Chapter 11 Digital Courage
Chapter eleven
Digital Courage
Lena
Agreeing to meet him was insane. I said yes anyway.
It's been a week since he first suggested meeting.
A week of me canceling twice—once because Miguel was suspicious, once because I had a full panic attack in the van thinking about Carlos's funeral.
A week of Bad Decision being patient in a way that makes my ovaries conspiratorial.
"Tuesday," I finally texted at 3 AM, like my insomnia was making executive decisions. "For real this time."
Now it's Tuesday afternoon, and I'm hiding in the hospital break room, negotiating the terms of my potential murder via text message. My phone screen shows our conversation, and every message feels like signing my own death certificate with a glitter pen.
Bad Decision: Doc’s Diner Midnight tomorrow.
Different place. Rosita's on Central.
Bad Decision: You don't trust me.
I don't know you. There's a difference.
Bad Decision: Fair. Rosita's then.
My thumbs hover over the keyboard. This is the moment where smart people delete the number, block the contact, maybe seek therapy for their obvious self-destructive tendencies. Instead:
Rules.
Bad Decision: I'm listening.
Public place only. One hour maximum. No touching. No real names.
Bad Decision: All your rules, Angel.
Like rules matter when I'm meeting someone from Iron Talons.
Like any rule could protect me from the catastrophic betrayal I'm about to commit.
My phone screen might as well be a signed confession: "I, Lena Cruz, am hereby choosing spectacular orgasms over fourteen years of my brother's protection. "
Miguel texts three times while I'm staring at the screen. Just checking in. You hungry? Working tonight? Mom's altar candles need replacing. The kind of texts that really mean "I know you're up to something and I'm giving you room to confess."
"Who are you texting that's making you look like you're about to commit fratricide?"
Izzy drops into the chair across from me, stealing my coffee without asking because that's what best friends do.
Isabella Reyes, fellow Weekend Option nurse, walking disaster disguised as competent medical professional.
Her purple-streaked hair is pulled back in a bun that's fighting a losing battle with gravity, and her tattoo sleeves peek out from under her scrubs—colorful chaos that she claims tells her life story but really just makes parents clutch their children closer in the ER.
"The internet stranger," I admit.
"The one whose voice makes you forget your own name?"
"That's the one."
"He's from a motorcycle club, isn't he?" Izzy's not stupid. She's seen my browser history. "The good kind or the kind Miguel would literally dismantle?"
"Does it matter?"
"It matters if I'm gonna be an accessory to your murder or Miguel's."
I stay silent. Sometimes silence is its own confession.
"Jesus, Lena. At least tell me it's not Iron Talons."
My face must do something because her eyes go wide.
"Fuck. Okay. Running shoes and pepper spray. And I'm adding Miguel to speed dial."
"Izzy—"
"No, shut up. You're meeting tomorrow night? Where?"
"Rosita's."
She pulls out her phone, all business now. "I'm tracking your location. You text me every twenty minutes or I'm calling the cops, the fire department, and Miguel. In that order."
"Not Miguel."
"Especially Miguel if you miss even one check-in."
"Izzy, please—"
"Your brother would turn someone into confetti for looking at you wrong, and you're meeting someone from the MC that killed Carlos? The same Carlos whose funeral made Miguel punch a hole through his apartment wall?"
My stomach turns. The memory of that day—Miguel's knuckles bleeding, his voice cracking as he said "They executed him in a fucking strip mall, Lena. Like he was nothing."
"This is different," I whisper.
"Different how? Because this one makes you make sounds Murray from pediatrics is still asking about?"
I drop my head to the table. "That was one time."
"Once was enough. The whole third floor thinks you were having a medical emergency." She squeezes my hand, her rings cold against my skin. "Twenty-minute check-ins. Non-negotiable. And I'm driving you."
"What?"
"Your van's too recognizable. Every tweaker in Phoenix knows that mobile clinic. Plus, if you're gonna get murdered, I'm not letting you drive yourself there like some kind of autonomous victim."
She's right. My decision-making around Bad Decision has been questionable at best, treasonous at worst. Case in point: agreeing to meet someone whose club is responsible for my brother's mentor's death. Someone whose voice makes me forget that consequences exist.
"Fine," I agree.
"And wear something you can run in."
"It's a diner, not a track meet."
