Last Rites

by Danielle Vega

  “Go to sleep, Berkley,” she says. “We’ll talk about this tomorrow.”

  And the day after that, I think, as the darkness falls over me. And the day after that, and after that, and . . .

  CHAPTER 15

  After

  I experience the next few hours in flashes.

  Flash: sweaty people, fists pumping, too-sharp teeth gleaming.

  Flash: twisted rubber, snarling devil’s masks, drooping eyeholes.

  Flash: makeup running down faces in streaks.

  Harper and Mara dance beside me. Their hands are on my shoulders, spinning me in fast circles that send me careening into the people around us. They wiggle their hips, and their mouths twist, laughing and shouting.

  They open their hands, and small white pills appear on their palms. We place them on our tongues and toast with champagne. “You’re only young once!” and then the bubbles chase the pills down our throats.

  I take a sharp inhale, and oxygen burns up my lungs. Cold air nips the back of my neck as bodies press in around me, sweat rolling down bare skin.

  And then they’re gone, and Giovanni is in front of me. He flashes me a smile filled with brilliant white teeth. He drops his arms around my shoulders, pressing his hips into mine.

  “Bella,” he whispers. He says it again and again, his voice tangling and echoing in my head. Bella bella bella bella . . .

  This is what it’s like to be free, I think. I feel the smile in my mouth and cheeks, and then it stretches through my whole body, filling me like sunshine. Giovanni tastes like ice and cigarettes. The air smells like sweat.

  It’s all I’ve ever wanted.

  Hours or minutes later, a girl separates from the crowd and makes her way over to me. I try to focus on her, but she blurs into the night. My head pounds.

  She’s dressed like an angel, all in white, her dark hair a shocking contrast to the lace veil draped over it. Her features seem familiar, but they don’t add up to anything in my head.

  I turn to ask Giovanni if he knows her. But Giovanni isn’t there. The people dancing around me are strangers.

  The girl is beside me now. She says something, and the words seem to float in front of her mouth, like a thought bubble in a comic.

  “Do you want to dance?”

  The music throbs in my ears, making my head spin. “Where’s Giovanni?”

  The girl puts her arms around my waist. She leans in close to me, her lips brushing against my earlobe, as she says, “He went to get us more wine, remember? Come, dance.”

  My body starts to move, obeying her command before my mind has a chance to think it over. Bleary questions form in the back of my head, never quite coming into focus.

  Why did . . . ?

  Didn’t Mara and Harper . . . ?

  Who is . . . ?

  I blink, slowly. I can’t remember anything that happened in the last few hours, but I feel the lost time in the arches of my feet. They ache, like they always do when I’ve been wearing heels all night. I feel suddenly dizzy.

  I sway, but the girl holds me around the waist, pulling me upright again. Her hands are strong.

  She’s a good dancer. Her hips swing with the music. Her skin is soft. She moves her hands down my waist, pulling me closer. She smells like perfume. Something heavy and floral.

  No, not perfume. Incense.

  Something stirs in the back of my mind—this isn’t, she isn’t, don’t—but the thought breaks apart before I can grasp hold of it.

  “I should go,” I murmur. The music pulses, swallowing my voice. The ground tilts beneath me. I try again. “I should go home.”

  I bring one hand to my forehead, squinting into the candlelight. Sweat gathers on my palms, and I taste something sour at the back of my throat. I blink into the crowd, trying to find someone I know.

  The faces around me are so strange. The candlelight distorts everyone’s features, turning their teeth jagged, their eyes hooded and haunting. Horns curl away from their heads. They look like demon’s horns.

  And now the piazza is spinning. I squeeze my eyes shut and then force them open again. My eyelids feel heavier than they’re supposed to. I turn in a slow circle, searching the shadowy crowd for Mara’s blond pixie cut or Harper’s long legs.

  “Have you seen my friends?” I ask the girl in white.

  Her eyebrows go up. “Your friends are with us, bella, remember?” She holds me steady, her fingers light on my hips. “We are having a private party.”

