Chapter 2 Echoes In The Silence

• (POV: Isabela Montoya, Age 11)
• This quiet felt wrong, brittle, like it could break any second. God, it was worse than all the noise before. The chaos, the running – at least it was something. This silence... it just held the sound of Mama's cry stopping. That awful, empty weight.
• Isabela stayed put, crammed under the heavy table. Her legs were numb, aching knots. Every single muscle screamed from holding still. A tickle in her nose—dust. Oh no—a sneeze! She choked it back hard, stinging pain. And the smoke... definitely getting thicker, filling the air with a heavy, oily stink.
• Please, please, be gone. Had they left? The men with the terrible voices? The men who hurt Mama?
• Thud.
• Isabela froze, her blood turning to ice water in her veins. It wasn't the sharp violence of before. This was a heavy, deliberate sound. Close. Outside the library door?
• Creak.
• The sound of wood protesting under immense weight. A floorboard, perhaps, in the hallway. Her breath hitched. She flattened herself against the carved wood of the table leg, pushing hard. Just dissolve, she pleaded silently. Melt into the shadows. Turn into dust. Anything. Just disappear.
• Heavy footsteps followed. Slow. Measured. Not the frantic scramble of the attack, nor the lighter tread of the house staff she knew. These steps resonated with a terrifying confidence, a weight that seemed to press down through the thick rug, through the floorboards, into the very earth beneath the estate. They were coming closer.
• Thump… thump… thump… Getting closer. Then stopped. Right outside.
• Isabela screwed her eyes shut, seeing sparks flare in the darkness. Please, no. Please don’t open the door. Please just go away. Her own heart pounded, a frantic, aching beat against her side, echoing the heavy dread of those steps.
• Excruciatingly slow, the door handle turned. A soft click sounded like a gunshot in the quiet. The door began to swing inward, whispering against the rug. A sharp knife-edge of light sliced into her darkness under the table, hitting the velvet runner.
• The footsteps entered the library. Two feet, clad in dark, heavy boots stained with something darker still, stopped just inside the room. They didn’t move for a long moment. Isabela imagined eyes scanning the room – the overturned chair near the window, the scattered books, the faint haze of smoke. Was he looking for survivors? Or confirming the damage?
• She held her breath, praying the thick velvet runner concealed her adequately. A tiny tremor started in her legs, an involuntary quiver she couldn’t suppress. Did he see it? Could he hear the frantic rabbit-thump of her heart?
• The footsteps began to move again. Slowly pacing the room. Closer. Then further away, towards the window. A pause. Then closer again, circling the large table in the center. Her table. Her hiding place.
• Thump… thump… Right beside her now. She could smell him – leather, smoke, something metallic and sharp that reminded her sickeningly of the raw meat Papa sometimes brought back from hunts. He was right there. Just on the other side of the tabletop, the hanging velvet. So close. She squeezed her eyes shut harder, trying to will herself smaller, tighter. Don't see me. But a tiny, choked noise slipped past her throat before she could stop it, half-lost against the hand still mashed over her mouth.
• The footsteps stopped directly beside the table. Silence again, but this time charged with imminent discovery. She could feel a presence looming over her hiding spot.
• Suddenly, the velvet runner was ripped aside.
• A gasp tore from her as blinding light suddenly washed over her cramped darkness. Isabela flinched hard, eyes squeezed shut, then blinking rapidly. White spots danced. Tears streamed, making everything swim. Slowly, slowly, the blurs resolved. She looked up. Straight into the eyes looking down. It was a boy—no, wait—a young man, standing right over her table.
• He was tall, much taller than her brother Quino, though perhaps not quite as broad as Papa. Young, maybe sixteen or seventeen, but his face held none of the easy openness she saw in the older boys who sometimes visited the estate. His jaw was tight, set. His dark hair was messy and damp on his forehead. A thin, angry cut bled sluggishly near his temple, a startling track of crimson against his pale skin. His clothes – dark trousers and a once-white shirt, now ripped at the shoulder – were splattered with more blood. Some dark, some terrifyingly bright red. It wasn’t his blood. Not all of it.
• What locked her gaze, though, were his eyes. Deep, dark pools, almost black. Shockingly still and steady, considering... everything. These weren't the eyes of someone scared or frenzied. They were sharp, observant, taking in her shaking form with a cold intensity that seemed to strip away her terror, leaving just the helpless child exposed. Nothing kind in his look. Absolutely no pity. Only a chilling, detached focus.
• Isabela couldn’t move. Breath hitched in her throat. She was paralyzed, trapped by those eyes. He wasn't loud chaos like before; he was the quiet, heavy threat left behind. The calm after the terrible storm.
• He lowered himself slowly, almost gracefully, bending down closer to where she hid. Closer. That sharp, metallic tang hit her nostrils harder now. But he made no move, uttered no sound. Just watched, his dark gaze cataloging her tear-tracks, her shaking, the desperate way she hugged the table leg like it could save her.
• His gaze flickered for a fraction of a second, perhaps noting the direction her terrified eyes kept darting – towards the hallway, towards the silence where Mama’s voice had been extinguished.
• Then, he spoke. He spoke low, his voice surprisingly deep, roughened around the edges like gravel. It wasn't loud at all, yet it somehow filled the space, impossible to ignore, demanding attention.
• "Are you hurt?"
• The question was clipped, practical. Devoid of warmth. Isabela could only shake her head mutely, fresh tears welling, her throat locked tight with fear.
• His gaze didn't soften. If anything, it hardened, focusing on her with an intensity that burned. He saw the fresh tears, the profound shock etched onto her small face. He seemed to understand, in that instant, the source of her silent agony.
• He leaned in a fraction closer, his voice dropping even lower, a lethal promise whispered into the dead air between them.
• "They killed your mother." The words were flat. Brutal. Stated as unadorned fact, stripping away any hope she might have subconsciously clung to. Isabela’s breath stuttered, caught in a broken gasp.
• His eyes locked onto hers, dark and steady, marking her deep inside with his vow. "I will hunt them down." The promise hung cold and absolute in the air, tight with a hidden fury she could almost feel prickle her skin. "Every. Last. One. And I will make them pay for what they did." He let the words hang there, his eyes never leaving hers, forcing her to feel the chilling force of his intent. "I promise you, Isabela Montoya."
• He knew her name. How? Had he heard Mama? Or did he just… know? Cold fear chilled her. That promise… it wasn't comfort. Not at all. It felt like a cold, heavy chain snapping shut around her, tying her to him, to the awful things that had happened, to the revenge he planned. The one solid, terrifying thing left in a world ripped apart.
• He just held her gaze, stretching the seconds out forever. The only sounds: her own gasping breath, and somewhere far off, the spitting crackle of fire eating away at the house. Then, suddenly, he pulled back. Gone from her space just like that.
• "Stay here," he commanded, his voice once again low but absolute. "Don't move. "Don't make a sound," he ordered, voice low. "Not until someone you know finds you. Got it?"
• Isabela tried to speak, couldn't. Just managed a quick, jerky nod, eyes glued to the streaks of blood marring his face.
• He didn't say anything else—this boy, this young man whose name she didn't know but whose presence felt burned into her mind—just unfolded back to his full height. One last, quick sweep of his eyes around the wrecked library, face hard, impossible to read. Then he turned his back on her hidden spot and walked away. Heavy footsteps thudding deliberately down the hall, leaving her utterly alone again.
• Alone. Beneath the table sticky with lemon oil. The silence pressing in, heavy and thick, holding nothing but his terrifying promise. The echo of his vow, "I will make them pay. I promise you," reverberated in the emptiness, far more terrifying than the silence it had briefly broken.