[[Until We Become Lions]]

Chapter 19

Three months later

The weather was uneasy this particular morning. But even with the curtains drawn to a close, the sun still managed to shine through into Danijela's bedroom. Clouds moved quickly across the sky. Danijela opened the window for herself, Evee, and Diego to be able to enjoy the sharp ocean breeze that came through. She had officially begun her position as Mr. Castillo's bodyguard three weeks after the incident with the convoy. Her days were split between ammunition and weapons training in the morning and security detail in the evenings. She hesitated to say she was quite a natural at handling a weapon. Perhaps it was just something that ran in her family. The ability to spill blood when needed.

Luckily, the days since have been quiet. Though, it may have been the ramped-up military forces that had begun to surround the capital. Entire city blocks were now blocked off by large-metal walls and security checkpoints, particularly around properties owned by the presidency. The protests against Mr. Castillo continued to grow, but none of the protests had met the level of violence as they had that fateful day. Danijela sometimes wondered if Lita was still out there, spewing lies and violence. She hoped for Lita's sake, and only because they had once been friends, that she got wise and gave up.

It was Sunday, the Lord's day, which meant that the children were excused from their tutoring sessions for the day. Not that Mr. Castillo seemed to be a religious man, to begin with, but he left the option there to attend should the sisters choose. Danijela and Evee of course had never stepped foot in a church in their lives so it stood to be understood that the habit would not start now.

Danijela sat squashed in the middle of her bed between Diego and Evee, each tucked securely under one of her arms as they lay watching the television that was attached to the opposite wall. Danijela did not particularly like watching film or television, mostly because it reminded her of the dark days and the monster who had lurked in their home when Evee was much too young to remember. She powered through however because she knew it was important to her sister.

They were about midway through their viewing of the yanqui James Dean movie Rebel Without a Cause. Much like their dancing and stargazing, this was just another tradition they had continued to add to over the years, mostly for Evee's own benefit. Evee's birthday was always the hardest time of the year for Danijela, only because she knew she could never afford to give her anything worthwhile. Danijela always bought things for Evee throughout the year, be it shoes or bobby pins with little animals attached to them when she had money to do so. She just could never guarantee that she'd have money around Evee's birthday so Danijela made sure the month leading up to said birthday was filled with activities that Evee enjoyed that they could do at home - even if it did consist of thirty consecutive days of watching James Dean's entire filmography amongst a slew of other early to mid 50's Americana cinema. Sometimes it was simply thirty days of dancing to the same era's music or the latest pop craze over in America.

Danijela had to pull a lot of strings to get her hands on such contraband over the years, luckily McKay helped her with most of it during her time at the strip club, but she would do it all over again because the movies and music made Evee smile, and that was all that mattered. Thankfully for her, Mr. Castillo allowed her to keep such contraband without a second thought.

"Watch this, watch this." Evee excitedly pointed at the screen of James Dean's character breaking down before jumping off the bed.

Diego looked quizzically at Danijela who could only muffle a laugh, knowing one of Evee's reenactments was about to commence. Evee excitedly turned, mocking the man on-screen with exaggerated movements.

"You're tearing me apart!"

Danijela shook her head laughing and began to applaud as Evee bowed. Her laughter was further fueled by Diego's utter look of confusion as he followed suit.