Heroine Hearts Page 22

  “He hated what he watched the other day and it makes sense if he’s a doctor. Certainly explains how he knew how to cut that man’s heart straight out of his chest,” Hector allows a dry laugh to follow his statement. “He did good by you, Isla.”

  I rest my back against the wall and listen through the door.

  “He did,” she agrees sweetly. “What do you think Joaquín wanted with him?”

  “He’s got big things planned,” Hector brushes over the subject. “Not just for you... but the likes of me, too. I think Joaquín may be onto it. All I know is that the boss likes to know when things are going down so was probably just getting a feel for what Javier has planned... if anything.”

  “I think it’d be just us two he has big things planned for,” Isla jests, a small fragment of mirth lashes her words. “He’s a good man. He says he isn’t, but I know a good man when I see it. I work among the bad remember?”

  I twist to face the door, unable to hear about how I’m one of the good guys. I tap on it before I fully enter. I find Isla sitting in bed, the pillows pushed up as Hector sits with the chair pulled closer to the bed.

  “Man of the hour,” Hector welcomes me, sitting back in the chair. “How did it go?”

  “Things are changing,” I grouse, not giving too much up. “You can go now,” I say, pushing the door closed with a soft swing. “Things will be changing when Isla’s back.”

  “Changing how?” Isla and Hector gasp together.

  “She’s mine,” I state, my eyes burning into her. “I promised the only way Isla could be back to her best was if she had me by her side. Isla’s not going to be instantly recovered and I may have lied a little.”

  “I think the little lady here sees me less as a threat,” Hector admonishes, grinning at Isla before looking at me. “I told her... about my wife and kids.”

  “He’s one of the good guys gone bad,” I muse, watching Isla agree. “Some of us aren’t made for this life forever.”

  “You’re telling me,” Isla mutters under her breath. “He wants out. A man who has women, drugs, and money shouldn’t want an exit and if he does, it tells me he’s not the bad guy.”

  “All I want is a do-over. Maybe my wife is gone, but my kids aren’t. I want to be their father... even if it’s too late,” Hector states and there’s no sadness to his admissions, but a newfound fight. “Right, I’m going to go. I’ll bring up supper,” Hector sighs as he makes his way to the door, but freezes. “She’s a tough one this one,” Hector acknowledges, nodding toward Isla.

  “Don’t I know it?” I ask, rhetorically. “She’s one to be beaten.”

  I give her a wink, wanting the right moment to tell her she’s safe – with me, in my arms.

  “Want to go outside?”

  She uncurls from her position to face me, her face drawn into a frown. It’s almost like she hadn’t heard me properly.

  “What?” She asks, a slight lift in her voice reveals her hopefulness.

  “Want to go outside?” I reiterate the question I just asked no more than ten seconds ago, giving her a smile.

  “Really?” she asks, dubious of what I’m really offering. I nod and she smiles so brightly at me I can’t help but smile back. “Now?”

  “Yeah, now,” I tell her and she’s straight on her feet. Her face illuminates for the first time in days with a bright smile, her eyes lightening up.

  We leave the sanctuary of my room and start down the corridor. There’s so much quietness tonight, like very ghost and ghoul is lying in wait, but never one making an appearance. We walk through the corridors, along the hallways until we reach the staircase that leads us to the back of the house.

  “Javier?” she asks, hesitating enough to stop at the bottom of the stairs. “I don’t want to just go outside.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Erm,” she says, suddenly nerves wrack her. “I want to take you to Gabi.”

  That comment equally slays me and forces me to understand.

  “I want you to see where we laid her to rest,” she admits, unsure if I’ll want to know. “I made sure it wasn’t just a blank grave. I wanted her to be remembered. I wanted a place to be able to go when it got too hard.”

  “Show me,” I grouse, unnerved by this revelation. “Where is she?”

  “This way,” Isla says, falling back into the feeble girl I thought we had beaten.

