Rovira had left the awl on the bed. Alicia reckoned that if she could distract him for a second she might perhaps be able to grab it with her left hand, which was free, and thrust in into his neck or his eyes.

“Don’t hurt me,” she pleaded. “I’ll do whatever you want . . .”

Rovira laughed. “My dear, what I want is precisely to hurt you. To hurt you a lot. I’ve earned it . . .”

Then he held her by her hair against the bed and licked her lips and her face. Alicia closed her eyes, groping around the blanket in search of the awl. Rovira’s hands ran down her torso and stopped at the old wound on her side. She had touched the awl’s handle when Rovira whispered in her ear: “Open your eyes, you whore. I want to see your face properly when you feel it.”

She opened her eyes, knowing what was coming and praying that she might lose consciousness before the first blow. Rovira straightened up, raised his arm, and banged his fist down on her wound with all his might. Alicia let out a deafening howl. Rovira, the room, the light, the cold she felt in her body—everything was forgotten. All that existed was the pain flashing through her bones like an electric current, making her forget who she was and where she was.

Rovira laughed to see her body tighten like a cable and her eyes roll back. He lifted her skirt far enough to reveal the scar that covered her hip like a black spiderweb, exploring her skin with the tips of his fingers. He leaned over to kiss her wound and then struck her again and again until he’d damaged his fist against her hip bones. Finally, when no more sound came out of Alicia’s throat, he stopped. Sinking into a well of agony and darkness, she’d gone into convulsions. Rovira recovered the awl and used its point to run over the web of dark capillaries visible under the pale skin of Alicia’s hip.

“Look at me,” he ordered. “I’m your substitute. I’ll be much better than you. From now on, I’ll be the favorite.”

Alicia looked at him defiantly.

Rovira winked at her. “That’s my Alicia,” he said.

He died smiling.

He didn’t get to see that Alicia was reaching for the revolver she’d kept in the left-hand pocket of her jacket. When he started to poke around in her wound with the awl, she had already placed the barrel under his chin.

“Clever girl,” he whispered.

A moment later, Rovira’s face was pulverized into a cloud of bone and blood. The second shot, at point-blank range, knocked him backward. The naked body fell onto its back at the foot of the old bed, a smoking hole in its chest, the hand still gripping the awl.

Alicia dropped the weapon and struggled until she freed her right hand from the bedstead. Adrenaline had spread a veil over the pain, but she knew it would be short-lived. Sooner or later, when it returned, she would pass out. She had to get out of that place as quickly as possible.