Overexposed

Ch. 10 Better

Diana Alvarez was no idiot. She knew they were in deep shit, though she was trying to keep her calm for the frightened nurse and the little blonde who hadn't stopped crying since she'd woken up. Lupe, the other Mayan girl they'd taken had yet to come back which made her think they were using her for something. But what? The girl didn't know a damn thing. Raffa wasn't stupid enough to spill club secrets to just any girl. Closing her eyes, she stared at the ceiling.

"How'd they get you?" Lyla's voice rasped in the corner.

Chloe sighed softly in response. "Ran me and Ang into a tree. Pulled me out and took me. Left her there."

Dia tried to tune out Chloe's responses, but it was incredibly hard; she loved Angela like a daughter, wanted to know if she was okay especially since she was carrying her granddaughter inside her. She opened an eye to glare across the way at Chloe, willing her to keep quiet, but she had her eyes closed as well and kept talking, "She couldn't breathe when I left her. I think...her lung might've been punctured or something. I told them to get her help, but I...I'm not sure if they did."

"Shit," Lyla muttered, drawing her thin legs up to her chest. "You think she's..."

"She's not," Diana cut her off quickly, finally snapping. She didn't want to hear anymore talk of Angela's fate. "She's strong, smart. She found her way out. Just you wait. You'll see."

Just then the door opened and two men pushed in a sobbing Lupe. She crumbled to the floor, a huge chunk of her hair missing from her head, blood covering her hands. The men dragged her across the floor, clapping the irons around her wrists. Chloe and Lyla stared at her in horror while Diana raised an eyebrow assessing the younger girl. "Que paso?" she asked, making no move to go comfort her like the little blonde did. (What happened?)

"Th-they cut m-mi pelo," Lupe sobbed, reaching up to touch her hair. "And pulled out my nails! My nails! What do they need them for?" (My hair)

Diana smirked, crossing her arms over her chest. "They're going to send them to the club," she stated with a shake of her head. "A warning."

A deep, sultry laugh came from the doorway. "You are exactly right, Mrs. Alvarez," a distinctly female voice said from the doorway. The woman did not step forward into the light, though, keeping herself hidden. "This is just to show them what we're capable of before we give our demands. It will escalate as time goes on. We'll see how long it takes for them to give us what they want."

She fought the urge to laugh in response. The woman was crazy if she thought the Mayans would be intimidated by a fake fingernail and a lock of hair. These men were used to receiving severed body parts and heads. "Good luck," she muttered, rolling her eyes. It was her attempt to draw the woman out, to see who they were working with.

"Oh, this is just the beginning. Get a good night's sleep, girls. One of you will be next."

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Kenny rubbed at his tired eyes as he sat at the cafeteria table in St. Thomas. He'd spent most of the night before huddled in front of a laptop with Bones trying to find any lead they could on Chloe, and he was exhausted. Every time he blinked, he could still see the square of light on the backs of his eyelids. Bones was sitting across from him, staring blankly at the table top, his fingers drumming on it as if he were itching to get back to his laptop. Ellie and Jasmine had decided to force them to take a break and relax a bit, taking the computers from them to keep them from working. It wasn't helping, though. If anything, Kenny felt more anxious sitting there doing nothing when there was so much left to do. He'd been so focused on finding the assholes who'd hurt his adopted mom, he hadn't even gone to visit her yet. He'd told himself it was because he was so busy he hadn't had a chance to, but deep down, he knew it was because he didn't want to see her all laid up in the hospital bed. Didn't want to think of his strong, invincible mom as anything but that. He justified it by thinking he was helping her in a different way, but he knew Angela would be a little disappointed in him for avoiding her.