Chapter Two

Song: A Forest - Bat For Lashes

—

It was twelve minutes to three in the morning when they entered the golden hotel room. Igor put the "do not disturb" sign on the door before locking it. He sank the magnetic card into its reader. The dusk of the room turned into a glossy light. He glanced at the shadows on the baseboards. A glossy but treacherous light, like the coat of a white wolf.

He sat on the edge of the sofa, unbuttoning his shirt. Giulia settled in front of him, stepping on the armchair to take off her high-heeled boots one at a time. The wool skirt slid above her knees, revealing the garter belt and the French lace panties. Just how he preferred it. She took off her coat, and his eyes fixed on the red stain of her blouse.

"I'm going to take a shower and then clean it with soap."

"Leave it. We can send it to the laundry."

"Don't bother with it, darling. With soap this stain will come off for sure."

They finished taking off their clothes, bodies covered only by their underwear.

They got up at the same time. Faced each other. Gray eyes against blue eyes, Giulia searching Igor for answers to mute questions. The silence in the room tensed.

Stretched.

Stretched further and further until —

It broke into pieces.

"I'm going to take a shower."

"Giulia!"

She ran from the room and he followed, preventing her from locking the bathroom door and pushing her inside. Igor slammed the door shut.

"What the fuck was that at dinner? Huh?!"

Giulia moved as far away from him as she could, leaning her back on the glass shower door.

"Answer me!" Igor pushed the perfume bottles from the countertop, letting them crash to the floor, the shards and caramel-colored liquids forming a sickly stained glass. "You were enjoying your little show, weren't you, Giulia? Wanted to get the attention of those motherfuckers, didn't you? Get eye fucked, as if I wasn't there! As if you didn't belong to me!"

He advanced and Giulia entered the stall, grabbing the hand shower and aiming it at his face, the jet of water blocking his vision for an instant. Igor reached out, looking for clues made of tigress bones and skin.

He groped the lines of her collarbones, latching onto Giulia's neck. The shower hose dropped from her hand, ricocheting off his leg. Igor opened his eyes and found her pale, color running away from her cheeks due to oxygen deprivation.

Adrenaline rushed through Igor's veins, injecting excitement into his body. He was on top of the world. He had absolute control. Could kill her if he wanted to. Giulia was a porcelain doll in his hands, eyes wide and vitreous, skin chalk white, her mouth open and suffocating. So beautiful under his power.

He felt the urge to kiss her.

He released his hands from her neck and pulled her towards him, sticking his tongue deep in her mouth.

—

After buying the tickets and going through the visitors' registration, Theresa, Lygia and Anna finally got into the Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park. They had taken the tour right after lunch, and the sun was now falling mercilessly on their faces and clothes. Theresa looked at her black leggings with disgust. They now clung to her legs, slowly warming her skin as if they were stewing it. Anna also didn't seem very enthusiastic about the prospect of hiking for the next five hours. Lygia was the only one with a grin on her face. The last time Theresa saw her that excited was when they had buried a stake through the heart of a creature of the night.

Theresa sighed, taking a map out of her pocket. Lygia snatched it from her hands.

"Nope nope nope, maps were made for clueless tourists, not for people like us…"

"People like us?" Anna echoed.

"Oh, you know..." Lygia came closer and whispered, "Vampire slayers."

Yeah right, as if annihilating vampires implied a supernatural sense of direction, Theresa thought.

"How do you expect us to follow the right tracks without the map, Lygia?"

"By exploring the path as we go, duh."

"I'm not sure about this..." Anna murmured.

"C'mon, don't spoil the fun! It will be more interesting this way. Or are we really going to let a piece of paper tell us what to do?"

Theresa's eyes scanned the park entrance, the groups of tourists, the guides and their hiking sticks, Anna's tired face, Lygia's smiling one, the clear blue sky and the torrid sun. She pushed forward, the other two rushing after her.

The beginning of the trail seemed easy enough, the ground still flat and the surrounding trees still thin and small. Lygia stopped every ten minutes to take pictures of the landscape. When the initial maze gave way to the immensity of the park, with a long and straight path still to be crossed, Lygia took a sudden turn to the left, getting into the thick woods.

