Polo was so wrong. The following morning, when he woke up, it wasn't to the cold, dark, empty halls of a greasy last hope orphanage. It was a lovely hotel resort and Guzman was playing a stupid song on the radio Polo loves so much. It's a violin cover of the song Seniorita, by Shawn Mendez and Camilla Cabello
He smells cinnamon. He's breathing in vanilla reference. The three of them rested in their underwear overnight and Guzman is dancing for him by the morning fire. The colors are still fractured blue but the freckles can be seen all along Guzman's stomach and beneath the band where the boxers on his best friend stretch.
Guzman squats down before him and smiles so big, "I almost don't want to leave. Carlos is here. Came for us in the night."
Ander steps out from a room connected to theirs draped in a towel. He's steaming, the water must be excruciatingly hot. The droplets of water from his hair, his chin, and his nipples, dips into the fabric as he enters the room, "We should hurry. I could really use some bacon right now."
The three of them laugh and the song comes to an end.
A young hobble of a woman enters the room, a pacific islander incapable of understanding them as she moves about the room gathering discarded clothing items and easing the fire to prepare for the next guests.
Ander tries to speak to her, "We can take our clothes. We were only here for the night."
In her choppy accent she attempts to explain what they can only interpret as, "You're not leaving."
A cold chill creeps down the spine of Polo and he's shuffling about as quickly as possible to gather his things. He does not like the idea of being trapped anywhere, especially after being held at gun point in a place he was supposed to be kept safe. When the little woman sees him frantically moving over his things she assumes he's trying to help her clean and that is not something she can have. Walking over to him she attempts to take the things he's gathered into his arms and he goes into a full blown panic.
"YOU CAN'T JUST HOLD US HERE AGAINST OUR WILL! Let me go! Stop touching me." He snarls.
She only shouts back and tugs harder at the things in his grasp. Guzman races over to help and Ander's eyes move to the window. A crack of lightning, a swirl of a flurry, and then the electrical surge that happens just before a power tower comes tumbling down fill his widened terrified eyes. No one person is keeping them here. It's a storm and it's winds are strong enough to plummet them all into darkness.
The little woman had been trying to conserve the fire and secure any clothing that needed to be washed before the outage. Seems she'd have only gotten them wet before this but Polo had made for a fair distraction. Now all three boys are frozen in fear. For death comes in the dark and his friends live in the shattering of glass and the scattering of sparks after a lights wiped out.
Guzman, unconciously, snakes his arms around Polo's frail and skinny torso and Polo leans into the warmth as if this is natural and they had done this always. Ander sits down and imagines the flicker of the flame holds Omar's very name. Their friends are gone and instead of escaping the memory they're plunged right back into it along with the shadows that refuse to stop dancing around them.
Guzman was Nadia's and he was happy with her. Polo was discarded by Carla and Christian and that was devastating but watching them die was even worse than this. Ander loved Omar and finding his lifeless body in the boys bathroom was heavy but it didn't feel real so naturally part of him wants to believe that it wasn't him and anyone could look like that after death. Still, who else would have been there in casual clothes like that? Omar wasn't a student and therefore wouldn't have been wearing a uniform. The victim was wearing a dark hoodie and living with his religious parents Omar was always hiding in a dark hoodie.
The little old woman looks around at the suddenly so terrified and pale faces of the boys and registers that something must be wrong. She rests the clothes down into the seat cushion of the rocking chair near the window and hobbles out of the room leaving them to their own thoughts and demons. Only Polo isn't going to stick around long enough for them to eat at him.
Out into the hallway he goes, around the bend, through the arch way, and down the long spiral staircase into the lobby, all of which is lit up by small caged torches along each wall and separated every few paces. A room for guests to come in common, a bar to the left, a restaurant to the right, and a few office spaces in between where those who are staying may hold meetings or file paper work on the community computers. He makes no hesitation as he goes along up to the front desk where Mr. Garcia and Mr. Knight are waiting.
"Uncle Carlos." Polo whimpers and rushes into the unsure, yet broad arms of the man he's related too.
Carlos sighs and looks up at the empty couch cushions in the lobby nearby and asks, "Little Polito, what is going on?"
Ander and Guzman slowly step off the last step of the stair case.
Kendall looks from them to Carlos and Carlos looks up from Polo to look at his husband. There's a shared confusion and Polo just starts spewing all the mess that's inside him, "He killed Christian and Carla and he was going to kill me and he killed Nadia, Marina, and the new kid Samuel. He killed everyone and I was almost everyone too but I'm not everyone because Guzman saved me but now Carla is dead and so is Christian and it's my fault. If I had died they would have lived and I'm a monster because I almost killed Marina over a stupid pocket watch -and- *gasp* *gasp* and-" His breathing becomes impossible, his anxiety has him in a full blown panic attack, and he refuses to let go of Carlos.
"Polo. Please. Slow down." Says Uncle Carlos.
"Someone shot up Las Encinas." Explains Ander in a calm fashion, "During our school dance. They wouldn't let anyone leave and before we knew it he had wiped out all the staff, pretty much every student except us."
Kendall, being the more logical one in his marriage, asks the question no one thought too, "What stopped him."
Polo slips out of Carlos' grasp and turns to look at the same person Ander's looking at. In unison they say; "Guzman."