Chapter 13
On the last episode: Zalli has an impromptu date with Axolin only for Yoltzin to crash it. Now: Zalli has Yoltzin take her home where a surprise is waiting for her.
Wind rushed past Zalli’s ears. She sat in the passenger seat of Yoltzin’s Cobra as he sped on the road back to her house. Even though he was not driving over 64 km/h, it was faster than Churro could ever run. It gave Zalli a slight uneasy feeling throughout the trip, even though she held no expression on her face saying otherwise.
Her hair did not whip over her face as much as it could have been doing. Yoltzin had pulled out a satin handkerchief from his glove box and he gave it to her, instructing her to tie it around her head with the knot underneath her chin. Zalli didn’t understand at first, but she was glad for it now.
When they left from the festival, Zalli had tried to continue their conversation with avid interest. Even though the CEO responded to her with matching enthusiasm, she could not maintain the flow as the drive continued on.
The sounds of the wind eventually were too much for her. She could no longer process much of what Yoltzin was saying.
Therefore, they currently sat in a comfortable silence. Yoltzin had one hand on the wheel with his outer arm resting on his door. Zalli was similar in position to him, except the arm she had on her door held her head up with a fist underneath her jaw. Her elbow supported her upper body’s structure. Her other hand rested on her lap; fingers tapped on her bare leg, helping her pass the time.
Zalli was slightly concerned about her family. She originally was going to find Tepi before leaving with Yoltzin, to let her know of her premature departure. But when she came across Srta. Maceuhqui, she acted on impulse, and asked the dance teacher if she could deliver Zalli’s message to them on her behalf.
Srta. Maceuhqui agreed to it with a giggle as she clung onto her boyfriend. Zalli realized then she might have been a bit too intoxicated and regretted asking her, but her boyfriend was kind enough to assure her he would help deliver the message to her family.
Zalli turned her head to see what the CEO was doing. She knew, of course, that he was driving, but she was curious to know what his demeanor was like at the moment.
Yoltzin was staring straight ahead as he drove. It looked like he was paying attention to the road, but the far look in his eyes revealed he was lost in deep thought. The arm he had on the steering wheel was relaxed, but its hand gripped the wheel in a tight hold. Zalli assumed he was clenching his jaw as showed by his neck flexing and his jawline appearing more prominent at some times than other. His hair tousled about, no longer a defined comb back, with its structure lost to the wind.
Maybe he should have worn a handkerchief too. Am I wearing his? Zalli inquired to herself, turning away for a moment. She touched her wrapped head while she found herself lost in her own thoughts.
When she returned to look at Yoltzin again, they made eye contact, to her surprise. Zalli was not sure if he knew she was basically gawking at him, but she didn’t want to risk finding out by opening an invitation to have a conversation about it. So, she snapped her head to look away at the passing shrubbery, which was difficult to see due to the night sky.
What she could see, though, was orange glowing dots between the foliage. She held confusion in her thoughts, since it was usually very dark in this area. Something unsettling appeared in the bottom of her stomach.
She narrowed her eyes to scrutinize the mysterious lights before her. As they passed a clearing, Zalli realized what the little lights really were.
In the open, the many orange lights formed one enormous light. Since it was dark, it was hard to detect its smoke, but with careful observation, Zalli could see the light emitted it around its top edge.
She turned in haste and grabbed Yoltzin by his shoulder.
“I think-I think there’s a fire over there!”
He had looked in the same direction as Zalli at the same time she did, but could not give it the proper consideration she had. He was intent on driving safely by looking forward most of the time. But once she gave her assessment to him, he looked over to the side again and found what she said to be true.
“I think you’re right.”
Zalli turned to look at the growing fire again and another revelation came to her as she calculated the distance from where they were to her home and compared it to the distance of the fire.
“Yoltzin. I think that fire is at my home.”
Her hand remained on his shoulder. She used it to grip him as trepidation overcame her.
Yoltzin bore a serious look. He did not answer Zalli immediately as he thought about how to handle the situation with efficiency. Within seconds, he came to a solution and brought his hand to the inside of his jacket. This caused Zalli to pull her hand off him in a brisk movement.
He pulled out his phone and handed it to Zalli in an instant.
“The pass code is 16-97. Use my phone to call for help.”
Zalli held her stare with wide eyes as she took in what Yoltzin said. The astonishment she had only froze her for an abrupt moment before she pushed herself into action.
She ripped the phone out of his hands; the panic she carried forced her to move with little grace. Placing both hands on the steering wheel, Yoltzin picked up his speed, going way above the safe speed limit.
“1-6-9-7.”
She spoke the code out loud, ensuring she heard what Yoltzin said correctly. She might have pressed the black square buttons with more force than necessary, but the adrenaline she had made it hard to act with care.
The screen above the number pad lit up, showing it was unlocked and ready to be used. Zalli touched the screen to open the call function of the phone. Knowing the number of her local firefighters by heart, she punched the number in with swift dexterity and touched the green button with the phone icon on the screen.
