Marked

Rachel gasped in air; it stung but the cold tempered the growing panic in the pit of her stomach.

Her mind raced with thoughts of the poacher when she burst through the doors of the cabin and startled the others who were gathered around watching something on an old TV screen.

“Ray- take a look at this...” Simone looked up, excitement in her eyes, but trailed off when she saw Rachel. “What’s wrong, honey?”

Out of the adjacent bedroom, Hector’s head peeked out, his hands towel drying his curly, black hair. “Hey, everything okay?” He asked.

“P-p-poachers.” Rachel said, a hand flying to her chest while she tried to catch her breath. “They were outside in the forest looking for survivors.”

Hector abandoned his towel and approached her in two long strides. His eyes surveyed her and his hands gripped her shoulders. “Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”

No, Rachel thought. A poacher with human eyes let me go.

She wondered how that would sound to the others.

Probably crazy, and she was shaking.

Jesus, Rachel. Get a hold of yourself, she thought.

“No--no he didn’t hurt me. He caught me but then he let me go and told me to run.”

“He let you go?” Hector echoed.

“Well now you’ve done it,” Charles interrupted with a harrumph.

She hadn’t even noticed he was there until he rose up from a near-by recliner and his scraggly frame approached her on lithe feet. “They musta let ya go so you could lead them to us, you foolish, little girly!” The old man snapped something from a string in the ceiling and his hand came back with a knife.

For a moment she was sure he meant to kill her but instead he went to his door and peered out.

Shaking her shoulders, Hector brought her attention back to him. “Tell me what happened. Are you sure they weren’t using you as bait?”

“It’s not like that,” she tried to explain. “He told me to leave before the others came. He didn’t want to hurt me.” She knew she was grasping at straws but how could she make them see? A merciful poacher was not something you heard of everyday. Actually, it was something you never heard of at all.

The others began to argue.

“There’s no way!” Juan exclaimed. “No way a poacher would let you go like that.”

“Hey, let her talk!” Simone objected.

Rachel shook her head and looked at Hector.

“Hector, I don’t trust people easily, but you gotta believe me when I say that this man saved my life. He didn’t even look like one of them.”

“Was he marked?”

Rachel stammered, “W-well yes. But his eyes weren’t like the others.”

Hector’s skepticism was plain on his face but he nodded and gave her arms a light squeeze before releasing her. “It’s okay now. But you won’t be going outside alone anymore. None of us will.”

“You bet yer butt you ain’t. Not with that forehead.” Charles returned, jabbing his skinny finger at Rachel’s forehead.

“If those damned poachers are sneaking around here looking for yalls then we best be putting the mark on ya.”

“But I thought you said your mark wasn’t enough to fool them.”

“It aint,” He spat at Juan. “But you’re darn tootin it’ll make them bastards hesitate. Enough so you can shoot em like animals--which be reminding me,” He pulled open a chest that was misshapen and looked like he had carved it out himself. Inside were an assortment of guns and maces and even an old bow, with a few bent arrows underneath it.

Rachel wasn’t sure whether to be relieved that he’d finally agreed to mark them or be terrified by the piles of dangerous weapons in front of her.

“You rascals had better begun learning how to defend yerselves ’cause I sure ain’t gonna do it for ya.”

“We know how to fight,” Hector said, sounding a little offended.

“Sure ya do but you ain’t ever fought a poacher before, not really” Charles paused for dramatic effect and then leaned in close to Hector. He was almost two feet shorter than the Hernandez boy but suddenly he seemed to tower over him. “And in these woods,” He whispered. “There are sometimes worse things than just poachers.”

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“Charles is right,” Hector announced as he strode down the path from the cabin to the stream where Rachel and Simone were seated, washing clothes against the rocks.

“About?” Rachel asked, using her forearm to wipe the hair from her face so she could look at him.

“About learning how to fight. I keep thinking about what could have happened out there with that poacher. What could have happened to you...or even to Simone if it had been her out there.”

“What do you mean?” Simone asked, abandoning the blanket she’d been scrubbing to fix Hector with a confused frown.

“He means that you’re both pretty useless.” Juan chimed as he reached them, busy wrapping his knuckles with white bandages.

“That’s not what I meant.” Hector shot his brother a look. “I just want you girls to be prepared in case anything were to happen and you were to be separated from us.”

Though Rachel found his concern sweet, Simone didn’t appear to take it quite as well as she had.

“That is so misogynistic! Just because we’re girls doesn’t mean that we need you to protect us at all times.”

“Do you even know how to throw a punch without breaking a nail?” Juan teased.

“Yeah, want me to show you?”

