Heroine Hearts: Darkness Made These Heroine Hearts

by Kirsty-Anne Still

  While I hold myself accountable, I also see Joaquín as a culprit. He didn’t stop this show, didn’t believe that the drugs Santiago brought here were venomously deadly. He allowed Isla to be tested on twice, even at my will.

  “What are you? A doctor or something?” Santiago asks, curling his lip up.

  “Maybe so,” I admit, turning as I watch Hector carry Isla off. “Just make sure she’s watched like a hawk.”

  I go to leave, but Joaquín is quick to grab my arm, stopping me. I’m forced back to face them, the rest of the room silent around us.

  “Didn’t find out what your occupation was back in America,” Joaquín starts, not asking a direct question.

  After all, they don’t have all the details of the men they pull off the bus – just a name and a face.

  “I was a doctor,” I state, emphasizing the past tense of my old life.

  “Just because you’re here, doesn’t mean you stop being a doctor. You saved her life, Javier. You stopped our name becoming tarnished,” Joaquín gives me an even look, actual relief filters in his eyes. “We need more men like you, who had good jobs and have trades.”

  “I don’t have a trade,” I state, unwilling to let him accept me as some miracle. “As I said I was a doctor,” I look over at the door, hating that Isla’s out of sight. “I’m going to go and check on her...”

  He nods and lets me go.

  “Javier,” Joaquín stops me midway across the room. I look back and I notice all eyes are on me. “What happened back in America?”

  “Long story short,” I start, breathing evenly and shunning my shame. “I fucked up and lost it all.”

  “Well,” Joaquín begins, a sly grin starting to grow on his lips. “Maybe you can redeem yourself working under my watch and be far more than a foot soldier. I want you to bring Isla back to us. After all my son has put her through, I think she’s been punished enough. She’ll enter cold turkey when she’s refused anything, we’ll need a doctor. Prove to us you’re more than we have you pegged as. After all, foot soldiers don’t stand up to the boss and his son like you just did.”

  I don’t have to think twice, knowing that I could save Isla.

  That and I don’t want to spend quality time in the presence of a man I don’t trust.

  “Okay,” I agree, feeling a wash of confidence come over me. “I’ll prove I’m worth more than just a foot soldier to you.”

  I feel like a weight has lifted. My second chances are coming in abundance.

  I don’t look back as I head off to find Isla.

  I regret the moment I start to wake.

  Suddenly roused by the softly spoken voices around me causes a violent rush of bile to churn and threaten to make an appearance, but as I groan and roll onto my side, my limbs falling without meaning, the pounding in my head intensifies.

  “Hey,” a soft, hushed voice breaks through the pain rattling around inside my head delicately enough to not cause harm. “Isla?”

  “I don’t feel so good,” I manage in another groan, unwilling to open my eyes much.

  Even as my eyelids part, I realize it’s futile as my vision struggles to adjust to the room. I can see shapes moving before me, but nothing that makes sense.

  “I’m not really surprised,” Javier’s voice sounds again. “You had a couple of seizures. They’re enough to exhaust you.”

  Seizures?

  I don’t move. I will myself to remember what happened back in the main room, but I can‘t for the life of me, latch onto any memory. Everything is a fuzzy mess in my addled brain and I quickly give up thinking about anything too much out of fear of exacerbating my headache.

  I feel fingers wrap around my wrist, pushing onto my pulse point. My limbs feel like dead weights and the thought of moving them doesn’t even enter my head.

  “Her pulse is getting a little stronger, but I’m still worried,” he states, talking to someone else. “This paired with the withdrawal is going to make her health unpredictable.”

  As his fingers fall away from my wrist, I struggle to catch his hand, but when I do, I wrap my fingers around his and hold him steady. It’s as if having him here wills me to wake up if only a little, to see what’s happening. When I open my eyes fully and my vision begins to focus, I realize I’m in the girl’s dorm, lying on my side. I try to move, but I’m quickly pushed back down, hushed while doing so.

  “Stay laying there,” Javier urges and I look up to him. “Good to see you brighter eyed.”

