The pain is monstrous. Your throat burns. Your muscles feel torn open. But worse than any of it is the memory of that child hanging from Mauricio’s grip while you sat trapped five feet away in your own chair. For two years you thought the worst humiliation was needing help.
You were wrong.
The worst humiliation is watching evil enter your house and having to wait for your body to catch up.
Carmen kneels in front of you with Sofía pressed to her shoulder.
“She’s okay,” Carmen says quickly, maybe to calm you, maybe herself. “He scared her, but I caught her. She’s okay.”
You nod once.
Your eyes go to the little girl. She has gone quiet now in that exhausted, emptied-out way children do after terror. Her cheeks are wet. Her hair has fallen loose. One hand is clamped in her mother’s blouse, the other reaching toward the stuffed rabbit by the wall.
You cannot get it for her.
That breaks something inside you.
“I’m sorry,” you say.
You do not know if the words are for Carmen, for the child, or for the man you used to be before your house became cold enough for this to happen inside it.