“Whoa,” Rachel yelped, catching Simone by the wrist before she could make true to her promise. “I think it’s a good idea, Simone. I mean, it can’t hurt to learn.”

“Look guys, I’m not a fighter, okay? I don’t like getting up close and personal to people so if you want to teach me how to shoot a gun, fine, I’ll learn that but no way am I wrestling with you two hunks of meat.” Simone jabbed a finger at each of them accusingly.

Hector raised an eyebrow at this and Juan laughed, flexing his forearm and poking it with one finger for emphasis.

“Simone—” Rachel hissed.

“Ray, look at them.” Rachel did look at them.

Hector was now standing with his arms crossed over his chest, watching them with a glint of amusement in his eyes while Juan had gone back to twirling his pocket knife in one hand, looking bored. “They’ll practically mountains that I have zero intentions of climbing so excuse me while I go back to doing the laundry.”

Rachel turned from the guys to Simone, unsure if she should follow after her best friend or take them up on their offer to learn how to defend herself. She thought not of the poacher from last night but of the poachers who had raided her home and shot people dead in front of her—the ones who’d killed Mrs. Hernandez and all the other older folks from the mountain. She thought of the poachers who had murdered Elena and Carl and how stupid she had been when they’d cornered her by the ravine.

“Well that was a failure. Come on Hector-boy, let’s go see what we can catch for dinner. Charles’ got these sweet bows and snares we can borrow and—”

“Wait, don’t go—” Rachel interrupted. “I never said I didn’t want to learn.”

Two pairs of eyes shot at her, one sizing her up the other eyeing her with quiet consideration. “You go,” Hector said to Juan. “Let me teach Rachel a couple of defensive moves and then I’ll come join you.”

“Fine,” Juan shrugged. “But try not to break her, will ya? Look at her, she’s practically a twig.”

“He’s not serious, is he? I mean...” Rachel stuttered as she watched Juan’s retreating back until he disappeared into the cabin. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to fight Hector. Eyeing the muscles on his arms, where veins mapped his skin, disappearing beneath the fabric of a t-shirt that bulged at the biceps, she started re-thinking her decision.

“Rachel, he’s joking, I’m not actually going to strike you. Ven aqui*.” He motioned with his hand for her to join him in the middle of the small clearing.

Glancing first behind her at Simone who raised her eyebrows and shrugged at her, Rachel did as he instructed.

“Hands up.” He said. His fingers circled her wrists briefly, as he arranged her hands in the proper position in front of her face. “Now I want you to try to hit me.”

“I—uh.”

“It’s okay, I just want you to try. I want to see what you know.”

“Well, it isn’t much. I’ve never punched anyone...except for Juan, I guess.”

“Well, he deserved it.” He smiled. “And that’s okay, you’ll be an expert by the time I’m done with you.”

They spent the next few minutes sparring, Rachel embarrassingly not managing to land a single punch on him. Every time she would try, he’d deflect her blows easily with open-palmed hands.

As time ticked on, she found that she was, at the very least, fast. The only problem was that he was faster.

“Don’t leave yourself open.” He said, one hand going down to mime striking her in the stomach. Going around behind her, he wrapped both hands around each of her wrists, his chest just barely touching her back.

Rachel glanced behind her and found that he was standing so close she could hear his breath. Her cheeks flamed red, not used to having a man—any man—that close to her ever.

Re-adjusting one of her fists near her face and the other near her stomach, he said. “Always keep one hand up here and the other just a little lower in case someone tries to land a low blow.”

His breath ruffled a few strands of hair by her ear as he spoke and she cleared her throat before speaking. “Like this?”

He came around to look at her again and nodded, his curly hair moving with the motion. “Perfect.”

At his command, she went after him again, trying to land in a punch wherever she could. As she lashed out with her small fists, she started driving him backward until his back collided with the trunk of a tree. Surprised, he glanced behind him briefly but it was enough of a distraction that she was able to get through his defenses.

Not expecting to ever hit him in a million years, her punch landed wildly against his face, much harder than she’d intended.

“Oh my, god! Hector, I’m—” Rachel pulled her fist back and cradled it against her chest, her mouth open in horror.

With his gaze returning to hers, he rubbed his jaw and chuckled.

“I’m so sorry!” Rachel spluttered.

“Woo! Go Ray-Ray!” Simone cheered from behind them.

“You were holding back on me, I see.” He joked and flexed his jaw.

“I am so, so sorry. I didn’t think I’d hit you.”

“I’m messing with you, Rachel. It hardly hurt. We’re going to have to work on that ’cause if you actually want your punches to hurt you’re going to have to learn to throw your weight into them.”

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*ven aqui = come here