Page 147 of Altered

Unlocking the car, I pushed the door open and climbed out. My entire body was shaking from head to toe, but my voice didn’t waver when I asked, "Are you Gonzalez?"

The man stared hard at me for a long moment before nodding stiffly.

"Do you know who I am?" I asked, tone flat and cold. "I'm the woman carryinghischild inside of me," I continued, not waiting for his response. I didn't need it. I just needed him tohear me. "A child who will never know his father becauseyou betrayed him–" my voice broke off as my tears threatened to choke me, but I forced myself to say what I had come here to say, "Take me to him. I want toseehim."

"Coming here was a mistake, Damita." The man looked at me with a pained expression. "Believe me when I say, you do not want to see."

"Iwantto see him," I repeated, voice hoarse. "I want to take himhome."

"Aye, aye," he muttered, rubbing his jaw. "Then you will be scraping his bones out of the ashes."

A harsh sob racked through my body; a direct result of his words.

Of his actions.

"You should know," Gonzalez added. "The debt is paid."

With tears blinding me, I looked up at his face in confusion. "The debt?"

"Between your family and your grandfather," Gonzalez replied. "The boy's life was the price of revenge." He inclined his head towards the fire and said, "It is over now. You will not come to any harm."

Pain.

Pain.

Pain.

"This is our code, Damita." Gonzalez gestured towards a bonfire where several men were standing around, all staring into the flames. "Our way of life."

With my head held up, I half-walked, half-staggered towards the flames.

In the haze of my grief, I could smell it; the stench of death all around me.

The stench of burning flesh.

My eyes landed on the fire and my head shriveled up and died right along with him.

I could see the clothes.

The blond hair singeing.

The smell of him being erased from this earth.

Dropping to my knees, I placed my hands on the ground, and screamed.

No one touched me.

Not one word was spoken.

The men that had been standing around the fire all vanished from sight.

And I was left alone in my grief.

To mourn the other half of my soul.

As my lover perished in the flames.

I remained right there on the blood-soaked ground, keeping vigil over his burning body, wondering how I was ever going to get back up again.

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