Chapter Text
When I got up at noon, I didn't know that I would die today.
I couldn't see the sun, but it was still oppressively hot and my tattered shirt clung to my sweat-soaked body like a second skin. But maybe it wasn't sweat, it was blood.
It took all my willpower to sort through my thoughts and resist the urge to lose consciousness.
Not only could I not see the sun, I couldn't see anything at all. Panic spread through my chest and I forced myself to breathe slowly.
No, I could see something. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and when my body was thrown jerkily against something hard, the pain in my shoulder, which I had been able to tolerate until then, exploded suddenly.
The hum of an engine and the roar of an exhaust pipe made the penny drop in my head.
Those sons of bitches had put me in a boot!
My stomach felt like someone was crushing it with their fist when I realised this.
The last time I had locked someone in a boot, it hadn't ended well for them.
They were probably driving me out of town so they could hide my body more easily. A few miles outside the city, there was nothing but jungle and rivers. More than enough space to chop a boy from a rival gang into little pieces and bury him under the roots of a tree, or if they were lazy, just throw him in one piece into the green waters of a river.
I gritted my teeth and breathed calmly again. Then I searched for the anger inside me. My old companion, who had driven me forward so many times when fear had paralysed me.
What were these wankers thinking?
That they had taken out Ricardo Prados with just a bullet in his shoulder?
And that I would simply accept my death sentence without resistance?
The wimps from Los Guerreros de la Calle had picked the wrong guy.
They would have been better off shooting me straight away.
Hadn't they been taught that?
And there it was again, my anger. It mingled with the pain that radiated in pulsating waves from my shoulder and spread throughout my entire body. I moved my hands, which were not tied, and although the movements of my right hand in particular sent waves of pain through my body, it was fully functional. I began to feel around in the boot, but all I could find were plastic bags and empty plastic bottles.
When the driver of the car took another sharp turn, I had to suppress a painful curse.
They thought I was dead, and that's how it should stay.
I concentrated on the muffled voices, but they were difficult to make out through the parcel shelf.
The car slowed down until it finally stopped. Nothing happened for a while, and I fumbled with my fingers for the release to open the boot door.
And then, quietly and muffled, but slowly getting louder, came the sound of screeching rails.
Were we at a level crossing?
This was my chance. With all the noise from the passing train, those GDC idiots wouldn't hear me opening the boot.
My fingers fumbled feverishly on the inside of the boot door as the screeching of the rails and the mechanical puffing of the train grew louder and louder.
Fuck, a flashlight would be really useful right now.
Suddenly, I had done it and spotted a dim beam of light through the narrow gap in the open door. It was dark outside, but at least a little brighter than in the boot. I didn't hesitate for a moment. I wouldn't get a second chance like this.
And I really didn't intend to be eaten by a jaguar or some other scavenger. Not today.
Gritting my teeth, I opened the boot door wider, slipped out of the car and closed the door as quietly as possible so that it wasn't completely shut.
My vision went black and it took all my willpower to stay on my feet.
Concentrate, Rico.
You can rest later.
My gaze darted from left to right. Dark jungle as far as the eye could see. In front of me, the car and the train tracks. Behind me, the road.
I took courage and disappeared into the pitch-black thicket on the side of the road with a few quick steps.
As soon as I had disappeared into the darkness of the forest, I breathed a sigh of relief and felt my right shoulder with my left hand. What remained was the sticky feeling of pain that almost cost me my consciousness again.
But at that moment, I heard the train moving away and the barrier at the level crossing ringing loudly.
The red tail lights of the car disappeared on the other side of the tracks.
They hadn't noticed my escape.
Not yet, anyway.
Time to get out of here.
I had no idea where I was.
But somehow I would find my way back to headquarters.
First, I had to find a doctor. Shit, a vet or a nurse. Anyone who could take care of my wound.
Then I could see what else to do.
I ran along the road, protected by the darkness, for what felt like an eternity before I saw a yellow light flickering in the distance.
Where the hell had I ended up? I must have been miles away from the city.
I laboriously dragged myself towards the light in the distance, feeling my feet getting heavier with every step and my strength leaving my body along with the blood.
And despite the tropical heat, I slowly began to feel cold and my body started to shake convulsively, which only made the pain in my shoulder worse.
