Unbridled

“Those boys are big trouble,” she said, glaring after them. “We get victims of Los Diablos Lobitos in the hospital from time to time. Yesterday we got one of Los Serpientes. They’re pretty sure that Lobitos killed him.” She cocked her head. “You know about the little devil wolves? They like to recruit boys for their gang, because juvies don’t go to prison for things that would put them away for years.”

“I know about them,” he said in a quiet tone. “Los Diablos Lobitos keeps after me. I don’t want to join them.”

“That Rado is bad news,” she continued. “He’s killed men. The police here keep trying to put him away, but he’s as slippery as a fresh-caught fish.”

He managed a smile. “How do you know about Rado?”

“I live in the Alamo Trace apartments, there,” she said, indicating an older building in the distance. “Rado’s been around here for many years.” She didn’t add that she knew him very well because of what he’d done to her family. They were old enemies. She’d have given anything to see him go up for murder, but he couldn’t be caught.

“You work around here?” he asked.

She smiled. “I work there.” She indicated the children’s hospital.

“You do?” he asked. “I don’t recognize you.”

Her eyebrows lifted.

He laughed. “I stay here in the cafeteria after school. My cousin works here, too. She gives me a ride home.”

“Well! Small world,” she teased.

“Do you work in the office?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I’m a nurse.”

So had his mother been. He loved nurses. “You like nursing?”

“More than anything.” She pulled her coat closer. “If you’re going my way, you can walk with me and protect me from evil gang members,” she teased.

He chuckled. “That was sort of the other way around.”

“I was bluffing. The phone wasn’t even turned on. I should take up poker,” she said, frowning, as they walked together toward the main entrance. “Apparently, I bluff pretty good.”

He laughed out loud. “Yes, you do.”

“Want to have a snack with me?” she asked. “I’m not on duty for another thirty minutes. I don’t usually come in this early, but I set my clock wrong.” She sighed. “I’m a born klutz. I unplugged it to clean, and then when I finally plugged it back in, I forgot to reset it.”

He grinned. His dad was the same way. “I’d love to have a snack. I have money left over from lunch,” he added quickly, to make sure she knew he wasn’t going to mooch off her. He knew that nursing didn’t create millionaires. Most nurses weren’t in it for the money, anyway.

She grinned back. “Okay.”

* * *

She went with him to the canteen on the first floor, the one used by visitors. There were always members of the staff around, and security, so it was safe for a young boy to sit there while his cousin finished her shift.

“I’m Tonio,” he said, not volunteering his last name. He didn’t advertise his dad’s profession. He knew that his dad was around emergency rooms a lot. She might recognize the name, and he didn’t want her to. Not yet.

She smiled. “I’m Sunny. What would you like?”

He pulled out a dollar bill. “I always have money for the machines,” he explained. “I eat at school, but mostly it’s healthy stuff. I like junk food.”

She laughed. “Me, too,” she confessed.

She got a cup of black coffee for herself and a sweet roll, something to keep her blood sugar up. She was forever running on the job. She only slowed down when she went off shift.

Tonio got a pack of potato chips and a cup of hot chocolate.

“I like the hot chocolate, too,” she remarked. “I don’t usually like it out of machines, but this one seems to be a fairly decent crafter of hot beverages.”

He grinned. She smiled and the sun came out.

“Do you go to school around here?”

“Yeah. At San Felipe,” he added and then watched for her reaction.

“Is it a middle school or a high school?” she asked. She made a face as she sipped hot chocolate. “Sorry, I don’t know much about education these days. I’m not married.”

“Wow, really? I’m not married, either!”

She gave him a wide-eyed look and then burst into laughter.

He laughed, too. He hadn’t laughed so much in a long time.

“This is a really nice place,” he commented.

“It is. I’ve worked here ever since it opened. I’d just graduated from nursing school.”

“What did you mean, about somebody in Serpientes being killed?” he asked.

She frowned. “I shouldn’t talk about things like that to someone your age,” she said gently.

He was going to tell her that he knew all about murder, because his dad was in law enforcement. But he didn’t want her to know. He didn’t want to tell her about his dad. He wasn’t even sure why.

“Okay,” he said. “If you want to stunt my educational growth. But I’m eleven, going on twelve. And I do watch the local news on TV,” he added.

She wrinkled her nose. “I guess you’re old enough. He was found shot to death on the street, with a wolf’s head drawn in chalk near the body.”

“Los Diablos Lobitos want their territory, so they killed a Serpiente as a warning, I guess, to try and scare them off.” He fished in the package for the last of the potato chips. “I don’t want to be in a gang,” he added heavily. “Lobitos make you kill somebody in order to join. I did a dumb thing once. I ran away from home and I got to know this boy who belongs to the gang. I said I’d like to be part of it, but I was real upset and I didn’t know what I was doing. Except that they told Rado, and now he’s on my case.” He grimaced. “He makes these threats. Like today.” He lifted angry brown eyes to hers. “He said that he wanted somebody to take drugs into the hospital. Into a children’s hospital! He’s crazy!”

She searched the boy’s eyes. “You have a heart. You don’t seem at all like the sort of person who’d deal drugs to little children.” She smiled.

His heart jumped. He felt the praise go right to his own heart. She made him feel...different. Good and useful. She made him feel as his mother had, when she was alive.

“I never would,” he replied. “That Rado, though, he would,” he added with a heavy sigh.

She glanced at her watch with the second hand and sighed. “Time to go to work.”

“Is it hard, working here?” he asked. “I mean, my cousin works in one of the offices. But you have to be with the kids when they...well...”