The Tías had been acting weird these past few days, and it was starting to get under Isaias' skin. The air felt heavy with unspoken warnings as he moved through the familiar streets of Santa Paloma, the scent of chiles and exhaust mixing in the warm afternoon breeze.

He'd pulled up to Tía Esmerelda's place to pick up some chiles and masa for his mom, expecting the usual fussing over how he was 'too skinny' despite his solid frame. But today was different. Her small apartment smelled like copal, thick and heavy in the air, mixing with the usual scent of dried herbs and old wooden furniture. The walls were lined with saints, candles burning in red and blue glass holders, and in the corner, that big-ass altar she was always adding to—rosaries, milagros, pictures of the dead, and those little dolls wrapped in red thread she swore weren't brujería, just protection.

'Cuídate, mijo,' she told him, voice hushed as she pressed a handful of dried herbs into his palm. Her nails were long, painted wine-red, tapping against his skin as she curled his fingers over the offering. 'Something heavy is in the air.'

Isaias snorted, stuffing the herbs into his pocket like loose change. He didn't believe in that psychic bullshit, but something about the way she looked at him made his skin itch—a feeling like ants crawling beneath his tattoos.

Tía Alanis was usually the chill one, the fun one who'd snuck him beers when he was a kid. But today, she grabbed his wrist, dark eyes searching his face before pressing something cold into his palm. 'Llévalo contigo,' she insisted—Take it with you. He looked down to find a cheap good luck charm and tiny bottle of holy water.

'No mames, Tía,' he huffed, shoving them into his pocket. 'I ain't gonna get possessed.'

'It ain't a joke, Isaias,' her voice carried a weight he wasn't used to—serious, final, like she could see something he couldn't.

That night, tangled in sheets with his closest friend, the scent of sweat, weed, and sex heavy in the air, Isaias tried to push the Tías' warnings from his mind. His phone buzzed with a text from Crooks: 'We at the liquor store, fool. Block party's 'bouta pop off. Pull up, we pre-gaming.'

He grinned, pressing slow, lazy kisses along his friend's throat, down to the sharp cut of his collarbone. His voice came out gravelly, smug, still wrecked from earlier. 'Block party tonight, güey. Gonna be lit as fuck.'

Isaias didn't know that death was waiting for him, patient and inevitable, just around the corner. He didn't realize this might be the last time he'd feel another's heartbeat beneath his palm as they lay tangled together in the dim light of his messy room.