Hands Up, Baby Hands Up

Bruta Ciega Sordomuda Torpe Traste y Testaruda

 Valentina, Juliana and Sara were all sitting on the edge of the bed, in that order. Val sat with both her hands over her mouth, getting over the shock of learning that El Alacrán was claiming he kidnapped her. Juliana was sitting with her forehead buried in her hand and pressing her closed eyes against her palm, quite tired at all these developments. Sara was sitting with her hands over her ears, trying to concentrate on making sense on all that had unfolded - and failing quite a bit.

The trio sat in silence for a long time in this fashion, with Sara softly talking to herself to understand what was going on, till she grew too confused to think.

"Ok - let me just try to understand this."

Juliana took a deep breath but didn't shift.

"I kidnapped her," Sara began, gesturing with her hands, pointing to herself.

"You're in love with her." she went on, pointing at Juliana, who sat up hearing that and glared at her cousin. Sara however was too oblivious to notice.

"And now El Alacrán is after her." Sara ended. Juliana slightly scrunched her face in annoyance, but she couldn't exactly blame Sara and gave up.

"Yeah. That's about it.", she muttered in reply.

"Uh huh. Uh huh." Sara agreed, though she was still not entirely convinced about what she said herself.

"Why did I kidnap her?" Sara asked out loud, and Juliana was about to push her cousin off the bed to shut her up.

"Oh yeah- because tha-"

"Because you're an idiot." Juliana cut in, thinking her cousin was going to reveal who actually asked her to kidnap Val. She did not know why - but she felt embarrassed at telling Val that it was her boyfriend that asked to kidnap her and did not at all want to be the person telling her that. She was most certainly going to kill Lucho, but she definitely did not want Val knowing about that.

"Mm hmm." Sara nodded.

"Why are you in love with her?" Sara asked again - and Juliana turned to look at her cousin in utter exasperation.

"Right - because you're an idiot." Sara retorted, glad to get back at Juls for that. But there was still one more question she had.

"Why is Alacrán after her?"

At that - both Juls and Sara slowly turned their heads to Val, who till then had not paid any attention to the conversation.

"It's because I threatened him." she replied absent-mindedly. Sara silently threw her hands up.

"Oh good, she's an idiot too." Sara sneered and Juliana snapped.

"Sara!"

"I'm sorry -it's just confusing. It's like that Telenovela where the souls kept transmigrating or whatever." Sara replied defensively, but Juliana had already turned back to Val, trying to understand why Val would do such a thing.

"Why did you threaten him?"

Val sat up and looked at Juls, her shoulders hunched and her demeanor anxious.

"I was looking into my dad's company accounts for an article - and I found a lot of money that seemed to come from nowhere. When I asked my sister Eva about it, she yelled at me and told me to stop looking into it. When I did finally track down the money - I realized that it was coming from him and that he was using the company to launder money. "

"So, you just went and threatened one of the most dangerous men in the city?" Sara broke out in disbelief. Val just shrugged at that.

"I'm not afraid of him."