1
Birdie
Lorenzo walks toward me through a haze of candlelight, his expression twisted with something between anger and grief.
“Cara… what have you done?”
His voice sounds wrong, echoing like it’s coming from the bottom of a well. I blink, confused, reaching for him even as he steps back.
“I… I don’t understand?—”
A sudden, razor-sharp pain tears through my abdomen.
I gasp and look down.
Red blooms across the white dress I’m wearing, spreading in slow, horrifying petals. It drips down my legs, warm and thick, staining the floor beneath me.
“No,” I whisper, hands trembling as I reach toward the stain. “I—I didn’t?—”
Another pain rips through me, this time in my shoulder, so sharp it feels like lightning crawling through bone. The world distorts, bending at the edges. Lorenzo’s face begins to blur, the room around us collapsing intodarkness.
I jerk awake with a moan but the nightmare clings to me, thick and suffocating. I try to open my eyes as a rush of panic hits me so hard I can taste it. There’s something over my eyes—tight, suffocating, and blocking out everything. The darkness is absolute, pressing against me like a second skin.
My breath stutters. I don’t know where I am.
Oh God.
I force myself to breathe, even as nausea coils in my stomach. Bits and pieces slam back into place. Being in Lorenzo’s room. Being upset with him for some reason. And then… nothing. It’s like someone carved the night apart and took most of the pieces with them.
My throat tightens as fear curls icy fingers around my spine.
Somewhere close a voice speaks and someone answers. It’s two men and they’re unfamiliar. It takes me a second to realize why I can’t understand them.
They’re speaking Italian.
My blood runs cold. I don’t know where I am. I don’t know who has me. But I do know one thing. Lorenzo Conti isn’t here to save me.
I make the mistake of whimpering. Everything goes silent. The kind of silence that means the wolves heard the rabbit. My breath catches. I can’t see anything, but I hear them shifting. They’re moving closer.
Panic spikes so hard it feels like my heartbeat rattles my skull. I try to scoot away from the sound, away from the presence but there’s nowhere to go.
Hard hands clamp around my arms.
I scream and the sound barely leaves my throat before something sharp drives into the side of my neck. Fire rips through me. My muscles seize. The world blurs.
And then?—
Nothing.
I come to with a pounding headache that feels like someone wedged an axe behind my eyes. My tongue is coated with a bitter, chemical taste. My limbs feel heavy and wrong, like they’re filled with wet sand.
I force my eyes open and panic jolts through me when I realize I’m not blindfolded anymore, but the darkness around me is still too thick and unfamiliar.
My brain tries to latch onto something familiar. Something normal.
For a moment, I wonder if Sienna and I had another party. If we drank too much and I passed out on the floor or the couch like the world’s most irresponsible friend.
But the thought doesn’t land.