  He gives me a wary smile, it doesn’t quite meet his eyes. I guess that’s understandable considering one of our last meetings was him outing me as a murderer.

  “Wh-what happened?” I ask, closing my eyes as if it’ll help with my headache.

  “You don’t remember?” he asks, furrowing his brow.

  I can see he’s worried and I only make it worse when I shake my head.

  “It’s a little hazy,” I admit, trying hard to make myself remember. “I can’t think passed this headache right now,” I look at Javier, only now noticing Hector lingering nearby and a few of the girls sitting around. “Tell me what happened.”

  Reaching up, Javier starts to rub a hand around his jaw, the stubble now coming out longer along his jaw, peppering his skin. It’s now I notice how tired he looks, how worried and how tied in knots he’s become.

  “I think something Santiago put in the LSD reacted to an allergy you have or something. No one can get a word out of him about it no matter how hard we try. He won’t give up his recipe.”

  “LSD?” I ask, staring at Javier as everything starts to mesh together. It’s like that word triggers something and it all comes flooding back. “I remember... I thought it would help me... and then you gave me another,” I look at him, sitting up alarmed. “You gave me another one!”

  “He saved your life doing that,” Hector chimes in, defending Javier. “He didn’t do it for the reasons Santiago did.”

  I settle, allowing them to tell me what’s going on, but now I’m awake it’s becoming harder to forget about everything my body is both singing and screaming with – the aches, the pains, the deep rooted craving.

  “It was to prove the drug was bad,” Hector crouches down beside my bed. “He gave you the drug and you trusted him.”

  That’s right.

  I did.

  It all comes back in vivid purity. I remember looking at him, hoping he’d help me and he cast back such a weighted gaze, something so intense about it that I couldn’t look away. It was something in his eyes that made me take the drugs and it had nothing to do with guilt or shame or carnal need.

  As it all comes back to me, I also remember what Santiago did to me. I start to push myself up on weak, shaky limbs, Javier is quick to react.

  “Isla,” Javier starts to reach out. “You need to rest.”

  “No,” I grunt, continuing to sit up.

  It’s with the movement that I feel the skin on top of my thigh begin to sting, screaming as the material upon it starts to rub it raw. Throwing a hand back, I push down the tracksuit bottoms I’ve been put in. I look over my shoulder, gazing straight at the angry redness of a burn and a haphazard signature below it. Tears build immediately and I loathe the fact I’ll have a permanent reminder of what they did to me. Letting go of my clothing, I turn back to face Javier, my eyes meeting his slowly, tears already falling.

  “I’m never getting away from this, am I?” I ask, a sob unraveling unhindered from my throat.

  “Don’t say that,” he argues, his hands coming to touch me.

  “They’ve permanently marked me,” I say, heaving on my sobs as I start to break apart. “He got what he always wanted... me.”

  My shoulders drop as my body starts to hunch over, my sobbing growing louder, crushing me furthermore. I struggle to catch my breath as I’m haunted by that memory of Santiago sticking hot metal to my fragile skin, scalding me so deep the burnt in scar will never cease to exist.

  “Isla,” he starts. “Isla, you
need to calm down. I’ll look at what he did to you and clean it up when you’re more up to it. We’ve been keeping an eye on you for the after effect of the drugs, but you seem to have come through it better than I had first thought.”

  I don’t speak, barely register his words as he begins to lay me down, using such gentleness. I feel a blanket cover my leg, placed right up toward my head and I grip onto the edge tightly, holding it against me. Like a child scared of the dark, I don’t relinquish my grasp.

  “We’re going to need to watch her,” Javier frets, walking away a little. “This, what she’s feeling right now, will end and she’ll be hell-bent on finding something to take her emotions away. Especially now with that scar. I’m going to do everything I can to not lose her.”

  “What is going on between you and her?” I hear Hector ask and I start to slow my breathing so not to miss a word. “It’s been a question on everyone’s lips since you were forced into that room your first night.”

