Crossing Stars

by Nicole Williams

  Patrick Moran had to do the same with Rylan that my father’d had to do with me, although he was a tad gentler about situating a gun into his son’s hand. For a moment, Rylan stared at the gun in his hands before studying the gun I’d just set down. Finally his gaze swept back to me.

  As he lowered his gun onto the altar, I noticed what he’d been struck with. There were two guns between us, keeping us apart. The exact same could have been said of our families. Rylan was five feet in front of me—I could have stepped forward, extended my arms, and touched him—but he was as unreachable as the next universe.

  After inspecting the guns laid out before him, the priest stepped back and indicated the final passage of the ceremony. I knew what came next—after eighteen years, the entire thing was committed to memory—but I’d never imagined that if I ever took part in the ceremony, I’d be standing across from the man I wanted to walk through the rest of my life with.

  Rylan and I stepped forward in unison, still looking at one another like neither of us could believe this was real. As he reached for the gun in front of me, my arm wove over and around his to grab the other gun. The gesture was another salute at symbolism—that both parties were bound together in some way. But that bond was weak and tenuous—demonstrated as Rylan’s and my arms wove apart with each other’s guns in our hands.

  For that fraction of a moment when our arms had been touching, I’d convinced myself everything would be okay. No two people who were so clearly meant to be together could be kept apart, not even by the obstacles set before a couple like Rylan and me. The warmth and energy of his skin reacted with mine, compounding my reassurance. But the moment our arms came apart, our connection severed and my doubt was compounded.

  As we turned back to the crowd, our respective guns resting on our extended hands, I felt a dark shadow creep up behind me and shroud me in darkness. The shadows weighed more than the yards of velvet and satin.

  “To the peaceful dead and to the troubled living. To the saints and the sinners. To those dwelling beneath us and to those dwelling above us. To our friends and to our enemies.” The priest clasped his hands in front of him, speaking in a tone that hinted he believed he was god’s vessel. “Today, we live in peace.”

  He inclined his head between Rylan and me, eyeing the aisle we were to proceed down to conclude the ceremony as the crowd repeated his words. The words were meaningful, although there was no sacredness behind them. One step at a time, Rylan and I walked down the aisle together, shoulder to shoulder, hands cupped around the exchanged guns, and eyes forward. The eyes of the people we passed weren’t facing forward though. They looked like they couldn’t decide who was harder to believe was in front of them: the hidden daughter or the dead son?

  Halfway down the aisle, I felt the physical demands of the dress and the shock materialize. Each step felt like trying to tread through wet concrete. Every breath I took felt like it was taking me closer to hyperventilation instead of further from it. Every heart beat became farther and farther apart until I wondered if it was close to crystalizing.

  The tension between us boiled over.

  “Rylan?” I whispered, my throat constricting around the word. I couldn’t be so close to him and not say something. Not acknowledge him when that was everything I wanted to do.

  His eyes flashed to mine, the warning explicit in them. For a moment, I felt like he’d slapped me, but I knew the reason for his indifference. This wasn’t the time to explain who we were or why we’d kept it hidden or where we were going. Guns in hand, walking down an aisle, all eyes on us, on Armistice Day was the time to claim indifference . . . just like he’d modeled.

  I cleared my throat and vowed I wouldn’t let myself look at or say anything else to him. So instead of looking at him, I surveyed the pews. The Moran side appraised Rylan like he was their savior. They barely glanced my way, although the few who did looked like they were imagining me burning at the stake.

  The Costa side was studying Rylan and me equally. Most of them had seen me at the White Parties or in some other capacity, but none had laid eyes on the boy—now the man—before them, and their stares ranged from intrigued to irritated. Some were no doubt wondering if the young man they’d met at the party last weekend was the same one passing them now.

