“Bright colours mean danger,” her mama said as they knelt close to a frog, black and blue splotches covering its body. It had been so small, Adi almost missed it. “You must never touch those.”
A hand on her shoulder broke her from the memory and Adi looked up, seeing her brother standing above her. She knew she should say something to alleviate the concern etched across his face, but she had no idea what. She had never been good at talking; that was her sister’s talent. Leti was five years older than her and could talk her way out of anything. But Leti was gone and Adi was left to figure it out by herself.
They kept moving, Adi refusing to think about how slow they were, now that she could only limp her way through the trees. Her headache had gotten progressively worse, making her brain feel fuzzy and numb, and while her skin was burning, she couldn’t stop shivering. Sometimes as they were walking, she would reach out to support herself against a tree, but every now and again, the tree trunk would vanish before she touched it, sending her stumbling forward as she awkwardly tried to catch herself. She figured she was just tired, but when she felt her legs buckle underneath her and the darkness close in, she knew something was horribly wrong.
The moment she felt her heels drop into the dirt, a single thought rang like an alarm through her head: He had them.
Opening her eyes, she struggled against her constraints, unable to break the vines that held her tightly to the roughly-made stretcher. But as soon as she turned her head and looked at the brown-haired boy crouched beside her, she stopped.
“Pablo,” she said eventually, not believing it.
He smiled, a mixed look of confusion and concern flickering across his face. He opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it for a minute. “You alright?”
Adi took a breath, trying to calm her racing heart, and nodded. “Where’s Benito? Is he here?”
“He’s just up there, with the others.” Pablo looked past her towards the voices that she heard somewhere ahead of them.
Unable to hide her relief, she closed her eyes and exhaled loudly. When she looked at him again, his face was different.
“You’re a long way from the village,” he said. “What are you doing out here?”
Adi thought about what to say, watching a red-headed manakin fly above them. Pablo had been born in that village and his entire family lived there. How was she supposed to tell him they were all dead?
“I asked Benito,” he continued, “but he wouldn’t tell me.”
Adi felt his gaze even though she was looking straight ahead. Just as she was about to answer, another boy walked up.
“She’s awake,” he said, warily looking at her. He casually leaned his arms against the gun slung over his body. “Can you walk?” As soon as she nodded, he said, “Good. Untie her. We need to go.”
They moved in silence through the trees, three boys in the front and Pablo in the back. While they weren’t going fast, the steady pace and rough terrain were almost too much for Adi’s stiff muscles and aching leg. She was about to ask for a break when they reached their destination.
She could smell the camp before she could see it, the scent of roasting meat making her mouth water and her stomach clench hungrily. Walking into the clearing, she searched for it, ignoring everything else. Spotting the fire a few feet in front of her, she bee-lined towards it.
Adi had never wanted something so badly as she stared longingly at the frogs sizzling over the fire. The boy roasting them looked up at her oddly from his seated position, but she didn’t care.
“Give me one of those,” she said, not taking her eyes off the frogs.
“Me too,” Benito said, suddenly beside her.
“They’re not done yet,” the boy replied, irritated. “And you can’t just demand food.”
Adi was about to reach out and take one when Pablo walked up, stabbed one with his knife, and handed it to her. Not waiting a second, Adi grabbed the frog and was about to bite into it when she stopped. She could feel Benito’s eyes intently watching and she knew he was just as hungry as she was. It took all her willpower to hand him the frog and watch him eat it, hot juicy grease dripping down his chin.
“You can’t do that,” the boy was saying. “It’s against the rules.”
“Here.” Pablo ignored him, offering Adi another frog. “Eat.”
Almost crying in relief, she eagerly shoved it into her mouth, not stopping even when the meat burnt her tongue.
The frogs were devoured in less than a minute and she was about to ask for another when Pablo said, “Come.”
Adi and Benito reluctantly followed him away from the food and through the camp, allowing her to notice it for the first time. It was well organized, the fire in the centre with a few structures around it. While she hadn’t known what to expect, she was surprised by how many kids she saw and she watched as they hung wet clothes, smoked pirarucu, and weaved a wall of vines together. She spotted a girl a little older than her climbing up a sapodilla tree before they entered a small hut that sat on the edge of the clearing.
It wasn’t very big, having only enough room for a small make-shift table and a few stumps, but it was dry and cozy as the sides were packed with leaves. Once inside, Pablo told them to wait before he turned and left the hut.
Adi was content to sit and do nothing, completely exhausted and happy for the chance to rest. Looking at Benito already sleeping on the floor, she knew he was too. Sleeping in trees was never comfortable and she couldn’t remember what it felt like to lie flat. She was about to join him on the ground when Pablo returned with two other boys in tow.
She watched as they made their way around the table, looking at her intently as they sat down. She recognized one of the older boys, but couldn’t place him.
“Adi,” Pablo said, directing her attention to the smaller boy beside him, “this is Salvador. He’s the leader of our camp.”
Salvador wasn’t very tall, but she could tell he was strong. His eyes were a sharp green and he sat confidently.