  “I’ve got more of a heart than I care to share,” Javier says, a lift in his voice tells me he hated admitting that. “I’m not here for raping girls. I’m here to work because I have nothing else to offer this godforsaken country. My life was in America. I had it all once upon a time,” Javier sighs after his comment, raking his hands through his hair, clearly he’s divulged more than he wanted. “I just don’t tolerate the way the girls are treated when most carry their prized drugs over the fucking border.”

  “They’re just vessels,” Hector replies, shrugging.

  “Does that look like just a vessel to you?” Javier asks and I can tell it was a question about me. “Does she look like a vessel? Because believe me, a vessel wouldn’t cry like that and wouldn’t fear men like she does. All of these girls here are as living and breathing as you and I are but they’re worth absolute shit to you. What makes you think you’re worth more than they are? What were you promised?”

  “We were told,” Hector starts, but Javier doesn’t let him finish.

  “I don’t care what I’m told, I’m not in the habit of raping girls and destroying them. I know a lot of the men here are sick fucks and are promised a lot, so what was it you were promised?” Javier asks but respects Hector’s hesitancy. “Because I swear to you now, a lifetime of girls and drugs isn’t enough to keep me happy. So either you work toward something better or you leave this room now and we forget we ever had this conversation.”

  I watch Hector struggle. Even this far away I can see he’s finding this hard work – pick the new guy or stick by the boss.

  “I saw how you stepped in and helped Isla. You were one of the first to react. Don’t think I missed that. How come you’re always on the runs she is? How come you’re the top dog to protect the girls on those runs? Why do you always question the boss?” There’s another break, the tension in the room magnifies. “Want me to tell you why?”

  “Why?” Hector asks, his voice small.

  “Because you give more of a fuck than you like to admit,” Javier trails off after making his observation. “I’m right aren’t I?” He asks. “Aren’t I?”

  “I got lost in this world,” Hector admits, a sad sigh meets his words. “I had it all, got deported and lost it all. My wife divorced me and remarried a better, a lot more respected man, my children don’t know me. Joaquín was all I had left. He promised me a home, money, a good job.”

  “Did you get that?”

  “No,” Hector admits, his voice becoming much lower. “I would do anything to get back to my kids, to show them I never forgot them. I want to be clean, I want to repent for what I’ve done to the girls here and to the men I’ve killed in my time. I’m pushing forty, I wanted to be settled into life, enjoying late nights with my wife while our kids grew up,” he growls, and I sense his frustration. Hector was here when I got caught, I can’t imagine what a lifetime here could feel like. “Instead, I’m here while another fucker brings my kids up.”

  “I don’t know what hold it is Joaquín has over you, but we can get out of here. You can give them those kids their real father.”

  “Doubt that,” Hector grunts, nothing in his voice says he believes Javier, but I do. “I need a smoke,” Hector announces. “You need me here or am I good to go?”

  “No, I’ll be good. She’s more settled than I thought she would be right now,” Javier says, the direction of his voice changing toward me. “Just remember, it’s never too late to get it all back.”

  “Thanks, man.”

  They leave me, but as calm settles that I feel the darkness ebb for a new release in me. It wants its revival so it claims me victim all over again. I want to get away from all of this, I want to forget, to get lost. I want to be anywhere but here.

  I’ve burnt through such a gauntlet of emotions, dealt with such intense pain that I was starting to forget the addiction Santiago forced upon me. Now, as it remains unfed, it becomes worse, exacerbated to all extremes. Looking down at my arm with the tiny red pinpricks still remaining in place, I know the only thing that will help above everything is the one thing I shouldn’t want.

  I bolt up, leaning over the side of my bed and vomit what little is in my stomach onto the stone floor beneath me. I feel the bile burn my throat and continue to heave. The strong onset of my heroin high dying for good is coming to life and everything I felt before is worsening with every breath I take. I thought how I felt before was because of the assault on my body at Santiago’s will, but I was lying to myself.

  I’ve been blanking my own withdrawal since I opened my eyes and now I can’t ignore it.

  “What do you need?” He asks, such care wraps itself to his concern. He comes to my aid, crouching down beside the sick, ignorant of that and so concerned with me. “What can I get you?”

