Blurring The Line

“No,” she whispered. She forced herself to look at him.

“What do you weigh? 140 lbs? Five hours. I would add a little iron, keep it burning nice and hot, and that’s it, in five hours it would be like you never existed. Your life, your identity gone.”

Beth’s joints went slack. She fought the urge to scream and tell Torres to shut up. She didn’t because she knew he was talking about Archila. He had never spoken about it with her before. She only knew the details through the police report. Torres knew all the details though, because he had seen it happen. He had seen Archila shot in front of him before Martinez turned the gun on Torres, shooting him in his left shoulder. Beth’s gaze went to the tattoo again. Under the ugly marking was proof of an uglier crime.

Beth’s back straightened. Fear told her to keep quiet but something else compelled her to tell him, “It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have stopped them. Archila knew that. That’s why he told you to go after you were shot. You couldn’t have stopped them. He was already dead, the moment they found him.”

Torres dropped his hand from her. “Don’t,” he warned between clenched teeth.

But Beth didn’t listen. The pain she thought she saw in his eyes made her continue, her compassion trumping her fear. “It’s not your fault Archila didn’t adjust when he got home from Iraq, and it’s not your fault he got involved with Los Zetas. He made his choices.”

“And I made mine?” Torres shook his head.

“That’s not what I meant.” Beth shrugged her shoulders. She wasn’t good at this part. She didn’t know what to say to make it OK. “Look, it’s normal to feel some guilt about what happened in Iraq and in Mexico. You survived, that’s what’s important. Why don’t you talk it through with Frazer? I know he can see you this week. Come in.” She realised she sounded like she was begging, but it was because she was. Torres needed to come in from the field. The DEA had gotten enough from him. She had used him enough. They had found Martinez, the man who killed Archila, and it was a dead end.

Once Torres was properly debriefed, he could stay with the Administration or he could go back to carpentry, or do whatever he wanted. He just needed to be away from Los Zetas. She needed him to see that.

“This,” Beth gestured to the tattoo, “this isn’t you. And this won’t bring Archila back. This will only get you killed.”

Torres shook his head. “I haven’t gone native, Beth. You’re alive right now because of this.” Torres slapped the design. “The reason you weren’t killed last night is because of this. You don’t want details, Gatita, but this one you need to know, I hate this.” His voice was low, shadowed by emotion she had not heard from him before. “But I hate what is under it even more and that is why I am going to find El Escorpion. So take a good hard look at it, because this is what is going to save us both. And, no Beth. To answer your question, no I don’t want to see Frazer.”

Beth nodded. She took a step back until her knees hit the side of the bed and she collapsed down onto the mattress.

A few seconds later she heard the sound of water splashing against tiles. Beth held her head in her hands. Not for the first time that week, she questioned her career choice. It wasn’t too late to change, who needed a pension anyway? No, she just needed an aspirin. Once her head was sorted out she could worry about her guilt. Had she signed Torres’ death warrant when she recruited him? It had all seemed so perfect, he was an in to Los Zetas that she could not pass up. She hadn’t seen Torres as anything more than an asset, a human pawn she would happily sacrifice to get to El Escorpion.

Christ, when had she become that person? When did people’s lives become inconvenient details? She closed her eyes and let shame settle over her.

A few minutes later Torres returned, faded jeans slung low over his narrow hips.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

Torres opened the door to the bedroom. Stretched on the couch were the three men she did not recognise, all passed out cold, the television playing soccer highlights in the background. In the corner of the room Flores sat, still awake, his tattooed hand wrapped around the neck of a beer. It was early to be drinking but he probably had not stopped from the night before. The fear she had felt towards him had given way to anger. It took all her energy not to spit in his face.

Flores nodded at her, a small act of recognition, or maybe what he thought passed as an apology for attempted assault. Beth’s hands tightened into angry fists. Now was not the time or the place. She would bide her time. Flores would get what was coming to him.

Flores apologised to Torres in Spanish, saying he did not realise Beth was his. Torres nodded in return and said something to the effect of “No harm, no foul.”