Just as she brought the phone up to her ear, Yoltzin made a hard turn to drive down the short driveway leading to her house. The phone rung twice before someone picked up on the other end. While Zalli spoke to the operator, Yoltzin placed his Shelby on the brake and turned it off. He spoke to Zalli as he jumped out of his car.
“When you’re done, stay here. I will try to see what I can do until the firefighters arrive.”
With Zalli busy explaining the situation on the phone, and Yoltzin leaving as soon as he finished speaking, she had no chance to argue with the CEO about staying in his car. All she could do was watch as he jumped over her gate and ran towards the blazing fire that currently covered half of her fields.
“Señora? ... Señora?! Are you still there?”
The phone operator’s voice pulled Zalli out of the horror trance she found herself in as she saw her family’s legacy burn at a rapid pace to complete nothing.
“Yes, yes. I am. Sorry.”
“The firefighters have been notified and are on their way. Please stay at a safe distance until they ...”
The operator droned on the typical safety instructions to Zalli, but she could process none of it. Once she heard the man on the other end ask if she wanted him to stay on the line with her, she gave a courteous ‘no thank you’, the proper goodbye, then hung up.
Zalli dropped the phone onto the driver’s seat, pulled the handkerchief off her head, and got out of the car herself. The terror she felt in her veins made her walk slowly to her side gate. She continued to watch in dreaded awe, not able to break away from the trance she found herself in.
Even though she was internally screaming at herself to take action, all she did was grip the edge of her gate.
Huizi appeared on the back porch and barked with a boisterous yelp. Zalli was not sure if her canine companion was barking to her, or was barking at the fire, but it was enough to wake the farmer up.
She took in a breath and jumped over the gate. Her athletic ability did not match Yoltzin’s, but she had enough agility to get over the wooden gate without falling on her face.
Zalli ran over to her barn and entered its darkness. She knew where her irrigation hose was by heart, so she did not waste time by turning on the light. Once she had the loops in her hands, she threw the rubber over her shoulder and dashed to her water pump.
On her way there, she fell over and scraped her knees. The weight of the hose was hefty for her, and it caused her to lose balance while she rushed to her destination.
Zalli picked herself up and kept moving. She ran in front of her two wells to reach her water pump, which was on the side of her reservoirs. She chucked the hose and attached the open end of the hose to the pump. Zalli grabbed the closed end and sprinted through her fields, following the perimeter of the fire.
As she ran back, she saw Yoltzin lifting a bucket up from the well next to the pump. He looked up as she approached closer. He wanted to demand her to stay away, to get to a safer location, but the words couldn’t quite leave his mouth. So instead, he gave her a nod of understanding, grabbed a bucket in each hand, then ran back to the fire on the other side.
Zalli moved to the back end of her pump and uncoiled a hose already attached to it from underneath. She pulled it out and brought it over to the furthest well, seeing how Yoltzin was using the closest one to the pump. She chucked it in, then went to the pump to turn it on.
It took a few too many pulls to get it started. The adrenaline rushing through her body did not allow her to yank it at the angle it need to get the engine going. But she eventually got it and heard the engine roar with a start.
Zalli took a step back and waited. She waited to see when the water would spurt out on either side of the hose. She waited to see if she chose the correct distance to place the hose down. She waited to see if the hose was not too close to the fire for the infernal beast to burn it, too. She waited.
Then the water came out and began irrigating her fields. It was not a gush that could put the fire out, but it was something to at least wet the remaining flowers and soil she had to deter the fire from growing further in. At least she could stop it from reaching her house.
Zalli took a step forward in her dirt covered boots. She thought she should grab her own bucket and attempt to douse the fire from this side. But then she heard odd noises coming from around where Yoltzin went to. It sounded like someone was fighting.
She ran around the bend of the blazing wall. The fire licked out, trying to get a taste of the maiden who ran too close for her safety; it almost caught her platinum hair a few times as it swished behind her.
Zalli found the source of the noise and skidded suddenly to a stop to figure out what was happening.
There were people fighting with each other, as she suspected. Yoltzin sat on top of Necalli. He pinned Necalli down with his hand on his shoulder while he pulled his arm back to throw a punch down, aim for Necalli’s face. Sometimes he would land it, other times, Necalli could dodge the blow with a block.
Zalli was unsure why the two were fighting, but she knew she needed to stop it. She raised her voice to ensure she would be heard over the roaring they were next to, but also because she felt her emotion take over as she continued to observe the violent scene in front of her.
“Hey! HEY! The both of you, stop it!” She moved in as she spoke, but her demand went unnoticed. Instead, Necalli flipped Yoltzin over and threw his own blows back to the CEO. She moved closer to them with clenched fists and tried to get their attention again. “Oye, carajo! I said to STOP!”
