I wanted to feel something—anything—that was strong enough to eclipse the hurt I’d been nursing like a bad drink.

Rosalita falls to her knees beside me. “Are you okay?”

Something odd and uncomfortable scratches at my throat.

I slam my jaw shut to hold it back but it fights to be free.

A laugh, dark and bitter and broken, tumbles from my lips.

It’s better than crying, but not by much.

“I’m great, thanks.”

All of a sudden, a whirlwind enters the room in the shape of a woman. Doña Esmeralda is tripping over herself with apologies to her clientele, promising them all sorts of bullshit to smooth their ruffled feathers.

When her feet come level with my head, the thought that she might kick me flitters through my mind. Wouldn’t be the first time.

“Get her out of here,” Esmeralda hisses. The burly guard bends down to grab my arm and haul me up, but Rosalita stills him with a hand on his arm.

“Please.”

I don’t know who she’s speaking to. The guard or Esmeralda. But whoever it is listens. My arm is released, flopping to the ground like a dead fish.

“Come on, up you get.” Rosalita’s hands slide beneath my shoulders.

I am more of a hindrance than a help as she struggles to get me to my feet. She’s stronger than she looks.

I don’t know how she gets me upstairs, but somehow she does. Maybe the guard helps. All I know is that the combination of too much wine and too many blows to the head is starting to hit me very, very hard. My limbs refuse to work and my brain is a fogged mess. I think I actually faint upright more than once on the way to Rosalita’s bedroom.

She lays me down in her bed—her real one, not the one in which she entertains—and putters about, gathering supplies for God knows what.

The room is spinning, so I close my eyes. That only makes it worse. I open them and settle my gaze to a fixed point on the wall. A small painting of the Virgin Mary stares down at me, as if in judgment.

“Oh, fuck off,” I mumble.

“What was that?” Rosalita asks, her voice muffled like she’s got her face in a cupboard.

I just cursed out the mother of God. I swallow past the foul taste of cheap liquor and my own blood. “Nothing.”

I flinch when she presses a wet cloth to my face. Rosalita is gentle as she cleans my wounds. A part of me relishes the pain, knows I deserve that and so much more.