35. Amalia
“Max, I managed to fix the timing on the footage, and I think the resolution is good enough for you to start searching for these guys. One of them has a distinctive dagger tattoo on his forearm.”
“Got it. Every one of our soldiers will receive the photo. Can you find out where this shipment came from? I know the paperwork says Veracruz, but I don’t buy it,” he tells me, and in the background, I’m pretty sure he’s assembling some explosives.
My sister’s boyfriend has a thing for blowing things up.
I keep typing, feeding everything we know into my own machine-learning algorithm, and after a few minutes of processing, I have some barcodes.
“Spain. I think Málaga, but I can’t be sure. The barcodes on some of the crates in that shipment seem to be coming from Spain.”
“Awesome. Thank you, Amalia. Now go study for that exam.”
“?Sí, se?or!” Before I end the call, I hear him chuckle, which pulls a smile out of me.
I’m so happy for Julia. For finding love in the worst of nightmares. Someone who I’m sure would wrap himself in darkness just so she can keep the only ray of sunshine.
For Turing’s sake, it’s already eight o’clock. The supermarket closes in thirty minutes.
I pull on a pair of jeans and a white blouse and look in the mirror.
I hate you, I whisper to him in my mind. I fucking hate colors because of you.
I’m lucky Julia hadn’t been around, so my color schemes are something she’s not familiar with, and Lupe, well, she’s dealing with her own shit right now. Her mind has enough on its plate without noticing that I’ve started wearing the most boring colors on this planet.
But every time I try to mix two colors together, I think of his eyes when he admired my blouses or my hair clips, and I feel like crying.
I wonder if he looked for me. If he even cared that I disappeared, or if he felt relief that he didn’t need to justify his lies to my face.
I touch the key he left me, the only thing I can’t seem to leave behind.
Come on, Amalia. Muévete.
I already know what I need, so I move without hesitation toward my favorite aisle.
Hot chocolate with hazelnuts? White hot chocolate? Or salted caramel hot chocolate?
Why so many options?
I’ve been in this aisle for too many minutes now, trying to make up my mind. Tomorrow I have my first exam at MIT, and I need to get through all the seminar notes I still have to review.
None of that is happening without at least two cups of my sweet poison first. My brain processes information better when it’s drowning in sugar and whipped cream.
Officially, Amalia Rosa Jiménez was admitted to MIT one month ago. We decided it was safer not to use our real surname, to avoid drawing attention if anyone connected to Ivan or Aleksandr ever decided to look into Julia’s ties to us.
It was easy to let go of the name Sanchez, which had somehow come to feel attached to so much pain and loss.
“My favorite is the white one,” says a voice that makes me turn. Standing beside me is a woman who is several months pregnant.
“Hmm, isn’t it too sweet? I usually add cinnamon and whipped cream, and I’d want it to still be drinkable,” I tell her, frowning at the box.
“It’s perfect with whipped cream on top,” she answers, and without meaning to, my eyes drift to her basket, filled to the brim.
When we reach the checkout, I pay for my things and glance back at the woman. She’s loading her groceries into four separate bags on her own, so I offer to help carry them.
“You’re too considerate,” she tells me, and I smile at her without thinking.
Considerate Amalia would have gone back to university sooner. Considerate Amalia would have stayed with tío Felipe that day. Considerate Amalia would have had the courage to confront him, for the betrayal he put me through.
Except that considerate Amalia is exhausted, absolutely exhausted, from thinking nonstop. From being unable to switch off all the connections running through her head.
Every moment I didn’t examine closely enough. Alek, who had pressed before about deleting footage. Silas, who never once mentioned his family, while I had probably told him about every branch of my family tree.
And because my mind is scattered in too many directions at once, when I set the bags down in the woman’s car, I don’t hear the footsteps behind me.
I don’t notice the shadow that falls over me.
All I register is a sharp sting at the base of my neck, and the way my eyelids become very, very heavy.