Two Eyes Cenote [m] tierra de nadie

the girl pays the ultimate price, as girls often do. her father would live with this and his other failings the remainder of his life.

soto has seen many terrible things, but even then something unspeakable moves in his gut to see safiya's bloodied eye held aloft, viscera and eye-string dribbling from nino's hooked claws.

a glance to her father and he knows khusobek is reeling. in that moment he could take advantage of the distraction and rip his throat from him -- fangs hungry for stiff trachea to turn to pulp.

it would be ultimate retribution, and deserving -- for this and other grievances laid upon soto's body.

but it would hurt safiya more to lose her father than the burn of a lost eye ever would.

against the will of his aching ribs soto bows and the green-rope slips from his thinned neck. coiled in the sand it looks like a dispatched serpent, the scars of its fangs leaving his throat bald and bloody.

safiya. he turns as she slips to the ground in relinquished consciousness. he's sorry she's been hurt, but that's the thing about girls and cartels. girls die every day. he supposes he's grateful it's only an eye.

he could seize her then and they could run. it's tempting, but he couldn't run long with broken ribs and god knows what else. he owes nino more than his life in that moment, and fixes his unsundered eye to the man with a sudden grin that defies the horrors he's endured in the crypt.

fuck, it was good to see him. vamos. he suggests with a raised brow and does not wait -- turning his back to eset and khusobek both.

they would come to regret this moment soon enough.