Existence. James Frey

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      Jago looks beyond her, to the east, where the sky is a flat, peaceful blue, cool and calm. This is what loving Alicia feels like: firestorm and tranquillity, all at once. He feels wild when he’s with her, his skin sparking, his brain spinning, his heart leaping with possibility—but at his center is something so quiet and sure. A peace he’s never known without her, and fears he will never know again.

      They’re both looking at the sky, not at the waves, not at the sand, not at each other, and certainly not at the empty road that winds along the strip of beach. Not even when an engine roars in the distance and a car approaches do they turn; Jago is determined that this moment be perfect, that for once they be alone in their pocket universe, no obligations to anyone but each other. His heart is beating so loud it drowns out his instincts.

      And so he doesn’t see the car slow, the window roll down, the tip of a Kalashnikov poke through. He doesn’t, until it’s too late, see Julio’s face at the wheel, the face of the man he spared.

      When he does see it, he throws himself at Alicia, but even the speed of the Player is no match for a bullet, and the bullet has already been fired, and Alicia is already screaming, already falling; Alicia is in his arms, bleeding and pale and fading away.

      Julio guns the engine and speeds off.

      This is what mercy looks like.

      This is what mercy looks like: a pool of blood, seeping into sand. Pale skin, limp body, tearstained cheeks. A balled-up T-shirt pressed to the wound, bleeding through.

      “Please,” Jago says, and he’s talking to the man on the other end of the phone, a man who works for his family, who fixes problems, whatever they may be—and he’s talking to Alicia, who won’t stop bleeding.

      Jago knows first aid, he knows how to dress a wound, how to triage, how to think clearly in a crisis—and also knows how little he can do, alone on this strip of sand. Maybe he should put her in the car, drive to a hospital himself, but the car is nearly a mile walk down the beach, and he doesn’t want to move her unless he has to. Help will come, he tells himself. Help will come in time.

      He lays her on her back, lets her weight seal the makeshift bandage to the wound, holds her hand, hopes.

      “Jago,” she whispers. “I can’t.”

      “Tough luck,” he says. “You have to. Hang on. Someone’s coming.”

      “No, I can’t …” She draws in a rasping breath.

      “You don’t have to talk,” he says. For her, he tries to keep his voice steady, fearless. He is Jago Tlaloc—he’s supposed to be immune to fear.

      She coughs blood. He wipes it away, gently as he can. Her skin is hot to the touch.

      “Who were they?” she asks him. “Why did they?”

      “I don’t know,” he lies again.

      But she’s always able to see through his bullshit. Even now. “It’s because of you,” she says. There’s more strength in her voice now. There’s fire. “This is because of you.”

      “It doesn’t matter,” he assures her, and that’s the worst lie of all, because what could matter more?

      “Someone shot me,” she says in wonder. “I got shot. What the hell?”

      She’s laughing, suddenly, and he worries that this is delirium, that this is the beginning of the end, and the road is still empty; help is nowhere in sight.

      “I’ll kill him for you,” Jago promises. “I’ll track him down, I’ll take him apart, piece by piece. I’ll make him hurt.”

      “Oh God,” she gasps. “You.”

      “What?”

      “You … are just like them. Fucking monsters.”

      He thought it couldn’t hurt any more than it already does. But this is worse. “No, Alicia—”

      “You kill him, and then what? His family kills you? Is that where it stops? Does it ever stop? Or does it just keep going, pain and blood and blood and pain and pain and pain …”

      She’s so pale. Her voice is thin and thready, the words floating away from her, like they belong to someone else. He tells himself that she’s feverish, in shock, that she doesn’t mean what she’s saying, that it doesn’t matter what she says, as long as she’s all right.

      “Shhh. I know it hurts,” he whispers. “I know.”

      “But it doesn’t.” She looks at him in childlike wonder, then coughs up another soft spray of blood. “It doesn’t hurt, Jago. I can’t … I can’t feel it. My legs. I can’t feel anything. …”

      He stops breathing.

      “Jago?”

      Steady, he reminds himself. Calm. “That’s normal,” he lies. “Don’t worry.” He brushes her hair back from her sweaty face.

      “Normal? This is normal?” She’s laughing again, laughing and crying and shaking, shuddering, her hand squeezing his as if of its own accord, all of her trembling. Except her legs—those are still. “What if I can’t dance again? What if I can’t … No. No. You. Get away from me.”

      “I’m not going anywhere, Alicia.”

      “You destroy everything. You make everything ugly, like you. I wish I never—”

      “Don’t say that, Alicia.” She’s always seen the truth in him, the possibility. If all she sees is a monster … “Please.” If he were the monster she says he is, wouldn’t her words anger him? Wouldn’t he push her aside, tell her that she entered freely into this life, fooled herself into believing it couldn’t touch her, fooled him into believing that he had a choice?

      He isn’t angry; he doesn’t push her aside. He wants to hold on to her forever, if she will only let him. “Please, Alicia, tell me you know I love you. That I will never let anyone hurt you again. That I can fix this. Please.”

      She doesn’t say it.

      She doesn’t say anything.

      “Alicia?”

      Her eyes are closed. Her face is as gray as the sunless sky. Sirens blare in the distance, so slow, so useless. Jago holds on to her, willing her to wake up, even if she wants to call him a monster, yell at him to let go. He never will.

      She survives.

      He knows this because he bribes a doctor to tell him.

      She’ll recover; she’ll walk. It’s a medical miracle, the doctor says, and nothing more than that.

      No one wants to tell him anything, not officially, because he’s not family.

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