Fabricio’s jaw tightened. “How long? How long before every part of me is sold and you start in on the organs?”
Nita swallowed and did some math. The requests would start coming in faster as buyers learned what was on the market.
“A week. Tops.” Nita nodded to herself. That sounded about right. Any longer than that, and her mother would probably kill him out of sheer frustration. An old friend of her father’s visited once when Nita was a kid, and within four days, her mother was close to murdering him. Not because he was particularly annoying or did anything wrong. Just because he existed in the same space as her mother.
“A week.” He kept his eyes fixed on Nita. “And before then, how many pieces of me will be hacked off and sold?”
“I don’t know.”
He was silent, watching her.
Nita looked down at the chicken on the floor. Did it even matter if he ate?
“Nita,” he pleaded.
“Stop it.”
“Please, Nita, I don’t want to die. Help me.”
Nita got up and walked away, leaving the chicken on the floor.
She stood outside the door for a long time, shoulders shaking, eyes squeezed shut. She considered just shutting her amygdala off, but she despised the feeling of dullness that accompanied it, like she was lobotomized. So she tried to stem the flood of stress hormones on her system instead. Then she began increasing levels of serotonin and dopamine. She pulled the tension out of her muscles and focused on slowing her heartbeat.
Relax, Nita. You don’t need to stress about this. Let it all go.
Nita let out a breath, swimming in a gentle high. Fear, stress, all of that was gone. Just peace.
Her muscles began to relax, knots in her shoulders and neck loosening. She hadn’t realized how wound up she was about it all.
She’s going to take one of my eyes tomorrow.
Her muscles tightened right back up.
She could imagine it in perfect detail. Her mother was probably still unhappy about Nita’s behavior with the ear, so she’d make Nita do the cutting. Fabricio would be sedated, then strapped to a table. Her mother would make sure there was no way he could move. Then she’d wait for him to wake up to have Nita scoop out the eye.
Usually, Nita liked eyes, how they would pop right out and then you just snipped the optic nerve, like a strange umbilical cord. Her mother knew that. Nita would have bet the eighty-three dollars in her secret college fund that her mother would make her cut the eye out herself.
Fuck.
She couldn’t do this.
She looked down at her sweaty palms and amended the thought: She wouldn’t do this.
Hands trembling at her sides, shoulders tighter than ever, she resumed flooding her system with calming hormones. She would need to remain levelheaded tonight. There was a lot to be done.
* * *
Five hours later, in the middle of the night, Nita’s high had worn off, and she was more terrified than ever before. One did not piss off her mother lightly.
She’d scoured the kitchen and living room for the keys to the padlock and handcuffs that held Fabricio, but her mother was probably wearing them around her neck like a badge of honor.
Nita ended up with a pair of crappy bolt cutters from the toolbox her mother had bought to set up the apartment’s soundproofing, and a pair of bobby pins. She’d never picked handcuff locks before, but she figured if it didn’t work, she could just dislocate his thumbs and get them off that way. As long as she could make sure he didn’t scream.
She closed the door to the dissection room behind her before she flicked on the light. Fabricio stirred, lifting his head from where it was curled by his knees. He blinked, eyes bleary from sleep. He sat up quickly when he saw the bolt cutters, causing his handcuffs to clink and the cage to rattle.
Nita put a finger to her lips and he settled down. His eyes were wide and hopeful, and a faint smile was trying to form on his lips. It caused the dried blood on the side of his face to crack and flake off.
Hefting the bolt cutters, she began making a hole in the cage.
Nita sometimes worried—well, not worried precisely, because it didn’t actually bother her, but thought about in a concerned way—that she was a bit of a sociopath. She was socially inept, she hated people, and the only thing that made her feel calm and at peace was cutting up dead bodies. There was normal, there was abnormal, and then there was Nita.
But it was days like today, her heart pounding a frenetic, terrified rhythm as the bolt cutters snip-snip-snipped through the cage that Nita felt like things might not be as drastic as she feared. She did have morals. Not many, but she had some.
And she wouldn’t let her mother cross them in front of her.
Her mother really should have killed Fabricio before coming home from Argentina.
Nita sat back and admired her work. There was a large, human-size hole in the cage. Fabricio crawled through it stiffly. His handcuffs caught on the bolt they’d been chained around, and Nita cut it with a final snap. Putting the bolt cutters down, she then took out the bobby pins.
“Do you know how to pick locks?” Fabricio asked.
Nita shrugged. “I read about it in a book once.”
She tried shoving the pin in, but the weird little plastic globby thing on the end wouldn’t fit. She cut it off with the bolt cutters and then inserted it into the handcuff lock, jiggling it around. The faint click of metal on metal was the only sound in the room. The handcuffs didn’t unlock.
“Will the bolt cutters work on the handcuffs? Or at least, the chain between the cuffs?” Fabricio stretched his legs out as she worked, clearly glad to be able to extend them after being trapped in a cage since yesterday.
“I dunno. Maybe?” She put down the bobby pins and picked up the bolt cutters. The links between the two cuffs were large and thick, but it looked like the bolt cutters might work.
“Hold still,” Nita said, using the bolt cutters to grip one of the links. Then she rose, and shoved down with all her might, trying to get the handles to close and the link to break.
Something did break—the bolt cutters.
Swearing as one half of the cutter clanked to the ground, Nita listened closely. Had her mother heard? Was she coming, even now, to punish them both?
Nita waited, breathing shallowly, head tilted to the side. Beside her, Fabricio watched her fear in silence, hands clenched into fists in front of him.
Finally, Nita turned back to him with a sigh. “I don’t think I can break them. I’ll have to dislocate your thumbs to get them off.”
Eyes widening, Fabricio leaned back, palms facing her. “That’s not necessary. I’ll leave like this. I’m sure I can find somewhere to get them off.”
“Your choice.” Nita could have put his thumbs back in place when she was done, but she didn’t think he’d appreciate her mentioning that.
Rising to his feet with much wincing, Fabricio headed for the exit. He paused, looking to Nita for guidance, and she quickly took the lead. They tiptoed across the kitchen together, toward the main entrance. Nita unbolted the door, and they slipped into the hallway.
She led him outside, and they walked down the street at a brisk pace. Fabricio trotted behind her. “Where are we going?”
“Bus station. There’s a bus to Quito leaving in an hour, and you’re going to be on it.”