f (foundling) wrote in rooms, @ 2015-02-02 00:51:00 |
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Entry tags: | !marvel comics, *narrative, cristián martin-argüelles |
Narrative: Cris M
Who: Cris Martin-Argüelles
What: coming home
Where: Marvel, his apartment
When: hours after this and just after this
Warnings/Rating: some violence
The sedan across the street was inconspicuous enough to be conspicuous, a calm cream against the agitation of New York snow, but Cris figured it was Neil's guard, stationed out of precaution and lingering attachment. He was glad for it and the freshly fallen powder not yet iced off the walk to the front door hid all the signs of what had happened earlier on the front steps of the man's South Bronx apartment.—He saw yellow lights, thrown wide in the early evening darkness, slipping between blinds peeked open, and spilling on the square of the front lawn like lights before a show. He was cold. He hadn't been thinking when he'd opened the door to Marvel, and, not using his key, he'd been stranded in Manhattan. No money and with a pack that felt heavier with every slogging step, in the tatters of a suit, jacketless and salt-wet from the chest down, and ocean-deep exhaustion climbing once-warm features, he had two people hand him stiff dollar bills before he made it five blocks. It wasn't enough for a cab home, but it was enough for a cab for at least a bit, and it was probably only that ride that kept Cris out of the blue-handed throes of hypothermia, his toes in the wet seals of his shoes numb, the pain in them long since iced to nothing until it felt like, for those last few blocks to home, he was walking on ice blocks instead of feet. But it didn't matter, because he was home. Parecía el infierno, but, what did he care? He was home. —Something wasn't right. The doorknob was different, shining a scalloped gold, brassy under the porchlight, and along the edges of the jamb, splinters. Louis, he told himself. A mantra. Cris closed his eyes, taking in the kind of deep breath outside that rakes down the insides of your lungs like fingernails on pink flesh, and he tried to calm himself down, the eyes of those little girls under the sea still prickling the skin on the back of his neck. He opened the door. Again, it wasn't right. Algo iba mal. The TV was off. There was no laughter, no sounds of chatting, no sign of his daughter or Sam, and Cris' nerves fired hot. He slid the pack from his shoulder, his 9mm pressed and sticking to his palm the way a tongue sticks to a pole. He moved inside, door gaping open and cold behind him. He swallowed his daughter's name as it rose, bile-biting, to his tongue, and he cleared the kitchen, the living room. It was the hallway, upstairs—a man, someone Cris didn't recognize, was leaning against the wall outside Teresa's room, the door open and her lamp, the IKEA one she put together herself, tinged him yellow. Older, white, with the grizzled look of ex-military, his eyes hard, the man stood. Cris forgot protocol. Whether it was the Randian-grip of Rapture or something else, he didn't feel like talking. He moved fast, like his blood forced itself into his feet, driving out the cold so he could step without clumsiness, to clock the guy in the jaw with his weight behind it, knuckles splitting open on impact. Teresa screamed and Cris grabbed the back of the man's jacket, dragging him half off the ground, almost dead weight. It was only that sharp sound—his daughter's fear stabbing the air, that kept her papi from beating the stranger to pulp. He shook the man. "WHAT WERE YOU DOING TO MY DAUGHTER?" Bronx-hard, spit flecking from teeth. "Teresa—close your eyes! AHORA." His eyes were black and wild, the little girl threw her hands up to cover her eyes, and Cris smashed the man's face into the wall before he could answer, denting drywall and crackling plasticine paint. "WHERE'S SAM? WHO ARE YOU?" Blood, spit, one eye already swelling in bee-sting red, the man didn't answer right away. Taken off-guard, he was loose-boned and dazed under Cris' hands. The metallic tongue of a safety clicked and with warm blood seeping between his fingers, the angry man in the suit pressed the muzzle of his pistol to the guy's temple. "I'm gonna ask you one more time, guy. Who are you?" It should have occurred to him, but it didn't. The guy mumbled something through red-spat teeth, the name Neil coming out in iron and enamel, and only then did it register. Cris let him go with a hiss. "Get out of my house." He didn't care who the guy was. He was here alone with Cris' five-year-old daughter for who knew how long doing God only knows what. The pistol imprinted on old, white skin and blue eyes looked at him, peeled clear. "GET. OUT. OF. MY. HOUSE." The man was gone by the time Cris turned to Teresita. She was crying, upset, confused, and huddled behind her bed on the floor. He dropped the gun on her bed. He went to her, scooped her up, and carried her to the bathroom where he turned on the steam of the bath. Kneeling on the picked carpet in front of the tub, he cradled her to his chest. "Baby, baby, baby, ¡soy yo! Está a salvo. Está a salvo." He kissed her hair and her arms were tight around his neck. "Está a salvo. Estoy aquí." Another mantra to match the rapid shudder of his heart. She babbled, about coming home to the man, about him not saying anything, about Sam being gone and him just telling her to go in her room and wait for her daddy to come home. She knew she wasn't supposed to talk to strangers, but she tried, because he was here with her, and she was sorry. Snot strung from her nose to Cris' shoulder and he cried too. She told him, Papi, she called and you didn't answer. She said that she hadn't done her homework, that she missed him; she wanted to know what happened to the guy, where was Sam, where was Mom, ¿qué pasa?, ¿qué pasa?, ¿qué pasa? "Estoy aquí, mi amor," was all he could tell her. Warmth ballooned wet in the small bathroom, pressing fog against the mirrors, and he held her as she dug her fingers into the ruined white of his shirt. "Estoy aquí. Estoy aquí." He kissed her, his tears a rupture of Rapture atop her head, and his hand bled onto her shirt. "Nunca más te abandonaré, mi amor, prometo." |