Milo
“I’M SCARED,” THE little angel whines on Mercy’s back as her pace slows from exhaustion.
I hike Dom up a little higher, my back finally numb after the hours of walking. We’ve taken periodic breaks, but I don’t let anyone sit for too long. “Mercy, let me take her.”
“I’ll take her.” Philomena staggers over to relieve Mercy as she’s been doing every few minutes, but her body is weaker and she doesn’t get very far.
“I’ve got her.” Mercy grunts. “We just need to keep moving.” Her slippers are torn and stained with something that could well be blood. Whether it’s hers or her captor’s, I’m not sure.
“Let’s take a break.” The sky is a deep purple, the sun brightening the east, which would give me a good idea of what direction to take if I had any clue where we are to begin with.
“Will we be able to get back there?” Mercy moves past me, the muscles in her slender arms visibly cramping from bearing the load of the young girl. “Are you keeping track so we’ll know how to get back?”
I frown at the panic in her voice. “Right now our priority is us—”
“No!” She whirls around to face me. “No, Milo. I will never rest again until I know that every human soul in that hell has been saved! I won’t—” Her voice breaks on a sob. “I can’t move on with my life knowing we left some behind.”
The little angel on Mercy’s back places her tiny hands on Mercy’s cheeks and says, “Shhh, I’ll take it away.”
I shake my head, and Mercy’s body crumbles. She manages to set the girl down before doubling over and dissolving into sobs.
“Hang out here, buddy.” I set Dom down and my shoulders scream with cramps, but I push that aside and scoop Mercy into my arms.
As I cradle her to my chest, she sobs into my shirt. Her body trembles with exhaustion, and I curse not having a better plan, having a car, having somewhere I could put her to keep her safe and get her the hell away from all this.
There’s a small clearing nearby, tucked behind a cluster of Saguaro cacti, away from the kids who I know she wants to appear strong for, but right now, she needs a safe place to break down. I take her into the clearing and set her in my lap, and she fists my shirt as she’s racked with soul-crushing sobs. I rub her back, her shoulders, hoping to ease some of the tension in her muscles as I let her cry it out. Let her cry for the people who were hurt under the same roof she lived under, let her cry for the lies she’d been told and forced to believe, for the lives she had to leave behind, for the fear of the unknown. For the life she took with her own hand.
“You’ve been so strong, mi alma, so fucking strong. You gotta let it out, everyone has a breaking point.”
Time passes as she dissolves in my arms. I watch the sky continue to brighten. Fuck it, if this is it, if this is how we end, at least I’ll die with the woman I love more than my own life in my arms. Which is more than I could’ve said twenty-four hours ago. She calms and eventually goes quiet. She’s probably sleeping and we don’t have a minute to spare, but I allow her time to dream, to escape. Soon enough she’ll have to wake up and face this all over again.
“I never should’ve brought you here.” I whisper into the desert air hoping Mercy can hear me even in her sleep. “I was desperate when I took you from LA. I went with what I thought was the easiest, what I thought was a sure thing. I didn’t know we’d end up here, stranded in the desert, responsible for the lives of three other people. Fuck . . .” I blow out a harsh breath, feeling my own armor crack. “I don’t know what we’re gonna do.”
“We keep moving.” Her voice is raw from crying and sleep and she shifts in my arms. “We don’t give up because we have too much to lose.”
I kiss the top of her head. “I love you so much.”
“I’m sorry I left. I never should’ve—”
“Shh, no. I know why you did. You felt locked up. I get it now. You told me, but I was so blinded by the need to keep you safe I didn’t listen.”
“I never should’ve left. If we’d worked together, we could’ve found them another way.”
“Maybe. How did you end up back here? He was looking for you?”
She pushes up to sitting slowly, stiff and probably sore. “Those men, they took me and—”
“I’ll fucking kill them, I swear to God—”
She falls silent for a few seconds before pulling out of my arms. “I’ll save that story for another day.”
I reach for her. “Mercy, I’m sorry.”
She doesn’t seem upset. “For now . . .” She gets to her feet, her long white dress yellowed and stained from dust and sweat. “We have to keep moving.”
She’s right. We’ll tackle one nightmare at a time, and this one we’re in has an expiration date directly related to the sunrise.
My entire body hurts as I get to my feet. I stretch my arms overhead when a glimmer in the distance catches my eye. I don’t bother asking Mercy if she sees it. I know with her weak vision, she can’t.
“We need to head that way,” I say.
She looks between me and the unseen flicker of hope on the horizon. “What is it?”
“I don’t know, but there’s something out there. A car, maybe an abandoned house. Either way, it’s our best hope to get you and the kids out of the sun.”
