Free The Only Road by Alexandra Diaz

town, every place seemed dangerous. Down one gravelly dirt street, rowdy voices screamed behind closed doors until something like a gunshot demanded silence. Ángela and Jaime grabbed each other’s hand and ran the other way. Another wrong turn led them down a dark street where two men outside a bar leered and beckoned to Ángela.
    â€œ Ven, muñeca , I want to show you something.”
    Jaime did what Miguel would have done: he told them off for being disrespectful pigs whose mamás had not raised them properly and that they should rot in hell. Except while Miguel would have said it out loud, Jaime said it inside his head. Outside his head they both ignored the men and hurried to find a safer street.
    After some other streets that dead-ended at someone’s house or by the river, they finally found a street that crossed 17A Norte. A wooden cross with the faded words“Santo Domingo” written on it was nailed to a post. An arrow pointed down the street.
    Smoke rose into the night sky from what smelled like a bonfire, and laughter echoed from the nearby river. The residential street of crumbling houses ended in front of a rundown church. Its stone and concrete structure was barely standing, requiring the aid of rope and string in a few places. A few men sat outside on the steps smoking hand-rolled cigarettes and speaking in low voices. When Jaime and Ángela approached, the overweight man in the middle stood up.
    â€œAre you looking for shelter? I’m Padre Kevin, bienvenidos .”
    Padre Kevin looked nothing like any priest Jaime had ever seen before, with his sandals, flowery Bermuda shorts, blue tank top, and the cigarette stuck to his bottom lip. But he wore a silver crucifix around his neck, and the faded words painted on the wall behind him did say “Iglesia de Santo Domingo.” At least , Jaime told himself, he didn’t look like an officer or a gang member either .
    â€œ Gracias ,” Ángela said. “Do you have space for us?”
    The priest inhaled from his cigarette and laughed. “There’s always space for God’s children, just as long as you don’t mind squeezing a bit. You, kid, do you want to sleep with the men or stay with your sister and the women and children?”
    Too tired to think, he shrugged. Of course he didn’twant to stay with the little kids, but he’d never slept anywhere without a family member in the same room, or a cousin in the hammock next to him.
    â€œWe’ll stay together,” Ángela answered for him.
    Padre Kevin took a deep drag from his cigarette before handing it to one of his compañeros . He led the way into the church, which was little more than a large room with pews pushed to one side. Through the moonlight seeping from the open windows, Jaime saw mounds and shapes huddled across the floor.
    â€œIf you need the bathroom, the river’s less than two hundred meters away. The church’s plumbing is clogged, but there’s a water basin through that door over there.” Padre Kevin kept his voice low as he pointed out the features of their first night’s accommodation.
    He gave them two tattered blankets and waved to a spot near a wall that was free. Ángela laid one blanket over the dirt floor. They took off their shoes and lay down, using their backpacks for pillows, and covering themselves with the second blanket.
    It had been twenty-four hours and five hundred kilometers since Jaime’s parents had woken him up in the middle of the night. Now, as he lay next to his cousin on the hard, dirt floor in a rundown church run by a weird priest, he took a deep breath. Before he’d finished exhaling, he fell fast asleep.

CHAPTER EIGHT

    The sun coming through the open church windows woke them up earlier than they would have liked. But even without the sun, the people shuffling around and babies crying would have gotten them up anyway. It took a few blinks for Jaime’s eyes to