Maybe my efforts are finally working.Maybe my head’s above water.I can breathe now, even though it feels like fucking agony.My stomach roils.How much goddamn saltwater did I swallow?
“Curse.”
Elio utters my name like a command.There’s expectation in it.That I surface.Swim to him.He is calling me back like a general would summon a soldier.
“Aurora,” is all I say in response.Or maybe I don’t say it at all.Maybe I only howl it inside my own head.Because nobody seems to respond.Panic floods me then, churning alongside all the water I’ve taken in, shuddering poison in my veins.How can nobody see that she’s fucking out there in the water?Why are they talking to me when they should be saving her?
“Aurora.”I actually get it out this time – hear it in my own ears.Water-logged and whispered, but real.
“Alessandro Messina’s got her,” Elio says.“Our men lost track of them after they smashed the side of their taxi in and they both ran.”
Lost track of them.
So I really did fucking lose her, then.Not to the water, not to the dark oceans of my past, but to the snaking streets of this city.For a moment, I’m not even sure where that is.New York.Montreal.Toronto.Toarmina.
Doesn’t matter one goddamn iota.I’ll tear any city –everycity – apart until I fucking find her.
My guts clench, and I try to rise, but my body doesn’t respond.A sound rips out of my throat, one of desolation.Desperation.I’ve never not been able to trust my body to do what I need it to do.Be what I need it to be.Something to wield like a weapon.But I can’t wield it now.It’s like I can feel my own fucking brain plucking at my nerves, trying to make my limbs move, but the connection has been severed.What the fuck is happening to me?
Through what feels like an astronomical force of will, I crack my eyes open.For a moment, all I see is dark red, spreading on the floor beneath me.Maybe I was never drowning.Maybe I’m bleeding out.Choking on my own spilled blood instead of salt.
No wonder I can’t move.Somebody better put all that fucking blood back inside my body so I can get the fuck up and find her.
But slowly, through the hazed slits of my eyes, I come to see that it isn’t blood.It’s not wet or shiny or sticky or hot.It’s rough, worn in places, with a faint floral motif that reminds me of the white-and-blue-patterned stair runner at my house in Montreal.I’m lying on my side, and the redness feels soft and slightly bristly against my cheek and jaw.Carpet.
I’m on the floor of the train car.
That part, that slice of memory, comes back to me detached from anything else.I don’t know why I’m in a train car.Or how I even know that.All I know is that I am here.
And she is not.
Shaking, sweating, I gather my arms weakly underneath myself to push up off the ground.
“Steady,” Elio says.Black leather glides through my vision.His gloves.He grips my shoulders and helps me into a seated position.My head swims, as if I’ve left it behind on that ocean.
“Steady,” he says again.“We had you down on your side on the floor so you didn’t choke on your own vomit.It hasn’t gone that way yet, but it still could.”
I could still start puking my guts out, he means.Yeah.Even now, my stomach contracts, threatening to shoot its contents up my throat.
“Where…Where is she?”My dry, sick tongue seems to flail around the words.But Elio understands them just fine.
“Not sure yet.Like I said, we lost track of both her and Messina,” Elio replies.“We know they didn’t re-enter Union, so they haven’t hopped on the subway or anything.But they could have gotten into another car.That’s the most likely scenario.”
Messina.The word – name?– means nothing to me right now.But even so, it makes my fists clench to hear it.Strangely, though, when I let my fevered gaze fall to my hands, I see they aren’t clenched at all.My fingers haven’t even moved.
“If they show up at Pearson Airport, we’ll know,” Elio says.Then, he twists away and says, “Morelli, get in here and have another look at him.”
I register the face that comes into focus then.Doctor Thomaso Morelli.I’ve known him my entire life.From all the way back in Sicily.
“He will likely need another dose in the next thirty-to-ninety minutes,” Morelli says in Italian.“We have to watch him.Make sure he doesn’t go into overdose territory again.”
Dose?
Overdose?
I haven’t done drugs once in my entire goddamn life.But if I had to come up with an explanation for the absolute disaster that is my body right now, overdose would sure as shit fit the bill.Morelli holds up a small black case with a zipper in front of my nose.“Naloxone,” he says.“It’s reversed the effect of the opioids – for now.It won’t last as long in your system as the drugs will.So we need to monitor you closely.Give you more if you start to overdose again.”
I respect Morelli, but right now I don’t really give a single flying fuck about the words coming out of his mouth.All that I care about right now is the fact that I am here.
