None of that knowledge prepared me for the concrete under my knees, or the sound of someone crying through a wall like she's run out of anything left to spend.
Okay.Okay, okay, okay.
I get my breathing under control. Four seconds in, hold, four seconds out. The same pattern that got me through the firstweek in Elio's estate, when I was learning the dimensions of my gilded cage. A different prison. Silk sheets instead of concrete. Lemon trees instead of screaming. But a cage all the same.
Here we go again.
The thought sickens me more than the head wound.
"Hey."
I jerk, lifting my hands to guard my face, useless in the dark, but my body doesn't care about logic right now.
"Hey, easy. Easy. I'm not going to hurt you." A man's voice, American, coming from my right and slightly below, like he's lying on the floor. The accent is clean, northeast, the vowels flat in a way that reminds me of home. Not Boston. But close enough to the same coast. "You've been out for a while. I was starting to worry."
"Who the fuck are you?" My voice comes out raw and scraped, and I don't bother softening it.
"Matt." A pause. "I'd shake your hand, but I can't see it, and honestly, the last time I reached toward someone in the dark, I got kicked in the ribs, so I'm staying put."
"Smart."
"First time anyone's called me that." I hear him shift, fabric rustling against concrete. "You've got a pretty nasty bump on the back of your head, by the way. I checked when they threw you in here. Didn't feel like a fracture, but I'm an English teacher, not a doctor, so take that with about a pound of salt."
"An English teacher?"
"Twelve years in a small town in Connecticut. The kids call me Mr. D." Another pause, and I can hear him choosing his words with care. "I coached JV basketball too. Went three and twenty-two in my first season, which I'm pretty sure is still a district record."
Under any other circumstances, I'd read the chattiness as nerves. But I've spent months decoding the language ofdangerous men who say little and mean everything, so a man who volunteers his whole biography to a stranger in the dark registers as something to track. Not trust. Not yet.
"How long have I been out?"
"Hard to tell. They don't exactly hand out watches down here. But the guards came through twice since they dropped you off, and they come every few hours, so I'd guess maybe five, six hours. Could be more."
"The guards have a schedule?"
"Every three hours, give or take. Two of them. They bring water once a day, food if they're feeling generous." He pauses. "They were feeling generous earlier. I've got half a piece of bread if you want it."
I don't answer right away. My body wants the bread. My mouth is dry, my stomach hollow, and I can't remember the last time I ate. Crumbs in Elio's bed, feeding each other fruit and cheese, laughing about something mundane I can't recall.
A lifetime ago.
"Why would you give me your food?"
"Because you need it more than I do right now. You took a hit to the head, and if you throw up on an empty stomach, trust me, it's worse. Also, I ate the other half already, and it was terrible, so really I'm just sparing myself the rest."
I hear him slide something across the floor. It bumps against my knee. Dense, dry, the kind of bread that's been sitting out for a day. I tear off a small piece and put it in my mouth. It's stale and tastes of moldy flour. My stomach cramps around it with a viciousness that makes me double over.
"Small bites," Matt says. "I learned that the hard way."
I force myself to chew, swallow, wait. The cramp subsides. I take another bite.
"How long have you been here?"
"Few days, I think. Like I said, time's fuzzy. I was in Palermo on vacation. It was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime, save-for-years-to-see-Italy kind of thing. On my first night here, I met a bunch of tourists who convinced me to go to a club with them. And because I'm an idiot who thought he could handle the nightlife, I did." A self-deprecating laugh. "Someone put something in my drink and… I woke up here."
The screaming starts again. Farther away this time, or maybe the same distance and I'm just getting used to the acoustics of this place. The woman's voice pitches high, then cuts off abruptly with a single sharp crack of palm on skin. The silence after is so complete I can hear Matt breathing.
"Does that happen a lot?" I ask.
