I sink to my knees in the dirt. Tears fill my eyes, blurring the clearing around me.
It’s not Ryan. It can’t be. We heard seventeen shots. Anyone could be buried under that tree.
But seventeen anyones could not. It’s a single grave.
I crawl toward the fresh earth. Rocks bruise my palms and cut into my knees. The rest of the camp blurs into nothing on the edges of my vision.
I have one mission, and it has only two parts.
Dig up the grave.
See any face in the world other than my brother’s.
I pick up the first clod of dirt, then I’m digging, frantically tossing handful after handful over my shoulder. Soil cakes beneath my nails. Bugs land on my neck, but I hardly feel the bites. My breath hitches with each inhalation. I’m choking on my own fear.
Eighteen inches down, I scrape a muddy swath of cotton. I fall back on my heels and wipe my eyes with both grimy hands, breathing through the fierce ache wrapped tightly around my chest.
I claw at the dirt now, sniffling, and each bit I remove exposes more of a blood-and-dirt-stained shirt.
My finger scrapes metal, and I freeze.
No.
I brush the dirt away. My hand trembles as I clutch the medallion.
My father wore one just like it. They used it to identify his remains, in the burned-out van where he was found, on the outskirts of Cartagena.
Like my father, Ryan never took his medallion off.
“No, no, no.” I pull Ryan up by his shoulders, devastated by the pliant resistance of his weight as I hug him to my chest.
“Ryan . . . Ryan!” This can’t be real. He can’t be gone.
A twig snaps to my left, and I look up, still clutching my brother’s body.
Moisés stands fifteen feet away, his rifle aimed at my head. “Well, isn’t that sweet?”