Blood of Gato

William grimaced but said nothing.

Latecia went on, her voice low and deliberate, the rhythm of it rolling like some half-whispered conjure:

"Wendigo, cher… they find one mate for life. Don' matter man or woman. Jus' one. But they don't call it love the way you do. They call it the Ikhtan Winter. Sounds pretty, don't it? Ha. It ain't. It's hell."

Her drawl folded around the words, thick with an uneasy weight.

"They bury the chosen one. Alive. In frozen ground, mid-winter. Sometimes they give 'em a narrow pipe o' air, just enough so they don' choke outright. But the cold, the hunger—it gnaws through bone an' mind. Then… then comes the feasting."

She leaned closer, eyes narrowing.

"They feed that poor soul human flesh. Not all at once, no. Piece by piece. Slow. Weeks of it. Meals that stick in the throat 'til you don't taste it no more, but swallow anyway 'cause your belly is screamin' for life. That's the first lesson."

She reached for her glass of orange juice, lifted it, and drained half in one long swallow, face tightening as if to wash the taste of her own words from her tongue.

"And then… on the solstice, they drag 'em up out the ground." Her eyes glinted dark beneath her lashes. "Second stage begins. Five days, sugar. Five days o' breakin' the body down—no sleep, barely a breath's pause. They tear 'em raw, until there ain't nothin' left but blood, screams, and bone holdin' on by spite. Five days until that soul either shatters… or survives. If they live through it, if they still cling to the one who put 'em there?"

She leaned back, voice dropping to almost a whisper.

"Then they're wendigo. They're partners. Forever."

The table fell into silence.

William's fists clenched beneath the table, knuckles so white they felt brittle. He glanced down at his plate, and the sandwich waiting there turned grotesque. The slabs of beef, once appetizing, now lay before him like skin flayed from something too human. His stomach lurched violently and he shoved the plate away, face twisting.

"God…" he breathed. His throat felt dry as ash. He turned his eyes toward Milagros, stricken with horror. "Now I see why you…" His voice trailed, the pity in his gaze reaching toward her.

But Milagros didn't flinch, didn't even blink. She simply prodded her omelet with her fork, mechanical, as though the story belonged to some stranger in some far-off nightmare. Her face was cold stone, her silence louder than Latecia's words.

William forced himself to speak again, though his voice faltered.

"But… how can they still be loyal after that? How can there be anything left—love, trust—after that? It's torture, not devotion."

Latecia gave a rough snort of laughter and leaned back in her chair, folding her arms.

"That's the twisted beauty of it, boy. Before that Winter begins, they tell 'em everything. The chosen one knows damn well what's comin'. Knows the truth o' the beast. An' still, they say yes. Still they choose eternity."

Her gaze sharpened, her finger raising like she was hammering the most damnable truth into the air.

"And here's the foulest part: they have to be in love. Both of 'em. True, mad love. Otherwise it won't hold. This ain't no bargain struck by force—it's an offer. A chance t' be remade, mated body and soul. A Romeo-and-Juliet covenant, cher. Only difference? Ain't no poison, no dagger. Just five days of hellfire and a grave of snow."

Her laugh tore out sharp, raw, and joyless—a broken sound, as if she choked on bile from her own memory of the tale.

William just stared at her, then at Milagros. An awful thought crawled through him, cold as icewater dripping down his spine:

Did she endure all of it? Did Milagros live through that nightmare already?

And sitting across from her, watching the emptiness in her face, he feared the silence screamed the answer.

William sat in silence, unable to touch his food. His mind swirled in restless loops. He tried to keep his eyes on the rain outside or the surface of his untouched coffee, yet again and again they drifted back to Milagros.

She ate too calmly. Too methodically. Like everything Latecia had just described was nothing more than folklore in some dusty old book, not a ruin carved through her own body and soul.

And yet it was that very calm—the mask—that betrayed her. It wasn't indifference. It was deflection.

Which could only mean one thing. She'd lived it. The burial. The hunger. The flesh.

William felt as if the food in his stomach had turned to stone.

He leaned slightly toward her, his voice hushed, careful, as though any wrong inflection might sound like accusation:

"Milagros… tell me the truth. Did this… happen to you?"

Her hand twitched. Too sharp, too sudden. She stabbed her fork straight down into the pale yellow of her eggs, tearing them apart. On the plate, it didn't look like food anymore—it looked like something vile she'd once been forced to taste. She pressed her lips together, fighting the words.

At last, she let them spill out.

"What did you think?" Her voice wavered even as she tried to hold it cold. "That this bond just… appears from nowhere? Did you honestly believe wendigos exchange rings, whisper vows under the moon, like some… fairytale ceremony?"

Her eyes lifted, locking onto him. Rage burned there, yes—but beneath it, beneath the fire, was something worse. A cavern. Exhaustion. And trauma so deep it seemed bottomless.

"Everything she told you," Milagros said, her voice tightening, "wasn't a ghost story to scare children. It was my life. My pit. I lay in that frozen grave. I learned hunger like a language. I swallowed rot and blood and learned to call it sustenance. And that transformation—" her voice cracked, briefly, "—that beast devoured everything in me that was still human."

She shook her head, hair spilling forward as if to conceal her face. But the words clung to the air, heavy, sticky, like cobwebs.

William's throat tightened until every breath felt strangled. He planted one fist on the table for steadiness, knuckles trembling, and forced out:

"So… they buried you? Alive?"

Milagros gave a laugh that wasn't laughter. Dry, hollow, a sound born of splintered nerves. It chilled William worse than Latecia's story.

