I turned my head — and my world tilted.
Bodies.
Five of them.Strewn across the floor, blood pooling around them like some fucked-up halo.Eyes open.Mouths slack.Still warm.
My heart slammed against my ribs.I couldn’t breathe.I couldn’t scream.The sound died in my throat.
Then I looked down.
Blood.All over me.My hands, my shirt, my thighs.Red.Sticky.Too much of it.
“Oh my God...”I whispered, trembling.“Oh my fucking God...”
Whose blood was it?Mine?Theirs?I didn’t know.I didn’t want to know.
I forced myself upright, groaning through the pain.“Alessandro!”My voice cracked.“Alessandro, I’m here!I’m right here!”
Nothing.
He didn’t hear me.
I slammed my fists on the steel door until my knuckles stung.“Please!Look at me, dammit!”My voice echoed, hollow, bouncing back at me like mockery.
He stood up — and walked right past the door.
“No!”I screamed, my voice shredding.“No, no, no!”
I stumbled forward, tried to follow — but something yanked me back.The sound of metal clinking hit my ears.
Chains.
Thick ones.
Wrapped around my ankles, tight enough to bruise.
I just stared at them for a second, numb.
“What the hell...”
Then it hit me — the fear, the confusion, the disbelief.I was chained up, surrounded by corpses, covered in blood — and the man I loved was out there, breaking apart, thinking I was gone.
And I didn’t even know if I was still alive.
I fumbled for memory like a drunk groping for a light switch.Bits kept slipping away — a laugh, a flash, the smell — and every time I reached for them a hammer of pain exploded behind my eyes.My skull felt like it was being squeezed in a vise.I winced and tried again.
I stared at one of the bodies until my vision blurred.Faces, uniforms — something familiar about the cut and the patch — but memory shrugged and walked away.I didn’t recognize any of them.Their uniforms nagged at me like an itch I couldn’t scratch.Where had I seen that pattern?Who wore that tag?
“Alessandro!”I rasped, half prayer, half command, and dragged my hand toward the door.My body betrayed me — I crumpled back to the floor, breath leaving me in a rattled sigh.I’d lost count of how many times I’d screamed his name.
“Ariana...”
His voice made me snap my head toward the sealed door.It was closer now, nearer than before.Relief seeped into my bones — he was in the right building, searching, and that meant he’d find me.That had to be enough.
I tried again, every syllable a struggle.“Alessandro!”I mouthed, but something rough hit my mouth — a hand, a gag — and my call turned into a muffled whisper.His shouts kept coming from the other side of the door, frantic, each one marching closer.
I saw a tall silhouette loom.I forced the name from my throat.“Dan—”
The rest of it never left my lips.Something covered my mouth hard, and someone hauled me away like a sack of meat.The chains on my ankles scraped the floor, a shrieking metal sound that made my teeth ache.I screamed anyway.Pain lit up my back as I was dragged into a smaller room off the main one, and then I was slammed against the wall — pinned, breath knocked out of me — while the pounding on the other door went into overdrive.A heavy thud told me Alessandro had forced his way in.