Beth bit the inside of her cheek to keep from saying that plenty of harm had been done but she didn’t because it would jeopardise Torres’ position to have his “woman” question his authority. The drug culture was savage and steeped in misogyny. She wanted to tell Flores exactly what she thought of him but instead she kept her eyes focused on the floor, studying a small stain on the blue carpet, reminding herself that justice would prevail. As her mom always told her, “Everything will be all right in the end. If it’s not all right, it’s not the end.” Beth closed her eyes and for a brief second let herself beg the universe for the words to be true, not just with Flores, but with her mom.

Flores apologised again and then surprised her by offering to take them to breakfast. From the corner of her eye, she saw Torres nod and then accept the outstretched hand that was offered to him.

Beth’s head snapped up. She opened her mouth to say something but realised it would mean letting Torres know she spoke Spanish and giving away her one advantage.

“There’s a waffle place down the street. Meet us there is fifteen minutes,” Torres said quickly, still speaking Spanish.

Flores nodded and then reached out his hand again, this time to her. Beth took a deep breath. She didn’t want to be in his presence, let alone touch him. Torres put his arm around her waist and gave her a squeeze, his powerful fingers biting into the sensitive flesh. She winced and fought the urge not to cry out. She got the message and shook his hand.

Torres led her from the hotel room. Once they were in the elevator she turned to him. Her hands shook. “Don’t ever do that again. I don’t want him touching me. You do realise what he was going to do to me?”

“I know. I’m sorry.” Torres held out his hands, palms open. Remorse was written clearly on his dark features. Beth shook her head. She had seen it before. He could play any emotion, be anything or anyone the situation required. There was no way to tell what was going on in his head. She wondered if he even understood what was going on in his mind. Hell, she wondered if there was a “real” Torres. He was so good at adapting, his character changing on demand. God only knew what was left of him.

“He was going to rape me. Do you get that?”

Torres clenched his fists and then relaxed them, several times, his stare never leaving her. “I wouldn’t have let him touch you,” Torres said.

Beth didn’t let the issue rest. “But he would have if you weren’t there. Has he done that before? Do you know of any other women he has attacked, because it didn’t seem like his first time.”

Torres’ eyes narrowed into angry slits. “Are you asking me if I have sat back and allowed Flores to rape women? You’ve changed your tune. I thought that you didn’t want details.”

Beth shook her head. “Tell me.” She needed to know this. This wasn’t about Flores. This was about how engrained the violence had become in Torres, how skewed his thinking had become.

Torres’ lips curled into a bitter smile. “Do you want to know if I rape women? Is that what you’re really asking? You’re asking if I am willing to hold a woman down and force my cock into her? Is that what you want to know?”

Beth nodded.

“Fuck you,” was his response. The ice in voice sent a chill through her.

“But you wouldn’t stop Flores,” she pressed.

Torres turned on her. In an instant her back was pressed against the elevator wall, a large arm on either side of her, his weight pinning her in place. In a blink of an eye she was completely overpowered. It was hard for her to breath. Her knees buckled. If he had not been supporting her, she would have fallen over. Torres leaned down and hissed against her ear. “Yes I would stop him. But don’t ever ask me that question again.” When he spoke, his lips brushed her ear. She shivered as his hot breath cooled quickly on the sensitive flesh of her neck.

Just as quickly, Torres released her. He righted himself just in time for the doors opening. “We’re going to breakfast,” he said, still not knowing she spoke Spanish.

Beth took a deep breath and commanded her pulse to slow but it refused. Whatever was left of the real Torres was there. The anger, that was him. “I need to get home,” she tried to say but it came out a whisper.

“Make time, Gatita. Flores needs to know there are no hard feelings.” Torres walked across the parking lot, not turning to see if she was following. Beth shook her head. What a sick world Torres inhabited, where trying to assault someone was glanced over with a nod of the head and an invitation to breakfast.

But she had put him in that world. Guilt threatened to overtake her. If Torres was the monster he looked like, she had helped to create him.

He opened the door to his black SUV and shut it behind her. His actions were more to do with making sure she got in the car than actual manners.

