It wasn’t long until I felt good, sublime, floating on a cloud, and everything went black.
***
It was ten o’clock at night and the hospital was quiet. Luz sat on the corner of my bed while Dominga stationed herself at the door, watching for anyone who might try and stop my escape attempt.
I’d been at the hospital for a week in total and yet the doctor still wanted me to stay for another night or two. I was sick and fucking tired of just lying in bed, watching terrible soap operas and flipping through magazines. Luz and Dominga came to see me when they could, but since Luz was a flight attendant like I was and Dominga was a maid at one of Puerto Vallarta’s largest resorts, they couldn’t always find the time during visiting hours.
Finally I’d had enough and told them to come and rescue me the first chance they got. Luz had the spare key to my apartment and went in to get me some clothes to leave in and helped me get changed into my dress while we waited for Dominga to finish her shift.
We weren’t going far. I couldn’t really fathom it in my condition. I was no longer dizzy, but I was still on pain medication, my left forearm was in a cast, and my left foot was bandaged tightly. When I officially left the hospital I would have crutches, but for tonight I would just rely on my friends. The only people I really had.
I had finally called Javier and Marguerite and told them what had happened. Javier said for me to call him as soon as I was discharged, and Marguerite had whined about not having any money to fly down from New York to see me. But the fact was, my only two living family members still weren’t here.
“Is the coast clear?” Luz asked, drumming her fingers excitedly on the bed. She had this crazy sparkle in her eyes that she got when she was feeling particularly hyperactive. Luz was tall with long dark hair down to her butt that she almost always wore in a bun, which only added on extra height. She was a force, a powerhouse, and was just as good at putting drunken passengers in their seats as she was at being the life of the party. Luz was a ball of energy and very hard to ignore, and I knew she would get me out of this dull hospital room as if her life depended on it.
Dominga raised her finger to shut her up and kept staring down the hallway. She was about my height, 5’6”, but runway-model thin and had this quiet air about her that most people mistook as snobbishness, but I knew it was because she would just rather listen than talk. She also didn’t smile much because she hated the gap between her teeth, something we all – especially her husband – found adorable.
Then there was me, Alana Bernal. Sister of one of Mexico’s most powerful drug lords. Queen of meaningless one night stands. Flight attendant who couldn’t seem to get the routes she wanted.
Forever alone.
And hit by a fucking car.
“Okay,
now
,” Dominga said, and Luz immediately got to her feet, helping me off the bed. I had put on a simple black dress that showed off a lot of cleavage – I needed something to distract from the bandaged wrapped foot and the white cast on my arm. On my good foot was a sparkly flat sandal for stability and Luz had covered up my body with mounds of concealer to mask all the bruises which were now fading to an ugly yellow purple, like a rotting plum. I definitely didn’t look as good as I normally did, but I was still high on pain medication, so at least I felt pretty good.
With all my weight on Luz’s shoulder, we hobbled over to the door and looked down the hall both ways. It was totally empty. Thankfully I knew that there were no more policemen stationed on this floor to look after me. They had all been called off once it was ruled out that the hit and run had been a crime but not a deliberate one, and that the man who had shot the assailant had been a vigilante of sorts. At least, that’s what the cops had told me. It was hard to know the truth when it came to them.
The three of us scampered down the hall toward the stairwell, away from the nurse’s station, and with an awkward, clumsy descent, we made our way down the stairs and out into the hot night.
I nearly collapsed into Luz’s arms, bursting into a fit of giggles. I hadn’t felt this rebellious since I was a little girl, stealing candy from Violetta. But at that thought, my smile began to falter, as it always did when I thought about my poor sister. She hadn’t died long ago.
“Now what?” Luz asked, giving my shoulders a squeeze. She could always tell when I was being held in this violent melancholy and did her best to get me out of it. “What’s the plan?”
“I think that was the plan,” Dominga said, brushing her curly hair out of her face. “Get Alana out of the hospital.”
“Get Alana a drink,” I said quickly. “Did you think I got all dressed up to stand in the parking lot?”
“Are you sure with your medication?” Dominga asked as she eyed me suspiciously.