"Lena, this man has made you orgasm via voice note alone while you know he's Iron Talons. Your prefrontal cortex is offline. Your amygdala is making decisions. Wear running shoes."
Six hours later, I'm at Sister Margaret's tiny apartment for our monthly dinner tradition, parked three blocks away because I'm paranoid Miguel might drive by and wonder why I'm wearing lipstick to dinner with a nun.
She's the one who convinced the hospital to hire me despite my "complicated family situation" (her words for "brother who wears colors"). Tiny, fierce, seventy-three years old, and still terrifying enough to make grown men cry during confession.
"You're glowing, mija," she says, passing me the salad bowl.
"Just tired, Sister."
"Tired makes people gray. You're glowing like uranium."
Jesus Christ. "Maybe it's the new moisturizer."
"The kind that texts you at midnight?"
How does she—? Never mind. Nuns know things. It's their superpower, along with guilt distribution and making you feel simultaneously loved and judged.
"It's nothing serious," I lie.
"Mija." She reaches across the table, takes my hand.
Her skin is paper-thin, marked with age spots and a lifetime of service.
"Your mother, God rest her soul, loved with her whole heart.
It destroyed her. Your father took that love and twisted it until she couldn't see any way out but through that truck. "
My throat closes. We don't talk about my parents. About how love became possession, became control, became a murder-suicide that left two orphans.
"You have her heart," Sister Margaret continues. "Beautiful, dangerous, too willing to give everything. And now you're glowing for someone who makes you check your phone during grace."
"Sister—"
"I'm not judging. I'm warning. Be careful who you give that heart to. And be even more careful that Miguel doesn't find out until you're sure."
"How do you—"
"Child, I've known you since you were seventeen and thought you could hide grief under eyeliner. You can't hide from me. Or from God. Or from your brother, though he's giving you space to hang yourself with it."
Wednesday morning, 7 AM, and Lisa Santos, our nurse manager, corners me by the med cart. My body's already in fight-or-flight mode—cortisol spiking, heart rate elevated, that copper taste of anxiety flooding my mouth.
"Lena, can we talk?"
"What's up?"
"I know you've been using the van for extra shifts at other hospitals. The Ghost Clinic work you do—it's admirable. Really."
Oh. This isn't about Bad Decision. This is about my other bad decisions.
"But?"
"But people are starting to notice. Administration is asking questions about nurses who might be, let's say, blurring professional boundaries. Especially nurses whose brothers have... affiliations."
The word hangs between us like a diagnosis no one wants to say out loud. Miguel. Always comes back to Miguel and the Coyote Fangs.
"My brother has nothing to do with the clinic."
"I know that. You know that. But perception is everything. Just... be discrete. About all your after-hours activities."
She walks away, leaving me with my med cart and the realization that everyone's watching, everyone knows, everyone's waiting for me to fuck up.
My phone buzzes.
Bad Decision: Can't stop thinking about tomorrow, Angel.
Having twentieth thoughts.
Bad Decision: Only twentieth? I'm having hundredth thoughts.
Then why aren't we canceling?
Bad Decision: Because my hundredth thought is still yes.
My stomach flips, that nauseating combination of arousal and terror that's become my baseline since I started this whatever-this-is with him.
Bad Decision: Midnight tomorrow. Wear red so I know it's you.
Why red?
Bad Decision: Because I asked. Because you'll look beautiful. Because I want to see you in the color of blood and bad decisions.
I type and delete twelve responses before settling on:
Fine. Red. One hour. No touching.
Bad Decision: Your rules, Angel. Every one of them.
Bad Decision: Until you change them.
That last line sits there like a lit match next to gasoline. Until I change them. Not if. Until.
Like he knows that every text I send is already a betrayal, that every rule I make is just another thing I'm going to break. Like he knows I'm already lost.
Izzy texts: Remember. Running shoes. And that pepper spray I gave you. And maybe a rosary because you're gonna need divine intervention when Miguel finds out.
Miguel texts: Family dinner Sunday. Don't be late.
I stare at his message, guilt flooding my system like contrast dye—highlighting every terrible decision, every betrayal, every lie I'm about to tell.
Tomorrow at midnight, I'm meeting a man from Iron Talons. A man whose brothers killed Carlos. A man my brother would murder without hesitation.
I'm wearing red.
And running shoes.
And the weight of knowing I'm about to destroy everything Miguel built to protect me, one terrible decision at a time.