The jungle smelled like blood and gunpowder. Four bodies rotted in the dirt, already claimed by ants. By dawn, they'd be nothing but bones and memories.
Inside the hut, silence sat heavier than the corpses outside.
Tia wouldn't look at me. She curled up against the wall, Rosa's necklace clutched in her small hands. Every time I shifted, she flinched. I could face bullets without blinking, but the sight of her fear made my chest ache like a wound I couldn't stitch.
I tried to speak. Nothing came out. What do you say to a child who just watched you kill four men? That it was necessary? That they would have killed her? Words felt empty, excuses carved from lies.
So, I did the only thing I could. I cleaned the blood. Scrubbed the floor. Buried the bodies. I worked until my hands blistered, until the jungle swallowed every trace of what had happened.
When I came back inside, she was awake. Watching me. Not with trust, not yet, but with something else, curiosity.
I sat down a few feet away, leaving space, as if the gap could protect her from the monster she thought I was. She didn't speak, but her eyes stayed on me. After a long time, she whispered:
"Will they come again?"
Her voice cracked, soft but steady.
"Yes," I said. Honesty was all I had. "But I'll be here."
She looked down at the necklace. Her lips trembled. Then, almost too quietly to hear:
"You sound like her."
Her. Rosa.
The words hit me harder than any bullet.
That night, for the first time, Tia didn't sleep with her back against the wall. She didn't curl away. She stayed near the fire, and when her eyes finally closed, her small hand rested on the floor, close enough that I could almost feel Rosa in her touch.
I sat awake, keeping watch. Because if the world wanted to take Tia, it would have to walk through me first.