I want to rage.
I want to start wars.
I want to tear through heavens and hells and ask why. Why me?
I want to scream and thrash and claw the shape of that name from Luca’s lips and rip it to shreds. I’ll carve the vibration of it from his vocal cords with my fingernails and squeeze it between my fists until it dies.
The last time I saw Elijah Read was in that chapel. He was forgiven, and I was renounced. And I know their comprehension of the Bible does not represent Christianity now, but I stood in that room for an hour as they judged me like a witch on trial, and I blamed him.
When Elijah captured my eyes with his blue stare and mouthedI’m sorry,I blamed God.
But I don’t have anyone to blame now but myself.
Searching my face with my hands, I find that my eyes are wide open and squeeze them shut. I hide them in the bend of my elbow and press my lips together to keep from crying out loud. Hot tears and slow sighs escape me, but I think of candlelight until my fingers burn and I smell sulfur from matches. Lydia’s voice comes to me, saying,“Find the goddammed light.”
A flicker of light shatters the solid darkness behind my closed eyelids, and I think of Wilder, who will flatten this entire city to find me as promised. I focus on his eyes like rainstorms, the curve of his smile, the veins running up his arms … the way his eyebrows come together and his lips part when he’s inside of me.
“I can’t wait to fall in love again when I get back,”he’d said before leaving.
“You fall in love every time you see me?”I asked.
“Every time.”
The trickle of light turns into a beacon, and it feels like staring directly into the sun. I don’t know if we’ve been driving for five minutes or five hours, but when Luca opens the trunk, I’m completely still and completely silent.
“That’s disappointing.” He grabs me by the front of my hoodie. “I was looking forward to another fight. You’re so pretty when you’re scared.”
Luca yanks me from the trunk in one swift jerk. My shinbones scrape against the tailgate, and I hit my head on the lid latch as I stumble onto the rocky ground. I jut my chin in defiance, standing on my own two feet without collapsing.
But my cell phone falls out of my pocket.
It had been with me the entire time, tracking every mile Luca stole me. Before I’d left the apartment, I’d changed out of Wilder’s slippers into a pair of my own shoes. My cell phone sat dark on the dresser, and I didn’t think it was needed. But I ran back before I walked out the door and slipped it into my pocket.
“If anything ever happens,”Lydia had said when she first gave it to me.“Hide it. Don’t use it for light. Don’t call anyone. Keep it hidden and we’ll find you.”
“You fucking bitch,” Luca snarls, dropping his foot onto the phone. He pushes me back into the car, and we’re on the road again.
Talent once said meeting the Coppolas at his office was better than meeting them in an open field. Sometime later, when Luca brings the car to another complete stop and cuts the engine, he comes around and lets me out of the trunk with no dramatics.
The open field is dramatic enough.
“If you run,” Luca says. He points his finger in my face. “I will catch you and I will hurt you.”
I nod and take in my surroundings, noticing there’s not much to see beyond the tall grass around my feet. Sharp barbs lick at my skin as he pushes me forward, and I twist my ankle in what feels like beach sand. The smell of the sea hangs heavy in the air, and I hear the crashing of waves on the shore, but I can’t see the ocean. There’s no moonlight.
Out of the gloom comes a small cabin-like structure, wood rotted from the salty air and too many years under the sun. The steps creak and bend under my weight, and the door opens like a fresh can of soda. I linger on the porch, afraid of what awaits me inside, but Luca’s grown tired and shoves me forward.
I turn around to watch him slam the door closed.
“What are you going to do with me?” I ask.
Dull light filters in through the windows, but Luca’s a dark entity moving around the room, opening drawers and knocking things over. He lights a match, highlighting his sinister expression. “Whatever the fuck I want.”
“You don’t actually live here,” I say, afraid to move from my spot in the center of the cabin. There’s a torn couch and a bed with a mattress. It smells like dust and rot, and I’d almost prefer going back into the trunk.
“No, I just come out here to play with my things.” He lights candles around the cabin, and I’ve never hated firelight more in my entire life.
“Are we in Grand Haven?”
