James Frey - Existence

Jago had won victories for his family before; he had been fighting for Tlaloc honor in the streets since he was six years old. But this was different. This wasn’t for the Tlalocs; this was for the Olmec. This was noble; this was right .

That day, Jago didn’t feel like the monster of Juliaca, the ugly, scarred Feo who takes whatever he wants, whose face makes his people cower in fear.

Jago felt like a hero.

He could never give that up. Without Endgame, he’s nothing. He’s nobody.

But maybe he wouldn’t have to give it up. Maybe he could have Alicia, and the beautiful life she wants for both of them, and still be a hero.

Even thinking this way, even imagining, is a betrayal. That’s how his mother would see it, at least, and she would never let him speak to Alicia again. His mother loves him; he knows that. But her love is the opposite of Alicia’s: It comes with conditions. It comes with expectations. She loves her son, who is the heir to the family business, who is the Player, who is strong and ruthless and powerful. She couldn’t fathom the idea of a son who was none of those things, who was simply Jago, her boy. For his mother, love and power are inextricable. If he ever gave up the one, he would lose the other. He knows that.

But it doesn’t matter, he reminds himself. These are just idle thoughts, not acts, and thoughts are safe. No one can peer inside his head.

His mother will never have to know.

But thoughts do have consequences.

Even the act of thinking can have consequences.

This is one of the first lessons Jago learned as a child, as he mastered rudimentary hand-to-hand combat. Instinct is always faster than conscious thought, and in a combat situation almost always more accurate. When thinking drowns out instinct, when it makes you second-guess yourself or hesitate to do what must be done, that’s when it can be most deadly.

Jago should have known that; he should have known better.

But on that Friday afternoon, one week before Alicia is due to leave him behind, as he tracks his prey to a flophouse on the edge of the city and corners them in a seedy room rented by the hour, he’s not thinking about his childhood lessons.

He’s thinking about what Alicia said to him that morning: “Let’s run away together, just the two of us. Let’s see the world.”

Does she mean it?

Would she do it?

Would he?

He’s been tasked with hunting down two men, former employees foolish enough to steal from the Tlalocs and think they could get away with it. This is a crime that comes with a standard punishment: death.

He doesn’t want to be here, in this dark, crumbling motel with its fetid stink and suspicious stains. He doesn’t want to be creeping through a rat-infested hallway, locking the silencer onto his gun, preparing to assassinate two men who have stolen from a family so wealthy it barely noticed the loss—two men whose greatest crime is stupidity. Tiempo and Chango wanted to come along, but Jago insisted on going alone.

It’s one against two, maybe. But the one is a Player.

The two don’t know it yet, but they’re doomed.

Jago creeps up to the door. The manager, after a small bribe made its way into his pocket, gave him the room number and a tip: the lock is broken. There’s nothing standing in Jago’s way.

You think this ugly life is all you can have, but you’re wrong, he can almost hear Alicia saying as he eases open the door.

One of the men, Julio, is sprawled on the bed facedown, snoring. Alejandro is shaving, with his back to the door. Two bullets, one in each head, easy in, easy out—that’s what he’s been trained to do.

What you’ve done doesn’t have to define you. What your parents want doesn’t have to define you . She’s said it so many times. She wants so much for him.

Jago takes aim. Alejandro first, because at the sound of the shot it will take Julio a second to shake off sleep and get his bearings, and by the time he does, he’ll be dead.

I don’t care what you’ve done in the past. Who are you now? Who do you want to be?

His finger tightens on the trigger, as it has many times before. This is a simple calculation; these men are enemies of the family, of the line.

You can choose .

For the first time in his life, Jago hesitates.

Then fires.

Alejandro screams as the bullet blows off his ear. Jago has perfect aim. He knows how to kill—or how to wound. As Julio leaps out of bed, Jago pulls the trigger again, firing a second shot through Alejandro’s other ear, another through his hand, a third and fourth through each of his feet. A final shot to his gut, an inch above the intestines. By the time Julio has reached his weapon, Alejandro is writhing on the floor, screaming and bleeding, and Jago’s gun is aimed at Julio’s forehead.

Julio drops his weapon, raises his hands in the air.

“Take your friend, leave this city, and never return,” Jago says. “And tell everyone that the punishment for crossing the Tlalocs is swift and painful.”

Julio nods quickly, repeatedly, murmuring, “ Sí, sí, whatever you say, Feo, anything, please,” and—with Jago’s permission—kneels at Alejandro’s side, trying his best to staunch the bleeding.

Jago wonders whether Julio will get the wounded man help, or simply abandon him. If the latter, it will be a very painful death. But it will not be on Jago’s shoulders.

This is what mercy looks like, he thinks, backing away from the men and out the door, down the hall, home to Alicia’s embrace. This is what mercy feels like.

He won’t tell Alicia.

It’s not good enough for her.

Not yet.

On the day everything changes, Alicia’s last day in the country, Jago thinks he has never been so miserable and so happy at the same time.

They have driven to the eastern beach to watch the sun set over Lake Titicaca. “Nice metaphor for our relationship,” Alicia says, with something adjacent to bitterness. She still wants him to run away with her. He says, day after day, he can’t … he might … he shouldn’t … he doesn’t know … he needs more time.

They’re running out of time.

She could go back home; they could email and text and do whatever it is normal teenagers do when an ocean gets in between them, but nothing about them is normal, and Jago fears that once she leaves, he’ll never see her again. She’ll run away without him—or she’ll go home, return to the dance studio and the life her parents want for her, forget she ever flirted with being a different kind of girl. They have this one last day together, and then either he leaves behind everything he’s ever known and loved, betrays his duty and generations upon generations of Tlaloc Players, shames his family, breaks his sacred oath, gives up all the certainties of his life and steps into the unknown—or he loses the only girl he’s ever loved, and all hope of a beautiful life.

Leaving is impossible. But so is the thought of losing her.

She hopes against hope he’ll change his mind and go with her; he hopes against hope she’ll decide to stay.

In the meantime, they try not to think of the future; he holds her hand, and, quietly, they watch the sun sink in the sky. Waves lap at the shore. The sky is streaked with gold. Clouds glow an angry pink. “It’s like fire,” Alicia murmurs. “Like the sky is on fire.”

Jago looks beyond her, to the east, where the sky is a flat, peaceful blue, cool and calm. This is what loving Alicia feels like: firestorm and tranquillity, all at once. He feels wild when he’s with her, his skin sparking, his brain spinning, his heart leaping with possibility—but at his center is something so quiet and sure. A peace he’s never known without her, and fears he will never know again.