The momentsbetween when I was chatting with the man, whose name I couldn’t recall, and when he dragged me toward the restricted area of the palazzo were all a blur.
I think the man I was talking to had instructed a second man to see me back to the party, where he was to wait with me until the ordering man came back for me.
It was hard to tell, though.
With the brain fog I couldn’t find my way out of, and knowing the bare minimum of Italian, I was so fucking lost.
And alone.
The guard, or whoever he was, pointed in the opposite direction, talking to me in Italian, and then ditched me.
I thought about all the times I’d wished for a scenario just like this one—when I’d had to either schmooze my way in somewhere or slip in like a snake undetected—and it would have to come true when I was drugged!
I knew I was. I’d been before.
That waiter. The second one. Had he done it? Maybe it was the fucker who’d sent me here!
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and hoped this was the worst it was going to get. I needed to down a lot of water. Get the shit out of my system. I forced my brain to fight through the fog.
Think, Ava!
A glimmer of truth seemed to shine in the darkness. What happened before I talked with the man who called me an angel…the issue between Luca and Lothario.
Denial.
The rush of men heading in the direction of where I stood.
Something big is going on back here.
I just had to fight a little harder to get out of the muck.
Why the hell was I drugged?
“Argh!” I made a frustrated noise and hit the wall with my fist.
The pain of it was a distant throb, lost somewhere in the darkness with me. Because the entire palazzo was cloaked, utilizing candlelight to give it a midnight-magic feel.
The cusp of time, when a new day is about to dawn and snuff the flames out—but the night is going to change everything.
The transfer of power.
I opened my eyes to pitch darkness and felt along the wall until I came to a hallway with burning sconces. It was a maze, a labyrinth of a palazzo floating over water. I didn’t know which way to go, and I had no one to turn to for direction. Mine was the only shadow, and it crept along the wall, wavering with the hot flames.
Maybe I’m burning inside of them.
My skin felt weird, like it didn’t belong to me, much too tight.
Maybe I’m shriveling up.
A sense of urgency wafted over me as hot as the heat. Somewhere deep inside of me, panic was leaking out at an alarming rate, and if I didn’t move, find my way, I would combust.
I rushed down the hall, not paying attention to which direction I went in.
Voices!Or I hoped that was what I heard up ahead. If I was starting to hear things, I needed serious fucking help. Or ghost busters. This place was old, I could smell the history in the walls, and there was no telling who was lurking.
Get it together, Ava! You don’t believe in ghosts. You stopped giving them power when you were a kid and afraid of the dark. Afraid your mom was one and was going to haunt you when she didn’t come back home.
I just wanted the voices in my head to quit. It was like whateverWhoevergave me was playing on all my deepest, darkest fears. Fears I hadn’t faced since I was a kid.
