Chapter 26
TWENTY-SIX
Lo
From the moment Lo fell into El Espejo’s trap, the thick darkness inside her lifted, leaving behind a sobering clarity. She knew Mayté. Maybe even better than she knew herself. And she saw it all over her face. Mayté didn’t want to choose her …
And you know why, the tiniest of voices rasped in her ear.
The reflection in her glass prison shifted into images of Mayté. Mayté screaming. Mayté sobbing. Her face red with scarlet humiliation as she answered Lo’s question during El Cotorro. Mayté hunched over Alejandro’s dead body. Mayté devastated when she wasn’t allowed to choose Alejandro to save.
Lo’s stomach ached. She reached out toward the mirror again, hands shaky and desperate. “Mayté …”
Just outside the glass, Mayté placed her hand on top of Lo’s. “La Sirena was right. My heart is broken. You broke it, Lorena.”
Lo’s own heart shattered into millions of pieces. “That wasn’t … what I wanted.”
Mayté pounded the glass. The thud reverberated through Lo’s chest. “You should have trusted me! I would have saved us all!” She sobbed, pounding again.
Lo’s eyes stung. “No,” she croaked. “The house considered Alejandro’s help cheating. It would have killed you both if you had gone through with it. But Alejandro’s death was enough to appease the house. That’s why I did it.”
Mayté’s face twisted, sending more tears down her cheeks. “How can I even trust your word? You kept secrets from me. You lied. Lied about just needing to make it to the final round to win.”
“I didn’t want you to lose hope. And the other lies were because I was scared. I didn’t want to lose you. So I hid things. About my father, about myself. And you—never wanted to see them.”
Mayté inched closer to the glass.
“I know you can’t forgive me,” Lo said. “And I understand if you won’t, but please believe me when I say that I will always choose you over anyone else. Even if it makes you hate me, and even if you wouldn’t do the same.”
Mayté stared, suspicion and confusion competing in her expression.
Lo’s voice broke and she wiped at her eyes before the tears could come. “You are the only one I love.” She meant every single word. “I wish things hadn’t happened this way. But I don’t regret saving you. I never will. And it’s okay if you don’t pick me … I d-don’t deserve it …”
Mayté’s lips quivered. She cried out, a horrible, guttural sound Lo had never heard before. It was full of pain. Then silence. Silence for several agonizing moments.
“Let her go,” Mayté told El Angelito, her voice soft.
“What?” Lo couldn’t hold back her sob. “Mayté—”
“I choose Lo.”
But nothing happened.
“I said I choose Lo.” Mayté turned toward Loretta, who simply smiled.
The Banker looked away.
“Then go free her,” Misterioso taunted.
“But I—”
“I never said that El Angelito would do the rescuing, no, no,” Misterioso mocked. “El Angelito gives you the choice of who to save. You have made your choice, now go save her.”
Mayté turned to the mirror once again, with furrowed eyebrows.
Lo wiped her face. Something felt wrong. “Mayté, wait. You don’t have to do this.”
But Mayté ignored her and reached her hand through the glass.
All around her, the glass revealed her own reflection, reaching out to Mayté with a relieved smile. But Lo’s own arms dangled weakly at her sides. “Mayté! No!”
Lo’s reflection snatched Mayté’s hand and yanked her through the mirror.