CHAPTER 1: THE PRECIPICE

I never thought that my life would depend on the friction of my cheap boots against the cold clay of a mountain in Colorado. The wind attacked me like an inherited animal, hitting me in the face, blinding me with tendrils of my own hair that had escaped from my neck. But I couldn’t let go. My brothers were clinging to the cold metal of a set of wheels that, defying physics, were hanging on land and in a vacuum.

Bereft of us, the cañón opened like a hambrient mouth. Aware of meters of free fall. And in this silla, Doña Teresa, a woman who was worth millions but who at that moment weighed like a fragile feather, lying alone in silence, paralyzed by terror.

—Suéltala ya! —the scream came from behind, filled with cold hysteria.

I didn’t need to turn around to know it was Camila. I could smell the scent of three hundred dollars mixing with the odor of the storm that broke out. I felt the sweat of my boot clapping on my calf, pushing me backwards, towards the abyss.

—Nadie is going to save you, Lupita —she nodded, her voice barely audible over the wind. It may seem like an accident and maybe you want to keep your job. If not, go with her.

My name is María Guadalupe Cruz, but in this world of crystal and steel, I am alone “la de la limpieza”. I’m 42 years old, two children who don’t see me as wanting and having a history of enduring humiliations to put food on the table. But that day, on that sharp edge of existence, something inside me broke. I’m not going to be another statistician. I don’t know that this bruja won.

—¡Alejandro! —scream, a guttural sound that ripped my throat apart.

The front wheel of the silla rolled back. Doña Teresa screamed. My body slid ten centimeters further towards the edge. The grave claimed his prize.

CHAPTER 2: THE LEGAD TO THE GOLDEN CAGE

To understand how to get to that edge, you have to understand how to enter the mouth of the wolf. It all started three months earlier, in a Park Avenue attic that cost more than my entire neighborhood combined.

When I met Doña Teresa Quintana, she was nothing like the hierarchical matriarch described in business magazines. In the oil painting on the chimenea, he looked imposing. In reality, it was a shadow. I was sitting in front of a huge wind, looking at the city with eyes that screamed for help.

—Don’t look at your eyes —Rogelio, the mayor, a man who seemed to have forgotten how to dream—had warned me. Don’t read skills. Clean and salty soil. The señora is not… lucid.

They told me a gray padded uniform and a list of rules as long as the Bible. My job was simple: being invisible. Clean the octopus that didn’t exist in furniture that nobody used.

The first real meeting took place a week later. You enter your room thinking you are asleep. Doña Teresa was crying. It wasn’t a loud cry, it was that silent cry of someone who had surrendered.

—¿Señora? —whisper, breaking rule number one. She turned her head. —Who are you? —his voice was fragile like ancient crystal. —I’m Lupita. I come to clean. —Lupita… —savored the name—. It’s been years since he told me his name in this house. They are all ghosts.

At that moment, the door slammed open. The sound of sharp tacos resonated against the marble like gunshots.

—What are you doing to molest her? —Camila Arriaga entered haute couture like a storm.

She was Alejandro’s bride, the only son and heir to the Quintana empire. Camila was beautiful in an intimidating way: red, perfect skin, always dressed for a catwalk. But his eyes… his eyes were two wells of gold.

—Just asked me my name, Señorita Camila —he said, lowering his head. —I don’t pay you to socialize. I’ll pay you to visit —she looked away, approaching me until she invaded my personal space. My sweat has dementia. Invent things. Don’t read anything. If I see you talking to her again, you go to the street without reference. Understood?

I sat down and got out quickly. But before closing the door, I heard Camila’s tone change. From ogre to angel in one second. —Ay, suegrita, no llores. You know that Alejandro is sad if he sees you like this. Tomato your pastillas and last. Hazlo por nosotros.

This “nosotros” is only mild. Y yo guess, at that moment, that Doña Teresa wasn’t crazy. I was a prisoner.

CHAPTER 3: THE MACABRE PLAN

The weeks passed and the tension in the house became unbreathable. Alejandro, his son, was a good man, he seemed that way, but he was completely confused by Camila. He constantly traveled to London and Tokyo, making million-dollar deals, leaving his mother at the mercy of his betrothed.

Camila controlled everything: the food, the visits and, above all, the medicines.

One afternoon, while I was walking around the plate in the dining room, I heard Camila talking on the phone on the terrace. I thought the window and the sound screen were closed, but a slit had been left open.