  My head swims. “I need . . . Harper . . .”

  “Yes, come on. I will bring you to her.” She places a hand on my back and steers me away from the dancers.

  I press my palm to my leg to steady myself. There’s a sweaty handprint glistening on my skin when I move it.

  * * *

  • • •

  As soon as we leave the crowd, the air around us seems to still, like the city is holding its breath. We step out of the main piazza and down a narrow alley. It reeks of smoke—cigarettes and something else. Something earthier.

  I blink a few times to allow my eyes to adjust to the dark. Gray bricks rise around me, and abandoned devil’s masks stare from the shadows. Empty Solo cups roll along the sidewalks, spilling something pink onto the cobblestones.

  My tongue feels thick. “Where are we going?”

  “Only a little farther.” The angel squeezes my arm. “And then you will see your friends.”

  I frown down at my feet. My shoes are gone. One of my toenails has been torn in half, and blood bubbles beneath the remaining ragged edge.

  “What’s your name?” My words blur together. Wasyername?

  “I am Angelica. You don’t remember me?”

  I narrow my eyes to slits, studying the angel’s dark face and full lips. I do remember her, but it takes me a long moment to work out why.

  “You were in the church,” I say finally, remembering her long, thin face and huge eyes. The locks of dark hair hanging down her back. “We lit a candle.”

  She pats my arm. “Yes, yes. We said a prayer for your ankle.”

  “I remember.” I cross my arms over my chest, hands damp and shaking. Something else is bothering me, but I can’t put my finger on what it is. There’s a prickle in the air, like the sharp edge of a knife. Something’s wrong.

  A wolf whistle echoes from the piazza. The sound bounces off the cobblestones, chasing after us.

  Something frightened me back at the festival. It was a bone-deep fear, like instinct. The same way animals know to run from predators. I blink, slowly, trying to remember. My thoughts are soupy and slow.

  Angelica’s veil flashes white in the darkness. I lift a hand, fingers grazing the lace. “What’s this?”

  “It is called a mantiglia. It’s to cover your hair in church.”

  Church. Incense.

  The memory comes to me in a flash: three girls huddling on the steps of the piazza, their lips moving together in prayer. Giovanni rolling his eyes at them.

  It is not the party they do not like, bella. It is the people who come to the party.

  “You were with those girls,” I murmur. “Those praying girls.”

  My heart starts beating faster. The smell of sweat in the air is stronger somehow. Ripe and nauseating. I pull my arm away from Angelica and stumble backward, my bad ankle twisting. Fresh pain beats beneath my skin like a pulse.

  Angelica frowns. “Scusa? What is wrong?”

  My mind works in slow motion, trying to put the puzzle together. I think of spiky letters on my bedsheets, written in blood. It is the people who come to the party.

  I feel a shift behind my shoulder—a shadow moving—and whip around. There’s no one there.

  “You don’t like us,” I say, turning back around. It sounds silly when I put it like this. Something a child would say. I swallow
and add, “Giovanni said.”

  Angelica’s lips split into a smile. I blink, the dazzle of it too much to take. “Giovanni told you this? How would he know?”

  “He says you don’t like tourists.”

  “Of course we like you. We are throwing a party for you. Come, come.”

  Angelica stops at the end of the alleyway and crooks a finger, beckoning me to follow her around the corner.

  The drugs have started to wear off, leaving my head pounding and raw. I can’t tell if the fear is real or if it’s a side effect of the chemicals fighting with my brain. The moonlight feels like fingernails dragging over my skin. The air is feverish, cold and hot at the same time. I shouldn’t have wandered off with this strange girl.

  But she’s not strange, I think. She said a prayer for me.

  Angelica rounds the corner. I turn, looking back the way we came. The party feels far away now, a distant tangle of laughter and music and sweat. I’ll never find my way back through the maze of sidewalks.

  “Wait.” I take a step after Angelica, cringing when my toe comes down on something sharp. “Wait, please. I don’t know how to get back.”