  The female half tipped the intrigue scale while the irritation rested with my father’s men. It wasn’t a secret that Patrick Moran was advancing toward his grave, and the Costas had been eagerly awaiting his death. Without an heir to pick up the torch, the Irish would be so busy fighting each other, they’d be too busy to fight the Italians. Less time fighting the Irish meant more time to expand Italian territory and make money, which was what organized crime was all about. Money was the real motivator, the violence a necessary evil.

  At the back of the sanctuary, seated closest to the aisle in the last pew, Serena’s face was as pale as I’d ever seen it. When our eyes locked, she mouthed a discreet I’m sorry before dropping her head into her hands. That was exactly how I felt—like my head had become too heavy to hold up any longer.

  We were almost to the end of the aisle when my short, shallow breaths caught up with me. The sanctuary spun, the world seemed to shrink, and my footsteps went from labored to nonexistent. Rylan had only gotten a couple of steps in front of me before he noticed I wasn’t beside him. We were so close to the end of the aisle, I would have been free of it in half a dozen steps. It might as well have been half a dozen miles.

  I was stuck, unable to go forward or backward. Rylan hurried toward me, his face pulling tight as he inspected me. We’d passed most of the crowd, so not many people noticed what was happening. No one but Serena and a few Morans camped out in a back pew—and of course the priest, my father, and Rylan’s father . . . which pretty much meant everyone else would hear about what had happened.

  No doubt in my father’s eyes, I’d disgraced him by faltering at the end of the ceremony. I could try to blame the dress and its impossible corseting, but he’d never been one for excuses. In Moran’s eyes, his son had probably disgraced him by aiding a Costa in need of help.

  “What is it?” Rylan asked in a muffled voice as his arm wrapped around me to keep me up and moving.

  “You . . . know . . .” Breathing was next to impossible; talking was even more so. “What . . . it . . . is.”

  “Yes, I know what’s wrong in that regard, but why are you turning blue?” His forehead creased when his eyes ran over my face. He rushed me the rest of the way down the aisle.

  “I can’t . . .” I tried sucking in a breath, but nothing came. “Breathe.”

  Rylan stopped as soon as we were outside of the sanctuary and helped me sit down. When Luca rushed up, asking what was the matter, Rylan flashed his hand in Luca’s face. “Back up.”

  Stunned, Luca looked like steam was about to billow from his ears.

  “What can I do?” Rylan’s hand ran across my face like he was diagnosing a fever instead of suffocation. His words and demeanor were calm, but he had to work to keep himself so.

  I pulled at my dress, gasping for air. “My dress . . . too tight . . . can’t breathe.”

  The words were barely out of my mouth before Rylan’s hand worked the tie of my cape and tossed it back in a swirling heap of crimson. He crawled around behind me, his fingers trying to break the ribbons. All that did was make it harder to breathe.

  “Damn it,” he hissed, ripping off his cape in an agitated fit before reaching inside his jacket. What he pulled out was no more than a pocket knife, but from the look in Luca’s eyes, Rylan could have just put a machete to my neck.

  “Stop!” Luca shouted, his eyes never leaving the knife.

  “No, you stop!” Rylan lowered the knife to my back.

  I didn’t flinch away or jolt because, unlike Luca, I knew Rylan would never hurt me. When Rylan sawed off the top laces, I felt air drain deeper into my lungs. I could have moaned in relief, but that was when Luca’s eyes fell on something Rylan had dropped in his
rush to help me.

  Faster than a man his size should be able to move, Luca tumbled toward the gun. I didn’t have time to shout before he was upright, pointing it at Rylan’s head.

  “Luca! Put the gun down!” I was paralyzed.

  Rylan didn’t flinch as he continued to cut me free from my dress.

  “I’ll put it down once he puts the knife down.” Luca’s voice was controlled, but his forehead beaded with sweat.

  Rylan huffed. “I’ll put down the knife when I’m good and ready to.”

  I felt a few more layers of ribbon rip free. I could actually feel my ribcage expand.

  “Move that knife another inch, and I’ll put a bullet in your brain.” Luca drilled the barrel into Rylan’s skull.