"Yes, boy," she spat. "Alive. I heard the earth fall across my chest. I felt my lungs burn as the air slipped thinner and thinner. And you—" her voice spiked suddenly, hot and ragged "—you dare ask me why I would never go through that again?"

Her anger broke across the café like a plate shattering. A few heads turned at the sound of her raised voice. Realizing it, she bit harshly into her lip, forcing her tone lower, dragging the fury down into a hoarse whisper:

"Never again. Even if it means I spend the rest of my life as half of what I was meant to be."

William's nerves broke with hers. He wanted to say something comforting, anything—but the words jammed in his throat. All he could manage was to curl his hand tighter, trembling, then let his fist land softly against the wood of the table. A quiet, private thud, more the sound of defeat than anger.

"God damn it… I'm sorry. I never… I didn't understand."

The intensity in Milagros's gaze softened only by the smallest fraction—just enough for him to glimpse something hidden. For the briefest second, her eyes flinched, a flicker like a fragile spark of gratitude: someone had said the words out loud. Someone had named it for what it was.

Latecia chose that moment to lean back in her chair with a loud exhale, arms crossed, rolling her eyes.

"Aw hell. Ain't that jus' sweet," she drawled, her Cajun burr slicing through the tense hush. "Go on then, William—cry a little tear for her, why don'cha. But lemme tell you somethin', boy."

Her tone hardened, harsh as coals cracking.

"She don't need your pity. Understand me? A wendigo that's walked through Ikhtan Winter ain't no victim. They don't come back fragile. They come back predator."

Latecia leaned forward again, fingers drumming once against the table. Her gaze caught Milagros's, voice coiling low around her throat.

"The only question left, sugar…" She smiled without warmth. "…is whether that predator's willin' to be bound again."

The words clung to the air, heavy as smoke. And for a moment, even the sound of the rain against the windows seemed sharper, colder, as though the storm outside had pressed its ear to the glass, listening.

Not even the steady drum of rain outside the windows could break the tension. All focus was on Milagros.

She set her fork down slowly, not letting go right away, her fingers still wrapped tight as if clinging to invisible manacles. Then she turned her palms upward, staring into them like she was searching for the imprint of chains that no longer marked her skin. Her eyelids lowered, and when she spoke, her voice was dark and hollow:

"Freedom…" Her lips twisted into a bitter curve. "Do you really think I'm free?"

She lifted her eyes at last. When they met William's, and then Latecia's, there was no fire in them now—only a bleak emptiness, a despair that felt colder than anger.

"Since the bond broke, for the first time in years, I can breathe by myself. Sleep alone. Think without anyone whispering in the back of my mind." Her jaw tightened. "And you know what?…"

She gave a sudden, sharp laugh and tapped her fingertips three times against the tabletop—quick, hard strikes like nails on a coffin lid.

"That's not freedom. That's emptiness."

A chill prickled over William's skin.

Milagros's voice swelled, bitter, her words tumbling out faster, as though they'd been gnawing at her ribcage for years.

"I lived in hell," she spat. "But even in that pit, he was with me. Always. As curse. As master. As shadow. And damn it—even as lover. I hated him. I feared him. I obeyed him. But I never had to face that silence."

A laugh tore free, jagged and broken, weighted with something that was not joy, not relief—just the raw crack of something fractured beyond healing.

"And now? Now I'm alone. It's quiet. Too quiet. No power. No bond. Nothing but me. And this cold… this cold in my chest." Her breath hitched, brittle. "It doesn't go away."

She snapped her head harshly to one side, grabbed her glass of water, and gulped it down in heavy, jagged swallows, nearly choking. When she slammed it back onto the table, the sound cut through the quiet café like a shot.

"So let's not lie to each other," she hissed. "I will never suffer the Ikhtan Winter again. But living without him?…" Her voice cracked, splitting down the middle. "It's like waking up in a desert inside yourself, day after day. I don't know which is worse: the endless darkness by his side, or the endless silence without him."

The words landed like stones. For several long seconds, no one spoke. Even Latecia, usually quick with sharp barbs, faltered. Her hand stilled against the table, and for just a flicker her eyes showed something like sympathy before she buried it under a crooked half-smile.

"Well now, cher," she drawled, her Cajun-tones softening like smoke, but still edged. "Welcome to the world o' humans. That hole in the soul?" She tapped her chest with one blunt finger. "We all got it. Some o' us learn to walk with it. Others?" She shrugged. "They drown in it."

William exhaled harshly through his nose, unable to hold it back any longer. He leaned forward, palms pressed together, fingers trembling with urgency. His voice came out fierce, almost desperate.

"Enough. She doesn't have to choose between hell and nothing. There has to be something else. There has to be a third path." His shoulders shook with the intensity of it. "Аll this—bonding, shamans, wendigos—is real, then there is another way. Something different. Someone who can change the rules. Magic, ritual—something! Damn it, Latecia—if you're as smart and powerful as you say, then help her make this path less… less inhuman!"

The force in his voice shocked even him. It wasn't anger at them—it was anger at the cruel shape of fate itself.

Milagros lifted her gaze to him. For the first time since this conversation began, her hardness cracked. Her eyes softened, searching his face like she couldn't quite believe what she'd heard.

"You're strange, William," she said softly, her voice raw but no longer cold. "No one has ever said that to me. No one. Not even him."

Her lips trembled into the ghost of a smile—frail, fleeting, almost painful in its tenderness. And then, as though ashamed of letting anyone see it, she turned her face away again, the mask slipping back into place.