Pamela glances back inside, as if leaving something important hanging on an invisible hanger, and then at me. She nods. She bumps the door with her hip so it won’t slam and we go down the stairs together. I don’t know what’s waiting at the end of the block—Auntie’s questions, Grandma’s silences, shifts, bills, a future that isn’t drawn yet—but for the first time all night I feel something move in the right direction: I’m not leaving her alone. And I’m not leaving myself alone either, because I also need to learn to look at what hurts without shattering.

After fifteen minutes of a silence that rasps me raw inside, I can’t take it anymore. I try to bite my tongue—I want the whole story before I explode.

“Can you tell me what’s going on?”

Pamela bites the inside of her cheek and turns her face to the window, like there’s an exit out there I can’t see.

“Pamela, if they’re forcing you—”

“It’s not what you think,” she cuts me off, ice-cold—the cold she uses when she’s actually shaking.

I wait. The silence stretches like a thread about to snap. She doesn’t add anything. It drills through my patience.

“Then what am I supposed to think? Help me out here: I’m completely lost.”

She sighs and rubs her forehead. Her fingers tremble.

“You wouldn’t understand. You’re too… whatever.”

Too what? Naive, rigid, proper? I feel heat climb my face.

I frown. She exhales hard, like talking to me weighs on her bones.

“Maybe if you tried to explain it, I would understand,” I shoot back, hurt.

“Enough!” she finally explodes, voice broken. “I know exactly what you think of me right now. The night was heavy enough; I don’t need your judgment on top.”

“I’m not judging you,” I lie halfway, because the image of her in that place burns in my eyes. “I just want to understand. The man’s with the Zetas cartel, isn’t he? I saw the cartel tattoos, Pamela! Why are you lying to us?”

“Because I love him! Is that okay?!” The word love snaps in two and she hurls it at me like a glass that shatters.

My heart stops. All the air in my lungs turns dense.

“I’m in love with him,” she insists, and now she does look at me, with tears that don’t fall, stranded on the edge. “And I couldn’t tell you—least of all knowing how much you hate those people.”

“In love?” I whisper, the word coming out like a splinter. A cold wave combs my gut from top to bottom. Love… with who?

That criminal? No.

I go mute for several minutes. Her hazel eyes bounce from me to the road and back. I can’t speak. I don’t want to scream. I don’t know how to hold her up without collapsing myself.

She leaves me speechless.

“Pamela… we said we’d escape this misery, remember?” I point to the dirty street, the crooked posts, the busted bulbs. “We’re… we’re going to finish architecture with top grades and move to Los Angeles. That was the plan, right? You said that once we were there you’d adopt a dog. That still stands, doesn’t it?”

She doesn’t answer. Her jaw tightens. I see her clench her teeth not to cry.

I know my words reach her—I know her—but something in her fights, hard, like my dream is a luxury she can’t afford anymore.

“We want to get away from the drugs. We want out of Sunnyside and far from criminals. That’s why we don’t mess with cartels!”

She finally turns her face and holds my gaze. And in that clash, it isn’t the Pamela I know: the one who laughs loud, dances anywhere, makes even misfortune feel lighter. The one I saw on that couch wasn’t her; she was someone surrendered to the street, someone who bargained with fire not to freeze to death.

The message lands like lead: what if we don’t get out of here?

Then why not dance with the devil if it’s the only way not to burn alive?

“Listen, Vanessa,” she says at last, word by word, like each syllable costs her, “I didn’t see it coming. I can’t control it. I knew it would hurt you, so yes, I hid it. But you saw him. Antony isn’t—”

“No.” I cut her off, and I can hear my voice shaking with anger and fear. “Don’t tell me you’re in love with that psychopath. Don’t say it again. Please.”

“Vanessa, stop…”

“No. Enough.” I press my back to the door like I need a wall to keep from coming apart.

The rest of the ride is a hole. Heavy silence. The engine hums. I swallow, and guilt tangles in my throat: maybe I’m being cruel; maybe I’m not seeing it all. But there’s one thing I do see with a clarity that hurts: he doesn’t love her. At all.

I don’t shout. I don’t lecture. I speak like someone setting a beam so the roof won’t cave.

“We can’t drop out of school. In two years, we’ll be done, and we’ll move to another state. With our grades, we can go anywhere. You know that.” I draw a long breath. “I won’t say anything to Aunt Carmen or Grandma about your job. But Antony… Antony is going to wreck your life. Believe me.”

The last word trembles.

I step out before she answers. The cold air cuts my face. A few meters away is my bike, chained to the gate exactly where I left it. I walk over with my hands shaking—from anger, from fear, from love put in the wrong places.