—Sí, I have it all planned —he said, with a soft laugh. The old testament is still in force, but the new one… the new one leaves me as albacea if Alejandro is not present. And guess what, dear… Alejandro travels a lot.

I pause, listening to the other person. —No, I can’t wait for the one who turns old. Too late. I need it to happen before the wedding. An accident. Something tragic. The heart fails, you know. Or perhaps a fall. The elderly are so clumsy.

I felt a chill running down my spine. A silver spoon fell on me. The tinting was light, but sufficient. Camila turned around abruptly. His eyes glared at me through the glass. Pick up the phone and come in.

—How much did you hear? —asked. His voice was calm, which was worse than if he had shouted. —Nothing, señorita. The noise of the vacuum cleaner… —I lied, praying that I wouldn’t notice the temblor in my hands. She got closer, caressing my shoulder with a perfectly manicured hand. —Lupita, Lupita. You’re old, right? In Queens. The air seized me in my throat. How did you know that? —It would be a shame if someone called immigration, which resulted in an accident on the way to school. In this city horrible things happen.

I left there, paralyzed. The threat was clear. But instead of scaring me and leaving me, something inside me hardened. That woman was going to kill Doña Teresa, and that was the only obstacle on her path.

Two days later, Alejandro announced his trip. —We’re going to Aspen —I say during the scene, beaming. A week in the family cabin. Pure air, mountains. Mommy, it will make you happy to leave the city. —I don’t want to go —Doña Teresa whispered, looking at Camila in terror. —Tonterías —I interject Camila, pouring wine to Alejandro—. It will be perfect. Lupita will come with us to take care of you. It will be… unforgettable.

CHAPTER 4: THE TRAMP ON THE MOUNTAIN

The cabin in Aspen wasn’t a cabin. It was a fortress of wood and glass embedded on top of a private mountain. The lujo was obscene, but the isolation was total. There were no vehicles in kilometers. Solo snow, pins and silence.

From the moment we arrived, the environment felt heavy. Doña Teresa didn’t want to eat. He just grabbed me there every time he approached me. —No dejes que me lleven —he whispers to me. She’s going to kill me here. Here no one will hear more screams.

—Don’t leave it alone, señora. If I swear it for my children — I promised.

The second day, Alejandro received an “urgent” call from the workshop in Singapore. You had to go to the town to get good video signal and send some documents. —Vuelvo em dos hora —I say, kissing Camila. Take care of mommy.

Only the engine of her truck stopped listening, Camila’s attitude changed. The perfect nuera mask is removed. —Good —I say, putting on a shelter of red skin—. Let’s go for a walk. —The lady can’t come out, it’s too cold — she protests. —Don’t ask me, baby —I replied dryly. Prepare the silla. Let’s go to the viewpoint. I want you to see me… the end of the road.

You didn’t have an option. Rogelio was in the kitchen preparing the scene, at the convenience. Push the hill along the compact earth path. Camila walked forward, singing a song.

The path went up and up until it reached a clear path. And there it was: “El Salto del Ángel”. A vertical cliff without barandillas, preserved natural soil. The view was beautiful, but deadly.

—Déjala ahí —commanded Camila, pointing to the edge. —It’s dangerous, the ground is wet from the melting snow —he says, braking the hill three meters from the edge. —Say you hit it! —she shouted, losing her patience. He approached us, his eyes shining with a contained madness. Do you know, Teresa? Alejandro will cry a lot, but he will pass away. With your inheritance, he will buy a new yacht and will forget about you in a month.

—You are a monster —says Doña Teresa, with a strength that I didn’t know I had. —You are a nuisance.

Camila shook herself. Not about me, bell about the hill. I say a violent impulse.

CHAPTER 5: GETTING TO HILO

Everything happened in slow motion. I saw Camila’s hands supporting her. I saw the hill tilt. Launch me. My wheels hit the wheels, breaking my uniform and my skin. My hands got in the way of the metal just when the rear wheels were rising from the ground.

The weight was brutal. Doña Teresa screamed, her arms flailing over the void. I acted as a counterweight, with my stomach stuck in muddy soil, my boots looking for traction where I couldn’t find it.

—Suéltala! —Camila shouted, pawing the ground towards my face. Muérete ya, damn old girl!

Camila looked at me and saw that she was making a decision. I squatted down, took a large rock and lifted it over my head. I started to press my fingers against the skull. What was necessary for him to let go.

