I wanted to ask but kept my mouth shut. Angelo could find satisfaction in the smallest forms of torture, including holding information that I wanted. Whatever was happening, I had a feeling I’d find out soon enough.
Angelo gave me one last devilish look. The turn of events, regardless of what they were, seemed to have left him less than happy, a fact which he proved by driving one of his boots into my stomach before turning around and storming out of the room. With what little energy I had, I worked myself up to a sitting position and scooted back until I was against the back wall. The cold tile caused the many fresh wounds on my back to scream out and I couldn’t stop a moan of pain from hissing out of me as well. I wrapped my arms around myself, willing my body to hang in there for just ten more minutes.
But my head tipped to one side, unable to support its own weight, and my eyes started to cross. The stone walls started to warp and that same ringing found my ears once again. The wailing of my sister, the weak moans of my brother. And when my eyes closed again, they refused to open, and my brain followed the rest of me from consciousness.
“Tonio?” I called out.
“You can’t sleep all day, you bonehead.”
My brother’s presence loomed over me and my surroundings were soft and comforting. “You’re… dead?”
“Yeah,” he replied, “but you’re not.”
I wasn’t sure I believed him. Whatever soft plush I felt around me now did not match the cold, musty cement room I should have been in. My head felt as if it was upon a cloud.
Was I in heaven?
I wanted to open my eyes so badly, but they wouldn’t give. A smell of distant lavender and honeysuckle slicked under my nose and reminded me of my mother. I could very nearly hear her kind chuckle in my ear. “Mama?”
There was no response. Emotions knotted in my throat and my stomach twisted. They were all there, around me. My mother and father, Antonio, Lucia, and the twins, Alessandra and Chiara. If I could just get my eyes open, I could see them again, I could hug them, I could apologize to them for not avenging our family.
If I could just get them open.
What power I mustered to sit straight up, I wasn’t sure. I was almost convinced that I was dreaming or dead. Somehow, I was in a beautifully appointed room, laying in a four-poster bed with pillows and sheets more comfortable than anything I’d felt before. On an end table next to the bed was a vase with lavender and honeysuckle, along with a glass of water. Sun - the actual, daytime sun - shone in through giant picture windows on the adjacent wall, and there wasn’t a torture device in sight.
Yep, I’d definitely died.
But then my back hollered. Everything ached and my head was pounding as if someone was trying to blow it up with a bike-tire pump. A lurch in my gut was a threat of puking and my whole body was still shaking from weakness. I was starving and my whole body felt hot. Chills covered me over that weren’t the result of being cold, although it didn’t stop me from clawing the blanket around me even further up to try and run them off. It was a struggle to get air in and out, so I laid back down on my side and simply tried to force it, but the more I tried, the harder it got.
I closed my eyes and my family skated across my mind once again. My beautiful sisters, my strong brother, my wise parents. For some reason, Natalia was there as well. I was hit with guilt at the fact that I’d threatened her life, and her smile left me with a sense of longing. Just to see her again and apologize for what I’d done.
Though I doubted I’d ever get the chance.
Sweat coated me and I groaned, unable to get the best of this new wave of pain galloping across my body, and still confused about where I was, still uncertain of what had happened to my sisters, and not knowing if I’d ever see Natalia again, I succumbed to my body pulling me under the waves of consciousness, this time convinced I was not going to resurface.
7
Natalia
There was a different energy around the house when I finally left my room the next morning. It was more on edge and more relaxed and at the same time. It wasn't as uncommon an occurrence around our home and typically occurred when there was a disagreement, either amongst my brothers or between them and my father.
We had this strange tradition in our household of never letting arguments fester. We were always supposed to sort them out, so on the surface, someone always won and someone always lost, but just beneath the facade of actually dealing with our problems were winners and the believed cheated. No one took losing lying down in this family, so it was usually just a matter of determining how long it would be before someone snapped or got revenge.
For the current time anyway, my brothers seemed pleased enough, so I decided taking the relaxed atmosphere around the house was better than nothing.
The fresh spices of breakfast being prepared wafted around, so though I might have preferred to find some nook and just observe my family from a distance to see what I could glean, I instead carried myself into the dining room. I sat down in my normal chair, and Savio appeared not long after that, followed by Marcello. They both had satisfied looks on their faces, but I knew even if I asked them about them, they’d never tell me, so I left it alone.
A first shocking twist to the morning came in the form of Romeo appearing for breakfast with his betrothed in tow. Though she didn’t seem entirely complacent, Lucia wasn’t resistant to Romeo's touches as he helped her find a chair at the table, and whether or not I meant to, I must have been glaring because Lucia looked up at me, offered a weak smile and then looked away.
“Why do you look like that?” Romeo asked.
Savio and Marcello both turned to look at me as well, and I did my best to lighten my expression. “What?I’mnot the new part of this morning.”
“Lucia will be joining us for meals now,” Romeo replied. “She’s going to be my wife and a part of this family, so it’s high time we started acting like it.”
“Great,” I replied, and then I did smile across at Lucia. However, that time she glared back at me, and I supposed I couldn’t blame her.
So much for bonding with my future sister-in-law.