Behind me, Pamela is still standing there. I don’t look back. I pull out the key, free the chain; the metal chills my fingers and centers me. I breathe. I swing a leg over.

“Pam…” I say, barely, without turning. “Take care of yourself.”

I don’t wait for an answer. I press the pedal, and the bike obeys with that old squeal that’s been with me forever. The city, at this hour, sounds like red lights with no witnesses and footsteps trying not to make noise. I pedal close to the edge, dodging glass, potholes, and shadows.

I don’t know if I did the right thing. I know I can’t save her today. Today, I can barely hold myself up. So I keep moving: one block, then another, then another. The wind dries my tears before they fall. And I leave Pamela behind, with the door half open and the night gnawing at the edges, silently promising myself I won’t let go of the plan, I won’t let go of my own, I won’t let go of me.

The next day at the restaurant smells like old oil and toasted bread. I’m serving an exhausted mom with a kid who won’t sit still: he throws the napkins, pours out the sauce packets, launches the fork to the floor like a rocket, and, to top it off, drops the little juice cup. It hits the floor and splashes my sneakers. The woman half-apologizes, out of breath, while she tries to pry his hand off the ketchup dispenser.

“Don’t worry,” I tell her, with the best smile I can manage. “I’ll bring you another one.”

I pick up the utensils, swap out the tray, and wipe the mess with a damp cloth. My phone buzzes in my apron pocket; I don’t need to look to know what it’ll show me. I look anyway: notifications from my 20 calls to Pamela with no answer. All straight to voicemail. Ten unread messages, or buried in the void since yesterday. Nothing. Not an “ok,” not an emoji, not a curse.

Voicemail. Voicemail. Voicemail.

“Could we get more straws?” the mom asks, dead on her feet.

“Yeah,” I answer. “Of course, yes, yes.”

I walk to the service station. The sticky floor keeps my soles. The manager is “in the office” (meaning: absent); Perla at the register chews gum and types. My chest goes in short, tight beats. I brace for a second against the counter edge. Inhale four. Exhale six. It doesn’t work. My head runs on its own: what if last night… if someone… if the corner… if Antony…?

I go back to the table with straws and a smile I don’t feel. The phone buzzes again. I turn around.

“Perla,” I say, and I hear my voice shake, “can you cover me for two minutes? Two. Really.”

She looks at me and understands something. She nods. I slip through the back hallway, between cases of soda and bags of chips. The exhaust fan roars. It covers my ears but not my thoughts.

I dial Pamela again. Automatic. Maybe now.

Voicemail.

I grab my phone and call Aunt Carmen’s house directly.

“And Pamela?” I ask without a greeting.

“At work, mija,” she answers, calm. “Yesterday she told me she had double shifts all week.”

My back goes cold.

“Double shifts… today too?”

“That’s what I understood. She must be there. Everything okay?”

I nod a yes, but my lips tremble. She doesn’t know anything. The last thing she has is those words that now sound like an alibi. I don’t want to scare her, at least not until I have something solid.

“I’m going to call her,” I say. “I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”

I shut myself in the hallway, between the mirror and the shelf of saints. I call Pamela again. Voicemail.

My fingers go numb. I fumble a search: “Copper Lounge Houston.” First number. I call.

“Copper bar,” a girl answers over clinking glass and a soundcheck. “What can I get you?”

I swallow. I talk too fast:

“Hi, I’m Vanessa, Pamela Ortiz’s cousin. She hasn’t answered since yesterday. Is she there? Did she make her shift?”

A memory silence on the other end. I hear ice in a glass. Then:

“Pamela? She hasn’t come in because of the incident. I’m Roxy, the bartender. If you see her, tell her to call. We’re…” she hesitates, “worried.”

The word goes through me like a hook: worried. I brace against the wall because my knees buckle.

“Incident,” I whisper. “What do you mean?”

“One of the dancers passed away.”

I hang up. I stare at the black screen for a few seconds as if I could wrench an answer out of it by sheer fear. My hands shake so much I almost drop the phone. I call again. I don’t know why. Voicemail.

I breathe in jolts. The exhaust fan, the shouted orders in the back, the microwave beep: everything sounds farther and louder at the same time.

I go back to the dining room. The kid is stacking cups into a tower; when I move, the tower collapses in a cascade. I crouch to gather them, the plastic scrapes my palm. I drop off a small ice cream “on the house” at the table—I don’t even know if the manager will charge it, I don’t care—and the mom thanks me in a voice about to break. I nod, but I’m somewhere else: in front of a red neon door that won’t open, at a dead phone, on a street where the shadows know my name.

Perla asks with her eyebrows: everything okay?

I shake my head. Once. Twice. The third doesn’t come out.

