#sunlightb

Valeria would be 27 now. Every year on her birthday, you buy a small chocolate cake and light a candle. No matter how hard you try, no matter how many people are in your life, she left a void that nothing can fill.

If only you had been braver, if only you hadn't run away…

If you had stayed, maybe she wouldn't have enlisted. There are many "what ifs," but "what if" doesn't exist.

Today you're back in the place you swore you'd never set foot in again.

Las Almas.

It's not the same place anymore. It's still a stupid, godforsaken town, only now the drug cartels seem to have taken over.

The streets are emptier, there are abandoned houses covered in graffiti with boarded-up windows, and armed men where children used to play soccer. They're the same children who played there, only now they have guns.

You're here because your father died.

Apparently, he took out a loan and was stupid enough not to pay it back. You don't mess with the narcos, and he thought he was so clever.

Your mother still can't look at you, this time for a different reason. She's resentful because you ran away ten years ago, and she still hasn't gotten over it. Your brothers barely speak to you; your mother filled their heads with lies about you, and you haven't seen your younger sister. No one will tell you where she is.

You notice it on the third day.

A man has been following you since you arrived; anxiety gnaws at your chest. He follows you to your mother's house, to the hotel where you're staying, to the restaurants you visit, and everywhere you go.

You're everywhere except your mother's house.

Everyone is walking behind the hearse in the sun. Your black clothes are only making you feel hotter. At the cemetery, you see a woman in the distance, dressed entirely in black, with short, shoulder-length hair, but you can't see her face; it's covered by a semi-transparent black cloth. There are two men beside her.

You don't know who she is. You simply place a bouquet of flowers your brothers forced you to buy on the gravestone and leave before anyone can stop you.

You walk past the woman, whose scent is familiar, a smell you'd recognize anywhere.

Not a random perfume you could buy at any store, something more specific. A scent that couldn't be recreated.

You don't turn around, you can't get your hopes up. Maybe it's just someone with a similar scent.

You can't help it.

You turn around, the woman has her back to you now, but you'll recognize that tattoo above her elbow anywhere. It's faded now, the ink looks old, as if it hasn't been touched up, but you know it.

After all, you did the design. In a chemistry class years ago, you played with your markers and drew a phoenix on Valeria's arm. The next day, and every day after, she wore long sleeves to hide it from the prefects.

"Valeria?"

Her name barely leaves your lips, but you lose sight of her as everyone starts pouring out of the cemetery. Even now, years later, society still keeps you away from her.

You never see her again. No matter how much you search, you start to believe it was a hallucination. As you said goodbye to your father at his funeral, your mind conjured up a vivid image of Valeria, her face covered because you don't know what she looked like as she aged.

At the same time, you know she was there; you smelled her.

You draw the phoenix from her tattoo in your notebooks, but it never looks right.

It's like you're chasing ghosts. It gets to the point where it keeps you up at night.

After another horrible night of insomnia, you look at the clock.

5 AM

Okay… sure.

You kick off the covers and get up to get dressed. If you weren't going to sleep, at least you could go for a run or see how much the town has changed since you left.

You walk for hours; the sun is at its brightest and highest point.

You head toward the mountains, where you and Valeria used to hide, where years ago you buried a wooden box with locks of her hair and photographs at the base of a tree.

“Hey, muchacha. Where are you going, mija? It's really bad over there… the drug cartels took over that land a long time ago.”

You turn to see the man sitting on the sidewalk with a cooler next to him outside a grocery store. You're near the last houses in town before reaching the mountains.

“What?”

As you get closer, you realize it's Don Salome, an old friend of your grandfather. He doesn't recognize you. Why would he? You were too young when you ran away; that scared little girl is nothing anymore.

“Don’t go there. They don’t ask questions, they just shoot. Doña Cristi’s son went there looking for work in the other town… they shot him. You should have seen what they did to him, the poor guy looked like a sieve.”

God. The violence really did grow like a poisonous ivy…

“Thanks for letting me know, sir. I’m just… I’m just going to walk. I don’t want any trouble.”

“It’s not that. If they see you, they’ll think you’re in the army or something. They’ll kill you.”

“Oh, well, then I’ll go home. Thanks for letting me know, Uncle Salome.”

He’s not your uncle, not really. But he was so close that it was practically as if he were.

As you walk away, you think you hear him whisper your name in surprise.

You don't return until later that night. In the early hours of the morning.

You only want your box, the box you two shared. There are no photos of Valeria, you don't have any; your little phone from those years didn't have a camera. At the town fair, there was a stall that took photos and turned them into keychains for twenty pesos.

You gave the man one hundred pesos; he gave you two photos and a keychain.