  I need heroin.

  It’s a simple response, but I know he won’t grant me it. I saw his face when I was in isolation and I pleaded for it. He looked disgusted in me and rightly so. I was a dirty little junkie, begging for another way to escape this reality even with the inevitability to come crashing back down. I just need something, anything to curb this feeling and take me away. I’m dealing with too much – physically and mentally – to cope right now.

  My head aches, my throat itches from dryness, my skin is sore to touch, my bones hurt deep within and all I can think of is how bittersweet that escape would be once the heroin hit my blood and violently took me away.

  I’d even forget about the burn brandished into my ass.

  I don’t even think of what will happen afterward. I don’t care for that. I care only for that moment to be out of my body and find that escapism. The comedown doesn’t even enter any part of my brain.

  “C’mon,” he prompts. “You can tell me.”

  I lick my lips, hoping for a bit more moisture to sooth the dryness, but no such luck. My eyes avoid looking at him. Instead, I focus on my hands as they wring together. I keep my eyes pointed downwards as the words begin to burn in my throat and tip from my tongue.

  “H-heroin...”

  “No,” his response is quick, stern and disapproving. “I’ll get you anything but that.”

  My gaze shoots up, looking at him with bewilderment. He can’t possibly think he could deny me this. I don’t need a lot, I haven’t built up the tolerance to it but I just need something to calm me. It will stop the pain in so many more ways than one. I know that. He must know that too.

  “But I need it,” I reply, my statement thick with tears. “I just need a small amount. Just like what Santiago had been giving me. I don’t need more than that. I just need something to get me through the night.”

  “You’re not getting any,” he replies, his voice coagulating with heated tones and hotter emotion. “You won’t get better that way. You aren’t touching it.”

  “You can’t deny me it,” I reply, my eyes burning into him.

  “I can. I’m going to help you through this,” his eyes soften, a gentle prayer ignites and I can see he means what he’s saying.
There’s no doubt in my mind. “They won’t go for methadone and it’s too risky for them too as well,” he continues, a note in his voice tells me he’s not happy. “We’ve got to do this cold turkey, Isla.”

  “I can’t,” I say, shaking my head. “I can’t do that. I’m not strong enough!”

  “You can,” he argues, admonishing my claim. “You’re not a long term user, which means in a few days’ time you could be feeling better and less like you need a hit. You just have to fight this feeling. You’re better than this.”

  “I’m not,” I dispute, shaking my head. “You saw how willing I was to take the drugs from Santiago the other day. I can’t do this.”

  My cries become wails and I fear that if I don’t get a hit of anything the throbbing pain in me will consume me. It will kill me outright.

  I’ve barely been surviving hours, how am I meant to endure days?

  “I can’t promise it’ll be easy, but I can promise I’ll be here. I don’t usually agree with this method, but I know it’s all we have. You’ll see that it’ll be worth it, Isla. You can do this. You never wanted drugs before... you’ll never want them again after.”

  Panic rises in me fiercely. I allowed myself to take those drugs too easily; I won’t be able to kick them in the same way. I’m a weaker soul for what Santiago did to me and I don’t know quite how Javier thinks he can build me back up. I’m at rock bottom, lying here among the debris of what I have left and I don’t have the fight to stand on my own two feet. Instead, I want to lay here and allow everything to finish me off.

  If only he knew of the weakling I really was.

  “C’mon, you need to rest. Your body went through quite the trauma and it needs the rest. You need to get some more sleep,” he pays no notice to my greedy need, he just gets me laying down. “I’ll be here throughout the night. You aren’t alone.”

  “Why are you helping me?” I ask listening to him when all I want to do is run. “I killed Gabi.”

  “You saved Gabi,” he admonishes, correcting me. “We’ll talk about that another day. For now, we have a rough couple of days ahead,” he doesn’t sugar coat anything, but he acts like my addiction isn’t a huge thing and maybe that’s a good thing because it’s making me feel it isn’t. “I can get you some pain killers to help, but that’s all I can offer.”