After Us

by Amber Hart

  I’m the bull’s-eye in the center of their target board.

  My gun stays tucked away. For now. It’s only for emergencies. Until then, it stays out of view, hidden in my waistband, covered by a loose black shirt. Maybe they suspect I’ve got it. But if I’ve played them well enough, they probably won’t. I’m wearing no gang colors. No visible tattoos. No indication that I belong to anyone. But they don’t understand that none of that matters.

  Cuba has already made a monster of me.

  It’s now, in moments like these, that I’m reminded of my home. Of constantly being on guard. Of not knowing what it means to relax. I can’t afford to relax around them. I can’t take even one second of concentration away.

  In some ways, they all look the same. Full body tats. Blue-and-white bandanas—the colors of El Salvador, where the gang originated; some sticking out of their pockets, some on their heads. All Latino.

  But in other ways, they’re different. Like the biggest one, who favors his right leg. Suggestion of an injury to the left. I’ll remember that if I have to take him down. Another one has a healed bullet hole in his neck. I can tell because I have a similar scar on my arm. Scars are often more tender than regular skin. Offer easy access to pain.

  I continue to assess weak spots. I decide that my biggest threat is probably the smallest one, who bounces back and forth on the pads of his feet. Ready. Eager to get to me. And probably the quickest.

  “We’ve been waiting for you to show back up,” one says.

  Good.

  “¿Hablas español?”

  “Of course, I speak Spanish, puto.”

  He smiles.

  “That fight,” he says, never taking his eyes off of me. “You do that often?”

  “No. Sólo contigo.”

  He doesn’t need to know that I’m lying. That I’ve fought many times.

  “Mentiroso,” he says.

  He’s calling me out on my deception. With good reason. I shrug.

  They’re getting the point now. That I have something to hide. They just don’t know what.

  They’ll never know what.

  Not until I find Wink.

  This is what they want, anyway. Members who can fight. Members who come from something dark. They don’t accept guys with picture-perfect pasts. They’d never survive this lifestyle. They need danger, they need to recruit guys who can handle it.

  “You belong to someone?” the big guy asks.

  But they already know the answer.

  “No,” I confirm.

  He smirks. “We should change that.”

  Two of them lower their guns. Realizing that I’m not going to attack them without being provoked. Not like last time.

  “Why’d you fight us?” he asks.

  I’ve decided that he’s the leader. But who, I wonder, is his leader?

  My mind flashes to Wink.

  “Porque estas en mi camino,” I reply.

  They got in my way. As far as they know, it’s as simple as that.

  Nothing is as simple as that.

  He laughs. “Sí, you’d fit in just fine. Question is, do you want to?”

  They’re asking first. Do I want to join them?

  “What’s in it for me?” My words are making my act all the more believable. I know exactly what I want.

  His smile disappears.

  “We’ll let you leave here alive.”

  Figured it’d be like that. Either I join. Or I die. It’s the same choice they gave Diego.

  I won’t go that easily. This is the part where I deliver my message.

  “I wanna meet your leader first.”

  His proud chest puffs out. “You’re lookin’ at him.”

  “The one above you,” I clarify.

  His eyes narrow. Suspicious. “¿Por qué?”

  “Because I’m not gonna be some lowly fight guy. If I’m gonna join, I want in deep.”

  It’s not a lie. It’s the only way I’ll find Wink.

  “Don’t think I care what you want,” he snarls.

  I’m provoking him. Basically telling him he’s nothing. Just someone low down on a chain.

  This time I do smile.

  And then I hit him. Fast. My knuckles smash into his cheek. Taking them all by surprise. Before they realize what’s happened, I have my gun trained on his forehead. Directly between the eyes.

  He stiffens. His breathing speeds up.

  His guys draw near, circling tight around us.

  “Don’t,” I warn, clicking off the safety.

  They get the message. Back up.

