"He's dead." I can't say Tommy's name. Can't make it real. "My brother is dead. I saved no one. Protected no one. It was all meaningless."
"Emma, listen to me…"
"No." I end the call, gripping the phone with numb fingers. Behind me, the bodyguards maintain their distance, probably reporting to Alessandro, but I don't care.
Nothing matters anymore.
The compound gates appear before me somehow. I must have walked here on autopilot, some part of me still programmed to return to the cage. The guards let me through, probably relieved I came back on my own.
I drift through the mansion like a ghost. Every room holds memories of becoming someone else, someone who had purpose, who had a reason for existing. When I walked across these marble floors this morning, Tommy was already dead. Has been dead. Will always be dead.
My feet carry me up the service stairs, the ones I discovered that first night when I was still fighting. When I still believed in saving people.
I find myself in our suite and move through the bathroom mechanically, gathering the sleeping pills from the medicine cabinet. Alessandro's, probably, for nights when his conscience keeps him awake. Enough for forever. The bottle rattles in my shaking hands, a death rattle of its own.
The rooftop observatory waits for me, unchanged. The telescope Alessandro gave me stands there, a monument to a love built on deception. The stars are just beginning to appearin the darkening sky, and I remember teaching Tommy to find them from our fire escape.
"See that bright one?" I'd told him when he was six, his small hand in mine. "That's the North Star. If you're ever lost, it'll guide you home."
But there's no home without him. No point to any constellation without someone to share them with.
I sink onto the warm stone where we've watched so many stars together. Where I taught Alessandro to see beauty. Where I felt real. But now I am nothing but a fraud. Hollow and empty.
There's a photograph in my hand. How long has it been there? It crinkles, a long fold The across my brother's body. Tommy's destroyed face, the last image I'll have of him. The glossy paper is already creased from my grip, his features distorting further. I trace what's left of his mouth with my finger, trying to remember him laughing instead of broken.
"I'm so sorry," I whisper to the photo. "I tried. I became someone else. I did everything they asked. But it wasn't enough."
The pills are small in my palm, innocent-looking. Bitter on my tongue as I swallow them dry, one after another. My last act of autonomy. No one chose this for me. No one forced it. This is mine.
I think about Alessandro finding me here tomorrow. Will he understand? Will he know that without Tommy, without my purpose for existing, I'm nothing but a ghost wearing expensive clothes?
I look up one last time, finding the constellation Tommy loved most. Orion, the hunter, forever chasing what he can't catch. Like me, pretending I could save anyone.
My heart starts to race, then slow. My vision blurs the stars into halos, then streams of light. I wonder if Tommy can see them wherever he is. If he's waiting for me in that darknessbetween the lights. My limbs grow heavy, then weightless, floating between the stone and the sky.
I lie back on the warm stone, Tommy's photograph clutched against my chest, watching the stars multiply and dance. My body fights even as my mind surrenders. Lungs struggling for air, heart stammering its protest.
The last thing I see is Orion, bright and constant, and I pretend Tommy's watching it with me.
"Emma!"
Alessandro's voice cuts through the darkness, but it sounds far away, like he's calling from another world. I'm barely conscious when he finds me on the hot stone, my body already shutting down from the pills. His cologne, that musky floral scent, mixed with fear-sweat as he drops beside me.
"No, no, no. Don't do this, stellina. Don't you dare."
He's performing CPR, I think distantly. His mouth on mine, breathing life I don't want. His hands pumping my chest, trying to restart a heart that's given up.
"Castellano!" He's screaming into his phone while working on me. "Get here now. Rooftop. She took pills. I don't know how many. Just fucking hurry!"
His voice breaks on the last word. Something wet falls on my face. Hot against my cold skin. It takes too long to understand—tears. His tears. Each one a tiny shock of warmth I can barely feel through the numbness spreading through my body.
"Please, baby. Please. You can't leave me. Not like this." His mouth is on mine again, forcing air into lungs that don't want it. "I'll find who did this. I'll burn the whole world down, but you have to stay. You have to let me fix this."
My body convulses, pills and bile coming up, the taste acidic and bitter. He turns me on my side, holding my hair back while I retch onto the stone. Even dying, he's taking care of me.
"That's it. Get it out. All of it." His hands are gentle despite their desperation. "Dr.Castellano's coming. You're going to be okay. You have to be okay."
He pulls me into his lap, rocking me like a child while we wait. Through my blurred vision, the stars streak across the sky like they're falling with me.
