Free The 13 Secret Cities (Omnibus) by Cesar Torres Page A

glassy eyes stared at me, pulling me in, tighter and tighter.
    I felt out of air.
    I was going to suffocate to death, and all the pain in my back and in my face came back, stabbing my insides and making me want to collapse to my knees, right here in front of everyone.
    But I wasn't going to cry, and I told myself I was not going to pass out. Pain blasted inside my head, and I wondered if I was finally inheriting my mother's migraines.
    "They should have popped you and the rest of them in that park," spat out the man in the work boots. I stood as tall as I could, and I spat the thickest phlegm I could find in my throat right onto his face.
    "Fuck you," I said, and then he tossed beer in the air as he took a step toward me. He swung a punch near my ear, but he missed. Around us, the crowd was breaking out into shoving matches, and men and women got swept into a sea of bodies. Others were beginning to shove and taunt, and I knew more punches would be arriving soon. I had been beaten in the face once, and the humiliation of this punch by a stranger brought a sense of dread and rage into my gut.
    A gnarled hand pulled me back, and I bucked and kicked away at it, until I saw it was my brother José María. He curled his long arms around my arms, and he literally yanked me out of that pit. He dragged me to the sides, where we could leave the crowd and follow the long hallways that led out to the stairs and eventually the exits.
    This took some time, and all I could hear as José María dragged me was "We need to get out, we need to get out."
    I glanced one last time at the stage, and it looked like the disturbance had dissipated. Rhinoceros was looping their guitar straps over the shoulders and starting up their encore.
    As we bolted down the old stairway and down the long tunnel that led to the exit, I wanted to punch out, to tear away at something, anything. Maybe the T-shirt and merch table. Maybe flip the beer cart. I saw a trash can at the end, and I knew I would kick it as hard as I could. Finally, a target. José María still had me locked into his grip, and I got ready to let out my rage through my feet.
    It was a long hallway, and now that Rhinoceros was back on stage, the tiled tunnel was virtually deserted.
    At the end of the corridor, a final set of glass doors led to the street. These were plain double doors, just as one might find in a department store or office building. In the dim light of the hall, they gave off a strong reflection, almost like a mirror, and as my brother and I approached, I could see our ourselves in fairly sharp detail. Me in my checkered skirt and with my asymmetrical face, my brother's long frame swimming inside his hoodie and his face taut and pale.
    "Stop running," someone shouted from the merch table, but we ignored them.
    We ran as fast as we could, and time began to slow around me, my blood beating inside my ears like a drumbeat. It grew louder and louder, and the reflection in the glass doors began to change as we approached.   José Maria and I were determined to fly out of here, hand in hand, running
    (once, long ago, I ran with Edgar on a field of grass beneath a valley of skyscrapers)
    (once, long ago, I had my original face)
    and now the image in the glass grew black, like a pool of tar invading its surface. Our reflections grew sharper and more solid inside of it. With each step we took toward the glass, I noticed changes in our skin, too. As the glass grew black and glossy, our reflection in the mirror transformed. My skin had gone from brown skin and dark lashes to a bright crimson, wet and raw. As we approached our mirror images, blood spilled from our lips, as if we had just severed arteries or our skin had burst. My left eye, the one that was no longer working properly, was missing from my face in that black mirror, and the hole that remained showed the frame of the skull bone and a glimpse of raw brain inside. My lips had fallen off, and I could see all my teeth outlined in