-NODE! —the scream didn’t sound like me.

It was a masculine roar. Alejandro.

He had forgotten his tablet. There was a return.

Camila froze with the rock in her hand, turning her head towards the direction. Alejandro was there, pale as a ghost, looking at the scene: his bride with a rock in his hand, his mother climbing over the precipice and yo, the employee, being the only one who avoided the tragedy.

—What are you doing? —asked him, with a broken voice. —Ella la empujó! —Camila shouted, letting go of the rock and changing her face to that of a frightened victim in a microsecond. Lupita turned crazy! I tried to kill your mother, I tried to save her!

It was such a blatant lie that for a second I felt like I was in the air. But my brothers lost it. —¡Señor! —scream. Help me, I can’t wait!

Alejandro in the dudó. He ran towards us, ignoring Camila, and broke into the ground next to me. Grab the other side of the hill. —Threesome, Lupita. One, of… THREE!

We enjoyed everything we had. The metal screeched, the wheels bit the ground and, with a final effort, we managed to drag the hill back, close to the edge, to the safety of the path.

We fell on our backs, jading. Doña Teresa cried in silence, looking uncontrollable. Alejandro hugged his mother, kissing her front full of clay. Luego looked at me. My brothers bled.

“Thanks,” he whispered. But Camila’s shadow fell on us. —Amor, gracias a Dios llegaste —she says, crying fake tears. That woman… that salvation… wherever she kills. You have to call the police right now.

Alejandro got up out of space. He wiped the clay off his pants and looked at Camila. Luego looked at the rock that she had wanted to fall. —Lupita —I say it’s a shame to look at your fiancée—. What really happened?

CHAPTER 6: THE LYING AND THE EVIDENCE

The silence on the mountain was absolute. Only the wind was heard. Camila looked at me with an intensity that promised death. If I spoke, she would destroy my life. I knew it. But I look at Doña Teresa, so small and vulnerable.

—Ella la empujó, señor —he said, with a fearful but firm voice. I told myself it was time to say goodbye. He comforted me with my children if he spoke. —Liar! —chilló Camila—. Alejandro, are you going to believe this immigrant rather than your future wife? It’s a social resentment! Surely I wanted to sequester her!

Alejandro closed his eyes for a moment. It seemed like he was processing years of blindness in a single instant. —Mamá… —he asked softly. What happened?

Doña Teresa looked up. There was no fear in his eyes, there was only deep sadness. —She told me that with my money I would buy you a yacht so that you would forget me —I said to the old woman. And he pushed me. Lupita saved my life, kid. Sometimes.

Camila took a step back, laughing nervously. —You’re senile, Alejandro. ¡Por Dios! It’s invented. It’s a conspiracy of them because they know they’re going to put order in the house.

Alejandro picked up his phone. —We’re not going to discuss this here. Let’s go.

The trip back to the cabin was a silent hell. Camila tried to touch Alejandro, but she pulled away. When we arrived, Alejandro ordered us to pack everything. We went that same night.

But Camila wasn’t going to give in so easily. While I helped Doña Teresa change her clothes, Camila entered the room. Secure the door safely.

—Do you think you won, right? —he whispered, taking something out of his pocket. It was a small bottle of pastillas. Alejandro is weak. Always come back to me. And you… you’re going to have an accident very soon. —If a hair touches me, I scream —he says, putting me in front of Doña Teresa. —There will be no need to touch you.

I came out of the room laughing. That night, before leaving the private airport, Alejandro met us in the room. I was reviewing some papers I had found in Camila’s briefcase.

—What is this, Camila? —he asked, throwing the documents on the coffee table. They were the inheritance papers. Y un falsified notarial power.

—I just wanted to protect our future, love —she said, without changing. Your mother is not qualified… —Enough! —he hit the table—. It’s over. The wedding is cancelled. I wanted to leave my home and my life.

Camila’s face transformed. The mask fell completely. —You can’t let me go. You care too much about your business, Alejandro. If you let me, I hug you.

CHAPTER 7: THE POISON

We returned to New York under unbearable tension. Camila refused to leave the mansion, claiming legal rights of coexistence until the lawyers resolved the rupture. Alejandro put security guards, but Camila was cunning.

The following days, Doña Teresa became seriously ill. Empezó with vomiting, fever and hallucinations. —It’s dementia — Camila said, walking around the house as if nothing had happened in the past.