In the mountains, there are no lights, nothing but the moon to illuminate the way, and it's not enough.

You carry a small flashlight in addition to your phone. Your body remembers the path as if it were muscle memory; you remember it even though more than ten years have passed.

You haven't even gone halfway when you see it in the distance.

A beautiful house rises on the hill.

A beautiful house, but surrounded by armed men.

A hand grabs your bicep too tightly, dragging you closer to the armed men.

You struggle with whoever is grabbing you, obviously, but they're stronger and bigger than you.

Too fast, you end up with a sack over your head and everything goes black.

You hear people talking above your head, but you can't understand what they're saying.

Maybe you have tinnitus, or maybe the blood is rushing through your ears—you don't know.

They move you from place to place until you don't know where you are, you can't see, you can't hear. They've deprived you of your senses.

“What are you doing, idiots?”

Valeria enters the interrogation room. González called her, saying her soul had disappeared, that he'd lost sight of her.

Later, Ayala called, saying they had a soldier or a voyeur in custody—a woman.

It wasn't hard for her to put two and two together.

Her soul had always been very curious.

“Ma'am, we found this woman wandering around; she had a camera.”

Valeria snatches the supposed camera from one of her men.

It's a square flashlight, and she realizes it's actually a purple power bank covered in stickers.

It looks feminine, almost childish, and the contrast between the dried blood under her fingernails and the pastel purple color is ridiculous.

She closes her eyes and counts to three. Sometimes she wondered why she kept recruiting idiots.

“Where is she?”

“This way, ma'am.”

She hears a couple of men celebrating behind her. Apparently, they're excited by the live executions and torture.

They're so bloodthirsty it's disgusting, but she can't get rid of them. The business is sustained by the people who keep it running.

When she arrives at the room where her beloved is, the first thing she notices is the bruise on her right bicep and the blood running from her slightly swollen nose.

"Who the hell hit her?"

Her beloved is injured and unconscious.

González enters the room behind Valeria.

"Ma'am, I'm so sorry, I… I was watching her from across the street at the hostel where she's staying. She must have left through the back door…"

Valeria doesn't want to hear his excuses; she's seeing red at the sight of her beloved like this.

She pulls the pistol from her waistband and fires near the man's head. The bullet grazed her ear, drawing blood, and left a hole in the wooden door.

González stops speaking, stops moving, even stops breathing.

She clenches her jaw. Then she lowers the gun.

“Get out of here before I change my mind. Everyone go. NOW!”

Her men, too terrified to stay, flee. They practically trample each other.

Firing inside a closed room was never a good idea. Valeria avoided it most of the time, but sometimes it was necessary.

The room now smelled of gunpowder, and her ears rang from the gunshot as she moved closer to her soul.

Each step she took in her direction brought her clarity; she could inhale her scent.

She smelled like home.

She knelt and swiftly untied her from the chair. Her beloved's body collapsed against her, offering no resistance.

She is so happy to be strong now, to be able to carry her without difficulty.

So many years in the army, longing and yearning to have her close, to protect her.

The gods heard her prayers.

Death heard her and gave her the greatest gift in the world.

Now she has her woman back, and she will die before they are separated.

Now she has the power to burn the entire town, as she wanted to do years ago, and she will not hesitate.

English is not my first language and I apologize if there are any mistakes.

Not fast enough to move the air, but enough to make you dizzy, so you close your eyes and take several deep breaths.

When you wake up, the first thing you see is the ceiling fan spinning lazily.

“I know you’re awake, mi amor. Why are you pretending, preciosa?”

Valeria’s voice breaks the silence.

Maybe you sit up too quickly because you didn’t notice how close you were to the edge of the bed.

You end up falling to the floor.

It’s not the image you wanted to project, or the first thing you wanted Valeria to see.

“I’m fine!”

When you kneel beside the bed, you see her.

Short hair, perfectly groomed eyebrows, short nails painted a soft pink but chipped. She's wearing a cross-body harness and has a gun tucked into her right side, close to her ribs.

She looks beautiful.

"Valeria?"

"The one and only, darling. Get up off the floor, will you?"

Your eyes sting and a lump forms in your throat.

Valeria comes closer and helps you sit up in bed as she kneels between your legs. Her hands rest on your thighs.

“Why are you crying?”

Her voice is soft, just enough to make tears stream down your cheeks.

“I don’t know… I thought… I thought you were dead.”

“Oh, my love…”

Valeria doesn’t climb onto the bed; she stays on the floor, wiping your tears with her thumb.

“I’m here, I’m alive. Don’t cry.”

