Killing Sarai

20

I blink back the stun of his words. “What? No…,” I shake my head in protest. “No, you have to take me back! You saw the video! They will kill her!”

He stands from the chair and straightens the sleeves of his white dress shirt now tucked neatly into his pants and buttoned back around his strong wrists.

“The plan has changed,” he says calmly.

I practically throw myself toward him, stopping just inches from his body, my eyes wide and feral and unbelieving. “No, Victor!” He flinches. “I have to go back! Don’t you understand?! We—I have to help her! I want Izel dead! I want Javier dead for what he's done!"

“He will be,” Victor says.

He turns to the side and zips the duffle bag closed.

I push myself the last few inches through the space between us and then shove him with both hands. “I’m going back with or without you!” He catches me by the wrists, securing them firmly within his grasp. “Please….” The word comes out with every ounce of desperation in me.

He scans my face, so close I can feel the warm breath emitting from his nostrils. “Just be patient,” he says, stunning me into stillness.

He lets go of my wrists when he senses me beginning to step backward and away from him.

“Patient?” I can’t believe what he’s saying to me. “There’s no time to be patient! How can you say that?”

He bends over and fixes his hands underneath the mattress of the bed nearest the window and lifts it onto its side revealing a hollow space underneath surrounded by the wood frame that holds the bed up. He grabs the duffle bags, hiding them inside and then the suitcase, setting the mattress back down afterwards.

“I’m awaiting word,” he says.

“Word from who?”

He sighs, annoyed with my questions. “From Javier.”

“Why?”

I don’t know what to say, or what to believe, all I do know is that my mind is spinning with everything going on and I can’t keep up.

Victor walks to the door and looks back at me.

“Come on,” he says, nodding with the backward tilt of his head for me to follow.

“What, you’re not going to tie my hands together, or drag me down the hallway by my wrist? What if I run away?”

“You won’t.”

“You don’t think so?” I counter.

He shakes his head once. “No, you won’t because I’m the only one of us who knows the way back to Javier.”

I just stand here.

Victor places his hand on the silver lever and opens the door. “Are you coming, or are you staying here?”

I stare across the room at him blankly.

Maybe he’s going to help me after all. Maybe after seeing what Izel and Javier are doing to Lydia, Victor has remembered how it feels to be remorseful, if he’s ever known what that feels like at all.

“Where are we going?” I ask, knowing that it can’t be far if he’s leaving his bags here.

“To breakfast.”