Nita hesitated a few steps away; Quispe looked up and saw Nita and the boarding line for the plane.
“Thanks, keep me updated.” She hung up and gave Nita a smile. “Good news!”
“What?”
“Fabricio’s going to be okay.” Quispe’s whole face lit up. “The doctors say he’s going to pull through.”
Nita stared, mouth slightly open. A tiny bit of relief bloomed in her chest. The last little remnant of the girl who’d felt so good for saving him, who’d been so proud for doing a good deed. The girl who wanted too much to pretend she wasn’t bad.
But Nita wasn’t that girl anymore. It was a phantom guilt she felt in the same way she felt her severed toe, and she pushed it away and let anger fill the place where it had once been.
She tried to imagine what would happen now. Fabricio would wake up. If he hadn’t been planning to tell on her before, he would now. Her shoulders tightened, and her fingers curled into fists at her side.
Fabricio was like a goddam cockroach.
She forced a smile onto her face. “That’s great! Do they know what happened to him?”
Quispe shook her head. “They think he ingested something. They pumped his stomach, and have been treating him for severe toxic shock. He’s still not conscious yet, but they’re hopeful for later today.”
Nita gritted her teeth. She couldn’t have Fabricio ratting her out before she got to Toronto. She’d be arrested before she could leave INHUP custody. She needed to do damage control.
“Can you send him a message for me?” Nita asked.
“Of course!”
Quispe handed Nita her phone, and Nita frowned at the blank email screen. How to threaten Fabricio not to talk without giving away she was threatening him?
I’m so happy to hear you’re doing better after being sick. I’m glad INHUP is there to take care of you. It’s too bad they can’t contact your parents to let them know how you’re doing.
I’ve enjoyed our chats, and am eager to continue them another time, when we’re both out of INHUP. Until then, enjoy INHUP’s hospitality for as long as it lasts.
Nita stared down at her message. Clunky, but she thought it got the point across.
If he told them what she’d done, she’d tell them what he’d done. She’d reveal who his father was and ruin all Fabricio’s plans.
When he got out of INHUP’s custody and back into the real world—it was on.
Nita didn’t know how or when she’d do it, but she would find a way to destroy Fabricio once and for all.
Six
THE FIRST HOUR of the flight to Toronto was awful.
Nita tried reading, but couldn’t focus. Ditto with movies. All she could think about was her upcoming reunion with her mother. She couldn’t stop playing out imaginary conversations in her head.
In some of them, Nita screamed at her mother for everything that had gone wrong, threw broken dishes at her, and told her she never wanted to see her again. Obviously, that was nothing more than a fantasy.
In other scenarios, her mother told Nita it was her own fault for breaking the rules, for not following her mother’s instructions precisely. For not toeing the line. And Nita was forced back into the dissection room, trapped with nothing but dead bodies and tools for company, never to see the outside world again.
She shivered softly at the thought, because it was so horrible and so believable. She’d replace the glass cage of the market for one of her mother’s making.
Nita couldn’t let that happen again. She couldn’t go back to the cage, even if it was one made to protect her. Even the idea of a small room with no way out made her skin crawl.
After a while, Nita decided her thoughts were going nowhere but in circles, so she ramped up melatonin production, leaned the seat back, pressed her cheek against the window, and forced herself into sleep. She would see her mother soon enough. They could lay it all on the table then.
They had a lot to talk about.
She woke when they were landing with a crick in her neck. A line of drool ran down the window, and droplets of it spattered her shirt. She massaged the muscles around her neck and popped her spine back into alignment.
The plane hummed, and the speaker buzzed with some announcement. Nita had missed the English, and they were on the French now: “. . . votre sécurité est notre priorité . . .”
Below her, the city spread out as far as she could see. It was a metropolis of almost seven million people, and had surpassed New York as most diverse city in the world, according to Google. Towers spread in clumps here and there, tall and silver, like giant palace complexes surveying the peasantry below. Suburbia sprawled around them, a sea of houses intermingled with large swaths of green. Aside from the patches of skyscrapers, most of the buildings looked red, and Nita wondered if brick was popular.
It took nearly an hour for them to go through customs and get to the baggage claim. The walls of the airport were papered with posters with a waving Canadian flag in the background and curly, handwritten-style type reading Bienvenue au Canada! Welcome to Canada!
Quispe fixed her clothes as they waited for her baggage. She’d kept her sleeves unbuttoned and her jacket only partially done up in Bogotá, but not here. She smoothed the front of her jacket, fingers pressing into the fabric and ensuring everything looked perfectly arranged and professional.
“What are you doing?” asked Nita.
Quispe smiled at her, tight and formal, as she pulled her small piece of luggage from the rack. “Making a good impression.”
“Have you met anyone at this branch before?”
“A few people.” Quispe gestured for Nita to follow as she rolled her luggage toward the exit.
Nita watched the INHUP agent’s face with interest. “You don’t like them.”
“I respect the work they do, and I’ve never had anything but positive interactions with them.”
“But?”
“But they’re people.” Quispe shook her head ruefully. “And most people judge you the instant they meet you, if not before. I want to make sure they judge me the way I want them to.”
Nita thought about that as she walked. About how even Quispe tailored herself to change how people new perceived her. That perception was based on first impressions, and that Nita’s first impression on the black market was as a victim.
And how if she wanted to be left alone, she’d need to change that impression.
Exiting the terminal through a large set of automatic doors, Quispe stretched her neck, searching. Nita took in the crowds with wide eyes. Metal bars prevented anyone from approaching those exiting the terminal, and people had swarmed up against them, shouting, pressing close, and waving hands. There were so many Nita wondered if there was some celebrity coming through, but although many people held WELCOME signs, they didn’t seem to be welcoming the same people.
Too many people. Nita balled her hands. She wanted out. Away from this crowd of strangers. Her eyes flicked around, trying to watch everyone, and she kept close to Quispe. Someone brushed by her, and she flinched.
She hated people.
She tried to keep an image of her dissection table in her mind’s eye, the smooth metal surface and the calming glass jars. In her hand, she held a scalpel, and it was silent and empty, just her and the dead body on the table.