Those words make you cry even harder. God, you must look like a crybaby right now.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t want to leave. I was scared, and my parents hated me, everyone hated me. My dad died, did you hear that, Vale? Did you hear? He died, and I feel so bad because it doesn’t hurt. Mom still hates me, and my brothers won’t talk to me. I don’t know where my sister is…”

Everything comes out like a dam has burst. You don’t even know if you’re speaking coherently.

“…He owed money to a narco. I always knew he was an idiot, but not that much. Now my family owes a lot of money to someone, and they won’t let me help.”

“I know, my love, I know. I know your father owed money to someone, and he died.”

“You know? How?”

“He owed me money.”

“No, no, Vale, he owed money to a dangerous drug trafficker. You… you… you’re in the military, right? Yareli told me. She contacted me through Facebook, and I asked her about you.”

“…Mi alma…”

“Where are we? How…? Valeria, I’ve been kidnapped. How are you here? Why am I in a room that looks too luxurious and comfortable for this to be a kidnapping?”

You look into her eyes, waiting, praying that you’re wrong and what you think isn’t real.

“Oh God…”

She doesn’t answer, doesn’t speak, she just looks at you as if… as if…

You know she could never lie to you, much less while you’re looking into her eyes.

“Valeria, what did you do?”

“I did what I had to do. I’m not going to make excuses, and you know I won’t lie to you. I’m incapable of it. I couldn’t protect you years ago, and you left.”

“And I’m sorry about that! I’m sorry I left, but I asked you to come with me.”

“I wasn’t going to. I wasn’t going to leave Las Almas.”

“And that’s why you turned it into this? People are scared, terrified, I’d say! There are armed men in the schools, Valeria!”

“I DON’T CARE!”

Valeria stood up and took several steps back, pressing her hands to her face. Her breathing was erratic.

You know, from her reaction, that she's no longer used to people yelling at her.

“Do you think I care what happens to them? When they pointed the finger at us, no one said a word. When they made you cry, no one said a word. When you left, no one did anything. I stayed in this place because it was all I had left of you!”

Valeria finally looked at you and also seemed about to start crying.

“I had this house built on the hill because you always said you'd love to live here, that you loved the view and how private it was… I killed the high school principal for making you feel awful. Everyone who pointed the finger at us is either dead or owes me a fortune.”

Your heart ached. This is the girl… No. The woman you loved, who you still love, and who seems to still be hurting from what happened ten years ago.

“You let hatred consume you, my love…”

Now you can confirm it's real.

Her eyes… are filled with pain.

The girl rejected by the village will return to see him burn… or so they say.

When you stand up, she just lowers her head. She was always a few inches taller than you; she used to tease you about it a lot.

She laughed for hours when she discovered you'd started stuffing toilet paper in your shoes to be as tall as her.

You cup her cheeks and press your forehead to hers, just like the last time you saw each other at the bus station.

You lower your gaze between her breasts because something catches your eye.

It's a necklace with your initial, but it's not the same one. The chain is thicker, though delicate, silver, even though Valeria always preferred gold. The initial has pink diamonds and is more durable. It's not some cheap carnival trinket.

"I thought you preferred gold; it looks so much better on you."

"You always liked silver better…"

You smile slightly and look back into her eyes. She takes hold of your hips.

"You knew I'd come back."

"Actually, no, I couldn't have known. I was prepared to live with your ghost. I thought you'd have a life in the city by now and be happy. I didn't look for you in case… I didn't want to ruin your happiness."

“Valeria…”

“No, don’t interrupt me, listen. I lent your dad money because your sister asked me to. She was little when you left, and she knew me. I took her under my wing. Remember when we used to look after her? I looked after her, and I kept looking after her. She called me one night. I always told her to be careful when she called…”

Valeria sits down in one of the chairs in the room and gently guides you to her lap. She does it slowly, as if she doesn’t want to frighten you, still giving you the freedom to refuse or stand up whenever you want.

“Your father overheard us on the phone. He recognized my voice and started yelling that he wouldn't let me corrupt another one of his daughters… he hit Inés, I heard it on the phone and went there.”

“Inés wasn't at their house when I went there. I thought… she's fifteen, I thought she was with her friends or something… I thought she didn't want to see me either.”

“She lives here, with me. That's why you didn't see her at that house.”

“You killed my father and took in my sister…”

“Yes.”

“Shameless.”

“That's why you loved me.”

“I still love you.”

The End.

This story is a work of fiction and does not seek to romanticize or idealize drug trafficking. The violence and harm it causes are part of the narrative context and are treated as a tragedy, not as something aspirational. Unfortunately, the current situation in Mexico is devastating: the violence is real, and it is estimated that between 10 and 34 people disappear every day.