Starglow Basin We don't wanna go home

sangre. his stunning, sleeping sangre.

she refused la bruja’s tonics, and soto’s offer of the green. as infection turned to virulent bodily anger and at last the fiery vestiges of sickness ebbed away to prevailing recovery, soto imagined he saw something reborn in sangre.

his red bird, rebirthed in the placental ashes of murder and loss.

they’d fled together, hid together, fought together, killed together. bound now by tethers of blood and the immutable rights of survivorship.

not once had soto left her unguarded, and as the days turned to weeks his attitude towards her subtly changed.

that was niño’s ghost in him talking, he knows — but as he looks out over the deeply red sands that stretch for miles and miles, soto smiles to himself.

that bastard, soto thinks as the steady rhythm of sangre’s breathing rises and falls in step with his own. it was just like him to leave them, and yet, never leave at all.