Prism - By Rachel Moschell Page 0,52

hesitated, then tentatively asked, “Noah was with you. Do you know…?”

“I don’t know…what happened to Noah,” Wara said, expression clearly saying she wished Alejo would slither away like the snake that he was. “I was thrown out of the bus. He was sitting right by me, but I couldn’t find him.” Her lip shook, and she visibly forced herself not to cry. “These guys,” she jerked her chin over Alejo’s way in the Bolivian style of pointing, “say that no one else but me survived. I passed out, and then was picked up, by the killers.”

Nazaret’s blond ringlets appeared next to her mother, eyes full of tears. Alejo remembered her, the sister closest to him in age. And suddenly he knew he’d missed her. “Wara…” she said, “they say on the news it will take at least another day to continue the search for survivors and…bring up the rest of the bodies.” Her voice choked and she grabbed onto her mother for support. “The bus fell more than a thousand feet down the ravine, and then it—it exploded. I just can’t believe you’re alive!” Nazaret was sobbing now, and Alejo felt as if he were in another world, a twilight zone that could not be reality. Never in his worst nightmares had he imagined being reunited with his family like this.

“Wara,” Noly Martir’s tear-stained voice continued, “A man from Noah’s mission told me today that Noah’s parents will be in La Paz by tomorrow night. Your parents were still waiting to see what happens. The SAR search and rescue haven’t…found any one who survived the crash. Everyone from the bus is presumed dead.”

Alejo felt his fists clench hard at his sides, the words hitting him like a load of bricks. Franco Salazar must be dead.

And Wara and Noah paid the price for the man’s sins.

Everyone was crying, well at least it seemed like it. His mother, his sister Nazaret, several of the little kids whose faces he didn’t even recognize. Alejo’s chest began to constrict, and he tried in vain to be rational. He had thought this out. Salazar needed to die, whatever the cost. Of course it was possible there could be other casualties.

I am a murderer.

“Alejo.” The broken voice of his father sliced through his heart. Alejo turned towards him as if in daze. Pablo Martir’s eyes were red-rimmed as Alejo managed to meet them, steeling himself to do the right thing and give whatever it took of himself to make this right, as much as possible.

I, Alejandro Benjamin Martir, am a murderer, and it’s time to pay.

“Son,” Pastor Martir began, “Wara said that she was found by the killers.” Alejo’s father placed one protective hand on his wife’s shoulder, moving in front of her and Nathaniel as he spoke. “And that she was with you.”

The unspoken question hung in the air, surrounded by children’s shuddering sobs. As if in slow motion, one by one, the other members of the Martir family moved up next to their father, warily, staring at him with those hazel eyes. The little one, Naveli, sniffed loudly and cried, “Noah!”

“I’ll tell you everything,” Alejo promised hoarsely. “But not in front of the children.

18

dark

ALEJO LED HIS PARENTS UP TO THE ROOF, followed by Nazareth and Nathaniel. His heart ached as he left Wara with the youngest children in the room and pushed open a door that led to the flat concrete roof of the Hostal Salta. A high brick wall held together with globs of roughly-formed gray mortar provided privacy. A few threadbare, freshly-washed sheets flapped in the breeze in one corner of the roof, drying in the fading sunshine.

Alejo trudged to the center of the roof, where rusty metal chairs circled a wobbly table. He absently stared at the surrounding buildings, praying—yes, praying—that there wouldn’t be any problems with security at their present location for at least the next few hours, until he could explain to his parents how it came to be that he had set assassins on the trail of his baby sisters.

A squeaking of metal told him that his family had taken seats in the awkward silence, unsure of what to do.

My parents may have done many things that were wrong, but they and the kids didn’t deserve this.

The silence suffocated, and Alejo needed to escape it. “I work with a group that partners with Hezbollah,” he finally said, avoiding Nazaret’s teary gaze. With a start, he wondered if he should use the past tense.

Everything is happening so fast…

“Until this