Prologue | Hide and Seek
Oliana
Seven Years Old
“Mamí needs you to play hide-and-seek one more time, okay? But this time, you have to be extra quiet—quieter than ever. Don’t let Papá find you,” Mamí whispers. Her voice shakes as she pushes away the shoe boxes in her closet and opens the tiny door to the crawlspace.
Her hands tremble. Dark curls stick to her cheeks, wet with tears she’s trying to hide. I don’t like how she looks right now—like when the lights go out during storms and she says it’s fine, even though she’s scared. Only this time, she’s not pretending.
“But, Mamí...” I whisper. “It’s too dark in there. I don’t wanna hide again. Papá always finds me. Can’t I pick somewhere else?”
Mamí kneels and takes my hands, holding them tight. Her smile looks wrong, like it hurts to make it.
“Please, Mija. Just this once. I promise after this we’ll go get ice cream. Your favorite. With sprinkles, M&Ms, gummy bears—whatever you want.”
She’s trying to sound happy, but her voice keeps shaking, and her eyes keep jumping to the bedroom door.
I stare at the crawlspace. The dark looks big enough to eat me.
Mamí squeezes my hands harder. “Por favor, Oliana. Be my brave girl. Just for a little while.”
I nod, even though my stomach hurts. I crawl inside and curl up small. It smells like dust and old shoes.
Mamí brushes my hair off my face and kisses my forehead. “Stay here, no matter what. We love you so much, Mija.”
I want to ask why she’s saying it like goodbye.
But the door closes before I can.
Darkness wraps around me. I hug my knees and try not to cry. I think about ice cream—chocolate with extra sprinkles. I try to picture Mamí laughing again.
I start counting in my head to keep the bad thoughts out.
One... two... three...
Time goes weird. My legs tingle. The air feels smaller.
Then footsteps crash into the room—loud and heavy. My heart jumps into my throat, but through my fear, I crack open the door just a little bit.
Through the tiny crack, I see Papá with his hands up, like when we used to play cops and robbers.
“Por favor, tendremos el dinero en dos días,” he says, but his voice sounds wrong, not like Papá. It sounds scared.
Another man answers, cold and mean. “Es demasiado tarde para el pago. El Diablo gave you plenty of time.”
I don’t know who El Diablo is, but the way he says it makes my chest hurt.
Mamí’s voice comes next, small and shaking. “Señor, please. We’ll pay—plus extra. We just need a little more time.”
POP!
I jerk back and cover my mouth so tight my fingers hurt.
POP!
Tears spill before I can stop them. My nails dig into my palms as I press into the corner. The air feels thick, like it’s breathing with me.
“Check the house for the child. He wants her alive,” the man says.
Alive.
Why does he want me?
Another voice, meaner than the first, sings low, like it’s a game.
“Come out. Come out, wherever you are.”
Something sharp cuts through my head.
Stay down. Don’t move.
It’s not my thought. It’s someone else. Someone calm.
I quietly close the crawlspace door and squeeze my eyes shut. “Mamí said she’d come back. I have to wait.”
No one’s coming back. You know that.
“No,” I whisper. “They’re just sleeping.”
Sleeping doesn’t leave the floor sticky. You have to move.
“I can’t.”
You can. We can. But only if you listen.
I count to a hundred. Twice. Maybe more.
Then—quiet. No more voices. No more footsteps.
The crawlspace door creaks when I push it open. Light from the hallway hurts my eyes.
“Mamí?” I whisper.
She’s lying on the floor. Her eyes don’t blink.
Something red drips down her face—drip... drip... like the leaky kitchen faucet.
“Papá?”
He’s beside her, not moving. The floor under him is dark.
A sound tears out of me before I can stop it. It echoes and comes back to me, smaller.
I grab Mamí’s hand and shake it. “Wake up, Mamí. You’re scaring me. Please, wake up!”
Her hand is still warm.
You need to move. Now.
“No.” My voice breaks. “They’re just sleeping.”
They’re not. You know they’re not. Get up. Hide.
But I can’t. I stay there, holding their hands, until my legs stop feeling like legs.
A hand touches my shoulder, and I flinch hard.
It’s not them. It’s a police lady kneeling beside me, holding a green blanket. She wraps it around me like it can fix anything. Like I’m not sitting in my parents’ blood.
She says something, but I can’t hear it over the ringing in my ears.
She lifts me, and I let her. My body feels too heavy to fight.
Outside, the air is cold and wrong. The world shouldn’t still be here if Mamí and Papá aren’t.
A lady in the ambulance has kind eyes. “Hey, sweetheart. Let’s get you checked out, okay?”
I don’t answer. I just look at my hands.
Sticky. Grainy. Red.
Their blood.
“You’re holding your breath, sweetie. Just breathe out, okay?” she says, her hand on my back.
But nothing feels okay.
My chest tightens. The world tilts sideways.
As I start to fade, Mamí’s voice whispers inside my head.
Be my brave girl, Mija. Just for a little while.
I try. I really do.
But everything’s getting blurry now.
The last thing I see is the woman’s worried face before everything goes dark.