But I know these symptoms. In my village, I had seen animals die just like that when they were eating their bags. —Señor Alejandro —said in secret—. It’s not dementia. It’s poisoning. —What do you say? —El te. Camila insists on preparing it every night “as a gift of peace”.

Alejandro didn’t want to believe that the woman he loved was capable of so much, but the incident of the cantilado opened his eyes. —This evening —I said to him—, we will change the cups.

That night, the scene was tense. Camila wears the silver tray with something special for Doña Teresa. —Whole tomato, suegra. It will help you sleep… forever — he murmured the last so low that he alone was there.

Doña Teresa, following the plan, pretended to drink, but poured the liquid onto a nearby plant when Camila was distracted looking at her reflection in the window. Luego, Alejandro hizo his movement.

—Camila, let’s toast. Por los viejos tiempos —I say that, serving two cups of wine. But in Camila’s pantry, he discreetly revealed the rest of her mother that she had betrayed.

—For us —she said, victorious, believing that he had regained it. And baby.

A few minutes later, the show began. Camila was in a cold sweat. He grabbed his stomach. His eyes dilated. —¿What… what did you tell me? —babbled, falling on rollers on the Persian carpet. —Nothing you have prepared for my mother —Alejandro replied, looking at her with absolute coldness. Call the ambulance and the police. You’re finding arsenic in your blood. Y en la tetera.

CHAPTER 8: JUSTICE

The police joined the paramedics. Camila screamed, accusing us all, even as she attacked her wife. The analyzes confirmed what we suspected: progressive poisoning with small doses of arsenic.

It turned out that Camila was not who she was supposed to be. Her real name was another, and she had a history of elderly husbands who died mysteriously in Florida and Texas. Doña Teresa and Alejandro were solo with their next big blow.

The juicio was a media circus. Yo had to testify. It contains everything: the mistreatment, the threats, the cliff. Camila’s defense tried to paint me as a liar looking for money, but the security video from the cabin (which Alejandro had installed without telling Nadie) showed the exact moment in which Camila jumped the door.

Camila was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

The day the sentence came out, Doña Teresa called me to her study. It looked better, stronger, with color in the wings. —Lupita —I say, extending it to me—. Esto no es un pago. It’s a thank you. Inside was a check with enough cash to buy a house and pay for my children’s university. —Señora, I can’t… —Cállate y acéptalo. Saved my life. And most importantly, you gave me back my wife.

Today I continue working with the Quintana family, but I’m not “clean”. I am the manager of your properties. Alejandro has been married for years to a good woman, a pediatrician who treats Doña Teresa like a queen.

Sometimes, when I open my eyes, I still feel the cold of the metal on the wheel and the void beneath my feet. But I still remember Camila’s face when the police were there, and we remained calm.

I learned that I could barely wear silk and smell expensive perfume, but I was loyal and truthful, even when I wore my work uniform, and always ended up weighing more.

CHAPTER 3: THE GOLDEN CAGE IN THE SNOW

 

The flight to Aspen was a masterclass in tension disguised as luxury. Alejandro had rented a private jet—a sleek Gulfstream that smelled of new leather and expensive cologne. He spent the entire flight with a headset on, nodding at a laptop screen, dissecting quarterly reports for the Asian markets. He was physically there, but mentally, he was halfway across the world.

That was exactly how Camila liked him: distracted.

I sat in the back, next to Doña Teresa. She was strapped into her seat, staring out the oval window as the landscape shifted from the gray grid of the city to the blinding white peaks of the Rockies. Her hand, thin and trembling, clutched a rosary so tight her knuckles were translucent.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it, Teresa?” Camila asked, swiveling her cream-colored leather seat around. She held a glass of champagne, the bubbles fizzing softly in the pressurized cabin. “Alejandro chose the most secluded property. No neighbors for miles. Just us and the wolves.”

She smiled, but her eyes didn’t crinkle at the corners. It was a predator’s smile—baring teeth not out of joy, but as a warning.

“I don’t like the cold,” Doña Teresa murmured, her voice barely a scrape of sound.

“You’ll learn to love it,” Camila replied, taking a sip. “The cold preserves things. Or… freezes them.”

When we landed, the air was thin and sharp, hitting my lungs like crushed glass. The estate, The Ironwood Lodge , was an architectural marvel of glass, steel, and dark timber perched precariously on a ridge. It was breathtaking, yes, but it felt less like a home and more like a fortress. Or prison.