  We walk out into the courtyard, across the stained dirt and toward the gates that lead out to the cliff edge. Isla turns right, I follow and I continue to do so as we walk a few yards away from the compound. I notice a row of crosses, not many, but more than I would’ve thought would be allowed.

  Isla stops before one adorned with colorful flowers.

  “Hey Gabs,” she whispers getting onto her knees, already the tears thickening. “Brought you someone.”

  As she moves to the side, she leaves me to stand before a cross with my sister’s name on it. It’s all decorated stunningly, living up to her memory.

  “I demanded fresh flowers be laid,” Isla comments, reaching out to fix the flowers laced around the arm of the cross. “It was the only thing Joaquín allowed,” she inhales deeply before releasing a sigh. “I come out here to recoup.”

  It’s then that I realize why she was so eager to burst free of the bedroom. She wanted to come here and see Gabi. I denied her that and I denied myself seeing this sooner. As I look over the grave, knowing she deserves such a grander burial, I find my heart cease beating as if it was waiting for this moment of total verification.

  My sister’s dead and I’m still not sure how I’m meant to internalize that.

  My heart wants to hold itself together, but in the same instance, it wants to just fall apart, shatter and blow away in the wind. There is no going back from this. She’s dead and there is nothing I can do about it.

  A part of me feels like I let her down, like every promise I made to her became empty and insignificant the day she arrived here.

  “She’s gone,” I say, sinking to my knees beside the grave. “She’s really gone,” I can’t prevent the sob that crawls up my throat, begging for an audience. “Everything I fought for is gone,” I put my head in my hands and I break, the numbness ebbs away and allows full throttle pain to take over. “I have nothing.”

  The sharp intake of air forces me to look up. Isla sits staring at me wide-eyed, her beautiful blue eyes glisten as a film of tears wipes across her gaze. I look at her and I find her more defeated than ever. I watch a tear make an escape, delicately leaving a trail as it crawls across the contours of her cheek.

  I reach for her, but she quickly reacts by withdrawing from me.

  “No...That was all I needed to know,” Isla muses, sadness occupying her. “I’ll leave you alone. I’m so sorry I took her from you.”

  She’s quick to her feet, quick in putting distance between her, but I’m faster.

  While my heart bleeds grief, it also bleeds for Isla. I can’t let her leave, can’t let her go before she knows my true plan. I didn’t mean my comments to be so final to her, but to me this is it – that moment where I realize my sister is gone and no amount of praying and searching will change that.

  Gabi is gone.

  “Isla!” I shout after her, stopping her leaving entirely. “Don’t go.”

  “I-it’s fine,” she stammers and I can tell she’s trying hard to keep herself together. “Don’t give up the fight now. She wanted you to live your life to the fullest. I just can’t bear to see what it is I’ve done to you.”

  “Isla,” I say, grabbing her again. “You don’t ge-”

  “Stop!” She screams, closing her eyes as she struggles to steady herself. Slowly she opens them, settling them on me and I hate that she appears to have finalized whatever insanity is running wild in her head. “I asked if a part of you resented me. You told me no, but I knew you seeing this would change that. I didn’t expect you to remain by my side, but I didn’t want to feel like this. I killed ev
ery chance you had, Javier! Finding her was the one thing that was keeping you going. I don’t matter in this. It was always about her.”

  “That’s not true,” I say, unable to give any more conviction than I have.

  “No, it is!” She bellows, trying to shake me away. “You didn’t come here for me!” She yells, fighting harder. “I knew that! I always knew that!” Her tears come faster, utter devastation becomes her. “I just hoped that Gabi would keep us together, but it’s going to tear us apart and I deserve that!” She bows her head, heaving on sobs she doesn’t want to give into. “I just hoped that maybe I would’ve been worth saving, too.”

  “You are!” I say, dragging her to the side of the house so we can have a moment of silence without anyone prying eyes. “Gabi was my sole focus, even when you were in the picture,” my hands come up to my head, coursing through my unruly hair in complete frustration. “I lost my baby sister, Isla! My head and my heart can’t quite make sense of that because I never imagined a world she no longer existed in,” I pause, my breathing a heave as my emotions catch up with me. “Likewise, my head and my heart didn’t imagine a world you existed in!”

