I don’t like taking orders from other people, but in this case, I know he’s probably right.
Evening falls fast here and so do the temperatures. There’s a roaring fire in the fireplace, where most of us congregate after dinner.
What an awkward dinner that was. Luisa barely ate and then disappeared into the rustic bowels of the house again.
I know I just need to let her be. We fight a lot, as to be expected, and I know deep down that she’s right about most (okay, maybe all) of the things she said. But I can’t let her have the upper hand, even if she does. There has to be some illusion of control and power in this relationship. She’s my queen, but if she knew she had more power than the king, there would be hell to pay.
“I’m turning in,” Diego says, getting up and putting down his glass of scotch.
“So soon?” I ask.
He nods and Evaristo gets to his feet as well. “Me too. Don’t worry, we’re patrolling all night. There are heat cams and sensors at the main road, the gates, it’ll all trigger well before anyone can get here.”
He and Diego go their separate ways, both of them in bedrooms on the opposite sides of this ground floor.
That leaves me alone. In the giant living room, the only light coming from the fire. I can see the faint reflection of myself in the windowpane that reaches up to the cathedral ceiling.
From the way the flames flicker, it looks like I’m in hell.
I take a sip of the smooth scotch and settle back in the leather couch, staring at the fire like it’s hypnotizing me.
My eyes fall closed.
I drift off to sleep. I don’t dream. There is only this blackness that pulls me under.
Then the feeling of someone in the room with me.
My eyes open.
Darkness.
The fire went out.
There isn’t even an ember.
How could that be?
I rub at my forehead, trying to think how long I’ve been asleep for.
Then I feel it.
The presence on the end of the couch, adjusting itself.
Out of the corner of my eye it looks like no one is there at all, but I feel it.
I swallow, the hairs at the back of my neck standing up, my skin prickling.
I slowly turn my head.
Esteban Mendoza is sitting on the edge of the couch.
I think I’m having a heart attack.
I blink at him, my chest tight with fear and confusion, and then I look away, at the fireplace, trying to make sense of what I’m seeing.
It’s my reflection in the window, distorted by the moonlight.
It’s not my ex-business partner who betrayed me, slept with my wife, brutalized her, and who in turn was graphically murdered by the two of us.
I take in a deep breath and look again.
He’s still sitting there.
That fucker.
Just sitting there as he always did, with his stupid Hawaiian shirt and flip flops, like he just got back from the motherfucking beach. His hair is wavy, brittle, his face ugly as a rhino’s ass, with a scar running down the side.
That Esteban.
“Hola, Javier,” he says to me. “Bet you thought you’d never see me again, eh?”
This is a dream. Some awful fucked up dream.
I look down at my hand, thinking about pinching it, to wake me up.
Then Esteban reaches over and does it for me.
I watch in slow motion as his hand, his very real and corporal sun-spotted hand, comes for me, pinching the skin on my forearm between my fingers until it stings.
“What the fuck?!” I yelp, jumping to my feet, rubbing at my arm.
“Shhh,” Esteban says, raising his finger to his lips. “You’ll wake Luisa. We both know how…curious she can get in the middle of the night.”
“What the fuck.” I can’t stop saying it. “What the fuck?” I press my hands into my temples, trying to rub sense into myself. I look around the darkness of the cabin. Why the fuck are all the lights out anyway, shouldn’t they be on? Where is everyone?
“Just calm down,” he says, patting the space next to him on the couch. “Have a seat. I won’t take up too much of your time.”
“This is a dream,” I tell him. “You’re not real.”
“Want me to pinch you again?”
I shake my head. “No. Just…stay where you are.”
I need a knife. Why don’t I have a knife on me?
Ah, the fireplace poker.
I reach for it, grasping it in my hands.
“I wouldn’t do that yet,” he says to me. “You need to