Goose bumps cover my arms and legs. Every brush of wind has me shivering and grinding my teeth. My skin has gone numb. I can no longer feel the bite of rocks against my palms or the sticks digging into my shins. I release a deep, hacking cough, spitting up lake water.
“What’s the matter?” Francesca purrs, kneeling beside me. “Having trouble breathing?”
“Please,” I gasp. Blood leaks from my body in a slow trickle, pooling between my fingers. “Please don’t—”
“Breathe through this.”
I realize, too late, that she’s scooping up a handful of mud. Elyse and Angelica catch me by the arms, holding me steady as Francesca shoves the mud past my clenched lips and into my mouth.
The smell fills my nose and clogs my head. There’s cow shit mixed in with the mud, and the rank taste clings to my tongue and the back of my throat. I wrench my head away violently, and Francesca cackles, shoving more of it past my teeth and down my throat.
My stomach clenches. Before I can stop to think about what’s going to happen, I double over, vomiting onto the dirt path. The puke tastes terrible, like shit and lake water and blood. A sharp acid taste climbs my throat, but I don’t stop. I heave until my entire body is empty. It takes me a long time to catch my breath.
“Let me go.” I can still feel mud and shit on my teeth, coating my tongue, clinging to my throat. It’s my last, desperate chance at getting away alive. “I’m saved now, right? I repented and I let you baptize me. Now, please, you have to let me go.”
Something in Francesca’s face changes. The anger in her eyes dims, her lip twitches. For a moment, she reminds me of the girl I met my first night here—the cool bartender who gave me free shots and welcomed me to Cambria.
“Please,” I say again.
“Do you really think we just wanted to baptize you, diavolina?” Francesca is shaking her head. “Why would we bring you to this holy place and save your soul for nothing in return?”
“We aren’t saints,” Elyse adds. “You owe us.”
“Please, you must understand, Lucia saved our village,” Angelica adds solemnly. “Every terrible thing she did before that moment was washed away by her sacrifice. She was a hero. You are a very lucky girl. The people who live here will remember you forever.”
It reminds me of the first time we met, back in the church. “You are very lucky; the candle did not burn you.”
My eyes slide off Angelica’s face, moving to the stake at the center of the clearing. For the first time, I notice the stack of twigs and firewood piled up beside it.
My eyesight doubles, and the world splits into two. Everything blurs.
Angelica says, “You will be a hero, just like Lucia.”
I’m shaking my head, my movements frantic and jerky. I can’t make myself believe what she’s saying.
They’re going to tie me to that stake. They’re going to watch me burn to death.
I thrash and flail, but it’s no use. My muscles are spent. Even when I connect with Elyse’s shoulder or Angelica’s arm, I don’t have the strength to put anything substantial behind the hit. My blows glance off them like a flat stone skipping over water.
Elyse drags me over to the stake and shoves my back against the wood. Splinters dig into my skin, tearing at the remaining ragged fabric of my teddy. Angelica twists my hands behind my back and reties my bindings while Francesca watches from a few feet away. Her face looks ghostly in the flickering red-and-orange candlelight.
My voice escapes in a series of sputters. “Francesca, think about this. It’s murder. You’re murdering an innocent—”
She snorts. “Innocent? You are diavolina. The baptism may have washed away your sins, but it doesn’t change what you are.”
She lights a match. Firelight dances in her black pupils, flickering over her sharp features and twitching mouth. Fear hits my stomach like acid. I suddenly wish I were back in the lake, that I hadn’t bothered pulling my wrists free and kicking back to the surface. Drowning seems almost merciful compared to death by fire. I picture the smoke and the flames and . . . a sob chokes up my throat. This is going to hurt. Tears start rolling down my cheeks, cool and wet against my hot skin.
I close my eyes a second before Francesca tosses the match at the bundle of sticks near my feet, but I hear the sound of the flame catching. Whoof.
My muscles go rubber-band rigid beneath my skin. Smoke seeps past my lips and creeps up my nostrils. It strokes my cheeks, trying to find more ways to crawl into my dying body. It itches the back of my throat and sinks into my lungs. It rubs its gritty face against the cuts hatched along my arms and legs, making them throb.
I hold my breath until I can’t take it anymore, and then I release a deep, hacking cough, the ropes holding me upright as I pitch forward. I’m no longer in charge of my limbs; they jerk and twitch all on their own. I feel feral, wild. An animal fighting for its life.
The fire is so close. Just inches from my toes. I can practically smell my flesh baking, my hair singeing. After everything I went through at the institute, everything I went through before, it seems so horribly, painfully wrong that my life should end here.
A scream rips up my throat as I imagine my skin going black and flaky, fire eating away at my body . . .
There’s a noise just beneath the crackling flames. Shouting, I think. Or laughing.
I blink wildly, tears pouring down my cheeks. I wish, more than I’ve ever wished for anything in my life, that I were at home right now. That I could wake up in my own bed, my mom waiting at the door, ready to fuss over me like she always used to when I had a nightmare. I wish I’d never met Harper and Mara, never come to Italy. The want is so deep, so strong that it steals what’s left of my breath.
The smoke has turned the air hazy, blurring the figures on the other side of the fire. They look like mirages.
I squint, trying to make out their faces, but my brain can’t make sense of what it’s seeing. First there are two figures. Then four. They merge together like shadows.
The fire is loud in my ears, spitting and crackling. A log shifts, sending a shower of red sparks exploding before me. This is it. The stake won’t hold me up for much longer. The fire keeps creeping closer . . .
And then—
“Bella!”
Giovanni. A flare of hope catches and dies in my chest. Giovanni can’t be here. The smoke is making me hallucinate. A sob bubbles up my throat. I must be close to the end.
“Bella, I am coming!”
I blink, and for a moment I think I can see the pentagrams painted across his bare chest. They glow by the light of the fire, beads of sweat rolling over them. Then the flames press in closer, and the image breaks apart.
The hazy figures are moving now. Spinning wildly, hands clasped together. They’re dancing. This, at least, is a small mercy: to spend my last moments thinking of Giovanni, believing he came to save me. I almost smile as I watch them, the heat burning the moisture from my eyes. I blink and blink, but I can’t make them focus.
Something tickles the bottoms of my feet. I don’t dare look down, even as the warmth grows, becoming white-hot needles pricking at my toes, tongues of fire licking my arches. I imagine my skin bubbling. Turning black. And then the pain flares out, like a candle dying, and I realize the fire has fried my nerves. My feet are burning, but I can’t feel them.
I curl my hands into fists behind my back, focusing on the edges of my fingernails digging into my palms. Tiny moon-shaped flares of pain. The feeling grounds me, reminding me that I’m still alive. For a little while, at least.
I hear muffled grunts. Thuds. A shadowy figure jerks away from the dance, arms flailing. I see a flash of silver—a knife.
I squint into the flames, understanding washing over me.
They’re not dancing.
They’re fighting.
“Giovanni?” My voice is hesitant. The hope has flickered to life inside of me once more, but I can barely let myself trust it. Smoke crawls down my throat, making me cough. “Giovanni?”
“I am coming, bella—”
I hear a grunt and, through the haze, watch a figure slam into the dirt. Three other blurry shapes gather around him, reminding me of animals circling prey. The fire makes them look huge, their shadows stretching into the sky, their eyes monstrous. I see a flash of teeth, the glint of a knife. A leg swings forward, slamming into his gut.
“Giovanni!” I shout again. But it’s no use. They won’t let him near me.
They’ll kill him first.