2016

The bodies all wore white—a puzzling detail. And the whiteness of their clothes belies traces of blood and smudges of dirt. Around their necks were signs made from cardboard, the letters on them spelling out, in careful print, one word: Bato. “Stone,” Ramon muttered, reading the puzzling detail and looking out through the slats of their barricaded windows that first night. “What the fuck does that mean? Stone?”

She scrolled through Anton’s Instagram feed, double-tapping a couple of pictures. His last post was six hours ago—sunset across a horizon of trees. She wondered where he was when he took the photo, and why he wanted to meet her tonight. Alone.

When she had worn the girl down and finally trapped her against a tree, the old woman took both children inside the squat cabin next to the smoke house where she chained the girl to a post near the stove and kept the boy in a cage under the table.