  “Here’s the deal,” I say to the guy in front of me. “You’re gonna go back to your leader. Tell him he has a chance at a strong recruit. But only if I get to meet him. Skip all this bullshit of startin’ from the bottom.”

  “And if I don’t?” he says, eyes steel.

  I laugh. Menacing. “Then I pull the trigger.”

  He watches my finger tighten.

  “You won’t shoot,” he says, but I hear his indecision.

  “You wanna try me?”

  I’ve shot someone before. In Cuba. A cartel member came for us, mi familia, demanding that mi papá hand over his oldest sons for recruit. When mi papá said no, they went for him, their fists crunching his ribs. I didn’t think twice. I ran to where our guns were hidden. Grabbed one. Remembering what mi papá had taught me, I aimed. And shot. One guy came away clutching his leg. Bleeding. Smiling like an animal. He wasn’t mad that I’d shot him. He was glad. He saw it as potential.

  They let mi papá go. Turned to me. That one, the cartel member said in Spanish. We’ll be back tomorrow for the two oldest and that one, he’d promised.

  They wanted the twins because they were teenagers, old enough to train. And they wanted me because I showed something they liked. A willingness to shoot.

  He hobbled away with the others.

  That’s the last day I lived in Cuba. Mi papá didn’t hesitate to leave everything behind. Knowing that if he didn’t, he’d lose his sons to a cartel.

  The gang member’s eyes waver. Deciding.

  Moment of truth. Silence is a thick blanket descending on the air around us.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” he says to the barrel of my gun.

  I quickly spin the gun at the others. A warning for them to let me go. They step back. Allow me an opening. I take it. Jump in my truck and gun the engine. I drive away, hoping that this is the key that will help me infiltrate their gang.

  The exact chance I need to take Wink down.

  15

  melissa

  I dial Faith’s number and wait for the phone to ring.

  The whole time I think, I wonder what she’s doing at this exact moment.

  Does she ever see the phone ringing and not answer it on purpose?

  Do I remind her of the boy she lost back in the States?

  Why won’t she answer more often?

  Maybe this time will be different.

  It isn’t.

  I knock hard enough that a middle-aged woman pops her head out of a door down the hall. When she sees that I’m not knocking on her hotel door, she shuts it.

  I sigh, disappointed. Javier’s not here.

  I try knocking one more time.

  Nothing.

  I already searched the beach. He wasn’t there either.

  Where are you, Javier?

  The ding of elevator doors followed by several people laughing catches my attention. I look up. Bingo.

  Out steps Javier and his friends. I met some of them at a club a while back. I glance at the guy next to Javier, who looks like he could be his brother.

  Javier’s smiling at something they say and even though I have no part in their conversation, I smile, too. I like the way he looks now. Not so . . . sad.

  “Hey,” his friend says. Takes in my outfit. A tight sundress. Hair in a messy bun.

  Javier looks up. Eyes lock with mine.

  “Nice,” his friend mumbles.


  Javier glares at his friend.

  Grin from the other guy. “Relax, man. She’s yours, I get it.”

  “I’m not his,” I say. Impulse.

  Javier’s buddies laugh.

  “Sure,” says the one that looks like his brother.

  Javier comes up and puts an arm around me, contradicting my statement.

  “What are you doing here?” he asks.

  His buddies lean against the wall, all in board shorts, bottlenecks in their hands. A couple of them are carrying twelve packs.

  “Coming to see you,” I say.

  He runs a hand down my back. I shiver.

  “If you’re gonna make out right here, then at least give me the keys,” his maybe-brother says.

  “He looks like you,” I point out.

  “That’s ’cause he’s my brother.”

  Thought so.

  “Pedro, this is Melissa.” Javier introduces us. “Melissa, this is everybody.”

  He goes through a list of several names. I’ve forgotten them all already, except for his brother.

  “Happy birthday,” I say, extending my hand to shake Pedro’s. “And nice to meet you.”

  Pedro takes my hand and kisses the back of it, staring at Javier with a wicked grin.

