He starts to back up but another SUV pulls up behind him. Then he sees Ramn get out of the car in front and walk back toward him. A short, skinny kid who can't be more than a teenager is behind him. Ramn taps on the window and motions for Pablo to roll it down. When he does, Ramn says, "This is a fine automobile you have, 'mano."

"It's just a fronterizo," Pablo says, his voice shaking.

"When you headed out to the airport I thought maybe you were going on a trip," Ramn says, "but you were just picking up little Mateo. Hola, I'm your To Ramn."

"Hello."

"He's a cute one," Ramn says to Pablo.

Pablo can't breathe. His throat tightens as if he's being choked from the inside. "Please, Ramn-"

"You're out of time. We want an answer. Tonight. Otherwise we're going to come visit you." Ramn leans in and smiles at Mateo. "Maybe I'll see you later, okay, mi sobrino?"

"Okay."

Ramn smiles, makes a phone me signal to Pablo, and then walks away. His car takes off and Pablo, his hands shaking, pulls back onto the road.

"Who was that man, Papi?" Mateo asks.

"An old friend."

"What did he want?"

"Just to say hello, I guess."

Pablo's in agony as he drives to Ana's. He doesn't have a choice now.

He has to tell them what he knows.

- Ana stuffs a flannel shirt into her backpack.

Even in July, it can get cold in the desert at night.

She's still not so sure about this, not at all sure she should be making this trip. The thought of an awkward dinner with Victoria and her fiance is appalling, and Mateo is too smart and sensitive a kid not to pick up on that, and react to it, so the whole thing could turn into a hot mess.

But it seems important to Pablo that she goes, so- She hears a car door shut, and then another.

That must be them, she thinks.

- Pablo lets himself into the house.

Ana is just finishing packing. She takes Mateo into her arms and gives him a long hug. Then she leans back, looks at him, and says, "You've grown so much!"

"I know."

"I'm almost ready," Ana says to Pablo.

"That's okay," Pablo says. "I need to make a phone call."

He walks out into the backyard, where he's spent so many great evenings. The parties, the music, the conversations and arguments...Ana shouldn't have done it, he tells himself. She put us all in danger, writing that goddamned blog. She knew what she was doing, knew the chance she was taking, knew that it would come to this eventually...

- He takes his phone from his jeans pocket and hits the number.

It's his last chance.

Keller doesn't answer-the call goes straight to voice mail.

Where the hell are you? Pablo thinks. You're the last chance I have, the last chance Ana has, you...North American...could get us out of this. Whisk us across the border and hide us the way you hide narcos who change sides.

Narcos can get asylum visas. The journalists who write about them can't.

And now it's too late anyway.

All you can think about is Mateo, he tells himself.

Do what you have to do for your son.

But, oh, Ana.

- Chuy gets his orders from Forty.

When we get the Wild Child...

Make it long, make it last.

Make it hurt.

Send a message.

- Pablo walks back into the house.

"Where's Mateo?" he asks, panicked.

"In the bathroom," Ana says.

"Listen, something's come up," Pablo says. "Could you do me a huge favor? Take Mateo to El Paso and I'll meet you there tomorrow?"

"Why don't you just do what you need to do and we'll all go then?" Ana asks.

"Ana..."

"What?"

"Just go. Please."

"What is it you need to do?" Ana asks. "Can I help?"

"Yes. Take my son across tonight."

"Pablo-"

"Ana, it's okay."

"Come with us."

He shakes his head. It's no good anyway. The North Americans will only toss them back into Mexico, sooner or later, and even if they don't the narcos will track her down and kill her there.

There's only one way to save her.

And protect Mateo.

Pablo says, "I need you to get Mateo across. I'll come over tomorrow, I promise."

Mateo comes out of the bathroom. Pablo kneels in front of him, takes his face in his hands, and says, "M'ijo, I have a nice surprise for you. I have a little more work to do, so Ta Ana is going to take you and I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

Mateo looks uncertain.

"You love Ta Ana, don't you?" Pablo asks.

"Yes."

"So you'll have a great time," Pablo says. "Ta Ana will let you get a Coke out of the machine at the motel."

"We'll have fun," Ana says.

"Okay."

Pablo holds him tight. Feels his soft warm little chest against his own. "Papi loves you very much. You know that, don't you?"

"I love you, too."

Pablo kisses him on both cheeks. "Okay, you'd better go. I'll see you both tomorrow and we'll go to the waterslide. Did I ever tell you that I'm the world's champion waterslider?"

"Why are you crying, Papi?"

"Just because I love you so much."

Ana takes Mateo's hand and walks him outside. Pablo stands in the door and watches them drive away.

He waves.

Then he goes back inside and finds a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black in the kitchen cupboard. He pours himself a glass, goes into the bedroom, and once he's drunk enough to stop his hands from shaking, he sits down at Ana's desktop computer and starts to type.

- "Look at this," Forty says to Ramn.

It's Esta Vida-the latest post.

An article signed by the author.

"Son of a bitch," Ramn says.

It takes him less than an hour to track Pablo down at Ana's house. He and the kid Chuy go out, and when they get there Pablo's sitting on the back step drinking a beer, a dead bottle of scotch beside him.

Pablo looks up at him.

"Time to go," Ramn says.

"For old time's sake," Pablo says, "I don't suppose you could just do it here? You know..."

He mimes pointing a pistol and pulling the trigger.

"It doesn't work that way," Ramn says. "I don't know why you had to go and do this."

"I don't know why, either." Pablo grabs the railing and slowly pulls himself to his feet. His legs start to go out from under him and Ramn grabs his elbow. "You're pretty drunk, 'mano."

"Probably better, huh?"

"Probably."

"I'm really scared, Ramn."

"Yeah, well..."

They take him out to the car and drive to one of the old maquiladoras that's been shut down.

- The street sweepers find him just before dawn.

Paper wrappers, old newspapers, and other trash blow across Pablo Mora on the Plaza del Periodista.

His killers took great trouble to arrange the pieces of his body around the statue of the newsboy-Pablo's amputated arms and legs frame his trunk, which is disemboweled and emasculated. His head is carefully set at the base of the pedestal, his mouth stuffed with the severed fingers with which he used to type, his tongue has been pulled through a gash in his throat, his empty eye sockets are bloody and raw.

A placard is set at his neck.

NOW WRITE YOUR STORIES, WILD CHILD-THE Z COMPANY.

But later that morning, it seems as if everyone in Mexico is reading Wild Child's last words:

FOR THE VOICELESS.

by El Nio Salvaje