  She doesn’t say anything now, as if her emotions have fatigued every part of her body. It doesn’t mean the tears lessen, though, and I hate the desolation that meddles with the vibrant blues of her eyes.

  I knew I did wrong, giving into grief but I couldn’t and can’t help this moment of weakness.

  But I can do right by it.

  “We’ve only known one another a short while, barely even weeks at most, but I feel like I’ve known you a lifetime. A part of me feels like I knew you long before I actually knew you. I will do everything in my power to do better than I have done. I will hold you close and I will pledge myself to protect you. I will make you see that life outside of here isn’t a distant dream.”

  “It is,” she replies, a feeble pitch to her oice. “Life outside of here doesn’t exist.”

  “Yes, it does!” I fight her, giving her a bright smile. “There is a world out there just waiting for you.”

  “There’s not,” she replies, admonishing my truths. “I’m not made for it. I couldn’t cope with that world. I don’t know it anymore.”

  “Why would you say that?” I ask her, aghast.

  Her eyes gaze up at me, wide and frightened. “Because I’m not made to live out in the real world. I’m made for this life... they all made sure of it.”

  I sigh, running a hand over the nape of my neck. I see so much potential and strength in Isla, but she has been beaten down to such a point she can’t look at herself as anything but a victim. She can’t even see what I’m standing here with.

  “I know you won’t believe me, but Isla, I can’t leave you now,” I utter, my words becoming lost with passion. “I can’t ignore what it is I feel when I’m near you. I can’t forget what it is I feel when I’m away from you. I’ve known you for such a short time, but I feel like I’ve known you all my life. It’s why I did this... why I stuck by you.”

  “Why?” She asks, her brow knitting together.

  “It was all so I could be your hero, even if you didn’t call me it.”

  “You are,” she quickly murmurs. “You are my hero, but that means nothing here.”

  “Why not?” I query, unwilling to see her logic.

  “Because we could never be anything. Everything you feel and that I feel means nothing when we can’t become anything,” the sadness only seems to ebbs forth, it doesn’t wane. “We aren’t made for forever,” she ushers, her tone diminishing. “We can’t believe in it.”

  “We can,” I say, capturing her face in my hands. “I fell in love with you, Isla,” I allow the admittance to carry into the air, watching it affect her most. “Couldn’t have predicted it. Couldn’t have planned for it. It just happened,” my hands fall a little, allowing my thumbs to stroke her cheeks, ridding them of tears. “But in that same essence, I can’t let it go, not at Joaquín’s say so, not at Santiago’s and certainly not at yours... so don’t you dare make me.”

  “But...” she starts, doubt smothering the moment.

  “I don’t care about forever. I care about the fact you’re here, in my arms, all mine.”

  I kiss her then, at first slowly and tenderly before deepening the connection. I pull her close, my hands threading into her hair and I remind her what it is to be kissed purely and innocently. There’s no wickedness, no evil greed.

  This kiss just signifies that I finally found her – the missing piece of me.

  My intent to come here may have diminished, buried with my sister, but my new reason to fight is bright-eyed and beautiful.

  “Give me a chance,” I say, whispering against the brush of her lips against mine. “Give me the time to love you back to you. I’ll show you how to breathe again, Isla. I’ve made you trust me, I’ve made you feel again, now let me do the rest. Let me have every piece of you because I promise you now, I won’t do anything to shatter what broken pieces you’ve already given me.”

  I know she doesn’t want to trust the way her heart beats in reaction to my words, but I will have her trusting herself, believing in her wants.

  “Let me love your every beautiful shard, Isla, because I promise you now, they’re the most precious thing I could ever be entrusted with.”

  She doesn’t reply, not verbally anyway.

  Instead, Isla puts a delicate hand to the back of my head and initiates her own kiss.

  Sometimes words pale in comparison to actions.