I grip a tray like it’s a steering wheel. I breathe through my nose, count, fail, count again. My body wants to run; my legs stay put. As soon as I finish this order, I tell myself, as soon as I close this table, I’m going to look for her. And I hope the world doesn’t fall on me on the way.

My heart races as I turn onto our street after finishing my shift.. The idea of finding my cousin’s body behind a dumpster, in a yard, dumped like nothing, terrifies me. What if…?

“Vanessa?”

I turn at the sound of that familiar voice. Pamela leans out her window, calling me.

“God, Pamela! Do you have any idea how scared everyone is right now?!”

Relief floods me when I see her, but I also feel a torrent of anger and frustration. Even so, worry wins—she looks wrecked.

“Wait, I’m coming down.”

She disappears from the window, and seconds late,r she’s in front of me.

Her face looks even more haggard up close. Her blond hair is a mess, and the dark circles under her eyes show that mascara lost the fight hours ago. I think I see brown stains on her wrinkled leopard-print miniskirt—she can’t stop tugging at it like she’s just realized it’s too short. She hasn’t changed since yesterday. She smells like a mix of sweat and cheap cologne.

“What’s going on, Pamela? I’ve been trying to—”

“Let’s go inside,” she cuts me off, nervous.

She grabs my arm and drags me toward my front door. With shaking hands, I fumble for the keys, open up, and throw the deadbolt.

Silence greets us. Grandma isn’t here—she’s probably at the neighbor’s.

“Are you going to explain now? Where were you all day?” I fire off immediately.

Pamela starts pacing circles around the living room, not answering. My heart booms down to my stomach. My thoughts won’t line up. But at least she’s alive. That’s already more than we can say for her coworker.

“I’m screwed, Vanessa,” she whispers, rubbing her temples. “I’m in it up to my neck.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“It’s just that I…” she sobs, “I have her blood on my hands. I have a girl’s blood on my hands!”

My heart nearly stops. Her legs give out and she collapses. I rush to catch her and let her cry on my shoulder. Shaking, I guide her to the couch and wait for her to settle.

What the hell is she saying? Does this have to do with her death? Did she… no. It can’t be.

“Pamela,” I say in the calmest tone I can gather. “I need you to explain. What you’re saying doesn’t make sense. Once I know everything, we’ll figure out what to do.”

I rub her back, trying to soothe her. Grandma always says that kind of touch helps during a panic attack. I look her straight in the eyes.

“There’s nothing we can do! They’re going to kill me too!” she screams.

The terror in her voice runs down my spine like an ice-cold shiver.

“Who? W-who wants to kill you?”

“The Zeta Clan! They’re looking for me, Vanessa, because my coworker and I fucked up. We were idiots!”

“Pamela!”

Driven by panic, I jump up, run to the window to check the street, and come back to her.

“You… knew you couldn’t mess with… My God, what did you do?”

Messing with a cartel means real consequences. If the two of them crossed them, it’s not just their lives at risk. They could come after Aunt Carmen. After Grandma. After me.

Pamela wipes her tears, smearing mascara and glitter all over her face. She walks toward me with her head down.

“Do you remember Antony?”

I already know I won’t like what’s coming.

“Of course I remember.”

“I thought he was my boyfriend. And my coworker thought he was hers too. Do you get me?”

My face surely says it all, even if I don’t say out loud what I’m thinking: that Pamela should have seen it coming.

“He was playing us both! That bastard!”

Pamela sounds genuinely wounded by the betrayal. How could my cousin—so strong and sure—believe a cartel guy, one who was groping her ass in a strip club, was going to be her prince charming?

Anyway, her broken heart is the least of it right now.

“So… we decided to confront him. I thought we were going to yell at him, humiliate him, maybe force an apology. But… nothing went how I expected.”

I scan Pamela for injuries. She doesn’t look beaten, but she’s still trembling, trapped in the memory.

“We didn’t even get to speak. When we got there, he was on the phone. He didn’t see us. He kept talking like nothing. That’s how we learned that, on top of being an asshole, Antony is also a damn traitor.”

Pamela was trembling like she had a fever, perched on the edge of my bed with swollen eyes and a voice all knotted up. She kept looking toward the window, as if she were afraid something—or someone—would burst in at any moment. I hated seeing her like that. I hated not knowing what the hell she’d done this time.

“What do you mean by that?” I asked, my heart ice-cold.

“That Antony… that he’s selling cartel merchandise to one of the Z-Clan’s enemies,” she said, her voice barely audible.

She went quiet for a moment. When she spoke again, the words got stuck in her throat.

