𝖇𝖗𝖊𝖆𝖐𝖙𝖍𝖗𝖔𝖚𝖌𝖍 | o.d.

Chapter Twenty

     MARI'S HANDS SHOOK as she dialled Oscar's number and pressed the phone to her ear.

In the back of her mind she could still hear Geny and Olivia's panicked cries of Ruby!, the sounds of saxophone and bass still playing on a loop in her head. She could still hear sirens, although the ambulances were long gone.

She'd managed to pull herself together long enough to herd everyone inside (everyone who was too in-shock to run, everyone who didn't want to leave Mari and Abuelita to mop up the blood of their loved ones alone), friends of friends and relatives she'd never met and people who just wanted something to gossip about over Sunday brunch. Mari had managed to hold her hands steady enough to help Abuelita up from where she was knelt on the floor, crying over the spot Ruby had been (bit the inside of her cheek to keep from falling to her knees and crying right alongside her, too. Clenched her teeth to stop the bile that burned her throat.) She'd been strong, because someone needed to be, and Abuelita couldn't. Not yet.

"Hey, mami," Oscar came through the receiver of the pink burner phone, now painted with the red from her hands. The sound was a little staticky, a little muffled, but his voice was deep and familiar. It was grounding. It was real. "Party finish early?"

And- fuck. Everything had happened so quickly she forgot there'd been a party at all. She opened her mouth to speak but her voice died in her throat as she caught sight of the bloody footprints she'd left in her wake on her way to her phone, red staining Geny's favorite rug.

Her first thought was Geny is going to kill me, and then the weight of those words came crashing down on her, because Ruby and Olivia could be dead. Because tonight could've been the last time she ever saw them, the last time Geny saw her son.

Before she could stop it, her mind flashed to the baby in the hospital. Her baby. She hadn't even seen him yet, and if she never did- could she live with that?

Mari couldn't answer that right now, all she could do was let out a harsh sob.

"Mari?" She heard Oscar say, though his voice was a little higher, a little less playful. "Nena, talk to me."

"Ruby-" she started, but the words felt like sandpaper against her throat. "Olivia- they- the ambulances took them but I- I couldn't go."

"Ambulance? Mari, what's going on? Is Cesar okay?"

She nodded before she remembered he couldn't see her.

"He's okay," she said, slowly finding her words amongst the chaos in her mind. "He, uh, he went with Ruby and Ruben. Geny and Monse are with Olivia. They said only two so I'm...I'm still- still here. Abuelita is here, and the twins, but I don't know what to do, Oscar."

"Okay, I-" he started, but he was tripping over his words like he was frustrated. (And he was, but not with her - never with her.) "I can help, but I need to know what happened?"

And Mari had been trying not to think about it; Ruby lying in a pool of his own blood, Olivia's own spattered across his face as he stared wide-eyed and blank at the ceiling. The way Olivia still screamed his name, still tried to reach out and touch him, even with a bullet-shaped hole in her chest.

She squeezed her eyes shut, swallowed the lump in her throat. "They were shot, Oscar. Ruby and Olivia they- I don't know who. A Prophet, I think. But I don't know, I-"

"It's okay, Mari," he said, but the way his voice wavered told her it definitely wasn't okay. "Just- can you get inside? Anyone who's still there, can you get them all inside for me?"