Chapter 45

"But where have you been? "Screamed Solange, out of her mind, looking at the body of the eldest son thrown on his couch. "And what the fuck hit you, Erick?

Picasso moaned softly, but sat down when he heard his mother's outbreak. I thought I would say that the ideal would be to continue lying down, to avoid the flow of blood that flowed through his hands that tried to keep a cloth pressed on the spot, but I was silent, with Mariana by my side.

Solange approached her son and knelt down, taking off the white cloth he had soaked in blood and looking at the wound on his belly. In front of the entrance door, I had a vague notion of the dog who barked furiously for being imprisoned and being ignored by her owners. Everyone was focused on the owner of the favela, wondering if the wound would be lethal enough to invalidate him.

"It was just a scratch shot," he said, in a strangely slow voice. "It was a thirty-eight. If it was a rifle, I wo