The interior of the car was spotless but she wasn’t surprised. Torres was meticulous with everything. He had even made the bed before they left the hotel. And he had hung up the towels and wiped down the sink so neatly, it was almost impossible to tell anyone was in the room, except of course for the tiny graveyard of alcohol bottles in the wastebasket. They were only in the trash because Torres had put them there.

Five minutes later they pulled into the parking lot of a breakfast chain. She hated to admit it, but she was glad they had stopped here because she was starving. She hadn’t eaten since lunch yesterday.

A waitress seated them at a booth in front of the window, near the front of the store. The woman, whose name was Wanda according to the faded badge on her yellow pinafore uniform, smiled as she handed Beth a menu. There was a tiredness around her eyes that wasn’t concealed by her blue eye shadow. Beth recognised the look of an overworked woman. Her heart constricted painfully as she thought about her mom. The woman looked nothing like her mother, but she reminded her of her mom just the same: same job, same tired eyes.

“I’ll give ya a minute to decide,” the waitress said.

Beth knew without looking what she wanted. Only one food could cure a hangover. “Can I please get the buttermilk pancakes? And do you have peanut butter?”

The waitress nodded.

“Can I get a side of peanut butter please? Oh and a coffee please, decaf,” Beth asked.

Beth looked up to see Torres staring at her. His habit of watching her a bit too intently did not look like it was likely to end.

Torres ordered a black coffee and an omelette before he asked Beth. “Is the peanut butter for your coffee or your pancakes?”

“Pancakes,” she informed him as Wanda filled up her mug with hot coffee.

“Interesting.”

She waited for him to finish his thought but nothing followed. Beth took a deep breath. Thirty seconds went by, and then a minute. He was doing it again, not talking so she would. But damn if it didn’t work. He had obviously figured out that she was uncomfortable with silence.

“I get it from my mom. She puts peanut butter on everything. I think it started when we were kids. Peanut butter gives you a lot of bang for your buck, calorie-wise. We couldn’t afford very much but our cupboards were always stocked with discounted peanut butter. Do you remember the supermarket with the huge isles of discounted food with their yellow labels with black writing? You were never quite sure of what brand was actually inside because everything had a generic label. My mom said it was a culinary adventure.” Beth smiled at the memory. Only her mom could put a positive spin on poverty. But her mom could put a positive spin on anything. She saw everything as an adventure or an opportunity.

“You can smile. Who knew?” Torres said.

Beth nodded. “What can I say? Discounted food does it for me. Don’t get me started on government cheese.”

Torres raised a dark brow in question but he didn’t say anything.

“You don’t remember government cheese? It was the best. There was a surplus of cheese, so low-income families got massive blocks of cheese. We had to stand in line forever but at the end we got a ton of cheese. We are talking like the size of small house. Well not quite but they were big.” Beth couldn’t help but smile when she thought of the enormous pots of macaroni and cheese that filled their freezer for months. Somehow they never got sick of it. God she was talking a lot. Torres’ silence tactics were annihilating her policy of keeping her private life private. She supposed it didn’t really matter much if she told Torres things; it wasn’t like he had contact with anyone she knew.

“Can’t say I have experienced that culinary delight. No government cheese for me.”

“Maybe it was just a California thing.” Beth realised too late that she had assumed Torres had grown up below the poverty line too. She shouldn’t assume his family had received food stamps just because hers had. She never made that assumption about anyone else, weird that she would start with him.

Torres shrugged his shoulders. “They might have had it here. My parents were illegal, so there wasn’t a chance in hell of them getting in any government line.”

Beth nodded. “You say were. Are they still illegal?”

Torres finished his sip of coffee before he answered. “No. Dad is dead, Mom was naturalised. She was cleaning house for a government worker and he pulled some strings.”

The waitress returned a few minutes later with their order.

Beth spread the peanut butter over her pancakes before dousing it in maple syrup. She did not stop pouring until her waffle floated in the sticky concoction. Before she took a bite she cut off a piece and placed it on Torres’ plate. “You already had your childhood robbed of government cheese, you can’t miss out on peanut butter pancakes too,” she said by way of explanation.

