under the name Esther. When we’d lived in Texas, I ordered things under Lenore Castro. I was so many people, and yet no one at the same time.
It was all those damn lies after all.
“I don’t… remember asking,” the man across the room said.
And there he was.
I rolled my eyes and didn’t even try to be discreet about it. He had his closed anyway.
I tried to take his comment about how we would get out of here to heart, but I wasn’t going to hold my breath.
Not until we got the hell out of here. If we did.
I did the sign of the cross.
CHAPTER
NINE
I tried my hardest to ignore my grumbling stomach, but it was like ignoring someone tapping on your forehead with a fingernail for hours nonstop.
But I couldn’t complain, not when I knew I wasn’t the only one hungry. Neither one of us had gotten breakfast. I’d finished eating dinner about fifteen minutes after he had.
I would have done some sketchy shit for a Klondike bar right about then.
On the other side of the room, the man-being had been asleep, or at least pretending to be, for hours. I’d tried my best to sit there quietly the whole time. Mostly because he needed to rest to get better, and our best chance of getting out of here was for that to happen, so it only made sense to do everything possible to accommodate him. That included creating the least stressful environment as possible, considering the circumstances. Whining wasn’t going to help.
The problem was that my thoughts had been running in a circle of hope and despair, revolving around all the ways this couldn’t end well.
Neither of us were beacons of hope, I guess.
If anything, I’d gotten angrier and more hopeless with every passing minute that really felt like a fucking hour. I was bored to death, worried to death, nervous, scared, and a whole lot of hangry.
He suddenly glared over at me. “I’m trying to rest… and your stomach won’t quit making noise.”
I just looked at him. “It didn’t get my memo that it needed to be quiet. I’ll let it know,” I mumbled, dryly.
Oh, he didn’t like that.
I didn’t care.
Figuring I couldn’t wake him up more than he already was, I got up and walked over to the sink, cupping my hands under the tap, to take enough sips to quench my thirst. I dreaded having to go pee in front of him—or pass gas—but it was going to have to happen sooner or later.
So was going number two, but I was going to cross that road when I came to it. It wasn’t like I had his bowel system. If he had one of those.
“What did your family do to make a cartel come after you?”
I wasn’t surprised he was asking again. How he knew I wasn’t the one who did something was beyond me though. Plus, at this point, did being secretive even matter anymore? We were here. If our roles had been reversed, I would want to know too. I’d told him it didn’t matter but…
One peek at The Defender’s face told me he wasn’t going to drop this.
Pressing my palms together, I tucked them into my lap and sucked in a breath I instantly regretted from the way it made my ribs and back feel. I hated every single one of those bastards who had brought us here. Those damn beanbag rounds had been unnecessary.
“I deserve to know,” his rich, low voice reminded me.
Him deserving it didn’t make it any easier though. It still felt wrong. It felt like writing with my left hand when I’d been a righty my whole life. Tell no one. Keep your head down. Don’t get too close to anyone. Don’t do this, don’t do that.
But I was still here, and I had no idea what the future would hold.
“You do, but it’s kind of a long story, so I’m trying to condense it.” I might not have any loyalty to my parents, but it was still awkward to talk about their mistakes, if you could call the monumentally stupid shit they had done a “mistake.” It was more like a disaster. Like walking in front of a moving bus thinking nothing would happen. That only worked for members of the Trinity.