We hold hands and head back to Philomena and the kids, who are slumped together, sound asleep. I hate to wake them, but soon the entire desert will be cast in sunlight, and we have two children who believe the sun’s rays will destroy them.
Mercy
WE’VE BEEN WALKING for what feels like hours and I still don’t see it, but I know we must be getting closer as Milo picks up his pace. I cover more ground if I keep my eyes on the desert floor to keep from tripping over prickly bushes and rocks, and with the little angel on my back, I fall behind.
“Do you remember when you came to live with Papa?” she asks me, her voice soft and quiet so close to my ear.
I’ve given her Milo’s sweatshirt to protect her skin, and although Dom doesn’t seem nearly as nervous about the sun, Milo insisted he wear his long-sleeved shirt. Something tells me Dom was used in different ways, not held high and treated like royalty but made to feel like a slave, a reject from the holy kingdom.
My skin stings, and my sweat cools my skin just enough to make it miserable but not torturous. “No.”
She sighs. “Me either.”
I remember what Laura told me when I first came to Los Angeles. “It doesn’t have to matter where you came from.” I grunt when a sharp bur stabs through my slipper, but I keep on moving. “You get to decide what matters or not.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I know,” I say, out of breath as I stagger on. “Don’t worry, you will.”
She squeezes me tighter. “I’m scared.”
“So am I.”
We both fall silent as I follow Philomena who is following Milo.
My legs grow heavier and I slow, about to ask for a break, when I hear Milo yell, “It’s a house!”
I look up in time to see him running toward a small structure that stands out like brown block in the middle of the barren land.
Philomena sidles up next to me. “How do we know we can trust who lives there?”
“We don’t, but what choice do we have?”
She takes little Angel from me, and with renewed strength, we quicken our pace to the house. I try to stay focused on the metal roof as the scenery before me fades. Philomena’s form gets smaller and smaller, and darkness seeps into my vision.
“Hey . . . wait . . .” The voice coming from my lips doesn’t sound like my own. The volume is too low, the words garbled.
I lift my chin to try to focus on the view ahead, to make it still and clear, but the momentum is too much, and suddenly I’m on my back, staring at a perfectly blue sky.
The ache in my body fades.
A shiver skates down my spine, and I’m grateful for the ice that seems to form in my veins from out of nowhere. Goosebumps scatter over my skin.
I’m still thirsty and I want to keep my eyes open to stare at the sky, but I’m tired and my eyelids fight against me.
So this is what it feels like to die.
MY THIGH MUSCLES ache, so much so that I try to push away whatever is sitting on them, but I wince as pain shoots down both my arms. My teeth chatter and my skin pricks.
I remember being strapped down. I know where I am.
“Laura?” I swallow through a rough, dry throat. “Are you here?” My voice is so weak I can’t even hear myself.
Murmured voices hum all around me.
“It’s me . . .” But in my ears, it sounds like ithsme. “Mercy.”
The voices get louder, and something wet drips into my mouth. I try to swallow it but cough and gag until my stomach wrenches. The pain is so strong that my eyes fly open only to draw me into the softest pools of pale brown eyes.
I know you, I think.
Comfort washes over me, and more liquid is dropped into my mouth. The voices get louder, but I can’t make out the words. Those brown eyes darken with worry.
“Where . . .” am I?
I lose those warm eyes and watch his full lips move as he speaks. I can’t understand because he’s speaking Spanish.
Milo.
I try to sit up.
He presses me back. “Just relax.” He grins, but he’s worried, I can see it in the slight turn down at the corners of his lips. “You’re safe.”
He drips more water into my mouth. This time I’m able to swallow, then he drips more.
“There you go.” He pulls the heavy weight off of me, and with it goes the cold.
I shiver.
“I’m sorry, I was trying to bring your body temperature down. You overheated out there.”
“Where are we?” I clear the cobwebs from my throat.
“A house.” His expression grows lighter. “There’s no phone, but Manuel said he’d take us into town.”
“The kids?”
He pushes my hair off my forehead. “They’re good. Safe. A little scared but good.” He chuckles. “Since when did we start sounding like some old married couple?”
I laugh, but it’s weak. He drops his lips to mine, being cautious of my sensitive skin. A male voice says something in Spanish, and Milo answers then turns back to me and smiles.
“We should go,” I say.
“Not until the sun goes down.”
“Will we go to the police?”
“No, I don’t trust the federales. Esteban can’t know where I am.”
I don’t understand why we can’t call Esteban, but the “don’t ask” look in Milo’s face tells me that too is a story for another time. “Then where will we go?”
“I can only think of one person who will help us. To stay safe and to help whoever we left back there, we need to get to the border.”