Torres eyed the offering dubiously before he stabbed his fork into it.

“Well?” Beth asked before he had a chance to swallow.

Half of Torres’ mouth curled in his signature half smile. “It’s good. I have to admit the combination of sweet and salty works.” Just to be sure he cut himself another bite from her plate.

Beth smiled in return. Sitting with him here in daylight, he almost seemed…well, less scary. He still looked every part the hardened criminal but there was an ease about him that relaxed her in return. She wondered if there was an alternate reality where she could enjoy his company. Once she got past the terrifying part of him, he was actually easy to talk to, mostly because she could tell him stupid inane things as there was no pretence of them ever being friends. But there was something else, something she did not expect from him: he listened like he actually cared what she was saying.

They continued eating and talking, mostly Beth talking, with Torres interjecting the occasional comment or question. Just as Beth finished her last bit of pancake, Flores arrived, alone.

Torres nodded to him. Just then Wanda walked by and Flores grabbed a menu from her hands before sliding into the booth beside Torres. “Coffee,” he said, snapping his fingers and pointing to an overturned cup. “Now,” Flores added when he caught Beth’s eye. “Move your ass.”

Beth’s shoulders tightened. Her gaze darted to the waitress. She tried to catch her eye, to smile, or apologise, let her know she knew Flores was a jackass, but the woman kept her head down. To most people she would have looked unfazed but Beth saw the tightness in her mouth and the subtle flair to her nostrils.

“Please is the word you are looking for,” Beth said in the nicest voice she could manage.

Flores’ eyes narrowed in defiance. “You going to control your woman?” Flores asked in Spanish even though he had just demonstrated his proficiency in English. His dark stare never left Beth. He was trying to intimidate her. There was no doubt it was the same dead stare he showed his victims.

Beth bit the inside of her mouth to stop herself from speaking or showing any sign that she understood him.

Torres laughed and said in Spanish, “I kept her up too late. She’s not a morning person at the best of times.”

Flores seemed to find the explanation acceptable. He looked her straight in the eye. “She’s feisty.” He stood up and announced in English, “I’m going to the toilet. Give me some bacon and eggs, sunny side up, none of this scrambled bullshit.” His stare never left Beth even though he was speaking to the waitress. He was challenging Beth to say something.

Torres leaned over and whispered into her ear. “Play nice, Mami.” There was an underlying threat in his words.

“I’m trying.” Her head was killing her. Normally she might be able to fake civility but she was in too much pain to deal with Flores right now. Just her luck he pushed her buttons. Rudeness to people in the service industry was a particular pet peeve. She had seen her mom be humiliated by customers, because pathetic people thought it was acceptable to demean and demoralise people to show their own power. Her mom had always smiled and brushed it off, reminding Beth, “What Peter says about Paul has more to do with Peter than Paul.” Beth would pretend to be wise and tell her mom she understood but inside it pissed her off. Flores speaking rudely to the waitress brought back all the anger.

With Flores out of earshot, Torres could speak normally. “You wear every emotion on your face. I can see everything you’re thinking. And so can everyone else. It’s not enough to say nothing. You can’t be openly hostile. You’ll get us both killed.”

Beth nodded. She doubted Flores noticed anything about her face. He was too self-involved. He only ever looked at her to intimidate her. She was a piece of meat like every other woman. It was only Torres who studied her. “I thought I was a good liar. Until I met you.”

“Thank you.”

“It wasn’t a compliment.”

Flores returned a few minutes later. When he sat down he snapped his fingers and pointed to his coffee cup.

Beth let out a stream of air. She needed to stretch her legs, before she stretched her fingers around his throat.

She turned to Torres. “I saw a gas station next door. I’m going to go get some aspirin. I’ll be right back.”

Torres lifted a brow like he was going to say something but he remained silent.

Beth pushed passed a busboy as she headed for the door. “Sorry,” she mumbled, looking back over her shoulder.

