Ignacio had been cruel earlier when he’d said she was a stranger to us.
But he wasn’t incorrect.
I bit my lip as she took my hand and started to cart me from the room. We walked swiftly and silently down the short hall to the kitchen where the broken detritus of their fight lay scattered across the floor. A small wedge of glass jabbed through my heel, but I didn’t make a sound, and I didn’t stop.
Ignacio was a light sleeper.
We were at the front door when I noticed the small suitcase beside the frame and a chill bit viciously into my spine.
I was no longer worried about where we were going.
I was worried about how long it would last.
With a grunt, I wrenched my hand away from Mamá. The force sent me hurtling to the ground where I landed in a pile of glass that shredded my palms and the backs of my thighs where they were exposed by my sleep shorts.
A short wail worked itself free of my throat before I could choke it back.
But it was too late.
Mamá stared at me in abject horror for a moment before she cursed and flung the door open.
I caught a glimpse of a man in a leather jacket with a thick beard and a big tummy standing in front of a truck before the roar of a familiar voice echoed down the mouth of the hall.
“ELLIE!”
I shifted to get up off the floor and out of the way of the ensuing argument, but the long, sharp teeth of a broken glass cut deeper into my thighs. Wetness sluiced between my legs, and when I looked down, the previously yellow-tinged linoleum was red with blood.
I blinked, my mind disassociating from my body.
There was a loud crash. A door flung against a wall.
Then the stomp of heavy, angry feet over the old, creaking floor.
Even his breath was audible, like a great, terrifying dragon disturbed from his sleep and furious for it.
Ignacio appeared in the dark mouth of the hall, his fists balled, face twisted with all-consuming rage. His gaze swept over me, and his mouth twisted up small and tight, a poor attempt to cap the emotions I knew were bubbling in his chest.
The second his gaze hit Mamá in the doorway, he blew.
“Are you trying to take my kid?” he asked, low and loud, more growl than words.
Mamá stood frozen like cornered prey even though the door was open at her back.
I was six years old, but I was still smart enough to know she should have run.
Instead, she called for backup.
To this day, the details are blurred.
But I remembered a few things, murky memories bleeding and faded like old tattoos inked into my mind.
The biker waiting by the car appeared behind Mamá with a gun.
Ignacio had one in his hand suddenly, and he was yelling.
But Mamá? She was screaming, and then suddenly she was diving toward me, tugging my hand to drag me over broken glass toward the door.
Screaming that I was hers.
Hers!
Ignacio warned her.
God, he warned her.
Let go, or else.
Touch her again, you’re dead.
I mean it, Ellie, you take one more step, I’ll shoot.
You know I will, Ellie. And you know I never miss.
Let Lila go.
The biker had his gun raised, and when Mamá got close enough, he stepped slightly in front of her.
Maybe to protect her.
Maybe he saw this as an opening in the drug trade and decided to take advantage.
They said the man shot first.
It would have hit Papá, they said, the police afterward who had crawled over the scene like ants on their hill, if Jonathon Booth hadn’t chosen that moment to shove Ignacio to the ground.
The man’s bullet missed them both cleanly.
But Ignacio’s fired too.
In the millisecond before Jonathon tackled him.
He pulled the trigger on his revolver, and the bullet found its way straight into Mamá.
She was holding my hand tight one moment.
And the next, it was limp.
I let go to stare up at her, my vision blurred with tears, throat raw because I’d been screaming for them to stop and hadn’t even known it.
Her expression was blank in that moment before death. Pale as a sheet of untouched paper, empty of thought as shock overtook her and blood poured from a circular entry wound in her cheek.
And then she fell.
I guess I tried to catch her because her torso landed awkwardly on my folded legs, and something inside my left knee snapped on impact.
I cried out, but I didn’t really feel the pain.
I could only feel Mamá, so heavy in my arms.
In the movies, people always die right away.
Pop. Thunk. Dead.
But Mamá didn’t die so quick.
She lay looking up at me like a fish out of water, mouth working slightly, blood pooling on her tongue, eyes glassy.
I didn’t know how to help her, and I didn’t try.