“You’re gonna like LA,” I tell her, and she shoots me a look that’s such pure loathing it takes my breath away.That fire in her.When I finally get her to give it all to me in love, not hate, I’ll be the luckiest man on earth.But I’ll take that fire any way I can get it.
“I want to call my sister,” she says.“Like you promised.”
In the back, Caputo opens one eye and stares at me.He doesn’t have to say anything, I know he thinks that’s a bad idea.But I see no harm in keeping Goldie as happy as I can.
“A promise is a promise,” I say and take out my phone, unlock it using the code which is the date when I found myself alone in the world, and look for the number to the hospital.
I dial it and do all the talking until I’m finally connected to the intensive care unit.Then I hand Goldie the phone.
A tiny flash of gratitude—or maybe it’s just relief—flashes in her eyes before she averts them to look out over the tarmac as she presses the phone to her ear.
The engines come on and the plane starts moving.She’s talking to someone, asking about her sister.Then waits as though she’s been put on hold.Then talks again.Her breathing is growing faster and faster, a rose gold color rising in her cheeks.
“No!”she screams all of a sudden, and it feels like my chest has been pierced with a hot knife.“That can’t be true!She was fine yesterday.”
Caputo, Nico, and the stewardess are all looking at her now, while the pilot is saying something over the speaker.I can’t understand a word he’s saying.All I see is the anguish on Goldie’s face.Pure pain.
“What is it?”I ask, but she just shakes her head.I hear someone talking on the other end of the line.
“You need to switch off the phone now,” the stewardess says.“We’re about to take off.”
“Let her have a minute,” I snap.
I don’t know what news she just got, but I know it’s terrible.A part of my mind is back where I was when I heard my brother had taken a turn for the worst.I rushed to be by his side as he died and don’t remember that hellfire ride at all.I had made it, but just barely.And the pain never faded.I’m feeling all of it right now.
Goldie is as pale as a sheet now, as she mutters, “OK,” into the phone.It slips from her fingers, the screen as black as her clothes.
“And you should put your seatbelts on,” the stewardess says.
“You can go put your own seatbelt on.We’re fine,” I tell her.She gasps, turns a deep shade of red and finally leaves.
Goldie is shaking all over now, her face so white it’s turning bluish.I take off my jacket and wrap it around her.
“What?What is it?”
This is shock, I’ve seen it before.The kind that could be fatal.I’ve seen that too.My grandmother’s face turned blue when she learned that my father was dead.She was dead by dawn.She was ninety-three years old, but still, it was shock that took her.
“Talk to me, Gianna,” I ask again.
The plane is gathering speed, the noise deafening, everything shaking.
But there’s dead silence between Gianna and me.Complete stillness.
“Chiara,” she breathes.“She took a turn for the worst this afternoon… internal bleeding.She’s in surgery.She’s been in surgery for hours.”
She turns to me, another jet of pure, red-hot hate hitting me.
“It’s all your fault,” she hisses.“I should’ve been there.She never should’ve been shot in the first place.And now you’re about to kill off the rest of my family.”
We reach max speed and the plane takes off.What should’ve been a moment of triumph for me, what I’d planned to celebrate with a glass of champagne, is now one of the darkest moments of my life.
I recognize the anger in her eyes, the pain.I was there.I felt it.Unable to help my family, unable to save them.Only able to watch them all die.
It never gets easier.I’ve built my life around getting revenge on the people who took my family away from me.
What will Gianna do?The same?
Looking into her glowing eyes now, I believe it.