“And Rodrigo you already know,” Pablo said. He motioned to the boy she had recognized.
Rodrigo, she thought. Rodrigo Padilla.
As soon as she remembered his name, the vision of her sister’s bullet-ridden body flashed before her eyes. It felt like she had been punched in the stomach and she doubled over, the heartache threatening to collapse her right on that stump.
“...clean your wounds,” Pablo was saying. He placed a bucket of water beside her.
Adi sat back up, trying to regain her composure as the boys stared at her from around the table.
“Pablo and Rodrigo tell me you’re from their village,” Salvador said, bringing her attention to him.
She nodded.
“What are you doing so far away from home?”
She studied him. While he wasn’t an adult, he talked and acted like one, folding his hands neatly on top of the table. The other boys slouched and moved around on their stools, but he sat up straight and was perfectly still.
“Where are we? What is this place?” She asked in return, avoiding his question. While she knew they would make her tell them, she didn’t want to and hoped to delay it as long as possible.
Salvador smiled patiently at her. “This is a place, a community of sorts, that I started about a year ago.”
“Why?” She didn’t understand why they would build a community in the middle of the jungle. There were other villages they could live in, and cities too.
“To protect people.”
“What kind of people?”
“People like me, like Pablo and Rodrigo. Like you.”
“Kids, you mean.”
He smiled. “Yes, kids.”
Adi paused. “What are you protecting them from?”
“From danger,” Salvador replied. His voice softened as the smile faded from his face. “The kind that I suspect brought you and little Benito here today.”
She looked away, her eyes landing on her brother’s sleeping body.
“Adi,” Rodrigo said. His voice betrayed the worry he felt as he leaned towards the table. “You remember me, right?”
She reluctantly looked at him and his dark hair. She nodded.
“You remember that day, a few months ago, when the rebels came and told us we were joining their movement?”
“Yes,” Adi whispered. How could she forget? That was the day everything changed. She had never seen so much violence, and it wasn’t long before kids just a bit older than her were taken away to fight. Leti had been one of them and the night before she had to leave, Adi laid next to her, lost for words. She simply took Leti’s hands in her own and never looked away. When she woke the next morning, they were in the same position, hands tightly intertwined, Leti’s eyes red and swollen.
“I love you,” Adi had whispered.
“I love you,” Leti whispered back.
Rodrigo’s voice broke her from the memory. “That night my parents told me to leave. They said if I stayed, I would die, so I left, along with Pablo and a couple others. We were supposed to go to my abuela’s village, but when we came across Salvador’s camp, we decided to stay.” He paused, as if he was trying to figure out what to say. “Whatever’s happened, Adi, you can tell us.”
Unable to contain the despair she felt, tears ran freely down her cheeks. “It’s gone. Everyone’s gone.”
“Who’s gone?” Pablo asked intently.
She looked up and saw his anxious face. “Everyone. The whole village.”
“What happened?” Salvador asked after a moment, his voice quiet.
She shrugged. “They came and just started shooting.”
“Who came?” Rodrigo asked. He was clearly struggling to understand. “The ranchers?”
“I don’t know.”
Silence filled the room as the boys tried to comprehend what she was telling them.
“How did you escape?” Salvador asked eventually.
She wiped away the tears with the back of her hand. “I was picking fruit when I heard the trucks, but by the time I got to the village, the shooting had already started. My mama gave me Benito and told me to run.”
Salvador nodded as he thought it over. “And what happened when you ran? How did you get all those bruises on your throat?”
Adi self-consciously touched her neck. While it was sore, she didn’t realize that there were visible marks. “We were followed,” she replied, remembering the man with the scar. He had been on her mind from the moment she left him, but the memory of her family had made her forget his sinister face.
“By who?” Rodrigo asked.
“I don’t know.” She was tired of giving them the same answer. They expected her to know everything, but she had no idea why this happened. “They tracked us from the village.”
“Why would they do that?” Salvador asked out loud to no one in particular.
“Maybe they saw her get away,” Pablo suggested.
Adi ignored their conversation and replayed her escape through the trees. There was something important she was forgetting, but she couldn’t remember what. Her brain hurt and it was hard to remember everything that had happened.
“Could be,” Salvador was saying, unconvinced.
“Even if they did see her, why would they care?” Rodrigo asked. “Why would they hunt down two kids?”
Suddenly, she remembered and she stood up, knocking over the pail of water. “They could be out there, following us here,” she said, her heart in her throat.
Salvador looked at her, puzzled. “Why would they do that? Why would they track you all this way?”
“Three of them were white,” she said, remembering another detail.
Salvador was quiet and shook his head. “A lot of white men work around here. That doesn’t mean anything.”
Adi sighed. He wasn’t getting it. “You don’t understand,” she said. She was convinced that he was still out there. “They didn’t see me leave the village. They knew I was missing.”
“Maybe they were looking for people hiding in the jungle and found you by accident,” Rodrigo offered.
“No,” she said. “It wasn’t an accident.”
“How do you know?” Salvador asked.