As I got closer, I recognised a small house, flat as a toad nestled against the earth, with a corrugated iron garage and a fence that was obviously there to keep game out of the garden and not to prevent people from entering the property.
I opened the front gate without any problems and ran towards the house. There was a light on in one of the rooms and I ran towards it as if I were a moth.
What if there were several people there?
What if they were armed?
I stumbled and needed a moment to find the strength to get back up.
Shit, I had no choice. Either they would help me or I would bleed to death miserably.
My fingers clung to the window sill and I stole a glance into the brightly lit room. Hot steam rose from a saucepan on the stove, a newspaper lay on the dining table, and a half-full glass stood nearby.
And then a man entered the room.
Without paying any attention to the window, he walked over to the stove, stirred the pot with a wooden spoon, tasted its contents and then added some seasoning. He looked a little older than me, maybe in his early thirties and about my height. His body was soft and supple, without appearing heavy or particularly strong. His movements were relaxed and calm, but there was an unobtrusive tension in his whole posture, as if he could spring away at any moment. Like an animal basking in front of its den. Seemingly sluggish, but never inattentive. I quickly decided that I would have a chance against him if it came to a fight. At least I would if I were uninjured. I pushed the thought aside.
His skin was a rich brown tone like that of the indigenous people in this area, streaked with a golden shimmer in the light of the kitchen lamp – warm, as if glowing from within. Black curls fell across his forehead, half tamed, half wild. They glistened with moisture, as if he had just washed his hair or walked through a light rain. I couldn't look away. There was something dark on his neck that wasn't the same colour as his curls.
A tattoo?
Then he turned slightly to the side, and for a moment the light fell directly on his face. Steel-grey eyes – much lighter than I had expected. They looked almost silver, like rain collecting in silvery drops on banana leaves before flowing in small rivulets to the ground.
His face was softly drawn, with high cheekbones, a straight nose, full lips – but there was something deeper that was difficult to put into words. Not a classic beauty. But something that slowly nestles in you. A kind of grace that does not impose itself, but burns itself into your memory. A quiet power.
When he leaned forward slightly, I saw a dark line flit across the skin of his collarbone under the collar of his shirt, another tattoo, so fine and intricate that my gaze automatically lingered on it. A crescent moon. Stars. I didn't recognise the pattern completely, but it seemed intimate. Like something not meant for my eyes.
He began to set the table. A plate, a spoon, a glass.
My jaws ground.
Of course, there was a chance that someone else was in the house, but I had to try anyway.
I bent down and picked up a stone from the floor, groaning in pain. With an awkward movement of my left hand, I threw the window in and swept some shards aside with my elbow, cutting myself.
With a final burst of strength, I pulled my increasingly heavy body over the low window sill and stood unsteadily in the brightly lit kitchen.
As expected, the stranger was taken aback by my sudden appearance.
Before he could gather his thoughts, I pushed myself between him and the knife block on the worktop and pulled out a knife.
‘Take me to a doctor,’ I hissed, clutching the handle of the kitchen knife with my ice-cold fingers.
‘Then nothing will happen to you.’
The eyes of the person opposite me were wide with fear. The steel-grey eyes looked at me in terror, like those of a deer caught in the headlights of a car. He took a step back and bumped into the kitchen table. He raised his hands defensively and glanced towards the door for a moment. It was only a fraction of a second, but I reacted faster than he did.
With a quick step, I stood in the doorway, blocking his escape.
‘I don't want to fight with you. I really don't want any trouble,’ he said, panic in his voice, and I braced myself against the doorframe with my good shoulder.
‘Listen. I won't cause you any trouble if you do what I say. Take me to a doctor, and I'll be out of your life.’
At that moment, the shrill cry of a baby sounded behind me.
I caught the stranger's gaze and saw his expression freeze.
‘Get your car keys and take me to a hospital. Or I'll pay your baby a visit,’ I growled, shifting my weight to my other leg. By now, I had lost all feeling in my right arm.
The man's face twitched at my words and I inhaled sharply through my nose.
His scent... it was so faint that I hadn't noticed it at first, but now...
Was he ...?
Before I even knew what had happened, the stranger had snatched the knife from my hand and struck me a blow that finally transported me into the unconsciousness that my pain-racked body had been demanding of me for so long.
A darkness without feelings, without pain and without time surrounded me.