“He was closing the deal in his hotel room. My coworker and I followed him. It wasn’t planned, okay? We just wanted to confront him for cheating on us… but it was a mistake. We heard everything.”

I swallowed. My eyes burned just imagining it.

“And when did this happen? How are you alive?”

Pamela swallowed, leaned back against the chair, and closed her eyes.

“Last night. After we ran from the hotel, we didn’t know where to go. We just wanted to disappear. But our stuff was at the club, in the Copper Lounge dressing rooms. We needed money, papers, anything to be able to run. So we went back. We didn’t know he’d already marked us.”

She paused, and her lips started to tremble.

“My coworker stayed to grab her things. I went to the bathroom. I locked the door and… I heard the shot. So loud, so close, I thought it was inside the bathroom. I barely peeked out… and I saw him.”

Her eyes filled with tears again.

“He was there. Antony. Standing with the gun smoking in his hand. And her… her body on the floor, blood soaking the damn carpet. He shot her in the dressing room. In the head. There were no screams. No warning. Just… blood. So much blood. I… locked myself in. I slid the bolt and covered my mouth so I wouldn’t scream.”

I wasn’t breathing anymore. I felt like the air was gone.

“He tried to open it. I swear to God, Vanessa, he tried to break it down. He pounded with his fists, kicked, cursed. I don’t know how, I don’t know with what strength, but I managed to open the bathroom window. I barely fit. But I dragged myself through. Tore my shirt. Cut my hands. I jumped into the alley… and ran. I ran until I couldn’t feel my legs.”

Silence thickened between us. Pamela hugged herself, like she was still in that bathroom, waiting to die.

Pamela turned, her eyes lost in a dead spot.

“But it won’t be long… now he’s hunting me!”

She shot to her feet, breathing hard, and moved to the window like a chased shadow. She yanked the curtain shut with shaking hands.

“How do you know he’s looking for you?” I asked.

“Because I know what he’s capable of, I’m still… he knows that I know.”

She didn’t say anything else… but that look…

“Vanessa, I have to get out of this. I have to talk to the Butcher! His boss has to know what Antony’s doing.”

I frowned. How could she say those things so easily?

“You’re joking, right?”

“No!” she screamed, desperate. “We have to tell the boss! He has to stop him before he finds me!”

I pressed a hand to my temple. All of this sounded like a low-budget horror movie. But the dried blood on her blouse wasn’t part of a script. It was real. All of it was real.

“And now what? What are you planning to do?”

“Tell the Butcher,” she said without hesitation. “If I confront him with proof, if I bring him everything—photos, details… maybe he’ll believe me. Maybe he’ll protect us.”

I grabbed my head with both hands, furious.

“Us? The two of us? Why do you always end up dragging me into your shit, Pamela?”

“Because I need you!” she sobbed. “Because you’re the only person I have left.”

I bit my lip. It hurt. Everything hurt.

“And how do you think you’re going to get that proof?”

She leaned toward me.

“Tonight, in the early hours, Antony’s going to deliver a truck with drugs. He said it on the phone. I heard it. If we intercept him first… if we take the truck or at least photograph it… we can hand it to the boss in exchange for protection.”

“Are you crazy?”

“Do you have a better idea?”

And I hated her. Because I didn’t have one. Because I didn’t know if it was more dangerous to run… or to stay.

Pamela stood up. Anger was written all over her body, but so was desperation. The kind of desperation that changes people. That pushes them to the edge.

“Tonight. In front of my house. At one. Don’t leave me alone, Vanessa.”

And she left. Leaving me with a shattered soul… and an impossible decision.

Hours Later...

My phone’s flashlight burns my eyes in the dark. My heart is hammering, leather jacket, jeans, black tee—ponytail cinched too tight, and I’m too wound up to fix it. I feel alien in my own skin, barely believing what I’m about to do, yet I crawl out the window so I won’t wake Grandma and slip outside.

Pamela is waiting at her building. She’s still my cousin, but her face is different—sharper, lips set, and those eyes: cold, holding equal parts fear and resolve. Like she already knows the cost.

“Vanessa,” she says quietly. My body locks. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come.”

I say nothing. She never really left me a choice. We’ve done everything together; she’s always had my back. The comment just grates—she knows I would’ve shown up no matter what.

We head for Aunt Carmen’s car. As we get in, I ask where the meet is.

“In the industrial zone.”

“What’s the plan? What are we actually doing?”

Pamela takes the wheel of her mom’s car. Engine on, she lays it out: “In thirty minutes the truck will be sitting unattended with the keys in it. Antony set it up so the driver won’t realize he’s handing it to a rival crew. That’s when we take it.”

Her crisp certainty chills me. I don’t recognize the way she talks anymore.