Necalli glanced up and made direct eye contact with Zalli. He heard her this time, but all he did was send a sinister smile in her direction before he pulled his arm back to continue with his punch.
Zalli’s stomach dropped with a heavy thud. The expression her old friend held forced her to loosen her fists; she swallowed loudly and shook her head as she tried to make sense of why Necalli would do that.
Not being able to arrive at a quick conclusion, Zalli decided to pretend it didn’t happen.
As Zalli was sorting through what she was feeling, Yoltzin was able to stop the punch Necalli was about to use against him. When Necalli’s arm came close to Yoltzin’s face, the CEO moved his head to the side and used his own arm closest to the attack to wrap over the limb from the inside. After Yoltzin got a good lock on Necalli’s elbow by hugging just above the joint in a tight grasp, he hit Necalli hard. Then he flipped Necalli over by lifting his hip up from the opposite side and holding onto him with his free hand for balance. He popping him off with a hard push.
Just as he was going to continue the fight, Zalli finally intervened physically as an attempt to stop the fight, since her words were clearly doing nothing. She went behind Yoltzin and grabbed him by his shoulders. In a tight hold, she used all of her strength to pull the man off.
To her surprise, it was an easy maneuver to do. Yoltzin flew back and fell hard on his bottom, breathless from both the impact and from the physical activity he was just engaged in.
They stared at each other. Zalli raised her eyebrows at her own strength while Yoltzin gave her an incredulous stare. Before Zalli could grasp the depth of her action, she heard Necalli get up behind her.
She turned around and saw the crazed intention he held in his orange eyes. He brought his shoulders down and aimed to tackle Yoltzin, but Zalli immediately stepped in front of him. She raised both arms up to his chest and bent her arms to push him back.
As she shoved him hard, she hissed in her friend’s direction.
“Necalli! That’s it, stop!”
The physical force she used caused Necalli to fly backwards by almost two meters. He fell hard on his back—a rougher plunge than what Yoltzin went through.
Over her shoulder, Zalli heard a bark of laughter emit from Yoltzin. She turned around to see the CEO dusting himself off. She felt a fluttery sensation in her stomach, which quickly turned into anger. Zalli walked in his direction and yelled at him with passion.
“What the hell is wrong with you?! Do you think this is funny?!”
“No. Your strength just amazes me.”
His assessment made Zalli feeling exposed and only spurred her anger on. She stared down at the ground before she met Yoltzin’s gaze with narrowed eyes.
“Why were you even fighting, anyway?!”
Yoltzin took his time to respond. He shifted his weight and rubbed his brow. His patience was already thin from all the stress he felt from the past half hour. Now was not a good time to deal with Zalli’s constant questioning. But he exhaled to ground himself and spoke with a careful control in his tone.
“Necalli is the one who started the fire.”
“You have got to be joking.”
Zalli brought her eyebrows down as she spoke, but the serious expression Yoltzin had told her he was, in fact, not joking. Her eyebrows softened at the acceptance. Then, she turned to Necalli, who was still on the ground.
Silence existed between the two friends before Zalli asked her next question to him.
“Necalli, is it ... is it true?”
He stood up with his shoulders heaving up and down. He held a blank stare and the muscles in his face were completely relaxed as he spoke in a bored tone.
“Can’t you obey me like everyone else? I told you to sell your farm.”
Déjà vu washed over Zalli again. Just like before, his words sounded familiar to Zalli. And like before, they were as threatening and cruel as they were the first time she heard them.
“So you set my farm on fire? You could have burned my house down!”
Her pitch increased as she spoke. Her eyes held a tightness to them as she felt her heartbeat pound loud in her chest.
“My resolve is better than yours when it comes to decision making.”
Again, a tense familiarity of the scene hit her. It felt displaced, yet specific to a memory from before.
The Necalli she spoke to now was not the Necalli she knew as her long-time friend, but a Necalli that Zalli knew deep down was actually his true self.
Before she could respond to him, the sirens the group heard in the background suddenly became louder, as if the volume from a radio was suddenly turned all the way to full blast. It distracted both Zalli and Yoltzin, which gave a window for Necalli to sprint into the trees.
The CEO moved in the same direction, as if he were going to chase down Necalli, but Zalli spoke to him with fervency first.
“Yoltzin, wait! Leave him. Just stay—please. Help me with my farm.”
He turned to look at the spot where Necalli entered the forest with clenched fists before he released a resolving breath. Yoltzin moved away from the trees and stood next to Zalli without saying a word. He brought a hand up to push his hair back, but it only fell back down with little resistance.
Zalli looked up with a small smile, even though her eyes still held a tenseness to them, and spoke again.
“Thank you.”
It was low and soft, but Yoltzin heard it all the same. He nodded his head to her in acknowledgment.
He opened his mouth as if to say something, but the noise from the firefighters nearby stopped him. Without further thought, the duo moved to the group, who were working together to put the fire out.
Michelle Alva