I slipped out of sleep into several waking dreams and fell back into unconsciousness so many times that I couldn't count them. Numbness and pain alternated, and the faces of the people who had accompanied me in my life appeared before my inner eye. Calida and Flavio looked at me with reproachful glances.
‘Why did you leave us alone?’ they seemed to ask. ‘We followed your call and now you have abandoned us.’
Their faces disappeared again, but my guilt remained.
I pushed other faces out of my mind more quickly, not wanting to see them at all, but the voices still reached my ears.
'I'm sorry, Toro. But it's better this way for you. Believe me. When your father gets out of prison, we'll make a fresh start. I promise you.'
Lies.
All lies.
My old anger boiled up and I suddenly became aware of my surroundings. I was lying softly and warmly in a place that smelled of the smoky Palo Santo of my childhood. After a short time, I won the battle with my tired body and managed to open my eyes.
It took a while for my vision to clear. I was lying in a small room, so my gaze was directed at a brown wooden door. It was relatively dark in the room, only a bedside lamp next to me gave off a warm, yellow light. I instinctively tried to sit up, but my wrists were abruptly restrained, preventing me from moving. The pain caused by this movement made white dots dance before my eyes.
Cursing, I sank back into my soft pillow and held still until the wave of pain subsided.
More carefully than before, I moved my wrists and realised that they were tied to the bed with cable ties.
What the hell ...?
My gaze wandered around the room again and lingered on the bedside table next to my bed. Next to the lamp was a light blue device with a lens pointed at me.
Was that a baby monitor?
My suspicion that I was not in a hospital grew stronger, and when the door opened and the stranger I had surprised in his kitchen entered, I saw it confirmed.
‘You're awake,’ he said, and my gaze darkened as he pulled an office chair up to the bed and sat down next to me.
Instinctively, I recoiled from him, but got caught on my handcuffs again and let out a painful hiss.
‘I wouldn't do that if I were you,’ he said in a surprisingly soft voice, folding his arms across his chest.
He was wearing a simple black T-shirt that lay softly over his chest and stomach, and grey jogging bottoms, loose but not sloppy. His posture was relaxed, almost indulgent – but his body spoke its own language. Not muscular in the classic sense, but balanced. Supple. Someone who didn't flaunt his body, but knew how to control it at all times.
Under the warm light of the bedside lamp, his skin took on a golden tone, soft as polished amber. His silky black curls shone bluish in the light, individual strands had come loose from the slipped hairband and framed his face – almost too elegant for this situation.
When he leaned forward, the light fell on his face and I saw dark shadows under his eyes. Dark circles, yes – but they did not detract from his charisma. On the contrary. They made him seem more genuine. More approachable.
I felt my throat go dry as he leaned towards me.
‘Don't touch me,’ I barked, and all I got was a long look from him that I couldn't interpret.
‘Why didn't you take me to a doctor like I told you to?’ I asked him angrily, shifting restlessly in bed, as far away from him as possible.
My blanket slipped, exposing my bandaged right shoulder and my naked upper body. With a rumbling in my stomach, I realised that I wasn't wearing any other clothes either.
‘I am your doctor,’ he replied calmly, leaning back in his chair to observe me. His grey eyes were searching me, and I felt like an insect in a test tube being inspected by a researcher.
‘You?’ I asked incredulously, sniffing deeply.
I had remembered correctly. This stranger was an omega. His scent wasn't strong, so he was taking hormone blockers like most omegas. And yet the alpha in me perceived my counterpart as such. I lifted my chin and continued to sniff. The stranger clearly still had the scent of an infant on him, probably the child I had heard crying. Also an omega.
I had walked right into an omega den.
‘If you're a doctor, I'm the bloody president,’ I snapped, tugging at my restraints, which sent another wave of pain through my shoulder.
‘Let me go, you little bitch, or you'll regret it.’
He gave me another long look.
‘I've been thinking long and hard about which group you belong to,’ he finally said, ignoring my demand.
‘I don't think you're a soldier in civilian clothes who was shot during a mission. You're far too impulsive and uncontrolled for that.’
I opened my mouth, but he didn't let me speak.
‘You can't belong to the Protectores del Orden. Wrong skin colour.’
As he spoke, an ironic smile flashed across his face, revealing two rows of pearly white teeth for a moment.
‘That leaves three groups I can imagine a boy breaking into my house with a gunshot wound.’
