She says that an acquaintance, a fellow Guatemalan who worked as a waiter, promised her a way out. He told her that the first thing she had to do was run away from her barrio. Something she already wanted to do. Her brother had been killed only a month earlier. Three shots. He worked collecting fares on a public bus in Guatemala City. He was sixteen years old and a gang wanted to recruit him. The Mara Salvatruchas—the most dangerous gang in the world, according to the FBI—offered him the job of killing bus drivers that had wronged them. They promised safety in exchange for his participation
...more

