“You know what I mean. I thought this family was so romantic? This is romantic, the love between you two!”
“It is, but…it doesn’t exactly work like that with them. He could talk to Luca, but if he gets involved, he could take a rule, bend it some, give it a new shape, and what we’re facing now can become much worse.” I thought about how Luca had sent me into Malum, and his reasons had been a poisonous web we had to sidestep, even though there was a romantic reason at the heart of it.
Luca knew there was something between us.
“I knew the Faustis had a complex dynamic, but shit. It’s like they’re…their own kingdom or something.” She exhaled. “I’ve always worried about you, Ava. You’re my baby sister, and with Minnie, we’re all we have. I wanted to stop you from this, from getting here, because…your obsessions were dangerous, but now in comparison, those were only risky. This obsession is downright frightening.”
My eyes stung with unshed tears. “He’s not going to let them hurt me.”
“I can tell, but what happens to you then?”
I die too, but I kept the thought to myself.
I was dying a little every day for this love, but it was also giving me life.
A few moments with him were better than a lifetime of nothing, I reminded myself.
Damn that movie.
Damn everything Janis had left behind for me to remember.
“Incoming,” my sister said.
She didn’t even have to say it. It was like I knew when he was moving closer to me, and before he set his hand on my shoulder, I felt the warmth of his palm there. When he did, it was a brand on my soul that lit up in the darkness. The blood in my veins rushed with warm endorphins, and my lungs were anxious for my next breath. My heart sang, sounding like my sister’s beautiful voice, and my bones danced.
“Time to eat,uccellino selvatico,” he said, his voice husky. The sound of it carried a sad note.
It sent my body in the opposite direction.
I closed my eyes and nodded, two tears slipping down my cheeks.
TWENTY-NINE
AVA
My eyes feel so heavy.I keep yawning, and it’s making them water. I wipe the tears from my cheeks even though I’m not crying.
I almost feel like I want to.
I feel weird…like I want to run, but I’m as sleepy as I get after lunch when the weather starts to get hot. My heart is pounding, like when I run around at recess at school, but my head feels fuzzy, like the TV when the cable is off.
I yawn again and shake my head.
I look over to where my sister is sleeping in her own bed. She’s knocked out, snoring. Her hands are crossed, and her face looks so pale, like she’s a ghost. I force my feet to the floor and tiptoe over to her. I can’t tell if her chest is moving, and it makes me feel afraid.
“Luci.” I shake her.
She doesn’t wake up.
“Luci!” I shake her even harder, and she makes an aggravated noise at me. She starts talking in her sleep. She mumbles, but I think she’s saying she’s too tired to get up. She just needs a few more minutes. She thinks it’s almost time to go to school.
School is later, I think. It’s hard to tell. I think I had fallen asleep, and something scared me awake.
Maybe it was my heart.
It feels weird in my chest.
It’s pumping too fast.