I remained silent and gave him a dirty look.
‘What tribe are you from, brother?’ he asked me in a soft voice, and I saw his hard expression soften slightly. He had switched to Akarimaá-Noréa, the dialect spoken by the indigenous people in this area. I only spoke Xinan fluently, but I understood the simple words in his question.
I pressed my lips together and stared at him. My tribe played no role in my life. What business was it of his? We weren't friends just because we both had the rotten luck of having parents who were bloody jungle rats.
When he realised he wasn't going to get an answer to his question, he shifted his weight on the chair and placed a water bottle on the bedside table next to me.
Suddenly, my throat felt parched and I stared thirstily at the water bottle.
‘My tribe is the Pajaos,’ he continued in a conversational tone in Xinan, because he had probably seen from my reaction that he would get further in that language.
Pajaos?
Then I must be further away from Karathi than I had thought. The Pajaos' territories around the city of Karathi had been confiscated by the government years ago and given to forestry companies and farmers' associations.
‘The way you're behaving, I honestly don't think you got into this mess as a complete innocent bystander.’
Mess? What kind of language was this Omega using?
‘So which group is it? Are you part of the Ejército del Pueblo? The tattoos on your body make me think you're in a gang.’
I snorted. As if I belonged to those pompous, dreamy guerrillas who often caused trouble for my gang when they disputed our border areas. And all in the name of the people. At least my gang didn't pretend we wanted to save the world.
We fought for ourselves and our own kind, and anyone who got left behind was just out of luck. But we didn't make empty promises either.
The corner of Omega's mouth twitched. ‘So you're in a gang. Los Guerreros de la Calle?’
I suppressed my instinctive reaction to put my hands around his throat and squeeze, only because my hands were tied.
Those bloody bastards had put a bullet in my shoulder and planned to dump me outside the city where the police and army wouldn't find me. And even though I would have done the same thing if things had turned out differently that day, my resentment towards the street fighters was far from gone.
He looked at me again, as if waiting for a reaction.
‘You look far too young to already be in the clutches of a gang,’ he muttered, more to himself than to me. ‘How old are you? Eighteen, nineteen? Shouldn't you be going to school instead of getting shot by some gangsters and breaking into my house at night? You're almost still a child.’
‘I'm twenty-three,’ I spat angrily, and something changed in the omega's expression when he finally got a reaction from me.
‘And I'm not the youngest who—’ I interrupted myself and bit my tongue.
He nodded slowly and his expression became even more serious.
‘You were very lucky, kid,’ he said after a while, looking thoughtfully at the water bottle on the bedside table. ‘If you hadn't run into me, you probably would have bled to death. You might have had half an hour left, if that.’
He got up, rummaged through the bedside table drawer, took out bandages and scissors, and leaned over me.
My body tensed automatically and I bared my teeth.
‘I don't need help from someone like you,’ I hissed, staring up at him with wide eyes.
‘Omegas are good for two things, everyone knows that. For fucking and having babies. That's all you can do. You'll never be a doctor.’
My words seemed to bounce off him completely as he pushed the blanket aside and looked at my bandaged shoulder.
‘I was the only thing standing between you and death when you were bleeding like a pig at the slaughterhouse in my kitchen,’ he said quietly, removing the medical tape and bandages from my shoulder. One look at my wound triggered an unexpected wave of dizziness.
‘Look up at the ceiling,’ he instructed me, and I followed his instructions. But only because I didn't know how else to get through the treatment without losing consciousness. Not because he said so.
I gritted my teeth and tried as hard as I could to ignore what the Omega was doing to my wound. His hands were warm and seemed to work with practised ease.
‘How long have I been here?’
‘Three nights,’ he replied, and I felt an unpleasant tugging sensation in my shoulder. ‘You don't seem to remember your waking phases, huh? Don't look,’ he warned me just in time, and I hastily turned my gaze back to the ceiling.
‘My people will be looking for me,’ I said.
‘They'll follow my tracks and find your house. Believe me, when they find an omega like you, it's like winning the lottery for them. You may look a bit old for an omega, but you can still carry two or three children.’
Our eyes met, but he continued working calmly.
My frustration grew.
‘I mean, the way you are now, you're a complete waste. Where's your Alpha? Why haven't you been sold? Why aren't you marked? With an empty womb, you're fucking useless.’