  Javier yanks my body closer to his, which pulls my hand out of Pedro’s grasp.

  “Just what I thought,” Pedro says, but he isn’t talking to me.

  Javier and his brother have a staring match, some unspoken conversation.

  I glance at Javier. He doesn’t look happy.

  “We goin’ in or what?” Javier’s friend asks. He looks at me. “On second thought, what about your room, Pedro?”

  Thunder booms outside. I’m guessing that’s why they’re choosing to hang out in the room instead of on the beach. I’m off today. It would have been too slow to make money with no one braving the Florida summertime storm, anyway.

  “Eduardo has a girl up there. He’ll kick our asses if we barge in,” Pedro says.

  “Do you need me to leave?” I ask, feeling like an intruder.

  “No,” Javier says immediately, to the amusement of his friends.

  “Looks like both rooms will be busy,” one mumbles.

  I don’t miss his insinuation.

  “I was just going,” I say.

  The last thing I need is for them to think I’m only here for that.

  “No, you weren’t.” Javier’s words in my ear.

  I can’t leave when he looks at me like that.

  “And if you ever talk about Melissa like that again, Ramon, I’ll fucking kill you.”

  His friend shuts up, but doesn’t stop smiling.

  Javier’s hands leave me. Fish in his pockets. He comes up with a room key. Unlocks the door. Everyone pushes past us, finding spots to sit. The couch. A chair in the corner. Bar stools. I don’t know where I fit in this. There are plastic patio chairs, but not really any space to put them in the living room. His brother grabs one, shoves it in the only free area left, leaving just one chair.

  “I should go,” I say.

  Javier takes off his hat. Runs fingers through his messy hair. “Not a chance. So don’t even think about it.”

  I kind of love his demandingness.

  “But there’s nowhere for me to sit,” I point out.

  Except the bed, my mind tells me.

  “I don’t care. I want you here,” Javier says. “One of them can stand if you need to sit. Don’t go.”

  I smile. “Okay.”

  Javier leads me straight to the bedroom and my heart spasms. He pulls the hideaway doors shut just as one of his friends turns on the living room television. We’re officially alone on this side.

  “What’d I tell you?” A friend says from the other side of the door.

  Javier’s gaze darkens. “Did I just hear what I think I did, Ramon?”

  “Nope,” Ramon answers through the closed doors. Muffled laughs.

  The television volume turns higher. A game’s on. Soccer, from the sounds of it.

  “Sorry about them,” Javier says, opening the blinds.

  The dark sky casts an eerie shadow across the bedroom. Lightning flickers like camera flashes going off. Capturing a moment between Javier and me.

  “You look too sexy, mami,” Javier says, crossing the room. “You in this dress is bad news around my friends.”

  I glance down at my dress. Simple. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t dress to catch his attention.

  “And even though they’re good people, they’re hombres and they look,” he says.

  “You don’t like them looking?” My voice is innocence mixed with a challenge.

  Pieces of loose hair fall into Javier’s eyes. He swipes them away. Pulls me against his chest.

  “No, I don’t,” he says.

  I like the way he claims me in front of his friends. The way he claims me now. No shame.

  Not like the day I saw you with family on the beach.

  “You don’t like them touching me either,” I point out, thinking of the way he yanked me away from Pedro.

  Javier’s muscles clench against me.

  “Not one bit,” he says.

  The television is loud. I jump when the guys suddenly yell, “Goal!”

  Javier laughs. “We like soccer,” he says. “You like sports?”

  The fact that he has to ask reminds me how little he knows me.

  “A lot,” I admit.

  Javier’s eyes light up. “Do you play?”

  “Probably not as good as you,” I admit. “But yeah, I know the basics.”

  He shakes his head, smiling. “A chick who plays soccer? I’ve won the lottery.”

  “Hardly,” I say. Quick to knock him down a peg. I’m not the whole package.

  If he only knew.

  “What happened the other day?” I ask, not able to shake the thought. “When I saw you with your family on the beach.”

