Page 131 of Violent Attraction

“Te quiero también, mamí”

“La muerte está cerca.”

She then melts away completely.

My eyes snap open, the darkness of the room and the night enveloping me and making me realize that it was just a dream.

One of the strangest dreams that I’ve had in a while.

Groaning, I feel the bed next to me, hoping that I feel his body next to mine. Hoping that maybe he came home to me sometime during the night and will help me go back to sleep and make the bad dreams stay away.

But when I feel the cold sheets, I feel a tinge of disappointment when I realize that he hasn’t come home to me just yet.

Only a few more days.

A few more days and I will be back in his arms, feeling safe, and putting all the dreams about my mother and death behind me.

Because he’s the calm to my disaster. The light to this dark life that I was born into.

Rolling over, I grab his pillow and bring it to me, taking in his scent and I try my hardest to go back to sleep.

But the second my eyes are closed, they fly back open when a phone starts to ring.

It takes me a second to realize that it’s the phone that I have hidden in my dresser. The phone that only four people have the number to.

Looking at the time on the alarm clock on the bedside table, I see that it’s three in the morning here in Brooklyn.

It’s late.

The only reason that phone is ringing is because something is wrong.

Tal vez algo va a pasar.

Was she right?

I never dream about my mother like that, but what if she was trying to tell me something?

Throwing the blankets off my body, I try to walk over to the dresser at a slow pace, so that I don’t have a panic attack over the phone ringing so late.

I really wish he was home right about now.

I open the drawer as slowly as possible, as if a bomb were about to be detonated.

As soon as I have the phone in hand, the ringing stops.

Flipping the screen over, I see that it was an unknown number calling.

I wait, staring at the screen, for the unknown caller to start calling once more.

Within seconds the ringing starts up again.

As if my brain knows that whoever is on the other side of this call has something bad to say, my hand moves to press the answer button as slow as possible.

I take a deep breath and try to center myself as best as I possibly can before bringing the phone to my ear.

“Hello?”

“Camila,” my sister’s voice comes through. It’s shaky and something about the way she says my name that has me on high alert.

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