No Apologies

After riding that bike for hours, even someone like her needed someplace to sit down and try to gather her thoughts. She was more tired than she realized. As she found a little dinner by the side of the road. She hoped everyone there would be too worried about their problems to bother her. The dinner had little illumination, not that the darkness bothered her in any way. It had a few tables with some people eating or reading newspapers, no one even looked at her as she entered, she could get used to that. she sat down at a little stool with no bartender present yet.
That's when she realized she didn't know what her name was anymore.
"Santanico Pandemonium? Or Kisa?" She thought.
She thought after killing Malvado she'd never think of herself as "Santanico" anymore, but the name the monster had forced upon her still clung to her like an old perfume. She wondered if she could call herself "Kisa" now, but the fact that she had no-one to call her by that name weighted on her heart more heavily than she'd admit.
That's was when the bartender showed up, he came from a little door behind the bar, wearing black slacks a red Henley shirt, as he slowly came close, she saw that he was hunched and curved, bent almost like a question mark and had a beaky nose and short unwashed black her, and for some reason he was wearing sunglasses inside doors in the middle of the night. He looked at her and asked in a polite tone.
"Hello, welcome to Weird Fellows! What can I do for you? Are you hungry?"
She wasn't hungry just yet. However she had developed a taste for human food when she was with Richie. She remembered telling him French fries and horchata would not sustain him anymore and he simply made her take a bite after three portion, she had to admit that it still tasted great, even if it didn't truly feel her up like blood. She decided that the food might help her gather her thoughts if nothing else.
"Does this place serve French fries?"
"Yes! I can get you some, will you want anything to drink with that?"
"Do you know hot make Horchatas?"
The bartender smiled suddenly, she could see that his face was full of acne
"I learned how to make them a while ago. "Coming right up"
She looked back at the other patrons of the bar as the hunched bartender left the bar. She could hear him putting fries in the grill as she noticed some of the patrons had left when she was talking to him.
He was back after twenty minutes with the food. And by then almost everyone had left the place, even after all that she have been through, she couldn't help feeling a little spooked,but she decided that she didn't want to start a fight without more clear reason.
"Huh, it's almost closing time" the bartender said calmly, after taking a rusty watch from his apron pocket.
"Do you mind if I turn on the radio for a little bit while you finish eating?"
She nodded, to indicate that she did not care. The man took a little radio from behind the bar table and began fussing with it, when a female voice start to sing something rapidly about a monster when the man made a disgusted sound, the first hint of emotion he showed since she got here.
"Hate that song".
The man Mumbled as He kept fussing with the radio until he found a calmer song with a guitar chorus. She just finished eating in silence, took some money out of her pocket to give the man as she turned to leave he said
"I think I know what is in your mind"
"I very much doubt it" she said.
The man let out a wheezing laugh, he took his sunglasses of, he had striking blue eyes "you are confused and you don't know what to do next"
"you think you know me because I sat at your dinner for half a hour?"
The man smile widened, when he spoke next, his voice was raspy almost like a growl. "trust me I've been in the same place"
The woman didn't decided to just turn and leave when she heard him saying
"if you truly want to decide what to do your life next, you should go home, even if home isn't there no more"
"you dont know me" she rasped
The man grinned. "Have fun in your journey."
She left the place. Her bike was waiting for her outside. The sun had set and it was time to keep travelling. Even if she didn't know where she was going.
The sun was almost rising again when she admitted to herself that she knew where she wanted, no needed, to go now. How annoying that annoying bartender advice was actually sound? The woman increased the speed of her bike she was going to reach an abandoned site on Guadalajara before sunrise.
She found the place she was looking for just when it got too sunny for her to walk around. When she got into the Primavera Forest, she found a patch of trees to protect her to sun. She sat down there to rest and to gather her bravery to do what she has to do now. So she sat there, for twelve hours or so. One or two tourists passed by without seeing her, it was winter so nobody wanted to travel to Mexico much, especially this forest.
As she watched for the night to go back again, she took a deep breath, for she knew that in this forest somewhere, stood the ruins of the place she was born.