Inside, the silence was heavy. The walls were adorned with abstract art that looked like violent splashes of black and red paint. The floor-to-ceiling windows offered a panoramic view of the valley below—a drop so steep it made my stomach turn just looking at it.

“Lupita, take the bags to the service quarters,” Camila ordered the moment we stepped into the foyer. “And then I have my mother-in-law settled. Alejandro and I have… business to discuss.”

“Business” turned out to be Camila whispering in Alejandro’s ear while pouring him scotch by the fireplace, keeping him occupied, keeping him blind.

I wheeled Doña Teresa to her room on the ground floor. It was luxurious, with a fireplace of its own, but the lock on the door was flimsy, and the windows didn’t open.

“Lupita,” Doña Teresa grabbed my wrist as I adjusted her blanket. Her grip was surprisingly strong, fueled by adrenaline and fear. “Check the phone.”

“The phone, ma’am?”

“Check it out.”

I picked up the landline on the bedside table. There was no dial tone. Just dead silence.

“The snow,” I lied, trying to calm her, though my own heart began to hammer against my ribs. “The storm must have knocked out the lines.”

“No,” she shook her head, tears welling in her milky eyes. “She cut it. She wants us isolated. She knows Alejandro’s cell phone is encrypted for business, she can’t touch that. But she can cut us off.”

That night, I didn’t sleep in the service room. I dragged a mattress onto the floor of Doña Teresa’s room, blocking the door with a heavy oak chair. I told myself I was being paranoid, that rich people were just eccentric. But every time the wind howled through the canyon, it sounded like a woman screaming.

The next morning, the isolation became absolute. A blizzard had rolled in overnight, wrapping the lodge in a thick, white suffocating blanket. We were trapped.

Alejandro was pacing in the living room, holding his satellite phone up to the glass. “Signal is garbage,” he muttered. “I need to send these contracts to Singapore by noon.”

Camila walked in, wearing a red cashmere sweater that looked like a splash of blood against the snow outside. “Why don’t you take the snowmobile down to the lower ridge?” she suggested sweetly. “The reception is always better past the tree line. It’s only a twenty-minute ride.”

Alejandro hesitated. “I don’t want to leave you guys alone in this storm.”

“Oh, darling, we’re fine,” she walked over and straightened his collar, her fingers lingering on his neck. “Lupita’s here. And I’ll make hot chocolate for your mother. Go. Save the deal. We’ll be waiting.”

He kissed her. A long, trusting kiss that made me want to scream. Then he grabbed his coat and headed for the garage.

The moment the heavy front door slammed shut, the temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.

Camila turned to me. The sweetness evaporated instantly. Her face went slack, bored, and terrifyingly cold.

“Get the wheelchair,” she said. “The snow stopped for a while. My mother on the right needs fresh air.”

“Señora Camila, it’s freezing out there,” I protested, stepping between her and the hallway. “The paths are icy.”

She walked up to me, her expensive boots clicking on the hardwood. She was taller than me, and she used every inch of it. “Did I ask for a weather report, maid ? I said get the wheelchair. We are going to the overlook.”

“I won’t do it,” I said, my voice shaking.

Camila sighed, reaching into her pocket. She pulled out her phone and tapped the screen. She turned it around to face me. It was a photo. A photo of my sister’s house in Queens. Taken from a car window.

“Cute house,” she said casually. “Water tank. Highly flammable. Shame on you if something happened while you’re all the way here in Colorado, unable to help.”

My blood ran cold. The threat wasn’t subtle. It was a sledgehammer.

“Don’t hurt them,” I whispered.

“Then do your job,” she pocketed the phone. “Get the cripple. We’re going for a walk.”

CHAPTER 4: THE DEVIL’S DROP

 

The path to the overlook was deceptive. It started wide and paved with flat stones, winding gently through a grove of Aspen trees that looked like skeletal fingers reaching for the gray sky. But as we climbed higher, away from the lodge, the pavement ended, replaced by packed earth and slick, treacherous mud hidden under a thin layer of fresh snow.

I pushed the wheelchair. My arms burned with the effort. Doña Teresa was silent, her head tied, praying. She knew. We both knew. This wasn’t a walk. It was a funeral procession.

Camila walked ahead, her red coat a beacon in the monochrome world. She didn’t look back. She didn’t warn me about the ice patches. She just marched toward the edge of the world.

We reached the place called “The Devil’s Drop.”