"Lygia! Don't go too far..."

She, petite as she was, soon vanished before Theresa's eyes. Anna eyed her like a child asking the teacher for guidance.

"Let's follow her. I don't want anyone out of my sight."

With each step, the ground got steeper, and Theresa's stroll turned into a trudge, her patience running out. Her knees complained and her calves were burning. The sun scorched her skin, and drops of sweat crawled down her back.

Anna was right behind her, sometimes taking her by surprise when she leaned on her shoulder to avoid stumbling.

After endless minutes of walking, they found Lygia in the middle of a slope. Theresa looked around. There was no one else there. She could no longer hear the chatter of the other visitors, nor the footsteps of the guides. The only sound came from the bark of the trees, which were now tall and wild.

"Lygia, I think we'd better go b—"

"I can't believe it! Look!" Lygia called, the voice filled with enthusiasm. Theresa heard the flashes of Lygia's cell phone.

As soon as she and Anna came closer to see what it was, Anna's eyes widened and she jumped back. Less than six feet away, resting on a rock, there was a long, fat rattlesnake. It eyed them with languor, still without vibrating its tail. It didn't seem to bother the pictures Lygia kept taking.

"Lygia. Let's get out of here. Now."

"Scared, are you, Theresa?" Lygia laughed. "Relax. Nothing's going to happen, the snake's practically asleep."

"I think we'd better get back to the trails pointed on the map," Anna said, her eyes still fixed on the animal.

"Lygia, where is the map?" Theresa asked, furrowing her brows.

She finally moved away from the snake. "What map?"

What map?, the words echoed inside Theresa's mind. "The map you took out of my hand before we got here."

Theresa watched Lygia search inside her pockets and then open her backpack, her small hands rummaging in it and returning empty to the surface.

Theresa gritted her teeth, the last drop of patience slipping down her forehead along with the sweat. Why Lygia has to be so irresponsible, why didn't I stop her when — "Where. Is. The. Map."

Lygia's half-hearted smile was enough to make Theresa turn around and march toward the initial route, the other girls running after her.

Everything would be fine if it wasn't for a tiny problem: the more she walked, the less she recognized the path.

—

Anna had reached her physical limit. Now all she wanted was to go back to the hotel, eat a nice bowl of pasta and sink into bed. Her legs were sore after walking up and down the rugged and steep terrain, full of slippery stones, eager to watch her fall and skin her knees.

She had stayed behind, but her fatigue was so great that she didn't even care. Anna strained her eyes to see Theresa and Lygia's silhouettes out front, discussing something in secrecy. She didn't care what it was either. To hell with it. That was enough. I just want to go back. Let's go back, please...

A halt. She saw in the little mound in front of her a kind of divine grace. She sat down, her back collapsing; rested her head on her hands, the strands of hair plastered on her forehead. She took a deep breath and released the air through her mouth. Anna looked around. In front of her, the dry forest stretched out as if it were infinite. On the left, the typical scrubland. On her right, the two girls farther apart, becoming two dots on the horizon. Behind her...

Anna turned around.

There was the beginning of a dark trail, its entrance blocked by a piece of grimy cloth stuck between the trunk of two trees. Written in black ink, the warning: "do not cross". She would have left it there if she hadn't seen the small blood stains on the ground.

"Girls!" she shouted without thinking, continuing until the others returned.

"What the fuck is going on?" Lygia said, running over the words as she examined Anna from top to bottom, looking for a bruise or snake bite.

Anna pointed to the trail. Theresa squatted down to scrutinize the stains. Then she looked up at Lygia with a severe expression on her face. "You can smell it, don't you?"

Smell it? What are they talking about? Anna couldn't detect anything. Lygia seemed to struggle with words before saying:

"Yeah, but so what? It might be a dead animal and — "

"But you can smell it."

