1. Domenico
“Cat.”
A small furrow appears between her brows at my murmur, but her eyes don’t open.
Carefully, I tug the blue fleece blanket up, hiding her tangled mess of a dress. It’s barely more than rags and blood at this point. My eyes linger on the sight of my own hands, so close to her face.
Scarred and bloody.
As we all are.
I drag my eyes over her still form again, taking her in even as I pull my hands back.
Here.
She’s here, and safe, and far away from the battlefield we’ve left behind.
Until the next one.
Swiping a hand over my face as if I could possibly wipe away my exhaustion, I collapse into a seat opposite Dante. His fingerstrace over the crumpled photograph in his hand, but he’s staring out of the window, his face expressionless.
I glance down at the photo, catching a hint of bronze curls. My chest begins to tighten, and squeeze.
And then I turn my face away.
When he finally speaks, his voice is hoarse - from the smoke, maybe, or the fight. Dark traces of dried blood still fleck his face as he turns those all-too-damn-familiar green eyes on me. “She’s asleep?”
At my nod, he leans forward and looks around me, as if assessing Cat for himself.
Or perhaps he’s making sure she’s reallyhere. As if the events of tonight – or last night, by now – were nothing more than a cruel trick to tease us into believing that we might actually have won, when we have lost over and over again.
Checking on her is something none of us have been able to prevent ourselves from doing, during these last quiet hours.
She curled up in a seat and let us do it without any of the attitude I’d normally expect from her. She just…satthere, silent and pale in her bloody gown with her cold fingers gripping mine, even as I held onto her just as tightly. We sat there, and I stared at her as she stared out of the window, watching mutely as the pitch-black view outside slowly changed to golden shades of dawn and the world passed by beneath us.
And for the first time, I had no idea what she was thinking. What nightmares might be hiding behind those deep brown eyes.
I glance back at her again - wondering who she thinks she’s fooling, with her eyes scrunched closed.
Iknowher tells, the movement of her body – I know her better than she probably knows herself. And she’s not fooling me.
Nor Dante. The same awareness reflects back at me in his face, jaw tightening. He forces his eyes away, and back to me.
I wonder if he feels as helpless as I do, now there are no enemies left to fight. Not on this plane, although the tension in the air suggests otherwise.
Gripping the armrest, I force out a breath. “How much longer until we get there?”
He checks his watch. “An hour, maybe.”
An hour until we land in Palermo, and the quiet peace that we’ve found in these hours above the sky is shattered again.
When I meet his gaze this time, my own voice is grim. “We need to regroup.”
“That’s what we’re going to do.”
It’s not Dante who responds. Gio slides into the vacant seat beside mine, an empty glass dangling from his hand. He looks worse than Dante, the deep cut above his left eyebrow already knitting, even as the bruising around his eyes continues to build into a vivid purple. “But we’ve earned a few days to rest, Dom.”
My hands tighten on the armrests. “Matteo doesn’tneeda few days. Every hour we wait is an advantage for him.”
