“What’s happening?” she whimpers.
I don’t answer. How can I explain? Dad’s enemies are trying to kill him. People are dying out there. I don’t want her to think about it.
But we aren’t safe.
“Come on.” I get out of bed and pull her with me. My heart’s racing. I feel sick. “We have to hurry.” I lead her out into the hall. She trails after me. Men run past, my father’s guardshurrying away. They’re yelling, and there are screams and crying from downstairs. The gunshots are louder now. Like the fireworks are going off right next to my ear.
“Fiorella! Elisa!” Marcus Putellas is suddenly there. He’s one of my father’s most trusted guards. Usually, he’s a total asshole, but right now I’m happy to see him. He grabs me by the arm. “Hurry, this way. Fucking run!”
He drags us down the hall. Elisa’s straight-out crying now. I’m trying hard not to cry too. Marcus kicks open a side door and pushes us into an empty bedroom. But he keeps going, rushing over to the closet, where he rips out clothes and pounds a code into a hidden panel.
A door beeps and the panic room opens. It’s black inside. The lighting doesn’t work yet.
“Get inside.” Marcus grabs me by the arm.
“Wait, no.” I shake my head, trying to back away. “Raf said it’s not finished. It only opens from the outside. He said it’s broken and we shouldn’t play near it anymore.”
“You wanna fucking die instead? Get the fuck inside.” Marcus throws me hard into the cramped hidden space. I hit the far wall, crying out. It hurts and I don’t know what’s happening. Elisa comes after, crying and clutching onto me as I struggle to sit on the floor, my head ringing and pounding. Marcus stands in the doorway, looking grim, as more gunshots go off. “We’ll get you soon.”
The door slams and we’re in darkness.
We screamed for a while.
It didn’t help.
“He’s going to come back soon,” Elisa whispers for the millionth time. “It’ll be soon, right, Fio?”
“Yeah, it’ll be soon.” I push the water bottle into her hands. “Drink this.”
“But we’re almost out.”
“That’s okay. You drink it.”
“Fio—”
“Just drink the water, Elisa. They’ll come for us soon, right? Then it won’t matter.”
Elisa whimpers, and I hear her take a long drink.
It’s all the water we have. After that, we’re out. Dad never bothered stocking the panic room because we weren’t supposed to use it yet. He kept saying he was going to have someone come out and finish it up, but he just never did. And I never really cared. When would we ever need a stupid panic room? I thought it was dumb when he had it built to begin with.
I don’t know how long we’ve been in here.
But I’d guess at least two days. We’ve had a single bottle of water between us, and I’ve given Elisa most of it. My mouth is so dry, and I’d do just about anything for a drink.
But we could be in here for another few days, and what would happen to Elisa if I take some for myself?
She’d die. That’s what.
“He’ll come get us,” Elisa says over and over again. “Marcus won’t forget. He knows we’re here. He’ll come for us. He’ll come.”
More time passes.
The water disappears.
My head pounds like someone’s trying to break it open. The gunshots stopped a long time ago, but everything else has been silent. I try to sleep as much as I can because being awake is terrible. I can’t think. I can barely breathe. My mouth tastes like cotton, and my skin feels like it’s flaking away.
I need to get out of here.
