Page 83 of Close Your Eyes and Count to 10

Hector shook his head rapidly. Angeline rose to embrace him as he started weeping uncontrollably. Now Mav was crying, too. Which made Angeline cry again. Tavo was the only one who stood stone-faced. He moved toward the door, put a hand on the knob.

“You told the police he went home,” said Hector, his voice hoarse with emotion.

Maverick hung his head.

“Why did you do that?” Hector went on. “We have to tell them. We have to call Lucia.”

“Wecan’t,” said Maverick, wiping at his eyes. Was he really crying? wondered Angeline. There was something blank to him, something empty. Had there always been?

“Not yet.”

“Whokilled Alex?”

“We don’t know,” said Mav. “Someone’s been following me. Threatening me.”

“Where is he? His…b-b-ody?”

None of them could answer. Angeline kept replaying the moment when they dumped Alex over the wall. Above the violence of the waves they never even heard it hit below, from that great height. He was just—gone.

“Honestly, Hector,” said Angeline, soothing him, “the less you know, the better.”

Maverick explained the situation to Hector, stopping short of their dumping the body, who just stared at him like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “But—but—but.”

“We have to complete the game. Trust me on this,” said Mav. “Otherwise, we all lose everything.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” said Hector.

“We’re broke, Hec. We survive this challenge, get flush, fix the books, and sell. And we all get rich. Otherwise, we’ll be bankrupt inside a month.”

Hector’s face was a mask of confusion. Listening to Maverick talk, Angeline realized he was delusional. Maybe she was, too. There was no way back from where they were.

“All the money we made,” said Hector, “where did it go, Mav? We worked so hard.”

Angeline and Tavo locked eyes, both of them thinking of Alex’s texts to Lucia. When she turned back to Maverick, he was watching them. His eyes. They were so cold.

“I don’t know, buddy,” said Maverick like he was talking to a child. “Challenges like this, I guess. We gave a shit ton away. Our expenses were high. We’ve been losing viewers. All the bad publicity. But if we can do this, we can fix it.”

Outside, the sky rumbled, the small amount of light coming in through the narrow, opaque windows growing dimmer.

“But we’ve already lost everything,” said Hector, his voice soft and frightened. “People know that something has happened to Alex, because of Malinka’s live. We’ll lose the sponsors. WeWatch will dump us. There’s so much heat already because of Chloe, because of Moms Against Mav. The subpar sponsors that are still with us are already squirrelly as fuck.”

Maverick shook his head.

“Views,” he said. “They only care about views. If we give them that tonight, they won’t do a thing except throw more money at us.I promise you that. That’s the way the world works now.”

How was he always so sure of himself, of his own rightness?

“Alex,” Hector said, then started to cry again. Helpless. Like a child. Angeline felt the weight of his grief, something neither she, Tavo, nor Maverick had expressed, if they’d felt it at all. They’d gone from horror and shock straight into survival mode. What did that make them?

How easy it had been to haul Alex to the wall in that rug. To watch as Tavo and Maverick hefted him over the side. Like he was not a person, their friend, someone’s father, husband. She was back there now, feeling the wind and sea spray. It hadn’t seemed real even, like she was in a video game, the way you do things like cut off someone’s head or slice them in half with a machete and it isn’t real, it’s just a game, just a simulation. That’s how it felt.

But it was real.

She felt herself go weak inside, that childish churning of fear.

Stop it, Angeline. When the going gets tough, the tough get going.That’s what her abuela always said.When the worst thing happens, you don’t curl up into a ball, you stand and fight.She could grieve later. Atone later. They all could.

“Tavo,” said Angeline, still holding Hector who had his head on her shoulder, clung to her like a little kid. It was a bit ridiculous as he was nearly twice her size. Still, she drew some comfort from being able to comfort him. “What is the deal with those men? With Petra?”

---