Джеймс Фрей – Existence (страница 8)
“Jago,” she whispers. “I can’t.”
“Tough luck,” he says. “You have to. Hang on. Someone’s coming.”
“No, I can’t …” She draws in a rasping breath.
“You don’t have to talk,” he says. For her, he tries to keep his voice steady, fearless. He is Jago Tlaloc—he’s supposed to be immune to fear.
She coughs blood. He wipes it away, gently as he can. Her skin is hot to the touch.
“Who were they?” she asks him. “Why did they?”
“I don’t know,” he lies again.
But she’s always able to see through his bullshit. Even now. “It’s because of you,” she says. There’s more strength in her voice now. There’s fire. “This is because of
“It doesn’t matter,” he assures her, and that’s the worst lie of all, because what could matter more?
“Someone
She’s laughing, suddenly, and he worries that this is delirium, that this is the beginning of the end, and the road is still empty; help is nowhere in sight.
“I’ll kill him for you,” Jago promises. “I’ll track him down, I’ll take him apart, piece by piece. I’ll make him
“Oh God,” she gasps.
“What?”
“You … are just like them. Fucking monsters.”
He thought it couldn’t hurt any more than it already does. But this is worse. “No, Alicia—”
“You kill him, and then what? His family kills you? Is that where it stops? Does it ever stop? Or does it just keep going, pain and blood and blood and pain and pain and
She’s so pale. Her voice is thin and thready, the words floating away from her, like they belong to someone else. He tells himself that she’s feverish, in shock, that she doesn’t mean what she’s saying, that it doesn’t matter what she says, as long as she’s all right.
“Shhh. I know it hurts,” he whispers. “I know.”
“But it doesn’t.” She looks at him in childlike wonder, then coughs up another soft spray of blood. “It doesn’t hurt, Jago. I can’t … I can’t feel it. My legs. I can’t feel anything. …”
He stops breathing.
“Jago?”
“Normal? This is normal?” She’s laughing again, laughing and crying and shaking, shuddering, her hand squeezing his as if of its own accord, all of her trembling. Except her legs—those are still. “What if I can’t dance again? What if I can’t … No.
“I’m not going anywhere, Alicia.”
“You destroy everything. You make everything ugly, like you. I wish I never—”
“Don’t say that, Alicia.” She’s always seen the truth in him, the possibility. If all she sees is a monster … “Please.” If he were the monster she says he is, wouldn’t her words anger him? Wouldn’t he push her aside, tell her that she entered freely into this life, fooled herself into believing it couldn’t touch her, fooled
He isn’t angry; he doesn’t push her aside. He wants to hold on to her forever, if she will only let him. “Please, Alicia, tell me you know I love you. That I will never let anyone hurt you again. That I can fix this. Please.”
She doesn’t say it.
She doesn’t say anything.
“Alicia?”
Her eyes are closed. Her face is as gray as the sunless sky. Sirens blare in the distance, so slow, so useless. Jago holds on to her, willing her to wake up, even if she wants to call him a monster, yell at him to let go. He never will.
She survives.
He knows this because he bribes a doctor to tell him.
She’ll recover; she’ll walk. It’s a medical miracle, the doctor says, and nothing more than that.
No one wants to tell him anything, not officially, because he’s not family.
And she won’t tell him herself, because when she wakes up, she refuses to see him. He could insist, of course. No one, certainly not the doctors working in the hospital’s brand-new state-of-the-art Tlaloc Memorial Wing, would dare tell Jago Tlaloc where he can and cannot go.
But he won’t violate her wishes, and she wishes to never see him again.
That’s what the kind nurse says, after he’s spent three days in a row in the waiting room, hoping she’ll change her mind.
“Go home,” the nurse suggests. “Get some rest. Get a hug from your mama. The girl will come around.”
Jago does go home; Alicia doesn’t come around.
Instead, she sends a letter.
Jago doesn’t understand. Has he done this to her? Broken her, convinced her to give up her dreams?
He’s the one who put her in harm’s way, by failing to live up to his responsibilities. If he’d only done his job, killed Alejandro and Julio, not fallen prey to this stupid delusion of kindness and mercy, then Alicia would have been safe.
His job, his entire life, is to protect his people. Maybe this is his punishment for imagining he could escape that, or want to.
Or maybe she means it, and this was, as she said, simply a
Either way, this was inevitable. His mother was right: They’re too different. They’re too dangerous for each other. Alicia made him soft … and the consequences of that have made her heartbreakingly hard.
He doesn’t know which one hurts more.
Jago locks himself in his room for two days and two nights. He gives himself over completely to his anguish, letting it sweep over him, wash him out to sea; he drowns in it, drowns in memories of her. Jago has been taught how to withstand pain, how to retreat to a place in his mind where he doesn’t feel it, but he lets himself feel all of this: pain, guilt, betrayal, fury. He lets the fire rage inside of him, lets it burn everything away—and then, when he’s hollow and clean, burn itself out.
When he’s ready, when it’s done, he sets fire to the letter, drops it into the trash bin, and watches the flames consume what’s left of her.
He emerges from his room a different man.
A man who’s learned his lesson. Not to dream, not to wonder, not to love. Not to think he deserves anything more than what he has—not to think he’s anything but a monster.
This is good. This is as it should be.
He will not forget himself again. He will not be tempted by mercy or beauty. He will not show weakness. He will find Julio, and punish him, as he will punish all enemies of the Tlaloc and the Olmec. But he won’t do it for Alicia, who ran away from him. He vows he will never again put some girl, some stranger from a foreign line, ahead of his own friends and family. He will never stop loving her; he will never forget her. But she is his past, and his past doesn’t have to define him. She taught him that.
A new future starts today. And from today on, he will act only for his line. He will care only for his own. They’re the only ones who can understand what he is, and love it.
They’re the only ones he can trust.
Hayu Marca Tlaloc steps out of the SUV and ventures into the abandoned alley, her high heels clicking against the cobblestones. She looks down in disgust, carefully stepping over a pile of drying dog shit. She’ll have to throw the shoes out when she gets home.
A small sacrifice to the cause.
At her side, she carries a small briefcase, filled with US$100,000.