I waved her away. “I’m fine. Just get me to a bar, get a beer in my belly, get some fucking hot men with big dicks, and I’m happy as can be.”
Luz and Dominga exchanged a look above my head. Finally Luz said, “There’s a bar down the road, but you know it’s going to be filled with hospital workers that may just haul your ass back here, not your usual hot men with big dicks.”
“I’ll take my chances,” I told her, nodding to the road. “Now let’s go before someone pulls me back in.”
We got in Luz’s car and drove a couple of blocks until we saw a bar with a pink and green neon palm tree outside.
Lolita’s
. It looked a bit rough around the edges, but the people standing outside smoking seemed like your average Mexican twenty somethings in Puerto Vallarta.
“We can do better,” Luz said with a discerning gleam to her eyes. “I’ll keep driving.”
“I don’t think I should go too far from the hospital,” I said quietly. “Just in case.” Even though I was feeling fine, I was still afraid that a rogue concussion could spring up out of nowhere. I was also afraid that Salma would discover that I had escaped. Lately she hadn’t been checking on me until just about one o’clock in the morning, but I felt bad about possibly disappointing her.
Still, freedom felt divine.
“All right,” Luz said, and pulled her Toyota into the lot behind the bar.
If there were any nurses celebrating the end of their shift, I didn’t see them. As Dominga and Luz helped me into the bar, we were met with smiling, drunk faces and spilled drinks. The music was loud and booming, bass thumping into my bones, and I couldn’t help but grin back at the rowdy patrons. I had needed this, badly.
While Luz went to the bar to get us beer, Dominga and I managed to score a booth in the corner. We pushed away the stacks of empty drinks that were left behind and settled in to do some hottie watching. Well, I was the one who was always looking for someone to catch my eye. Dominga took her marriage very seriously and wouldn’t even admit whether a guy was hot or not.
“I’ll get the next round,” I said to Luz as she came back with the beers.
She waved her hand at me dismissively. “You are always buying us drinks, Alana. It’s time for us to treat you for a change.”
I raised my beer in the middle of the table. “Well, I think I owe you something for your excellent escape plan.” I clinked their bottles. “So cheers to that. And thank you.”
“And thank you for not dying,” Luz said, her features growing stern. “When I saw it on the news …” She trailed off and took a quick sip of her beer. I wasn’t used to her acting emotional and it was throwing me off. “I’m just so glad you’re okay.”
I gave her a look. “I’m not exactly
okay
. I am a bit banged up.”
“But you’re here now with us,” Dominga said. “And that’s something.”
I nodded. It was true. I really had no right to complain about the fact that I would be off work for at least another month. I was going on disability, but even with the airline funding it, that didn’t equal the full amount of pay I would normally receive. I was going to be on a budget for the next month as my bones healed. And because I wouldn’t be able to do my yoga or pilates or go for my daily runs, I was going to be bored out of my mind.
But it could have been worse. I know that in my life, the worst possible thing was always lurking in the background, ready to strike.
I turned my attention to the bar. I was ready to be distracted, and a man was usually pretty good for that. Unfortunately there weren’t a lot of men here to do a good enough job. I wasn’t even that picky, I just wanted someone that made my head turn, my heart skip a few beats, my thighs squeeze together. That didn’t mean I never settled for less – I often did, and usually with the wrong man (don’t get me started on the pilots I’d had affairs with, always a mistake) – but I still hoped for someone a bit extraordinary.
You would think that with my past and family I would want the safe and mundane, and I guess I craved that in most aspects of my life, but when it came to love, I wanted to be blown off my feet. Hell, I think I just wanted to feel what love was, period.
It looked like I wasn’t going to find it here.
“Are you doing okay?” Luz asked, giving me that concerned look again. “Should we take you back?”
“I’m fine,” I said before I knocked back the rest of the beer. With the painkillers coursing through my system, it was all hitting me a little fast, but I didn’t care.
When they both just stared at me, I rolled my eyes. “I said I’m fine. Really. Hit and run aside, I’m fine.”