The Omega still didn't answer me, but cut the fresh bandage to size and gave me a searching look.
‘And you think that's a waste?’
The omega's voice remained calm, but I didn't trust that composure.
"I guess you haven't met many free omegas in your life, huh? You probably don't know any different because no one has shown you, but I don't need an alpha in my life. I am free and don't have to satisfy the needs of an alpha or beta, but can do whatever I want. I guess I'm freer than you've ever been, even though you're an Alpha."
I was silent for a moment, digesting his words.
"What do you mean, you don't need an Alpha? You couldn't have made that brat on your own. I don't buy this equality and freedom bullshit. Where's your alpha? I want to talk to the man of the house."
The omega stopped working and looked at me intently.
‘I am the man of this house.’
My mind had lost its filter.
‘Bullshit. Omegas don't live alone. That would be far too dangerous.’
When he didn't reply, my frustration grew even greater.
‘When my people get me out of here, we'll sell your baby first and then you to the highest bidder. Do you have any idea how much money I could get for you, even though you're so old? At least fifteen thousand solari. And your baby too. An omega as well, right?’
The sharp pain that followed these words silenced me and made me gasp for air.
My gaze followed the pain and I saw that the omega had dug his thumb into the gunshot wound.
‘Not another word about my child.’ He spoke softly, but he didn't need to raise his voice to get my full attention.
I nodded vigorously and he removed his thumb from my wound.
Tears welled up in my eyes and I tried to ease the pain with calm breaths.
‘You're a bloody awful doctor,’ I managed to say after a few breaths, feeling the tears begin to dry in the corners of my eyes.
He shrugged and concentrated on dabbing away the blood that his bloody action had caused.
‘I'm the best you've got right now, kid. And let's be honest. We both know that no one is coming to look for you. Not here.’
As much as I didn't like it, I unfortunately believed he was right. Flavio and Calida had escaped when we ran into a GDC patrol and had surely told the Capitán that I had been shot. But what if they, like our enemies, had assumed that this hit had already put an early end to me?
And they certainly wouldn't expect to find me here, in a shabby house somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
The Omega collected the old bandages and bloody compresses and disposed of them in a small rubbish bin next to my bed.
Then he took the water bottle from the bedside table and opened it with a hiss. Immediately, the carbon dioxide in the bottle bubbled up and the tiny bubbles shimmered in the light of the lamp.
‘I can call you “kid” every time,’ he said, and I grimaced involuntarily. ‘Or “boy”. But I'd prefer your name.’
I pressed my lips together. What good would that do? What did this weird omega want from me anyway?
He put one hand on his chest and held the water bottle so close that I could have taken it – if my hands hadn't been tied to the bed.
‘My name is Wayuu,’ he added, and I snorted.
Wayuu. I searched my memory for the meaning of his name. Heart, something to do with heart... Open heart?
And then I swallowed. My throat hurt. I desperately needed something to drink.
I clenched my jaw.
‘Rico.’
His expression brightened.
‘What was that?’
‘My name is Rico. Are you finally going to give me something to drink, or is your plan to let me die of thirst here just so you pathetic omega has someone to talk to?’
A smile appeared on his face and I became even more sceptical.
‘See, it's not that hard,’ he praised me, stuck a straw in the bottle and held it to my mouth.
I wanted to protest and take the bottle myself, but suddenly I felt terribly tired and drank from the straw while Wayuu patiently held the bottle until I had finished.
Exhausted, I sank back into my pillow.
‘What do you want from me?’ I asked Wayuu quietly. ‘Why are you keeping me here?’
Wayuu tilted his head and his eyes sparkled in the light of the bedside lamp.
‘Why didn't you let me die?’
He opened his mouth as the cry of an infant sounded from one of the other rooms in the house.
He turned his head in the direction of the sound, stood up and rummaged through the bedside table drawer, where he pulled out a small glass bottle and a syringe wrapped in crackling plastic.
‘Whoa, whoa. What are you doing? What's going on?’
Like an animal, I began to struggle against my bonds as Wayuu impassively filled the syringe with a clear liquid and glanced at me, while the baby was now crying even more angrily.
‘Sleep well, Rico,’ he murmured, injecting me with the liquid after disinfecting my skin with a cold swab.
For a few heartbeats, I was able to keep my eyes open and saw the omega turn off the light and leave the room.
And then I lost consciousness.