The truth was not one clean villain.
It was a chain of fear, pride, poverty, and one bad choice after another.
Sofía looked at Canela and swallowed hard.
“She followed me from home,” she said. “She had her puppies in the alley behind the motel.”
Lupita’s eyes filled.
“You left them there?”
“I couldn’t carry everyone,” Sofía whispered. “I thought I could come back after the baby stopped crying.”
The sentence broke inside the room, not because it was cruel, but because it was almost understandable.
Miguel hated that part most.
He wanted the truth to be easier, wanted someone to blame completely so he could feel clean.
Sofía pressed both hands over her face.
“When I went back, Canela was gone. The box was gone. I thought I had lost them all.”
Canela licked her wrist, and Sofía bent over her like a child asking forgiveness from something innocent.
Sirens approached softly in the distance, not screaming, just growing closer through the motel walls.
Sofía looked up, panic returning.
Miguel crouched in front of her.
“You don’t have to run again,” he said.
“You don’t know that.”
“No,” he admitted. “I don’t. But I know running made everything smaller until even breathing became impossible.”