Luz raised a brow but didn’t say anything. I took out a few pesos from my wallet and plunked them down on the table. “I’d go up and buy the next round myself, but I don’t exactly feel like crawling on my hands and knees in this place. Do you mind getting me a refill?”
She got up but left my money on the table. It was true, every time we went out I was usually the one paying for their drinks and food and little gifts. It’s not that I made more money than them, both Luz and I were paid the same, I just liked to do nice things for them. Who else would I spend my money on?
“Are you really okay?” Dominga asked quietly after a moment.
I gave her a look. “Is this just about the accident or is there something else?”
She rubbed her lips together in thought before saying, “I’m worried about you. About … who did this.”
“The police said it was a random event … shit like this happens.”
“First of all,” she said, “the police can’t be trusted. Second, shit like this does happen, but it rarely ends up with the driver being shot in the head. Don’t you think that’s weird? It has to be connected.”
Of course I thought it was weird, but I’d spent the last week in the hospital thinking about it, and I wanted to put it to rest.
“Even if it is connected, the guy who hit me is dead. Don’t you think that means someone is looking out for me? If anything.” I caught her eye and quickly added, “It’s not Javier. Believe me.”
Luz and Dominga knew all about my brother. I mean, everyone in Mexico knew about him, but only they knew that we were related. I didn’t talk about him much, mainly because I didn’t have much to say – Javier kept his life very separate from mine and for good reason. They weren’t exactly happy that I was connected to someone so notorious and regarded him with constant suspicion and disdain, even though they had never met him. Though, for all his charm, I think they’d be even more scornful if they had met him.
“So then who?” Dominga went on. “It just can’t be an accident. And if it is, why would this other person shoot him? It makes no sense and you are being way too cavalier about all of this.”
“I’m not being cavalier,” I told her. Suddenly I felt very tired. “I’m worried, very worried. But for tonight, I don’t want to be worried.”
“Yeah, Dominga,” Luz said, giving her the stink-eye as she appeared at the table, placing our drinks down. “Give her a break.” Luz grinned at me and slid my beer over. “You’ve got us both tonight. You’re safe. Let loose.”
“Oh, so now I’m allowed to let loose?”
She looked me up and down. “You can’t get too loose with the way you are.”
I took a big gulp of beer, challenged. “We’ll see.”
An hour later, I was feeling a lot looser. Two more beers had helped with that as well. They also tipped my bladder over to the breaking point.
I pushed back my chair and attempted to stand up, but suddenly Luz was beside me, holding me by the arms.
“Where do you think you’re going?” she asked.
“I’m trying to go to the bathroom,” I told her. “You don’t need to come with me.”
The two of them exchanged a look. “I won’t go with you into the stall, but you should probably have some help getting across the room.”
The bar at this point was completely packed, and people were being rowdy, drunken idiots. I nodded and leaned on her, not willing to risk it on my own. I’d probably be bounced against the wall and stepped on by dancing jackasses.
Eventually we made it to the washroom. It was dirty with wet floors and no paper towels, and had a line of slurring girls with smudged makeup waiting to use the two stalls. Luckily someone took pity on me and let me use it ahead of the line, even though there were a few disgruntled murmurs in the crowd. Even totally beat-up and obviously injured didn’t mean I got a free pass.
When I was done, Luz was still in line, so I washed my hands and told her I’d wait outside the bathroom. No way in hell did I want to be in there, especially now as some chick was puking her brains out. I went out into the dark hallway and leaned against the wall. I was drunk, but my body was slowly starting to ache, and I wondered if the pain medication was beginning to wear off.
Suddenly some loud morons rounded the corner from the men’s washroom and bumped into me hard. I let out a cry and flew to the side, the ground rushing up to meet my face, when an arm came out of nowhere and caught me.
Before I knew what was happening, I was pulled back up by someone who was very strong. I looked at the large, muscular forearm around me then followed it up to the fitted white t-shirt which belonged to a tall, insanely built guy. His blue eyes were sharp and filled with concern, his jaw wide and stern, his stance fierce.
He was Caucasian. Ripped. And hot as hell.