  The alley appears empty. I walk past a dumpster, and a stray cat darts out in front of me, a streak of matted gray fur. I stumble backward, swearing. The cat stops directly in front of me and hisses, teeth flashing, spit flying from its lips. A second later, it disappears beneath another dumpster.

  A voice says, from behind me, “Ciao.”

  I whip around. The bartender with the green hair and tattoos stands at the mouth of the alley. Francesca. Her lips curl at the corner. Half smile, half smirk.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Francesca lifts her chin a fraction of an inch. The smirking smile doesn’t leave her face. “We are throwing a party for you. Didn’t Angelica tell you?

  I blink, and her outfit leaps out at me: white dress, white veil. She isn’t close enough to know for sure, but I feel certain her hair smells like incense.

  “What party?”

  Francesca tilts her head to the side, the movement almost catlike. “Come, and I will show you.”

  She takes a step toward me, and I back up, slamming into the dumpsters. Her smirk widens.

  The air feels strange. Boiling. I feel it on every inch of my skin. I say, “I want to go home.”

  “Ah, but we cannot let you do that.”

  Two others girls appear from nowhere—Angelica and the girl from the butcher shop, Elyse. I’d forgotten how tall she was. She towers over us all.

  They stand on either side of Francesca, blocking my only path out. The lace covering their hair makes them look soft and pious. Like angels.

  My lungs clench, and I feel my heart working inside my chest, beating so hard it hurts. “What do you want?”

  Francesca nods at her friends, and the two girls move forward, each of them grabbing one of my arms. Blood rushes into my head fast, leaving me dizzy. It doesn’t occur to me to scream until a beat too late, and by that time, Angelica has a hand pressed over my lips.

  “Shh . . .” she murmurs through my muffled cries. “It is okay. You are sick. We are going to say a prayer for you. To help you.”

  Crazy, I think. I let my arms and legs go limp so I’ll be harder to hold, but the girls grip tight, refusing to let me fall. They’re stronger than I am, their arms lean and muscular beneath browned skin and white lace. They easily twist my hands behind my back, half leading, half dragging me out of the alley. A rusted Fiat waits at the corner, trunk already popped and waiting.

  No way. I dig my heels into the ground, thrusting the weight of my body back to keep them from pulling me farther. Why is this happening to me? After the institute and everything else?

  Why does this always happen to me?

  I twist my face away from Angelica. “Help! Someone please help me!”

  Francesca says something in Italian. Elyse shakes me—hard—and Angelica grabs for my mouth, whispering that I need to be quiet.

  “Don’t make us gag you,” Elyse hisses into my ear.

  She twists my wrist behind my back, sending pain shooting through my arm and forcing me forward. The car’s trunk yawns before me, dark and ominous. Fear squeezes the air from my lungs.

  I’ve heard stories about American girls traveling through Europe before. How they’re sometimes taken by big men with Russian accents and greasy muscles, hidden away in cramped rooms with sagging mattresses, drugged until they’re submissive enough for the men to do whatever they want to them.

  But these girls look normal. They work in butcher shops and bars. They’re girls I might’ve been friends with.

  A hand grabs the back of my neck, fingers pressing into the base of my skull. Someone kicks the backs of my legs, and my knees buckle. From there, it’s easy for them to wrestle me into the car. My shins bang into the rusted bumper, and my elbow snaps against the side of the trunk, pain flickering up bones and skin.

  I try to fight, but there are three sets of hands pushing me forward, holding me in place. I lose my balance and fall, my face slamming into the oily fabric of the car’s trunk. The air is hot and close.

  I roll over, but the space is cramped. By the time I’m on my back and trying to sit up, Francesca is already lowering the trunk door.

  “Why are you doing this?” I shout.

  “Because you are diavolina.” She pushes the word through clenched teeth, her mouth a snarl. “You are what is wrong with this village.”

  She snickers and lets the door fall closed, leaving me alone in the dark.

  CHAPTER 16

  Oh God.