It was a flat plateau of rock that jutted out over the canyon. There were no rails. No warning signs. Just raw, brutal nature. The drop was sheer—three hundred feet straight down into a jagged ravine filled with pine trees that looked like toothpicks from this height. The wind here was fierce, tearing at our clothes, drowning out the sound of my ragged breathing.

“Stop here,” Camila shouted over the wind, pointing to a spot just five feet from the edge.

I engaged the brakes on the wheelchair, my hands trembling inside my thin gloves. “We should go back,” I yelled. “Alejandro will be where we are.”

Camila turned slowly. She looked at the view, taking a deep breath of the freezing air. “Alejandro won’t be back for another hour. The snowmobile ‘accidentally’ had a fuel leak. I’m sure of it.”

She turned her gaze toward Doña Teresa. “Look at the view, Teresa. It’s the last thing you’ll ever see.”

Doña Teresa raised her head. Her face was pale, but her eyes were dry. “Why?” she asked. A simple question.

“Because you take up space,” Camila replied, shouting to be heard over the gale. “Because you are a leech. Alejandro is so guilty about your condition that he can’t focus on us . He can’t focus on building the empire I deserve. You are the anchor dragging him down. And I am the knife that cuts the rope.”

“He’ll know,” I said, stepping forward. “He’ll know you did it.”

Camila laughed. It was a dry, hollow sound. “Who is he going to believe? Me? His aggrandizing fiancée who tried so hard to save his terrifying mother-in-law after she slipped? Or you? The immigrant who was crippled? Or maybe… maybe you slipped too, Lupita. Maybe you both tried to save each other. A tragic double accident.”

She pulled a small flask from her pocket, took a swig, and coughed it over the cliff. We watched it fall. It vanished into the white fog long before it hit the bottom.

“Release the brakes, Lupita,” she commanded.

“No.”

I said, release the brakes!

“I’m not going to do it! Kill me if you want, but I’m not going to help you kill her!” I screamed, standing firmly behind the chair, planting my feet in the mud.

Camila’s face twisted into a snarl of pure rage. “Useless poverty-stricken trash. Fine. I’ll do it myself.”

She’s in storage.

She didn’t come for me. She came for the chair. She hit us with the force of a linebacker, her shoulder bouncing against the back of the wheelchair.

The impact knocked the air out of me. I lost my footing on a patch of black ice. The chair skidded forward. The brakes screeched against the wet rock, but they weren’t designed to hold against a violent shove.

“No!” Doña Teresa shouted.

The chair slid toward the edge. Two feet. One foot.

I scrambled on my hands and knees, clawing at the mud, desperate to find purchase. Camila was pushing, her boots digging into the ground, grunting with exertion.

“Die! Just die!” she shrieked.

The front wheels of the chair went over the lip of the cliff.

Gravity took over. The chair tipped forward violently. Doña Teresa’s body lurched toward the abyss.

CHAPTER 5: THE WEIGHT OF A LIFE

 

I didn’t think. I didn’t plan. I just launched my body forward.

I dove flat onto my stomach, sliding through the slush and mud, and threw my hands out. My fingers wrapped around the cold steel of the wheelchair’s lower frame just as the rear wheels left the solid ground.

A jolt of agony ripped through my shoulders. It felt like my arms were being pulled out of their sockets.

The wheelchair swung wildly, dangling over the void. Doña Teresa was suspended in the air, held only by the seatbelt around her waist and my grip on the frame. She was screaming—a high, thin sound that was swallowed by the vastness of the canyon.

“Hold on!” I gritted my teeth, my face pressed into the wet dirt. “I’ve got you! I’ve got you!”

But I was slipping.

The ground was too slick. There was nothing to grab onto with my legs. The weight of the chair and the woman in it was dragging me inch by inch toward the edge. My chest scraped against the rocks. My boots kicked frantically, finding only loose gravel.

I looked up. Camila was standing over me. She looked like a giant from my perspective on the ground. She was breathing hard, her hair whipped around her face like a halo of snakes. She looked down at the chair, then at me.

She smiled.

“You are surprisingly strong,” she said, panting. “But you’re not strong enough.”

She lifted her foot—a designer winter boot with a heavy tread—and placed it on my right hand. The hand gripping the steel bar.

She pressed down.

“Ahhhhh!” I screamed as the rubber sole ground my knuckles against the rock. The pain was blinding. “Stop, please!”

