The room around me shifts in and out of focus, the air shivering like heat coming off a sidewalk. Dazed, I drift from consciousness to sleep and back again. The crosses hanging from the walls seem to peer down at me. How did I end up here—trapped and confined just when I was finally free? Maybe Francesca and her friends were right. I guess it’s easier to believe that—to believe I deserve this—than it is to believe that terrible things sometimes happen for no reason at all.
The crosses flicker in the candlelight as I struggle to keep my eyes open.
Angelica and Elyse work their fingers through the bindings at my ankles and wrists. Angelica’s movements are careful—almost gentle—but Elyse seems to relish digging her nails into the wounds the ropes left in my skin. I attempt to lift a hand and swat her away, but I can’t manage to raise it more than an inch or two before exhaustion floods up my arm, leaving my muscles heavy. Shadows zip across my eyesight, but I can’t tell if they’re real—something moving in the corners—or a product of my imagination.
Francesca slips her hands under my armpits and pulls me to my feet. Elyse and Angelica move in behind us, each taking an arm to hold me steady. Everything feels slow and clumsy and impossible. Francesca says something, but I can’t think past the pain pounding through me. Fight, I tell myself. But I can’t, not anymore. It’s over. I dig my toes into the ground, trying to hold myself steady.
I sway . . .
And then my cheek slams into the packed-dirt floor.
Francesca’s face is suddenly inches from mine, candlelight reflected in her hateful eyes.
“Diavolina.” Her lips curl lovingly around the word. “You have to get up now. We have so much more to do.”
“Let me go. Please,” I beg. Pain rips through my chest, and then I’m choking. The stuff I spit onto the dirt is dark and tacky and tastes like pennies.
Blood. I’m spitting up blood.
Francesca’s laugh is light and clear. It doesn’t sound human.
Angelica reties my ankles and moves on to my wrists. I can tell it’s Angelica—her small, nervous fingers give her away. She pulls on my bound arms, groaning, and suddenly I’m on my knees, doubled over. I feel the prick of a knife at my lower back.
“Get up,” Francesca says, pushing the blade into my bare skin. There’s a part of me that wants to fall backward, lean into it, get this over with.
Instead, I pull my legs beneath my trembling body, standing. My feet seem to move on their own, shuffling slowly along the dirt floor.
A sharp jab from the knife. “Keep moving.”
Francesca leads me back through the underground tunnel and into the church courtyard. A few Solo cups still litter the ground, and a devil’s mask sits next to the wall, its face creased and torn. Music pours through the streets. I pray for a group of partiers to stumble past. To find me, help me. But there’s no one.
We walk past the long-dry fountain to a crumbling wall that marks the edge of the city. And then we’re pushing through a hole in the brick, standing at the foot of the hill where Lucia was sacrificed. The music sounds louder here. A steady beat pulsing through the street, vibrations tickling the soles of my feet.
I could run toward the music, I think. It sounds so close. If I caught them off guard I could slip past, scream for help. I feel a little stronger now that I’m no longer in that stuffy underground room. I could still get away.
As though reading my mind, Elyse digs her fingers deeper into my upper arms, bruising my skin. She pushes into my back, and I stumble forward, pebbles biting into the bottoms of my feet. Angelica hovers at my other shoulder, just out of eyesight. Her shadow stretches before her like a warning.
We make our way through the trees and up the hill, Francesca trailing along behind us. I keep my eyes peeled for a chance to pull away, to run. But the trees are close around us, and I’m barefoot and beaten. I’d never be able to outrun all three of them, I realize.
“Where are we going?” I mumble, defeated. My eyesight starts to swim. I’m going to pass out . . .
Francesca smiles, not kindly. “You will see.”
When I come to again, I’m in a packed-dirt clearing at the top of a hill, a tall, wooden stake protruding from the ground in front of me. The stake looks centuries old, the wood splintered and peeling. There’s a plaque in front of it, but I can’t make out what it says in the dark.
“This is where they brought Lucia,” Francesca says, when she sees that I’m awake. She wipes an arm over her forehead to dry the sweat beading along her skin. “That little whore saved our village many years ago. Now you will do the same.”
I swallow, hard. A cold gray lake appears through the branches. Thick white candles have been lined up around the water. Wax drips over their sides and spills onto the rocks below them.
“How?”
“It is okay.” Angelica gathers a strand of my hair in her fingers and pushes it behind my ear, gently. “You’re lucky that we’re doing this for you. This is how you’ll become right with God.”
“We’re going to save you.” Sarcasm drips from Elyse’s voice, and a smirk curls the corner of her mouth. “It is time for you to be baptized, diavolina.”
They’ve crowded in behind me, forcing me to the edge of the lake.
“No.” My throat is still scratchy, and the word hurts to say. I throw my weight back, but the girls are laughing now, three sets of hands pressed into my shoulders and moving up my spine, pushing me forward. I tug at the ropes around my wrists, but they don’t give. “I don’t want to go—”
I stumble and fall, the rest of my voice ripping from my throat. The nerves in my toes flare as my feet hit the icy water. The surface of the lake smacks into my face. I don’t have time to catch my breath. Water sloshes over my head, and then I’m sinking.
I don’t have time to think about what’s happening as I sink to the bottom of the lake. The water above looks green and murky, the surface far away. Dirty water stings my cuts, making them flare with pain. My lungs feel like they’re about to burst.
This is how I die, I think. I wiggle my shoulders, but my hands are tied behind my back. There’s no way to swim, no way to save myself.
The lake is deeper than I thought it would be. I seem to sink forever. I stretch my toes as far as they’ll go, thinking I could push myself off from the bottom, but I feel only water. I kick wildly, but without the use of my arms, I can’t make myself rise back to the surface. I thrash against the ropes, and that seems to makes me fall faster.
I don’t want to die down here, I think. I really don’t want to die. But my eyesight is already flickering in and out. My lungs burn.
Desperate, I inhale a lungful of lake water, and everything in my head clouds. I start choking. I’m losing oxygen. It won’t take long for my lungs to give out, my body to fail. Everything is so dark . . .
I yank at the ropes around my wrists. If I can get my hands free, I might be able to fight my way back to the surface before I fall unconscious.
I pull my wrists apart until tears flood my eyes and the ropes make my fingers go numb. Still, they hold. My skin begins to tear. I feel the warmth of blood gather around my wrists.
I gasp, accidentally inhaling more lake water. My eyesight starts to blur at the edges . . .
And then, with one final, violent tug, I pull an arm free.
For a moment, I seem to have forgotten what I’m supposed to do with it. It feels long and ungainly, half-numb from the rope cutting off my circulation. Then, desperately, I start to claw at the water around me.
My head spins. There’s no air left in my lungs, no energy in my muscles. My arms and legs don’t feel connected to my body anymore. The water seems to press in on me, holding me down. Every movement is harder than the one before it.
Tiny pinpricks of light hover past the surface of the water. I push. Kick. Claw. The lights grow closer.
Almost there . . .
And then, finally, I break through, gasping. The air tastes like it’s been coated with sugar. I swim toward the shore and lurch forward, falling to my hands and knees, half crawling, half swimming the rest of the way to land. A shadow falls over me. I lift my head.
“I almost died,” I gasp.
“But you didn’t die.” Francesca grabs a handful of my hair to drag me the rest of the way out of the water. “You were saved.”