Theresa ignored the warning on the ribbon. She bent down, crawled to the other side and faced the others like a patient mother. Lygia uncrossed her arms and walked past without ceremony. Anna's eyes settled on the trail ahead, absorbing the treacherous stone steps and the tangle of dead leaves barring the sunlight. She swallowed dry.

"It won't take long, Anna," Theresa promised. "Let's just take a quick look here, okay?"

Do not cross. The sour taste of regret shot up her throat. Anna could have kept her mouth shut and pretended she hadn't seen anything.

Lygia snorted. "We can do this the easy way or the hard way, rookie."

"I have a bad feeling about this." Even so, Anna crouched down and joined them, taking the lead and climbing the uneven steps.

As they advanced, the sunlight subsided until it completely disappeared. The ground became muddy, and Lygia cursed under her breath when her new sneakers got wet and dirty. The trees engulfed them in darkness, and silence covered their heads like a shroud. Anna recalled a childhood cartoon in which the naive little girl entered the forest at night and the trees then came to life, branches shaking like scrawny arms and trunks swaying like human bodies. For her, the only difference now was that in this case there wasn't one naive little girl, but three.

"There's nothing around here, we've seen enough. Please, let's go ba —"

Crack. The loud noise flooded the place, and Anna replaced the whisper with a scream. Her brain processed the fall, but her body couldn't get up. Anna thought it was understandable. After all, her legs were too busy sliding into the abyss in front of her.

—

Lygia's thoughts led a noble parade of profanities. She couldn't let the new girl die. Not in that place, not in that stupid way. Whom would she make fun of without Anna around? Still cursing, she looked at the waterfall, calculating the height and praying the rookie was smart enough to have survived.

"I think I found a path... This way, come on..." Theresa called, already climbing down a slope.

At a careful pace, they finally reached the flatland, free from the stifling darkness of the forest. Not that it made much difference; the sun was already setting on the horizon and soon they could hardly see again. Lygia scanned the stones around the waterfall, in search of the blue of Anna's T-shirt. Meanwhile, Theresa approached the water, shouting Anna's name with the little air left in her lungs.

As soon as Lygia saw a dark, muddy blue near a fungus-covered tree, she ran towards it. Theresa arrived next, but Anna wasn't listening to them.

Her eyes were wide open and bulged, stuck in a trance to what was ahead of her. Lygia diverted her attention from the worrisome red that dyed the blue of Anna's clothes and decided to look at whatever the girl was facing. And when Lygia saw it, she led another procession of swearing.

—

Anna's head stopped spinning and she finally managed to keep the necessary concentration. It was a... picture, she settled. One of those Renaissance paintings typical of museums. The waterfall descended fiercely to calm down and form a still green lake, glistening with the last rays of sunshine, some fallen flowers reflecting on the water. The surrounding forest worked as a kind of protective fence around the landscape. And the protagonist of the scene — the golden-haired nymph and her translucent dress, floating like a doll. Her closed eyes and serene expression could imply that she had fallen asleep during a lethargic afternoon at the waterfall.

If it wasn't for that trail of dried blood on her neck.

"We have one more," Theresa said in an apathetic, casual voice, as if she discussed the grocery list.

Anna ignored the stabbing pain in her ribs and came closer to the lake, leaning on its shore, and chanced another look at the woman's neck. "Whoever did this doesn't seem..." She paused, looking up as if she were trying to find the right word in her mental dictionary. "Particularly violent."

Lygia choked on her own saliva. "You've got to be kidding me... Her body is dry as fuck. It didn't stop sucking this poor girl until it drained the last drop of blood." She clenched her teeth. "God, they make me sick."

"It's not that..." Anna said. "It's the... It's the scene. The scene is immaculate. Almost as if... as if it regretted what it had done."

Lygia rolled her eyes, twisting her mouth into a grimace. "Tell me, which hard drugs you've been taking for breakfast?"

"It's building a pattern," Theresa's permanently bored voice concluded.

"Well, shit."

"Wait a minute, you're saying there was already another murd — "

"The loss of control is only a matter of time."

Anna trembled, saying goodbye to the vacation she had just missed.