“He knew my name. He called me by my name.”
•
Adi sat silently as the boys discussed how the men knew who she was. While one day she might figure it out, right now she didn’t care. It didn’t matter who they were or why they did it; all that mattered was that they—he—could still be out there and she needed to get Benito as far away from him as she could.
“Benito,” she called. “Get up, we have to go.”
“Wait,” Salvador said. “Where are you going?”
“Doesn’t matter,” she said as Benito slowly stood. “We can’t stay here.”
Salvador scoffed. “You can’t leave. Look at you. With those injuries you won’t last a day.”
Adi shrugged. “Maybe not, but I’d rather die out there than let him catch us.”
“Him who?”
She had wasted too much time already and didn’t feel like explaining it. “The man who chased us. The man with the scar. It’s not safe to stay.”
“You’ll be safe here,” Salvador said. “We can protect you.”
Adi looked at him sceptically. “How?”
“We’re well hidden, we have lookouts, we’re armed. No one knows we’re here.”
“He’ll still find us,” she said. “He’ll track us down.”
Salvador hesitated. “We’ll cover your tracks. Pablo can get rid of them.”
She was quiet as she considered it. While her body ached for a chance to recover, she didn’t know if it would be enough to prevent him from finding them.
“I’ll tell you what,” Salvador said. “Stay here, just for the night, and then if you’re still convinced it’s not safe, you can go. I won’t stop you.”
She hesitated so Salvador continued.
“I don’t think that man is following you,” he said, “but if he is, eliminating your tracks will buy you a few days at least.”
She was still uncertain, but as she looked at Benito’s exhausted face, she knew she couldn’t say no. “Alright. One night.”
The rest of the day passed quickly as Adi and Benito ate what they could and then fell asleep on the hut floor. She woke up several hours later and was examining her bruised side when Rodrigo walked in.
“Here,” he said, handing her a plate of food and a cup of water.
Adi said nothing as she reached up and set it on the floor beside her. They had given her more food than she could eat and for the first time in a while, she was full. Hoping Rodrigo would leave, she returned her attention to her torso.
“I can fix that for you, if you want,” he said, still standing there. Seeing the confused look on her face, he elaborated. “Your shirt. I can patch it up.”
“No thanks,” she said quietly. She avoided his gaze as she pulled her shirt back down. She didn’t feel like talking and he was the last person she wanted to have a conversation with, but when he sat down on one of the stumps, she knew she didn’t have a choice.
The silence in the room was deafening. He obviously wanted to say something but was struggling to start. “Are you and Benito alright?”
Adi simply looked at him. While she could tell that his concern was genuine, she didn’t care.
“You’ve been through a lot,” he continued, his voice fading a bit. He cleared his throat and carried on. “I can’t imagine what it was like to be there when it happened, all by yourself.”
It took all her willpower to keep her mouth shut and not tell him how much he disgusted her. Here he was, sitting in front of her, blabbering on about things that didn’t matter, when all she wanted was for him to admit what he’d done.
“I’m sorry about your family,” he was saying. “Your parents were always nice to me. And Leti, Leti was...”
It was too much for Adi to take. “Don’t talk abo
ut my sister,” she said. She fought to keep herself from yelling. “Don’t ever talk about her.”
A look of confusion settled on Rodrigo’s face. “She was my friend,” he started to say, but she interrupted him again.
“No, she wasn’t. If she was, you wouldn’t have killed her.”
Rodrigo sat there baffled. “I did not kill her.”
“Yes, you did.”
“I wasn’t even there!” he exclaimed. He stood, the anger in his voice filling the shelter.
“Exactly!” Adi yelled. She jumped to her feet. “You weren’t there!”
He still didn’t get it.
“You weren’t there when all the men died, you weren’t there when they sent kids to fight, and you weren’t there when they noticed you were gone.”
He shook his head. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“You abandoned your family and ran away!” Adi shouted at him, not caring that Salvador and Pablo had entered the hut, looking concerned. “They put a gun to your mama’s head and forced her to tell them where you went. And you weren’t there!” She swallowed hard, forcing the lump in her throat to go away. She would not cry. She had cried every day since it happened and she was tired of it. “You weren’t there to protect your own mama,” she said, “but my sister was. And they killed her for it. You killed her.”
The hut was completely silent. Rodrigo met her gaze. “Hate me all you want, Adi, but you’re just as guilty as me.”
She was about to protest when he continued, his eyes full of tears. “If I’m responsible for Leti’s death, how many people did you leave behind to die when you ran?”
Stunned, Adi took a step back as if she had been hit and looked at him, seeing nothing but anger.
“How many deaths are you responsible for?”
“Enough,” Salvador said with authority. He moved forward, preventing Rodrigo from saying anything else.
Unable to stop the tears, she looked down as Rodrigo stormed out of the hut. While Salvador tried to reassure her that there was nothing she could’ve done to change what happened, she couldn’t help but wonder if what Rodrigo said was true, if she had left her mother behind to die.
Las Hermanas Page 2
