“Son.”
I follow the voice. It sounds familiar although distant. There is noise. People are talking. My eyes slowly adjust to the lightbulb shining from above. I’ve come to on the floor of the Casita Rincón.
Pops kneels before me, handing me a glass of water. I take a slight sip, only enough to be able to say her name.
“Eury.”
The memories return. The jawless servers. Charon and his machete. Guabancex and Dīs Pater. The hill and the proposition, and Ato telling me how Eury was in pain. But most of all, I remember Eury’s face and her hand in mine before she turned to dust.
Pops shakes his head. He’s not going to tell me, is he? How I failed. I traveled to el Inframundo and returned without her. No. I don’t care what rules I broke. This story can’t end here. It can’t.
“Where is she?” I get up. She’s not gone. She can’t be.
“I’m sorry,” Doña Petra says with tears in her eyes.
I run as fast as I can, practically knocking people out of the way in las casitas. Eury can’t be gone. Her hand was in my hand. Warm. She was real. We touched for a second, and it was right. I don’t care what the goddess said, the deal she made with me. Eury was alive with me on top of the hill. We made it out of there together.
The waiting room in the hospital is filled with people. They are crying and holding each other. Jaysen is the first to see me. He wears the same clothes from the night before. Then again, so do I, although I feel as if I’ve been gone for weeks. Jaysen leans in to give me a hug. I push him away.
“Is she still in the same room?” I say.
“They moved her. It doesn’t look good. Her body’s not responding, bro,” Jaysen says. He’s choked up. “I’m sorry, Pheus.”
My crew surrounds me. They try to hold me back, as if that’s even possible.
“Get off me and just point me to where she’s at!”
Jaysen finally hears me.
“Room six. She’s in room six.”
Eury’s room is filled to capacity. Penelope is being held by her mother. A woman kneels by Eury, and I immediately see the resemblance. Eury’s mom. And then there is Eury lying on the bed. Eury. She’s connected to even more tubes than before. The machines beep their uncomfortable music.
“Pheus, you need to leave right now,” Penelope says. “You can’t be here.”
“Oh, you’re Pheus?” Eury’s mom says, standing and shaking in grief and fury. “You were the one who took her to the club, and now she’s here. It’s because of you she’s suffering!”
Penelope’s father tries to hold her, but she is still able to slap my face. She has every right to be angry. She doesn’t know how many times I failed her daughter.
Before I am thrown out of the room, I go to Eury and place my hand over hers. I didn’t expect to feel such coldness. It breaks me.
“Eury, I wasn’t smart enough. I …” Words are useless in conveying my grief. My failure. But what else can I do but plead for her to find her way out of that hell? I have only these pitiful sentences.
Penelope cries.
“Sir, you need to leave right now.” A man in a nurse’s uniform places a firm hand on my shoulder. He is big and burly, but I’m not moving. He might as well start using his muscle because I’m staying put.
“This is yours,” I say and place the rosary around Eury’s fingers where it belongs. “Eury, you are stronger than me. Come home to us.”
There is a grand commotion, and I am in the center of it. Security piles into the already crowded room. They yank at me. I clutch the side of the bed.
“Let go!” They got three brothers on me. I push, kick. Do whatever I got to do to stay, all the while suplicando a Eury.
“Get him out of here,” someone yells.
The men have plied my hands from the bed. They have me by the door, ready to toss me out.
I shut my eyes and pray to Guabancex. Implore her. “Guabancex, please hear me. Let Eury bring forth goodness. Let her offset this cruel world with hope.”
They are pushing me out the door, away from Eury. I keep praying.