“Let go,” she said calmly, pressing harder. “Come on, and I can let you climb back up.”

“No!” I sobbed, tears streaming down my face, mixing with the mud. “I won’t let her fall!”

Doña Teresa looked down at me from the abyss. Her face was gray. “Lupita,” she choked out. “Let me go. Save yourself. Please, child. Let me go.”

“Never!” I roared. The anger arose in me, hotter than the pain.

Camila stomped on my hand again. I felt a finger break. A sickening snap . But adrenaline is a powerful medicine. I didn’t let go. Instead, I clamped my hand tighter, turning my fingers into claws of iron.

“Why don’t you just die?” Camila yelled, losing her composing. She looked around for a rock, a stick, anything to finish the job. She bent down to grab a jagged stone the size of a melon.

She raised it over her head, aiming for my skull.

I closed my eyes. Forgive me, my children. Mama tried.

“CAMILA!”

The voice boomed like thunder, but it wasn’t from the sky. It came from the tree line.

Camila froze, the rock held high in both hands. Her eyes went wide.

I cranked my neck around.

Alejandro was sprinting towards us. He wasn’t the polished businessman anymore. He was an animal. He had seen it. He had seen her with the rock. He had seen his mother dangling.

He covered the distance in seconds. He didn’t slow down. He didn’t ask questions. He tackled Camila with the force of a freight train.

They both flew backward, away from the edge, landing hard in the snow. The rock flew from Camila’s hands and tumbled harmlessly away.

“Lupita!” Alejandro scrambled off Camila and crawled toward me on his hands and knees. “Don’t let go! I’m coming!”

He caught up with me. He grabbed my wrists, his hands warm and strong. Then he reached further down, grabbing the frame of the chair.

“On three!” he yelled, his face inches from mine, his eyes wild with terror. “Pull! One! Two! Three!”

We listened. My muscles tore. My broken finger burned like fire. But together, we dragged the nightmare back onto solid ground.

The chair scraped over the lip of the cliff. Doña Teresa collapsed forward into the mud, sobbing uncontrollably.

I let go of the frame and rolled onto my back, gasping for air, staring up at the gray swirling sky. My hand was a throbbing mess of purple and red. I was alive.

But the silence didn’t last.

“You idiot!” Camila’s voice cut off. She was standing up, brushing snow off her coat, her face twisted into a mask of indignation. “Why did you arrest me? That crazy woman tried to pull her mother off the cliff! I was trying to crush her hand to make her get out of the chair!”

I sat up, cradling my broken hand. The audacity. The sheer, evil brilliance of her lie. She was betting everything on his confusion.

Alejandro was kneeling by his mother, checking her pulse. He froze. He turned his head slowly to look at Camila.

“I saw you,” he said. His voice was dangerously quiet.

“You saw what it looked like from a distance!” Camila argued, walking toward him, hands out in a pleading gesture. “It was an illusion, Alejandro! Lupita slipped. She grabbed the chair in a panic and dragged Teresa down. I was trying to save her!”

Alejandro stood up. He was shaking. Not from cold, but from anger.

“I saw you raise the rock,” he said, stepping toward her. “You weren’t aiming at her hand to save my mother. You were aiming at her head.”

“Alejandro, baby, listen to me…” She approached him.

He slapped her hand away. “Don’t touch me.”

“Sir,” I croaked from the ground. “Check your wallet.”

Camila whipped her head toward me. “Shut up!”

“Check her pocket,” I repeated, finding my strength. “She has a picture of my sister. She threatened my children.”

Alejandro looked at Camila. “Empty your pockets.”

“That’s ridiculous! I’m your fiancée!”

“EMPTY THEM!” he roared, his voice echoing off the canyon walls.

Trembling, Camila reached into her coat. But she didn’t pull out the phone. She pulled out a small can of pepper spray she kept for ‘protection.’

She sprayed it directly into Alejandro’s eyes.

He screamed, clutching his face, falling to his knees.

Camila didn’t run away. She ran towards me.

“If I’m going down,” she hissed, her eyes black with hate, “I’m taking the witness with me.”

She kicked me in the ribs, knocking the wind out of me again. I was exhausted, injured, and on the ground. She straddled me, her hands going for my throat.

This wasn’t a calculated murder anymore. It was a feral fight for survival in the mud, on the edge of a cliff, miles from civilization. And this time, Alejandro couldn’t help me.

I was on my own.