She made her way across the street and bought a package of aspirin and a bag of M&M’s before she found her way to the curb and sat down beside a fire hydrant. Beth downed two aspirin without any water and then tore open the bag of candy. She wasn’t hungry but she needed them. She popped a single red sweet into her mouth and closed her eyes as the hard shell softened on her tongue. When the hard candy coating and the chocolate below had completely dissolved, she took another sweet, yellow this time, and repeated the process.

Beth breathed in slowly, letting the combination of the sugar and the fresh air relax her coiled muscles.

“Hey,” came a deep voice from above her.

Beth looked up at Torres, his dark head encased by a halo from the morning sun. Even though she shaded her eyes with her hand, she still had to squint. His broad silhouette looked like the cover of a horror novel: shadowed and ominous, promising to inflict all levels of emotional trauma. He surprised her by sitting down beside her.

“Still hungry?” he said gesturing to the M M’s in her hand.

“No, not really,” she said but did not explain further. She would use his tactics on him and let her silence loosen his tongue. It only seemed fair, as she had divulged more this morning than she ever had. No one at work knew she had grown up poor, hell, no one in Texas knew. The thought of anyone knowing her family received food stamps turned her cold, yet she had told Torres with no prompting.

Beth waited for him to say something, but the pause stretched from pregnant to painful. Beth popped another sweet into her mouth to keep from speaking, but this time the treat did not have its usual calming effect. She waited for the candy to melt before she said, “I know what you’re doing and it’s not going to work.”

True to form, Torres said nothing, just continued to stare at her.

Beth sighed in exasperation. “You can stop now. We both know the game.”

Torres’ brow shot up in question.

Beth shook her head. “Please stop looking at me like I am interesting. I’m really not. You’re putting me off my M&M’s and that takes a lot.”

“I wouldn’t want to put you off your M&M’s. You seem very fond of them. Is that another California welfare thing? Did the state give out surplus M&M’s?”

Beth shook her head, annoyed at herself for telling him about government cheese.

Torres nodded, seeming to accept her answer.

He was doing it again. Beth popped another sweet into her mouth and then another and another, repeating the process of letting it melt slowly. “Do you realise how annoying that is?” Her frustration built as she worked her way through her bag of M&M’s with no elevation in her mood.

“Sorry?”

Beth reached into her bag only to discover that she had finished the bag. She wadded up the wrapper and shoved it into her pocket. “Are you kidding me? I finished the bag? I have never finished the bag. That’s how annoying I find all of this.” Beth stood up and briefly considered going back to the gas station to buy another bag but realised her coping mechanism would only work if she was removed from her stressors.

“You’ve never finished a bag of M&M’s?” Torres asked dubiously.

“Yes. No. Not like that. Oh never mind.” Beth threw up her hands in defeat. She turned to walk away but spun on her heel to face him. “I know what you are doing with the whole silence thing and it is not working. I am talking to you so you know precisely how annoying I find the practice, not because it is effective. You understand the difference. You even managed to ruin my M&M therapy, which takes some doing. I have never made it past ten M&M’s before I felt better about something. And I just finished the bag and I still feel awful. So please stop with the staring and the silence. If you want to know something, just ask me. Stop looking at me like I’m interesting, ’cause I’m really not.”

Torres’ eyes narrowed. “Why do you keep saying you’re not interesting?”

“That was your take away from that conversation?” Beth noticed that he was still staring at her but she didn’t mention it, instead looked at him with the same intensity.

“What did you want me to take away, Gatita?”

Again with the cat nickname. It was like acid on an open wound but she would not show it. She shrugged her shoulders. “I would prefer it if you didn’t stare at me. And stop with the long silences that make me talk.”

Torres smiled knowingly. “I see,” he said before, standing up beside her.

What?! What did he see?! Beth didn’t wait for him to finish his thought, because he wouldn’t. “What do you think you see?”

Torres leaned over and brushed a stray lock off of her face. “Just you, Beth.” His hands were worn and callused. Heat radiated off him, but his proximity, or maybe his words, made her shiver. His gaze was on her, palpable and hot.