I don’t have a choice.I can’t stay here with these Camorra men.Elio is the only one who will be able to tell us if Curse is alive or dead now.
“Call Elio,” I say.Metal bites my palms as I clutch at the car’s doorframe.“I’m not taking one step out of this vehicle until you do.”
“You say that like we can’t just drag you out.”
I can’t sense any obvious harshness or warning in his reply.He doesn’t seem to be threatening me.Just making an observation.He’s right, of course.He and the silent younger man at his side would have no trouble carrying me from this car and into his house, no matter how hard I fought them.No matter what I did.
But he pulls a phone from his pocket anyway.After navigating the screen for a moment, he brings it to his ear.
A pause.Then, silkily, “Hello, Elio.I believe I have something that belongs to your brother.”
Chapter3
Curse
Aurora is drowning.
She’s nothing but a slip of silver in the frothing oblivion of the waves.It’s night, darkness spreading above and below, and that seems wrong somehow.She’s not a child, and that seems wrong, too.Like some distant dream has been mashed up against reality, and in the process mangled everything.
Doesn’t fucking matter.She needs me now.
There is no one else.
Liquid salt soaks my skin, so much fucking colder than it should be.My body is heavy as I fight my way to her.No moon, no stars, no light but her.She gleams like a pearl, silent and bright, trying to stay afloat in the ink of the ocean.
But she doesn’t.She’s not strong enough, and she’s too far out.She’s slipping.Disappearing in the black.
And I cannot fucking get to her.
No.
There is nocannotwhen it comes to Aurora.There is only will.
Will of my body, of my failing breath, of every cursed memory and molecule that makes me what I am.
Will reach her.
Will save her.
I’m sinking.
My lungs are clogged.My nose burns.
I try to shout her name but nothing happens.It’s impossible to get sound past my clenched teeth, past the seal of my lips keeping all the fucking water out.Sluggish,useless, my limbs lose all their power at the precise moment that I also lose sight of her.My one pure and precious point of light in the dark.My fucking angel.
She is gone.
And now I am drowning, too.
“Give him another dose.”
The words are sharp and jagged, falling like broken glass in my skull, slicing my heavy brain as they go.So fucking heavy I can’t lift my head, can’t move it at all, can’t even open my eyes.The deep voice is as familiar to me as my own.My brother.Another voice cuts in, in Italian this time, and though I know I recognize that one, too, and the language, I can’t place who is speaking right now.
My nose stings, another spray of seawater to drag me down, to kill me.
I can’t fucking die yet.Aurora is still out there.
I groan, clawing my way out of the depths.
