Trouble

“Hola, Sol,” Alejo greeted as I walked into the main lobby of the building I hadn’t visited in a long time. Once again, I’d been beckoned by Cristobal, and my stomach turned slightly at the possibilities he could suggest. Or maybe it was just the possibility that Cristobal found about Liam.

“Hola,” I replied smoothly. “¿Cómo estás?”

“Eh, estoy bien, más o menos. How’s your boy toy?”

I narrowed my eyes to glare at him, my mouth turned down in a scowl. “He’s not my boy toy. And I haven’t spoken to him since…you know.”

“Are you fuckin’ with me?” Alejo rolled his eyes in irritation. “Ugh. Go in and see Cristobal. Get out of my face.”

I obliged quickly, disappearing into the back room and shutting the door behind me. Cristobal looked just as pristine as usual, his facial hair trimmed perfectly, his light blue shirt crisp and clean with defined creases from careful ironing.

“Por favor, siéntate.”

He didn’t have the usual fake-cordial tone, which immediately put me on edge. But either way, I followed his directions, sitting up straight with what I hoped wasn’t my last bit of honor.

“Soledad,” he started slowly, folding his hands on the desk in front of him, boring into her soul with his dark, serious eyes, “I have to say, you’re doing extremely well.”

“What?” I breathed, completely taken aback. I had been expecting a scolding, one that surely wouldn’t end well, but he was just congratulating me?

“You’re making far more money at your place on the pier than any of the other useless pendejos around the city. So I have a proposition for you.”

My ears perked up, interested immediately, but I made a point to keep my cool, sitting back in my chair and crossing my arms over my chest. “And that would be?”

“Would you want another location? It would mean working four days a week instead of two, and you’d get more income, more customers, and a better rep. What do you think?”

I fought to keep my excitement under control, pretending I didn’t hear my pulse in my ears. More income meant that I could help out mamá with the bills more, that I could buy the girls some clothes so their style looked more updated, that maybe we could get a television back. Maybe I was getting ahead of myself, but how could I help it?

“That sounds perfect,” I agreed coolly. “Where would I be stationed?” Inside my mind, I was hoping for the place beside the movie theater or the secret place behind the car dealership on the other side of the city, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up. Those places were reserved for the experts, the ones that had been arrested a few times and knew how to outsmart the system. I was nowhere near that place.

“My thought, actually, would be that you could take over the concert alley permanently. And you know how profitable that one is when the artists play there.”

He was right. It was the dream position. Yet it hadn’t even crossed my mind because I never wanted to end up there again after what had happened the last time.

But his statement was not a suggestion, and I nodded. “That would be perfect. When should I start?”

“Tonight,” he insisted. “Fridays and Saturdays are the best days for the venue.”

“Claro.”



Business was booming that night. Some rap group I had never knew existed was playing the concert hall, and people were more desperate than usual to feel sky high. Some of them already had bloodshot, dilated eyes, and I wondered why in the world they’d risk an OD just to heighten the experience of listening to music.

But once the show started, I began to understand more. The group was absolutely dreadful, and I knew there would be no way I could sit through something like that without having my senses muddled.

“Soledad,” a familiar voice beckoned out to me.

I looked up to find Maya again, her face a little more sunken than the last time I’d seen her. She was still a knockout, though. “Hey.”

“Are you here permanently now?” she questioned slowly, her eyes narrowed in suspicion as she approached me.

I nodded. “Got promoted,” I explained. “You want your crack?”

She looked up at me, letting the tiny sparkle in her eye dictate what she needed. Without another word, we made the exchange, and I tucked the money into my pocket. “Have a nice night,” I told her as she walked back down the alley.

I got no answer in response, and I shook my head slowly. The poor girl was slipping. I’d seen it a thousand times before, and I knew I’d see it a thousand times more before I became an OG who no longer had to work the streets.

“Hey!” someone called from top of the alley.

I looked up and raised my eyebrows cordially at the unfamiliar man rushing toward me. As a lot of drug addicts around, he had sunken-in cheeks and a bit of a wild look about him. His dark eyes shifted back and forth as he asked his next statement. “Are you selling?”

“What do you need?”

But instead of listing a drug, he leaned back, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a little gun. I didn’t know the make, but I knew that if he had hollow tip bullets, he could blow me away in a second. “I need your money,” he borderline yelled, his hand shaking like mad from the fear of what he was about to do. “NOW.”

I swallowed back my fear and took notice of his hand, shivering like he had Parkinson’s Disease. There was no way this man wanted to do what he was about to, but it was clear that he was so desperate that he’d be willing to do anything to get some money. To get his fix.

Why he didn’t just steal my drugs, I had no idea.

Adrenaline pumped through my ears as I took a deep breath. “Man, you’re going to regret this. Just put the gun down.”

“Will you give me the money if I do?” he demanded, pulling down the hammer in the back to prepare himself to shoot me.

Instinctively, I put my hands up, the universal sign of surrender. There was no way I was going to pull out my gun unless I absolutely had to. It would only give him more incentive to put a bullet through my brain.

He took my silence as an answer in the negative, and he shifted the gun around in his hand, getting ready to shoot. The shifty look that had been in his eyes earlier had evolved to insanity, and I knew that he was going to go through with it. He was going to kill me.

The visions of my life flashed through my eyes, my subconscious pulling forward special events: taking care of Marisol and Claudia, Marisol treating me like her mother, the times Esperanza and I had when we were little kids, and the conversation that had taken place the week before, bringing us together as a family.

I jumped into action, letting my gut feelings take over, tossing my reason to the side. I closed the distance between us in a second, my hand closing around the barrel of the gun, ripping with all my force.

A shot rang through the alley, but it didn’t connect with anything. I let out a short sigh of relief, but I didn’t take too long to relish in my luck.

After a short power struggle that consisted of my knuckles connecting with various parts of his face, torso, and arms, I brought my knee up into the guy’s groin, and he immediately released his grip. Gasping and holding himself, he collapsed to the ground. Once his head hit the pavement, he started to cry pathetic-sounding sobs. “Just shoot me,” he begged, looking up at me with tear-stains all over his cheeks. “Please.”

“You’re not worth it,” I informed him hostilely. “Now get out of here, you disgusting sack of shit. You’re not getting the fucking gun back.”

He stared up at me for a while longer before groaning and getting to his feet, hobbling out of the alley at an extraordinarily slow pace.

I looked down at the piece in my hand and sighed. I had no idea what I was going to do with the shitty thing, so I just dropped it in the dumpster to my left.

A yawn ripped open my mouth, and I reached up to cover my mouth, although no one else was present. My adrenaline was starting to wane, and I wondered how the hell I was able to get through that unscathed.

And then I reached over to scratch my upper arm, a place right in the middle where the itch refused to subside. When I pulled my hand away, my fingers were covered in blood.