Treasure of the World by Tara Sullivan (free ebook reader txt) 📕

“It’s a long story,” I dodge. “What about you? Why are you here, doing this?”

Night is falling fast, and Victor’s features blur in the dim light, so I can’t see his expression when he answers.

“You know what happened, Ana. Your papi died too.”

“Yeah, but . . . you just, what? Ditched home and came to the city?”

“What was left for me up there? The mines?” Victor’s eyes are hollowed out by the lengthening shadows. “I don’t have anyone else, like you do. I had to leave.”

“But fighting . . . ?”

Victor’s shoulders stiffen. “What else am I good for? The only thing I know how to do is mining, and I’m never going back to that. There’s no way out of the mines unless you leave them in a pine box, just like my papi.” He turns his face away again. “Fighting’s not so bad, compared to that.”

He’s not wrong. If he had stayed on the mountain, his fate would have been to live and die in the mines. But I can’t believe that the best choice that’s left for him is to let himself get beaten up for money. Still, I shouldn’t judge him.

“Sorry,” I say. “Forgive me?”

“Of course.” His tired smile reopens his split lip and blood trickles down his chin. “What are friends for?”

For a moment we stand there looking at each other, noticing the differences the last week has brought about in each of us. Then the wind whistles over us and I shiver. That breaks Victor out of his thoughts.

“You should get out of the cold,” he says. “Do you have somewhere in town where you’re staying that I can walk you to?”

For a second I think about the posada with its clean sheets and good food. But Doña Arenal was very specific about me only being allowed to stay the one night. I know I can’t go back there, especially with a bloodied boy at my heels. I’d get Yenni fired for sure. I also can’t go home: it’s dusk now and I’d never find my way safely up the mountain in the dark, even if I had the energy to attempt it. I shake my head. Victor reaches a battered hand to my face and wipes a tear from it with one grubby finger. I didn’t know I was crying.

“Can I stay with you?” The words leave my mouth without my permission.

Victor bites his lower lip. “That’s not . . . the best idea . . .”

“Please?” I feel more tears tracing their way down my face, but I don’t make a move to stop them. I’m tired and overwhelmed and heartsick over not finding Daniel. I feel like I can’t take any more right now. “I don’t know anyone else in the city. I don’t have anywhere else to go tonight. I’ll go home first thing tomorrow, I promise.”

Victor sighs, clearly not happy about the idea.

“Come on,” he says.

I walk at his elbow as he heads into the darkening alley and down a warren of twisting streets. Victor stops in front of a stained door in a filthy, stucco-walled building.

“This is it,” he mumbles, so quietly I can barely hear even though I’m standing practically on top of him. “This is where I live now.”

Victor’s split-knuckled hand rests on the peeling paint of the door. He pauses, giving me one last chance to change my mind. The dark buildings loom over us. I glance up the alley and decide that whatever it is that’s waiting inside the building in front of us, it can’t be as bad as walking through this neighborhood by myself after dark, leaving him alone.

“Great,” I say. “Let’s go in.”

Victor pushes the door open and I follow him into the building. When the door shuts behind us, the darkness of the interior takes over and I stumble blindly in his wake. I can tell where he is less by sight than by the warmth of his body, as the inky hallway we’re in is just as cold as outside. The hallway reeks of old sweat, dried vomit, and urine, and I try not to identify the trash on the floor and piled against the walls as I stumble over it to keep up with Victor.

At the end of the hallway, he turns left, into a windowless room. It’s not large, but there are already five other young men and boys in it. One of them has a flashlight and is staring at a photo in his hands. In the darkness, his face glows like a moon.

Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, I think. But it’s too late to make a different choice now. You have no good choices, I remind myself.

Victor walks to the back corner, but says to the room as a whole, “This is my friend Ana. Everyone leave her alone.”

One by one, the boys peel their dark gazes off me. Victor collapses to the floor and lets his head fall against the wall. I lower myself gingerly down the other wall, our feet and the corner of the room making a rough square around a small, filthy pile of belongings I assume are his.

“Sorry,” he says in a low voice. “This is all there is.”

I stare around at the grimy walls, at the other hungry-looking boys and their miserable piles of stuff.

I find him studying me.

“This is where you live now?” I ask.

He nods.

“What happened to your house?”

“I couldn’t make rent on kid’s pay.”

“No one could help you?” I ask. Though, given that he’s here, I already know the answer to that. Victor’s papi had come to the Cerro from the lowlands when the price of aluminum went up only five years ago. I remember Victor standing alone at the funeral. With his mami dead too and no family around here, he really is all alone.

“It’s not so bad, really.” It sounds like he’s trying to convince himself. “Not as bad as being in the mines.”

“It’s so dark.” My voice is almost a whisper.

He shrugs. “It’s not as dark as the