  “Javier?”

  My voice lingers in the stillness of his room, but I enter anyway, even without a response from him. When I come in I see him on the bed, eyes closed, more peaceful than ever. For a man with such a haunting past, he truly is beautiful. Nothing on the outside shows the war he must have raged to hold everything together, especially when Gabi went missing.

  Slowly, I approach the bed, gingerly placing myself down, aware of my sore thigh, and lean over to give him a small nudge. He doesn’t even stir, so I know I have to be a little more firm.

  “Javier,” I whisper, giving his body a quick push. “You’ve got to wake up.”

  On my third push, he jolts awake, his eyes wide, but he settles into a smile when he realizes it’s me here. He gives me a sleepy smile and nestles back down into the pillows.

  “There’s a meeting...” I say, pausing with worry, not even waiting for him to wake up. “About you...”

  He starts to push himself up, tiredly forcing his body to sit up.

  “It’s not about me,” he states, his voice thick with sleep. “It’s for me. I presented Joaquín with an idea that would work wonders for him. I guess we’re going to find out if he took the bait.”

  He starts to look at me with less sleep in his eyes, all the while he gazes at me with caution. Slowly, his brow furrows, the lines forming on his forehead as he casts me a darker look. It’s clear he can see there’s a storm of concern coming to life.

  “Cariño, you shouldn’t look so worried,” he comments, pulling away to take a good look at me. “I can promise you now, it all works in your favor.”

  “It never does,” I mutter, pessimism a good friend. I can feel my heart starting to race, fear taking over. “How can you promise me that?”

  Javier shifts again, sitting directly in front of me, his attention solely focused on me. I can tell he hates how little faith I hold when moments like this arise, but how can a girl trust anything other than what she knows? I’ve only known dark, degrading abuse. What Javier offers threatens that. It intimidates the entire idea of this place because Javier isn’t made to fit in with the men Joaquín loves to hire.

  “Isla... I know you don’t trust easily and I understand why, but please, don’t doubt me now. I know my track record isn’t great even where you’re concerned, but please, just trust me with this. I know what I’m doing.”

  “I hope you do,” I utter, giving him a watery smile to try and hide the rush of
dread building in my stomach. “We have to go.”

  “Then let’s go,” he says a little too cheery, getting off the bed and putting his hand out for me. “We can’t keep them waiting.”

  I brighten my smile, but allow him to help me off the bed. He’s well aware that my body is still recovering, the mess I did to the back of my leg still causing me pain, but he never handles me roughly, only with care. What I love, though, is that he doesn’t make me feel broken or like I’m going to shatter. His gentleness is to allow me to rekindle that trust and enjoy touch.

  I go to take my hand away from him, but he refuses to let it go.

  “Javier,” I breathe, giving him an exasperated look. “We have to go.”

  I’m worried someone will walk in and us delaying leaving means Joaquín will grow tiresome and send someone to get us.

  “Just give me a kiss,” he says, an ebbing plea coming through. “Call it Dutch courage.”

  I relent quickly with a soft giggle, lifting onto my tiptoes to kiss him before I pull away completely, leaving him alone as I make a quick exit. We walk a few steps apart, keeping to our plan of not being too intimate with one another. We don’t want to be caught, but at the same time, it’s hard work resisting him. I walk into the room first, heading over to Joaquín’s side, exactly how I was instructed.

  It’s been a few days since we entered back into the El Salvador’s world. A few days since our relationship spun on a new axis, and it’s been a few days since we started something far more dangerous than the life we were both part of.

  It’s also been a few days since I was given forgiveness by the boss.

  After a fleeting visit, Joaquín had said he always knew I was the disobedient one of the girls, but he never had expected me to kill someone I claimed to love. In that same breath, he told me how selfless I was to kill her when I would be the one to live with that reminder. He also apologized for his son’s behavior and mistreatment, but nothing would make an apology for the ugly scar I was going to wear for the rest of my life at the top of my leg. Nothing would take that away from me.