"We Are Not From Here" by Jenny Torres Sanchez, Part 3

Three desperate teens make a perilous journey from Guatemala in hopes of finding safety in the United States.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Prologue–Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Parts 4-5
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. banshee
    a female spirit who wails to warn of impending death
    La Bestia shifts slightly, winding through the night, and it screeches and howls like some kind of banshee as Chico holds on to me tightly.
  2. apathetic
    showing little or no emotion or animation
    But their faces, apathetic, brown and tired.
  3. kaleidoscope
    an optical toy in a tube
    I ride and hope and stare at the night sky forever, for hours, until the stars above me blur and spin like a kaleidoscope.
  4. seemingly
    from appearances alone
    There is nothing in sight, not a building or lights of a town. Nothing but seemingly endless field.
  5. snippet
    a small piece of anything
    No rattling, no sense of feeling anything other than stillness, before I come crashing down on the gravel, just like Chico, rolling and seeing blurry snippets of train and tracks, and steel and wheels and sky and rock.
  6. waft
    be driven or carried along, as by the air
    My clothes are sticking to me and the smell coming off Chico’s armpits keeps wafting up.
  7. jostle
    come into rough contact with while moving
    The guy moves faster and we are running then, jostling Chico every which way as he cries and moans.
  8. ramshackle
    in poor or broken-down condition
    Trees and ramshackle buildings blur by past the opening.
  9. lurch
    move haltingly and unsteadily
    And industrial warehouses, ugly and solitary, come into view as we rumble in and come to a gasping, lurching stop.
  10. remnant
    a small part remaining after the main part no longer exists
    As they walk into the sunlight, I see them covered in the remnants of the dust and powder of whatever this train car carries.
  11. fixate
    focus one's eyes on
    She asks him simple questions—his age, his name, where he is from, but he just stares back at her, fixated on her face.
  12. concussion
    injury to the brain caused by a blow
    “He’s got a bad concussion,” she says finally. “You all will need to stay here, give him time to recover.”
  13. pry
    be nosey
    I know she must mean she is lonely. But I don’t want to pry, so I keep my thoughts to myself.
  14. incarnate
    possessing or existing in bodily form
    I watch her the whole time and I swear, I see a glow. Like she is outlined by light. And I begin to wonder if we are dead and Soledad is a ghost. I begin to wonder if she’s my bruja incarnate.
  15. audible
    heard or perceptible by the ear
    “Look for the bars on the side!” a man yells to those with him. “That’s where you can pull yourself up!” His voice is barely audible over the train’s long, blaring whistle.
  16. cacophony
    loud confusing disagreeable sounds
    I look down again and the world is a blur and a cacophony of sound.
  17. instinctive
    unthinking
    My insides drop and instinctively, I shut my eyes for a millisecond as my brain screams, Keep going! Keep going!
  18. flail
    thrash about
    Even now, I can see him clearly, his denim shirt, his dark face, his arms flailing wildly...
  19. register
    enter into someone's consciousness
    Either they didn’t see or realize what happened, or they did, but it barely registered.
  20. contort
    twist and press out of shape
    Chico nods, but I see how his face contorts, trying to hold back tears, trying not to think about it.
  21. embedded
    enclosed firmly in a surrounding mass
    It feels funny, and my eyes can’t focus and then I get such a headache, it’s like a dull machete has been embedded in my scalp.
  22. obstruct
    block passage through
    The small child next to her starts running with the train. He looks at us in wonder, and the mother stares at him as he slows down, his path obstructed by trees.
  23. squelch
    suppress or crush completely
    I press on my belly, trying to squelch the tiny beast that keeps groaning and punching and wrestling inside—reminding me of hunger.
  24. furrow
    make or become wrinkled or creased
    I watch as her brow furrows, as she holds tight to the girl, speaks to her husband.
  25. succession
    a following of one thing after another in time
    The sound of gunshots fired in rapid succession breaks through the night, and then panicked, urgent yelling, the sound of feet pounding the ground, running in every direction.
  26. gauzy
    so thin as to transmit light
    The spider tap-tap-taps on one of my eyes—spins a web over it, then the other. Until all I see is gauzy webbed white.
  27. hallucinate
    have illusions; perceive what is not actually there
    What happens is your brain refuses to believe what it has just seen. What happens is that it tells you you are hallucinating and your ears recall what Pequeña just said about needing water.
  28. mangle
    destroy or injure severely
    ...his leg mangled like it’s been eaten by a pack of wolves...
  29. sliver
    divide into small, thin, sharp bits
    Each shock makes my brain flash. Each shock is a knife viciously cutting up and slicing and slivering my heart into pieces.
  30. in vain
    without a successful result or effect
    I imagine Chico’s body crossing borders back to where we ran from, all of this, our whole journey, in vain.
Created on Wed Aug 19 11:12:23 EDT 2020 (updated Fri Aug 21 10:28:15 EDT 2020)

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