  “Put the gun down!” My commands were pointless since he wasn’t listening to me, but I couldn’t stop.

  “You’re going to kill me? In a church? On Armistice Day? With the very gun Costa just gave me as an offering of respect? While I’m doing your job of saving this girl’s life?” Rylan’s tone was cutting, but it was just as much mocking.

  Luca didn’t miss that. “No. I’m going to kill you because it would be my fucking honor.”

  He was about to shoot Rylan with the very gun I’d just given him. There was no such thing as subtle irony.

  Rylan had just cut through the last of the ribbons, and the world stopped spinning long enough for me to remember what I was clutching in one hand. I’d never been a fan of the eye-for-an-eye way of life, but that was before someone pointed a gun at Rylan.

  Raising my hand toward Luca, Moran’s gun gleamed. It didn’t shake, nor did my voice rattle when I commanded, “Drop the gun and step away.”

  From the looks of it, I couldn’t have betrayed Luca any worse. “Miss Costa?” He sounded as hurt as he looked.

  “I don’t want to shoot you, Luca, but I’ll do what I have to.” Inside I was quaking, but on the outside, I was steadfast. “So please, put the gun down.”

  Luca couldn’t take his eyes off the pocket knife. “He’s going to hurt you.”

  If only I could tell him that Rylan’s pocket knife was the least of my worries. “No, he’s not.”

  Luca looked on the verge of lowering his gun, which would have been followed by me lowering my gun, when the first of the procession from the sanctuary flowed into the hallway. Moran’s and my father’s eyes went wide right before they narrowed into slits. Before anyone else could leave the sanctuary, they closed the doors, keeping the scene in front of them for their eyes only.

  Luca holding Rylan’s gun at his head. Me aiming my gun at Luca’s chest. Rylan holding his knife at my back. It was exactly the kind of scene no one wanted to walk in on on Armistice Day.

  When Rylan’s fingers brushed my back once more, I wondered if it was the last time he’d ever touch me.

  I THOUGHT I’D been barricaded up before, but that was nothing in comparison to how this past week had been. My father and Moran had attempted to keep what had happened after the ceremony a secret, but secrets of that sort are difficult to contain. All it takes is one tiny whisper, and rumors spreads like wildfire until the entire world hears it.

  By the time the story got back to me, it had several versions. One was that I’d been the first one to raise my gun and it had been directed at Rylan, after Luca took Rylan’s gun, forcing Rylan to go for the only weapon he had—a pocket knife. Another was that Luca had been ordered to assassinate Rylan, another that I was supposed to assassinate Rylan, and yet another that Luca and I were trying to force him to kill himself by threatening to shoot his father up at the pulpit.

  The Costas were enraged—my mother leading the charge—that Rylan had literally cut the dress off of me. Those who didn’t assume it was because he was attempting to rape me in the middle of the cathedral with hundreds of bodies about to walk by us insisted it was meant as an insult. Defacing the sacred outfit of the Arm Bearer on Armistice Day. I said it was all a bunch of sensationalized propaganda looking to start a war. The Morans were kicking at the hornet’s nest as much as the Costas were, and I knew it wouldn’t be long before the battles usually fought at night spilled out into the waking hours. I knew that next year, we’d be “honoring” far more of our fallen friends on Armistice Day than we had this year.

  After throwing my cape over me and all but dragging me from the cathedral to his car, my father had ordered the driver to take me home, and I hadn’t left it since. Armistice Day had barely come to an end before my father started receiving threats on my life, claiming that I’d spit on the holiness behind the ceremony. For a bunch of men who had so much blood beneath their fingernails it never scrubbed clean, their views on holiness should have been a bit more lax.

  I’d heard that Rylan’s life was equally threatened. The Costas wouldn’t rest until his blood had been spilt in exchange for dishonoring their beloved Josette . . . which was odd since I’d never felt beloved by anyone, my father most of all.

