Tree branches scratch my cheeks and snag in my hair. Wind blows past, cooling the sweat on my chest and forehead. Every step I take sends a jerky shudder shooting up my legs. It doesn’t slow me down; I run with all my strength. Everything from the trees to the wind to the pain seems strange. Dreamlike. The only thing that feels real is the heat from Giovanni’s hand, his fingers curled tightly around my wrist.
The village appears below, golden and glowing in the darkness. Snatches of music blow through the trees, mixing with laughter and voices. The party’s still raging. If I squint, I can see the roiling mass of bodies moving in the darkness.
Giovanni’s fingers tighten. He skids to a stop just before we reach the wall separating the village from the trees and hills beyond. He pulls me behind him in one easy movement, blocking the path back up the side of the hill with his body. His eyes flicker through the shadows, alert.
“They will follow us,” he says, voice rough-edged. “They might be coming now.”
“We should call the police. The polizia or whatever they’re called here.”
“Francesca’s brother is poliziotto.”
A static sound fills my head. Brother.
Giovanni nods, as though something in the darkness has satisfied him. He pulls me through the hole in the crumbling stones, one hand pressed against the top of my head so I don’t hit it on the wall. “Don’t worry. I have an idea.”
The narrow streets seem to close in around us as we run. Ancient brick walls rise up, blocking the sounds from the festival. I can’t hear the music and voices, but I feel them vibrating through the streets, shuddering up into my toes. Giovanni leads me down an alleyway, turning sharp at a stairwell that seems to appear out of nowhere. And then we’re racing down steps, the hard stones cold against my feet.
Halfway down, Giovanni stops, spinning me in place. A spiky wrought-iron fence appears from the shadows.
The catacombs.
My entire body goes stiff. “No,” I say, my voice flat.
“Bella, you must listen. We have to get you out of here.” Giovanni presses his hands down on my shoulders to hold me steady. The weight of them seems to be the only thing keeping me upright. “This is a small town. An old town. The people here will do nothing against one of their own, do you understand?”
“Francesca tortured me.”
“I know this. But you might be in even more danger now. You must get your friends and get out of here, pronto. These tunnels are the quickest way through our village.”
I’m still shaking my head. The darkness beyond the gate seems to pulse. I think of those yellowed skulls lining the walls, their jagged mouths snarling out at me, and shiver involuntarily.
Giovanni reaches through the gate, unlatching something I don’t see. I hear the click of metal against metal.
“It is the only way,” he says, one hand moving to my back. He pushes me forward, into the dark.
Cold air falls over us. It’s silent down here. The kind of silence that seems to be playing a trick on your ears. Even my ragged breathing seems muted by the ancient walls.
We walk slowly. Once we’re far enough from the entrance that we no longer see the silvery strips of moonlight, Giovanni pulls out his lighter. The small orange flame does little to chase away the darkness. I crowd close into Giovanni’s back, face pressed to his sweaty skin. I can feel my heart beating against his spine.
I look straight ahead, careful not to search the darkness for the skulls, but it’s impossible to avoid them completely. I catch a corner of yellowed bone. Hollow, cracked sockets. Broken teeth.
“Only a little farther.” Giovanni’s voice echoes off the walls, chasing the darkness deeper into the tunnels. “They won’t think to look for us here, and these tunnels go all over the village. Once you’re back at your apartment, you’ll need to pack your things. I can borrow a truck from the store, and we can drive to Florence. You should be safe there until we get you a flight back to America.”
I nod, my chin brushing against Giovanni’s shoulder. He makes it all sound so simple. “What about my friends? Mara and Harper?”
A beat of silence. Then: “They will have to go with you. After the polizia find out about Angelica, your friends will not be welcome here.”
Angelica. I think of her blood spurting between my fingers, how her eyes looked up at me, dull and lifeless. My knees tremble so badly they knock together. I sink into Giovanni, no longer able to hold myself up.
He stops walking. “It is all right,” he murmurs, pulling me close to him. He kisses the top of my head. “You’re okay, right? I’m worried.”
I wrap my arms around him, breathing against his chest. Each inhale feels like something ripping apart inside me, something clawing up my throat.
“How did you find me?” I choke out.
“Bella?”
“On the hilltop. I was so sure I was going to die. The fire was so close, and the smoke was making me dizzy. I’d given up, and then you were there.” I lift my head, blinking, trying to separate his face from the darkness. “How did you know?”
I feel his hand on my cheek, fingers cool and damp. “I was below, looking for you at the festival, but you were nowhere. Your friends hadn’t seen you in hours, and that made me nervous. I started to worry . . .”
He pauses to take a deep, ragged breath. “I’ve known Francesca a long time, since we were babies. She’s always loved the story of Lucia. She used to say that we need to make the same sacrifice today, to make Cambria good again. I always thought she was joking, but . . . Tonight, when I couldn’t find you, I got a bad feeling. And then I looked up at the hill and saw the fire . . .”
“I killed her . . .” My voice cracks. “That girl, Angelica.”
“She wanted to kill you first.”
My chest clenches with my sobs. “But I stabbed her. There was so much blood . . .”
Giovanni takes my face in his hands and tilts it up. His breath is warm on my lips. It’s too dark down here to see anything, but I can imagine the look on his face. The tender tilt of his eyes, the soft curve of his mouth before he kisses me.
“Berkley,” he says in a throaty voice. “You need to listen to me. You did what you had to do. You got away. Everything else . . . that isn’t your fault.”
His voice comforts me. I find myself nodding, even though he can’t see me in the darkness. “Really?”
“You survived, bella. You are alive.”
His lips find mine in the darkness. They’re warm and salty with sweat. I’m alive. I feel the words scream through my body, and I hold him closer. Press my face hard against his.
The kiss grows deeper, hungrier.
I’m alive, I think. Heat creeps up my neck. I’m alive.
And then—a footstep.
The sound is soft—the barest scrape of a shoe over cobblestones—but it echoes in my ears like a gunshot. I jerk away from Giovanni and spin around, heart hammering as I peer into the darkness. “Did you hear that?”
Giovanni moves in behind me and starts to kiss my neck. “Hear what?”
“It sounded like a footstep.”
Giovanni moves away from me. Cold air rushes to fill the space where his body just was. “You are sure?”
“I don’t know.” It was so close, not more than a few feet from where we’re standing. But now my heart is thudding in my ears and I’m staring into the darkness, and there’s a part of me that wonders if I heard anything at all. “Maybe I imagined it.”
“I should go look, just in case.”
“Don’t leave me.” I can hear the tremor in my voice, but I don’t care. I don’t want to be down here by myself. “Let’s just forget about it, okay? Keep moving?”
“I’ll only be gone for a moment.” Giovanni’s feet shuffle over the packed dirt, fading as he moves farther away. “Stay here. I will be back.”