Vanessa
The silence weighs on me. I want to call out… mom?
I tear myself brutally out of my nightmare, breathless. Behind my still-closed eyelids, the last images of my night replay: my mother’s blood-covered face. I always wake up at the same fatal moment, just before touching her broken body.
I push my hair out of my eyes and try to catch my breath. I’m still in Michael Cárdenas’s house. I had almost forgotten. A few rays of sunlight slip through the thick curtains I didn’t close properly last night. I don’t even know how I managed to fall asleep—maybe the soothing smell of the sheets was enough to lull me—but I’m still exhausted.
I jump when someone knocks at the door and pull the covers over me as it creaks open a second later. José pokes his head through the crack and winks at me.
