Did they mean to kill methisway? Could I even get oxygen back here? Or would it be the heat? I was ringing wet from a mixture of fear and the baking temperature. A tin coffin with no way out. My mind raced, but caught nothing that made sense, and my heart beat a hundred miles per second, attempting to keep up.
“Brando,” I whispered. “Oh God, Brando.”
What would he do when he found out that I was gone?
Livio!
Did he lure me out? He would’ve known that I would have gone after him. We had been close, at one time. Was this payback for what happened to Santina? Or was this something else?
Was he a ghost? And the only reason I saw him was because I had one foot in the grave already?
Panic turned into full-on hyperventilation. I wasn’t sure if it was caused from the heat, lack of oxygen, fear, or a combination of all three. I shoved at the trunk, feeling the metal extremely close to my face. I wasn’t a large person and I barely fit.Small car then.
“Get it together,” I whispered to myself. “Don’t panic.”You’ll lose oxygen faster, a calm part of my brain reminded me. The crazed part reminded me that before we suffocated, we’d overheat and fall into a miserable sleep that led to everlasting slumber.
The car stopped—silence for longer than a few minutes. Theyleftme here to die!
“Oh no, no, no, no, no!” I became feral, my will to survive strong. Instinct has a mind of its own, and I started to kick and flail and scream.
Somewhere in the insanity, muffled voices slid through the cracks. I paused for a second, chest heaving with exertion, arms and legs burning from cuts and the starting of bruises. Sweat stung my eyes, and my entire body was ringing wet, making the slices burn. The thin fabric of the dress clung to me like it had been painted on. The sack around my face made it harder and harder to breathe.
The voices distinguished themselves as two Italian men arguing. I couldn’t understand what they were saying. Their voices were low, but fast, and the words were Sicilian. I didn’t recognize either of them—not Livio. Then a third man joined in. He was calm and extremely French. Not Nemours.
Although the third man was calm, it was easy to tell that he was irritated. Almost put out. “We will do it my way,” he said in French.
Then the trunk popped open, and I took a lungful of the cool rush of air, forgetting that the sack was full of dust. It might have been filled with grain before it was stuck over my head. I choked and sputtered, and then choked and sputtered again when water came rushing inside the sack. I frantically jerked my head left and right. Then the water ceased and a blade pressed against my skin, the pressure getting more intense as the slick warmth moved. It stopped right above my left breast. There was a slightpopand the cut burned fiercely.
“You move a muscle, or scream, and I will slit your throat. Then I will leave you on the side of the road naked, legs splayed, for the flies to contend with. That will be a pretty sight for your husband to find, no?”
I didn’t move a muscle or dare to speak. He was eerily calm, the violence and hatefulness coming easy to him, almost second nature. In that moment I understood that there was nothing scarier than someone who can inflict pain without even sounding distressed about it. I wanted to see him, any of them.
One of the Italian men said something and I understood one word—Nemours.
“If she dies, she will become a causality of war. We did not expect it to go so simple, no? What a mess he made for—this.”
I assumed thethishe referred to was me. I was frozen, unable to move, and someone patted me on the head. The Frenchman. He whisperedbonne filleafterward in a tender voice.Good girl.
He followed up with a remark that made all the hairs stand up on my body—less mess to clean up if you do not struggle.Fear makes the heart pump faster and blood will spurt everywhere.
One of the men lifted me from the trunk and we bounced, moving forward. I heard the crunch of gravel beneath feet and then soft tapping against a flat surface. A floor? The smells were different, more homely. After a few more seconds, the man set me down on something hard and cool. It took me a long second to figure out it was a toilet lid. I was so full of panic in the car that I hadn’t even realized until that moment that my hands were not tied. Even if they had been, I wouldn’t have removed the sack. I didn’t want to piss him off.
“The lady of the house will attend to you. You have five minutes. Change your clothes. If you try something…ah, stupid, you will regret it. However, I do enjoy cutting so much. Perhaps…”
His voice trailed off before the door shut and the sack was whisked away. I blinked at the light for a few seconds and greedily gulped in air. Paying no attention to the wide-built woman standing before me, I turned the faucet on and guzzled clean water, attempting to cool myself and rinse the taste of wet sack from my mouth.
An urgent plea came from the woman. I couldn’t understand her either. She waved a dress at me, using her foot to point to a pair of sandals. In her other hand were bandages. Seeing as I wasn’t responding quickly enough, she put the bandages down on the counter and then yanked at my dress. Her movements were close to violent.
All I could do was stare at her. I was too afraid to speak. She lifted her free hand, splayed her five fingers, and then shoved them toward my face. I took one step back. Then she took her finger and made a slicing gesture around her throat.
I slipped out of my dress and she nodded, encouraging me to continue working with her. After she applied some medicine and bandaged the gashes—the one above my breast seemed clean and not too deep, but the one on my knee would need stitches—she helped me dress in the given clothes.
It seemed like exactly five minutes later, I was hauled up by the Frenchman shoved into the hall, led to the kitchen, and then put inside a hidden room with the three men. The room had no door, only a flush piece of wood paneling that seemed to slide into place. It had a dirt floorand smelled musty and old. Furnishings consisted of one chair and a candle for light.
I wasn’t sure how the French was going to react to me staring at him, so I tried to do so covertly. He was taller than the two Italian men, perhaps around six feet tall, and thin. His form didn’t mislead me to believe there was anything incapable about him, though.
There was an evil about him that seemed to surpass anything physical, an almost crazed thirst for violence that he was able to hide under a calm show. Even the two stout Italians didn’t faze me. Not like him.
His features were soft, almost feminine. Black hair fell in silky waves over pale, flawless skin, his veins bulging underneath, blue and purple. His nose was too long and as sharp as his eyes, which were such a pale blue, they almost seemed grey.
