My sweet Lana Elise.
I grabbed it and stumbled out of the building as sirens blared in the distance.
Glass and rubble crunched underfoot. I leaned against the alley wall, my lungs heaving in desperate breaths.
I unfolded the note with soot-darkened fingers.
Kian,
Dad has pneumonia, so I have to go back to New York early. Sorry I couldn’t tell you in person. I’ll email you when things calm down.
I miss you and love you so much.
I’ll be dreaming of college in Chicago and being with you again.
Maybe I can come back during Christmas.
Love,
Your Elise
P.S. Two kind gentlemen were here looking for your family earlier. They brought presents from Albania. I knew you guys were secretive about your address, but they showed me photos of your family and said they were your uncles. So I told them to wait at the stairwell. I knocked, and your parents said they weren’t expecting visitors. Anyway, the men weren’t there when I went back to tell them you weren’t home. They left the presents, though. I hope they’re something nice for you and Sofia. You guys deserve the world.
Shock was a liver punch to the gut. I slid onto the ground, not caring about the metal scraps and glass shards stabbing my backside.
My fist crumpled the paper, my mind reeling from what Elise wrote.
What she did.
“Fire’s out of control. Spreading southbound,” a fireman hollered in the distance. “Need reinforcements!”
Sirens bellowed. Police arrived in swarms.
Don’t trust the police.Another one of Mom’s rules. Most of them were in the mob’s pocket.
I staggered away, clutching the letter, my mind still refusing to accept reality.
A sharp pain speared my gut as I collided with a few box crates.
I caught my reflection in the half-boarded window. Blond hair covered in soot. Hollow eyes. Perfectly unmarred face. How was I alive, and how were they…gone?
“Pretty boy.”The shopkeeper’s voice. The murderer’s.“Kneel. Beg. Pretty boy.”
I fished out the pocketknife from my pocket and extended the blade.
A hiss escaped my lips as I carved a line down my left cheek.
Crimson dripped down my face.
But I barely noticed the pain.
Nothing could compare to the agony obliterating what was left of my heart.
Pretty boy no more.
The smoke thinned. My heart hardened.
And from that day on, I wouldneverkneel again.
