As if they’ve finished the job.
When my feet find another trail, I waste no time, darting back in the opposite direction to the noise behind me. I follow the broken twigs, snapped-off branches, and track the depressions left by heavy boots in the mud.
Caterina is close. She has to be.
Except the trail runs cold as I reach a small clearing, the forest returning to its natural state. Slowly, I turn. My eyes rake my surroundings, trying to assess which direction to go in from here.
But there is nothing. Nothing that gives me any fucking indication, any clue.
Dark thoughts threaten to push their way in, even as I fight to force them away.
Because the notion of a world without her in it is impossible.
And unacceptable.
I walk across the clearing, examining every possible angle, every potential route. But there is nothing.
And if she is not beyond this point, then she ishere. Or she was.
The brightness of the stars above casts a dim light across the ground, and I take a few steps. My eyes turning down, seeing the shape of shoes, the evidence of footsteps moving in every direction. Back and forth, as though they were walking in fucking circles.
Or if they were focused on something. Something on the ground.
Concentrate.
I carefully trace the steps, note where they turn messy and convoluted. Find where they gathered en masse, clustered together. Crouching, I run my finger over the earth.
And then I see it.
So easy to miss, I almost skate right over it.
But there. A boundary line, the footsteps ending abruptly. I turn on the flashlight from my phone, turn it to face the ground.
And when I see the rectangle, the packed, neatly patted down piece of dirt that holds no footsteps, bare of leaves and debris from the forest floor, it takes me precious, wasted fucking moments to understand what I’m seeing.
And clarity hits me. Not like a lightning bolt. But in a dawning, curling horror that wraps around my heart and chokes it, strangles the oxygen from my lungs with creeping, insidious talons.
The phone drops from my hand, bouncing across the floor and clattering to a stop, casting a broken beam of light over the grave in front of me.
A noise that no human should ever make sounds deep in my chest.
No.
My knees hit the ground, and I shove my fingers into the dirt. Grabbing, yanking, clawing, as fast as I can. My hands burn, the nails ripping away as I dig.
But I keep going, tearing away the dirt that keeps her trapped beneath.
And I pray.
Chapter forty-four Luciano
Time becomes meaningless.
My blood soaks into the mud, my nails left behind as jagged tributes.
There are no measures of time but the piles of dirt building around me. Not fast enough.
I claw, my fingers scrabbling for purchase as I grab it in clumps, throwing it to the side and behind me, trying desperately to get deeper.
