Page 104 of Traitor

“Torch,” I tried again. “Look at me.”

He glanced up reluctantly.

“Um, can we keep this whole thing between ourselves? No telling Mike…or Grey…or anyone. Okay?”

He nodded and gave me a small smile. “You got it. I’ll just, uh, be downstairs—”

Abuelita shook her head. “Dave, stay. We need to align her body before she can begin.” She looked over the railing. “Little Ricky, come up here.”

I noticed that he shared the same expression as Torch when he came stomping up the steps. She must’ve promised them a hell of a lot more than tamales for this.

The healer gave instructions to Little Ricky and he shook his head before muttering, “Not again.”

“What?” I asked hesitantly. It was going to get weird, I knew it.

He pointed toward the stairs. “She’s going to align your body. We did this before, for myTíaMary. She got knocked up right after.”

I looked at the stairs and back at him. “How is she going to align me?”

Abuelitachimed in. “Dave and Little Ricky will hold your legs so thatla curanderacan work easily.”

I tried to sit up, but the healer pushed me back down with her superhuman strength. “So, like upside down?”

They both nodded and I sighed before agreeing. I’d lost my damn mind. The healer handed me the coffee mug that Dave had carried upstairs, urging me to drink. It had more herbs floating around in it and tasted like flowers.

The next few hours were a blur. The healer spoke a blessing over me before rubbing my body with an egg wrapped in basil. From there, Torch and Little Ricky held my legs so that she could pound the bottoms of my feet with a mallet. I was a bit disoriented from the rush of blood to my head by the time we got to the massage.

She spoke in a faint voice as she dug into my abdomen and I cried out. Her hands were like fire on my skin, scorching me, and I had the strangest sensation that she was pulling something from my body. I either fell asleep or passed out before it was over and awoke to Abuelita peering anxiously at me.

“How do you feel?”

I started to tell her that her healer had made things worse, but the pain in my abdomen was gone. My body felt strange, unfamiliar even. I gave her a small nod and she helped me up. Torch and Little Ricky were nowhere to be found and the healer was packing her things as if it was just another day at the office for her.

She askedAbuelitaa question and my grandmother began stumbling over her words as she tried to respond. “We did—I do every year for the ones we have lost. Was—how did you?”

The healer smiled so widely that her eyes crinkled before replying, “Ella es bendecida por La Virgen.”

Abuelitawas so overcome with emotion that she could only nod before making the sign of the cross again over her chest. I waited until the woman left before asking what it was she’d said.

All I got out of her was, “Día de los Muertos—she heard my prayer,” before she said she had to go. “I frosted the cake for you. You are all set for Michael’s birthday. I put his gift in the kitchen.” She kissed me on the cheek and left me standing in shock in the middle of the living room, trying to regain my bearings.

For the first time in months, the fog had lifted and I began to feel the stirrings of desire. Depression had buried a lot of those feelings, forcing me to rely on my need to conceive in order to ‘get the job done.’

I didn’t know exactly what thecuranderahad done, but I felt weightless. Maybe it was all in my head and nothing was different—like some sort of placebo effect.

I heard the front door and jumped up just as Mike walked in. He didn’t see me and I watched him as he opened the closet and hung up his coat before pulling his gun from his shoulder holster, placing it on the small table near the door.

My heart beat a little faster when he turned and saw me.

“Hey, baby. You’re up.” He grinned.

I nodded, my chest rising and falling rapidly. I’d never wanted him more than I did in this moment.

I crossed the room and jumped into his arms. He made a sound of surprise before his arms locked protectively around me. My hands moved from his neck and up into his hair, as if searching for something, before they settled on the sides of his face.

He was rough. The hands that cupped my body had taken lives; his eyes had seen things that could never be unseen. Yet, deep in his chest beat a heart that was good, in spite of the world he lived in.

Mike looked up and I saw it—a softness he reserved only for me. A monster only I could tame. My thumb traced along his lower lip before I brought my mouth down to his. Instead of taking it for granted, I lost myself in the way his lips yielded to mine and his arms tightened their grip, drawing me in.

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