Where Wings Grow

The sea was still that afternoon. So still it was frightening. An immense, trembling sheet of silver that didn't dare move, as if it knew any wave could unleash chaos. But blood knows no silence.

Amelia fell to her knees on the wet sand. It wasn't a sudden fall, but a surrender. As if her body, overcome by something invisible, had let go. Her hands trembled as they clung to the shore, sinking into the mixture of salt and earth, seeking to anchor herself to something. To anything. To the life that was slipping away.

She was wearing a white dress. A simple one, the kind you wear to celebrate. To welcome someone. To remember that there are days worth dressing in hope. But that white, once so pure, was now soundlessly stained, darkened by mud, by blood, by the fear that gives no warning. Pain, when it reaches this deep, doesn't strike. It slips in, it seeps in. It settles.

"Run!" a voice shouted, distant, broken by urgency and desperation.

Bare feet pounded the sand. Someone was running. A young man, maybe a neighbor, maybe a stranger. He was carrying a bundle clutched to his chest. Something crying. Something small. Something alive. A baby.

Luna.

The name pierced Amelia like a piece of glass in her soul. She wanted to get up, run, scream, do something. But she couldn't. The sea salt mixed with the salt of her tears, drawing rivers on her cheeks.

Where was Tomás? Where was Gabriel? Luciano? Her mind repeated the names like a frantic prayer, seeking to find meaning, some order, some logic to calm the chaos. But there was no logic. Only noise.

The screams grew around her like black waves, crashing again and again, relentless. A woman called 911 while sobbing. Another took off a jacket and tried to cover her with it. They spoke to her, touched her, tried to help her. But Amelia didn't listen. She didn't feel. She only breathed instinctively.

The cold seeped into her from within. It wasn't the wind. It wasn't the damp sea breeze. It was something that had broken deep within, an invisible rift that split her world in two. A before. An after. An abyss.

Then a sharp whistle cut through the air. A second later, the thunder:

Boom!

A gunshot. Sharp. Final. Like a period forced into the middle of an unfinished sentence. The baby's crying stopped for a second. The sea swallowed a small shoe as if it, too, wanted to hide something.

"They took her," someone whispered nearby.

"Who?"

"The girl. The baby.

Luna."

And then there was no thought. Only noise. Voices that said nothing. Sirens that shrieked in the distance. Sand in her mouth. Salt on her eyelashes. And a silent promise that Amelia felt violently born inside her chest:

This time, they won't take anything else from me.

The ambulance smelled of hot metal, disinfectant, and urgency. The interior was a world apart, white and hostile, oblivious to the rules of what was outside. A paramedic was speaking to her. He was saying her name. He was asking her to breathe. But Amelia couldn't hear him. She stared at the ceiling, unseeing. His breathing sounded distant, as if coming from another body. A body that wasn't hers. An empty one.

She felt the needle pierce her skin. The IV. The cold liquid entering her arm. An attempt to keep her here. On this side of life.

"You're stable. Listen to me, please. The baby is alive, do you hear it? It's alive."

Amelia closed her eyes. But it wasn't that baby she was looking for. It was another. One with a name. One she had imagined in her arms. One she'd felt move inside her womb.

A nurse approached with something tiny in her hands. A red, furious, newborn baby. It was crying as if the world already hurt. As if it knew.

"Baby girl!" the nurse said. "She's breathing fine. She's not hurt anymore. She's here, see?"

But it wasn't Luna. It was another girl. Another destiny. Another beginning.

"They took her," Amelia murmured, without looking at anyone.

"No, she's here. You have her here with you."

They weren't talking about the same girl. She knew it. Her soul knew it. One second. Then another. And time began to move backward, as if seeking answers in what had already been.

Twelve Weeks Earlier

Gabriel had left a drawing on the dining room table. A tree with wings. Clumsy colors, imperfect strokes, but full of meaning. Beside her, Tomás slept among toys, his mouth half-open, one hand clutching a plastic dinosaur.

Amelia, nine months pregnant, tenderly stroked her belly. Every movement inside her was a miracle. Every little kick, a promise of the future. Outside, seagulls flew over the coast, shouting their freedom.

Luciano came in with a bag of warm bread in his hands and a piece of news in his mouth:

"I found him."

Amelia looked up, puzzled.