  Javier freezes. His hand stops its journey up my ribs. I love when he touches me like this, but I have to know.

  “Let’s not talk ’bout that,” he says.

  I know what it’s like to not want to talk about things.

  I swallow my pride. “Were you waiting for that girl?”

  Javier looks me in the eyes. “No. Is that what you thought?”

  I nod.

  “I definitely wasn’t waiting on her. I had just met her.”

  Good. “So why didn’t you want me there?”

  He winces. “I did want you there.”

  “No, you didn’t,” I say. “So what was the deal?”

  “What’s the deal with your stomach?” he says.

  I step back. He didn’t just say that to me. He didn’t just come out and ask me. You can’t outright ask a person about something so personal. Doesn’t he realize what this means?

  I have an urge to run.

  “Not that,” I say.

  “You tell me and I’ll tell you,” he offers.

  My hands tremble. Anger announces itself in the form of tremors.

  “You can’t ask me that,” I say, my voice shaky.

  “Whoa,” Javier says, stepping toward me. “Are you okay?”

  “No,” I reply. “No, Javier. I am not okay. It is not okay to ask me that. You can’t do that ever again.”

  His hands go up. A peace offering.

  “Sorry.” His voice is gentle. “Didn’t realize it was this big.” I don’t stop him when he approaches me.

  “I’m going to touch you now,” he whispers. “But not on your stomach.”

  I can’t move.

  “I don’t know if someone hurt you,” Javier says, his jaw tight. “Or what happened, but I’m here. I won’t push it again. I promise.”

  And I believe him.

  He pulls my head into his chest. Wraps me in his arms.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “But you just can’t . . . I don’t know how . . . I’m not ready. . . .”

  “It’s fine,” he in
terrupts.

  “Thank you,” I say. “And thank you for yesterday, too. I actually came here to thank you for saving me from that jerk on the beach. You broke his nose, by the way.”

  “I know,” he says. “He deserved it.”

  “True.” I sigh into him. “He told the hotel that he expected them to pay for his medical bills. When they pointed out that there were numerous witnesses to his behavior, he dropped it.”

  “I hope I never see him again,” Javier says.

  I have a feeling that Javier wouldn’t hesitate to defend me again.

  “So,” I say, lifting my mouth to his. Only an inch apart. “Thank you.”

  The door flies open. “Hey, man. You mind if I take a shower? Estoy cubierto en arena.”

  It’s Ramon again. Javier jumps away from me. Our moment, shattered. He chases after his friend.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Javier says, tripping over friends in the living room. “You can’t even knock?”

  Ramon runs into the bathroom and locks the door.

  “Gotta come out sometime,” Javier threatens.

  Javier’s right, Ramon is ridiculous. But also, it’s nice to see Javier get worked up over our interrupted moment.

  Javier says something to his friends in Spanish.

  One of them looks at me, mumbling under his breath. “Ramon’s a dead man.”

  “Come on,” I say, lacing my fingers with Javier’s, pulling him toward the living room. “Let’s watch the game.”

  I don’t know what I’m doing. Holding his hand. Leaning into him. It feels right.

  Javier looks down at our hands and smiles. The only seat available is the couch corner, where Ramon left. And the soaked chair outside, getting rained on.

  Javier sits down on the couch and pats his lap, a sly grin on his face.

  “You want me to sit there?” I ask. Grin back.

  His friends stare at me.

  “Damn, dude,” one says. “You need us to go?”

  “No,” I answer, never taking my eyes off of Javier. “We’ll watch the game with you.”

  Javier’s breathing deepens as I lower myself into his lap. My back presses against the arm of the couch and his chest.

  “Mami,” Javier whispers into my ear. “You’re so beautiful.”

  He kisses my shoulder. My hair hides his affection. His fingers travel up my legs. I could let this go there, where I know his mind is. I could let him touch me like this and I’d love every minute. I’d love it when he leans in to meet my lips. When his hands roam other parts of me.