Dawn was breaking, and the fearful sun timidly let the edge of its flames peek through the eastern horizon.
The footsteps—the ones outside her mind—scattered in a frenzy, slamming a door that Margarita had thought was shut, but that now seemed to have been open all along. A lightning bolt cracked like a whip against the door of her house, and the deafening roar of thunder shook the heavens. A hailstorm heralded the tempest on its way.
As if moved by invisible strings, Margarita walked barefoot and barely clothed toward the butcher's house.
She didn't knock. She didn't enter.
She wandered the streets until she reached that house, then climbed over the fence and began to dig in the backyard.
Here.
There.
A hole, then another.
She shut her eyes, trying to summon the memory. She dug again, this time right there—right where her fingers found something.
She dug faster. Frantic.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" the butcher growled, gripping a machete in his hand.
"LUIS!" Margarita screamed, desperate. "LUIS!"
The neighbors' lamps flickered on one by one, and the butcher rushed toward Margarita, knowing he had to take her down.
"You're fucking done, crazy bitch!"
With pure fury, Margarita kept screaming her son's name, her voice tearing through the night as she pulled something out of the dirt.
A rotting little hand.
It didn't cry for justice.
It cried for vengeance.
The butcher, seething with rage, raised his machete to strike her down. But before he could, the neighbors—who had also jumped the fence—overpowered him, pinning him down as they shouted for someone to call the police.
But there was no need.
The whistles of the officers were already echoing in the distance.