  I claw at the underside of the trunk door, looking for a latch or an opening—anything. But my hands tremble so badly I’m not sure I could work one if I found it.

  Voices rise and fall outside the car. I press my lips together, trying to calm my shaky breathing so I can hear what they’re saying.

  The voices fall silent. Car doors slam open and closed, and the Fiat shifts as people climb inside. We begin to move. I dig my fingers into the oily bottom of the trunk. Everything in my body—from the tiny muscles around the corners of my mouth, to my calves, even my toes—tightens.

  The cobblestone roads are rough beneath the Fiat’s bald tires. I feel each pebble jolt through me. Each turn sends me tumbling into the side of the car. Before long, my bones ache and my skin feels tender and bruised. My head spins.

  I can’t help being reminded of the twisty roads I sped along on Giovanni’s moped, how they corkscrewed in and around themselves in sharp curls and breakneck turns. I press my lips together and focus on my breathing to keep myself from being sick.

  I’m not claustrophobic—not technically. But the small, enclosed space makes me feel trapped. I flash back to the institute—hard mattress and concrete walls and stiff restraints holding me down—and cold fear runs through my veins.

  After what feels like a long time, the car stops. I’m so motion sick that I don’t realize we aren’t moving until I hear the creak of a door opening. I push my body to the very back of the trunk, my breathing suddenly shaky. Pins and needles tiptoe up my legs.

  Footsteps scrape against cobblestones. Pebbles skid across the ground. There’s a creak of metal, and dim light pours into the trunk. I blink into it, squinting. Three shadows take shape above me.

  “Get up,” Francesca says, her voice flat. I think of the cool bartender who gave me free shots my first night, the girl working Professor Coletti’s dinner party. The Francesca that’s standing over me seems like a different person: hard and angry and emotionless. I’m afraid of her.

  When I don’t move, she grabs me by the arm and drags me out. I stumble to the ground, my knee scraping against a rock. I cringe, looking around desperately as I struggle to stand.

  Elyse grabs me and twists my arms behind my back, grinning savagely wh
en I cringe with pain. Angelica covers my mouth with one hand, but I notice that she does this gently, like she feels bad about it. Her hands are soft and smell like lavender soap.

  “Quiet,” she murmurs. “We’re almost there.”

  I look around, wildly. We’re parked outside the church where I sprained my ankle, only a few blocks from Harper and Mara’s apartment. I might even be able to find my way back, if I get a head start.

  Without thinking, I bite down on Angelica’s hand. Skin breaks beneath my teeth, and something salty and metallic bursts over my tongue. Blood. The hand jerks away from me, and Angelica mutters something in Italian.

  “Help me!” I scream. My voice is hoarse and ragged. I try to wiggle away from Elyse, but she’s too strong. “Please, somebody! Help me—“

  Pain explodes across my cheekbone. My face whips to the side, the nerves along my neck flaring. The air leaves my lungs in an involuntary gasp.

  Elyse punched me.

  I blink a few times, but my vision’s gone blurry. Everything seems to be spinning. I stretch out my jaw, tears springing to my eyes.

  Elyse pushes me forward, and I move without protest, too shocked by the punch to put up a fight.

  “Why are you doing this?” I gasp. The pain in my cheek dulls to a low pulse, and I feel it more in my bones than in my skin. “What do you want?”

  Francesca studies me. The shadows make her nose longer, her eyebrows heavier. I can barely make out the green streaks in her dark hair.

  If anyone here looks like a diavolina, it’s her, not me.

  She says, “I am Giovanni’s girlfriend.”

  Understanding hits me like a slap. I remember how he sat at the trattoria, talking to her the night we met. How he just showed up at the party where she was working. This is a small town, he’d told me.

  I say, tripping over the words, “He never told me he had a girlfriend, I swear.”

  Francesca tilts her head, considering me through the thick fan of her dark lashes. She’s beautiful. It’s intense, the kind of beauty that smacks you in the face and won’t let you look away.