  Rylan and I had become the excuse everyone had been looking for. The two of us being together was going to be what tore it all apart . . . without anyone knowing we were together in the first place. Of all the rumors out there, I had yet to hear one claiming that Rylan and I were a couple. Perhaps that was even more outlandish than him trying to claim my virginity in the cathedral’s halls. I was relieved that no one suspected the truth, yet it was paralyzing wondering what would happen if anyone did find out the truth. If anyone discovered that the whole thing after the ceremony had happened not because we hated each other, but cared more deeply for one another than our own selves, mayhem would ensue. Full-blown, know-no-limits mayhem.

  Hate was for the enemy. Love was for your family. You didn’t confuse the two . . . but Rylan and I had. We’d be forced to pay the price if the truth surfaced. With our lives, and with the lives of countless others.

  So other than being an Arm Bearer in the worst Armistice Day in history, I had been locked up and the key thrown away . . . never to be found until my father married me off to Constantine. My life had gone from small to miniscule. My future from marginally open to positively closed. My level of hope from moderate to next to non-existent.

  And Rylan . . . I didn’t know if I’d ever see him again. The entire Costa family knew he was alive and what he looked like, so casually slipping over The Line or crashing a party wasn’t an option. I’d be about as successful if I tried crossing The Line to find him. An entire city held us apart, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t lie in bed every night scheming of ways to see him and talk things out—in a past, present, and future kind of way.

  It was the Thursday after Armistice Day, and five days had never passed so slowly. Time hadn’t just slowed; it had crawled to a stop. I felt as if any second now, time would pause altogether, never to restart.

  Mrs. Bailey hadn’t been at the Armistice ceremony since she was an employee—as opposed to a member of the “family”—but even she knew something significant had happened over the weekend when I moped into the library Monday morning. It didn’t take her much prying to get the truth out of me, and when I told her who Rylan was, she collapsed into her chair and was silent, seeming lost in her thoughts. We hadn’t talked about him since then, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t thinking about him every other instant.

  With my head distracted and my wedding on the horizon, my schooling became more a formality than a necessity. I’d gotten my diploma last spring and had only continued studying with Mrs. Bailey because my father wouldn’t allow me to leave for college. Instead of boys and parties, he’d been worried about Morans and guns. Back when I’d been more naive, I almost found it endearing that my father was so concerned for my personal safety. Now I saw it for what it really was—he couldn’t sell the cow to the butcher if someone else had gotten to it first.

  I’d been kept alive for one reason only—to exchange vows with Constantine Lombarti, bond the crime kingdoms of the East and West, and live happily never after. No doubt once I’d produced
the requisite Lombarti heir and my beloved husband was named heir to my father’s “throne,” there’d be little need for me. Maybe Constantine would be the one to kill me. Maybe my father would. Maybe any of the hundreds of others who would no doubt consider it a badge of honor to fire the bullet that took out the Blue Krait’s only child.

  Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. My future had been built upon an entire foundation of maybes, and nothing felt so unstable to walk across. I didn’t want to build a future on maybes; I wanted to build it on as many certainties as I could. On one large one I’d never been so sure of . . . and never been so unsure I’d ever see again.

  “Since good morning has been more a wish than a reality all week, I think I’ll skip it today if you don’t mind,” Mrs. Bailey said as she came into the library, rolling a large suitcase behind her.

  It was a rare day when I beat her to our classroom, but since I hadn’t been able to fall asleep, I crawled out of bed early for a change of scenery. I’d stared at the ceiling of my bedroom long enough—it was the library ceiling’s turn. “I don’t mind. Are you planning on taking a trip? A long trip?” Her suitcase was so large, I wasn’t sure it would pass airline regulations.

  “I might have to after today.” She stopped in front of her desk and carefully laid down the oversized suitcase, seeming to strain against its weight.

  “If those are more books on the French Revolution, I’m going to have to pass. One girl can only take so much of the man responsible for coining the term Napoleon Complex.” I propped my fist into my cheek and sighed.