“Soph?” came Camilo’s voice. “Are you… are you okay?”
Sofía, who was breathing heavily, tried to calm her racing heart before she weakly responded. “Yeah, just a nightmare, that’s all,”
“Are you sure?”
“Mhm,” she sleepily replied. “Go back to bed, ‘Milo,”
Camilo did not go back to bed. Instead, he went to Mirabel. She had lived with her in the nursery when Sofía had arrived until Casita had collapsed. And… well, she wasn’t like Dolores or Isabela who were shipping Sofía and him together. She’d know what to do.
“Mira?” Camilo called into Mirabel’s dark room. “You awake? Mira?”
The lamp at her bedside table turned on. “I now am, thanks to you,” she grumbled.
“Stop with the grumbling. This is important.”
Mirabel groaned and put on her green framed glasses. “It better be,”
“It’s about Sofía…”
“What about her?” Mirabel asked, suddenly worried.
“She… she was crying… and screaming…”
Mirabel seemed to leap out of bed and ran to the nursery in a daze. She opened the blue door to see a petrified Sofía trying to calm herself down.
“Sofía?” she whispered. “What is it?”
“I… I saw them…”
“Them?” Camilo questioned.
“The invaders,” she choked out, her voice so quiet that Dolores may not have been able to hear it. Obviously, he knew that if she weren’t in her room that she would’ve heard and probably would tell everyone but he didn’t care about that fact at the current time.
“The invaders?!” he exclaimed.
“Shhh!!!” Mirabel hissed, shushing her cousin.
“Sí,” Sofía mumbled. “And they’re after me…”
“After you? How?” Mirabel asked.
“You’re not even from here… your ancestors didn’t come from Abuela’s old town…” Camilo said.
“They’re after me because of my ancestry… and started to target me by using my vulnerability by mentioning my brother…”
“Your ancestry?” he questioned.
“I… I…” She didn’t know what to tell them. Could she trust them with such important, life-threatening information? She then decided lying was the safest thing to do at this point. She couldn’t put the two at risk. “It’s just that… my… mi abuela y abuelo were from there too,”
“Oh,” they responded in unison.
“Wait…” Camilo then said. “Why go after you and not us? We have the powers and the gifts and the miracle and all of that…”
Sofía hesitated before saying, “I… I do too…”
“You… what?!”
“Um… I have a ‘gift’ too?” She turned over her hand and uncurled her fingers. She had no clue if Esmeray was bluffing or not, trying to make her uncomfortable. She didn’t know if she actually could control fire. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath and…
“Woah…” Camilo gasped.
Sofía opened her eyes and saw bright orange flames dancing in her palm, not feeling any pain at all.
“Fire… But your brother and mamá—” Mirabel began.
“Yeah, I know. Mi madre died in a fire. But I only just found out about my powers… through my dream… and I also found out that Leo might not be dead…”
“What?! That’s amazing!” Mirabel exclaimed but her smile faltered when she saw Sofía’s expression. “What’s wrong?”
“If he’s alive, that means he abandoned me. He pretended to sacrifice himself to escape our traumatic lives… without me…”
“Sofía…” Camilo murmured. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“He left!” she exclaimed, completely losing her mind. She had no idea what she was about to say. If she did, she would never have proceeded to do so. “He left our harsh life. We’re constantly chased by monsters. We’re sent on life-threatening quests every year! We have to try so hard to please the gods, yet nothing does! I’m sick of being a demigod!”
“A what?” Mirabel questioned. Sofía cursed under her breath when she realized she had just yelled the one thing she wasn’t supposed to tell anyone.
“Well, no point in keeping it a secret anymore,” she muttered before saying, “Yeah, a demigod. I may have lied about why the invaders are interested in my ancestry? I’m… a daughter of Hephaestus and so is my brother,”
Camilo and Mirabel’s mouths hung open in shock.
“And uh… I think I might know why Esmeray, one of the invaders, is so interested in me. She wants immortality,”
Dolores squeaked from outside of the nursery.
"Oh no..." Mirabel muttered. "She's going to tell everyone,"
YOU ARE READING
Abre Los Ojos || Camilo Madrigal
RomanceSofía Valdez and her twin brother Leo have been through a lot. Their mother died in a fire when they were young and have been on the run since, traveling from orphanage to orphanage. But after returning from the war ending in Gaea's defeat, Sofía le...
