Last Rites

by Danielle Vega

  I wriggle in place, testing my restraints. The only spot on my body where the flames feel dangerously hot is around my wrists.

  I twist around. A red spark flickers from the ropes binding my hands together. That flame didn’t go out. The ropes are the only things besides the twigs that are still dry.

  I turn back around, swallowing. The smoke is thick, and it instantly makes me feel dizzy and stupid. I focus on the sound of my heart thudding in my ears, willing my brain to work.

  If the fire eats through the ropes at my wrists, I might be able to pull myself free. It’s a long shot, but it’s my only hope at escape.

  I lean forward as far as I can go, releasing all my weight so that the burning ropes are the only things holding me upright. I’m close to the flames now. I feel their heat on my nose and cheeks, instantly drying the last of the lake water and turning the mud on my face into a hard, crusty clay. I flex my fingers, testing the ropes at my wrists. They still hold tight.

  “Come on,” I mutter. I lunge, and a shudder moves down my arms and vibrates through the burning ropes. I cringe, feeling the heat eat into the skin at my wrists. My hands are behind my back, so I can’t see what’s happening, but I feel my skin tearing, the burning ropes rubbing them raw. Tears spring to my eyes.

  It’s a game, I tell myself. Like when you’re little and the mean older kids give you a rope burn by holding your wrists with two hands and twisting the skin in opposite directions. Just a game.

  I’m almost able to believe that. The burns at my wrists sort of feel like a rope burn, only a million times worse. I twist my arms apart, tugging, pulling, until—

  The ropes give, and I fly forward, stumbling face-first into the growing fire.

  My skin isn’t damp anymore. I can feel the fire finding my flesh, eating into it hungrily. A scream rips from my throat. I let it loose, howling into the night as I tear through the burning twigs and branches and collapse onto the ground in front of one of the girls—Angelica. I roll around like a dog, twitching and screaming as the dirt begins to suffocate the flames crawling over my body.

  Dimly, I’m aware that Angelica is backing away.

  “Diavolina,” she whispers, crossing herself.

  Good, I think, trembling as I push myself to my feet. I probably look just like the devil right now, with the crusty layer of mud covering my face and flames erupting from my arms and legs. A smile splits my lips—not a real one, but a deranged, desperate smile that cracks the mask of mud on my skin. My fingers curl into claws.

  Let her think I’m evil. I hope she never forgets the way I look right now. I hope my muddy face and burning body follow her into her dreams.

  Giovanni, Elyse, and Francesca are a few feet away, still fighting. Giovanni’s on his knees, trying to stand, while Francesca hangs from his shoulders. She’s howling, digging into his face with her fingernails, doing everything she can to keep him down. Elyse stands in front of them both, knife clenched in one hand. She’s close enough to stab him, but she hesitates, eyes shifting up to Francesca.

  Giovanni’s strong, but he can’t take both of them on at once. I lurch forward, arms outstretched. The darkness beyond pulses, promising escape—but I can’t leave Giovanni behind.

  I manage a single step toward them before a body slams into me at full force, pushing me into the dirt so hard that the air leaves my chest in a whoosh. My forehead snaps into the ground, coming into contact with something hard and sharp. I feel blood well up beneath my skin.

  “You cannot walk away from this.” Angelica’s normally timid voice has lowered to a growl. She digs her fingernails into my skin, squeezing so hard that fresh tears gather in the corners of my eyes. She rolls me onto my back, pressing down on my shoulders with both hands. “You must burn. Our village needs you.”

  She spits as she talks. A fleck of it lands on my cheek. I grit my teeth, hating her. I don’t know if it’s the fire or the fact that I came so close to death, but I no longer feel weak and ready to give up. Now I want to fight.

  I grab Angelica by the arms and dig my own nails into her skin. She must not have expected this, because surprise leaps across her face. I throw the entire weight of my body into her, forcing her off me. She slams into the ground with a smack, her head whacking against the packed dirt.

  Her face twists. She fumbles for something in her pocket, her movements clumsy. A switchblade.

  Using every last ounce of strength in my body, I rip the knife out of her hand and plunge it down. It sinks into something soft and warm. Angelica releases a tiny gasp, her mouth forming a perfect O of surprise. Her chin trembles.

  I freeze. Cold oxygen burns through my lungs, making my chest heave. Blood pumps in my ears. I try hard to ignore the feeling of something warm and sticky gathering beneath my fingers.

  Then a voice inside my head screams: What did you do?

  I look down.

  The knife is still lodged between Angelica’s breasts, the handle slick and red. Blood pumps out of the wound, coming faster than I expect it to, like water from a faucet. Angelica’s fingers fumble and clench, trying to hold it in.

  “You . . .” Her eyes go wide. Her mouth hangs open for a long moment, struggling to find the words. “You . . . are a sick girl . . .”

  Sick girl. The words slither through my head. I grab Angelica by the shoulders, shaking her limp body.

  “I didn’t want this!” My voice sounds shrill—crazy. Sick girl, I think, and feel my fingers dig deeper into the sleeves of Angelica’s white dress, bruising her skin. My hands are coated with her blood. It seeps into the cracks of my knuckles and pools beneath my fingernails, staining them red. “Why couldn’t you just leave me alone?”

  Fingers brush against my arm, and I jerk back, heart pounding. It’s Giovanni. Three long scratch marks trail down his cheek, glistening with blood.

  “Bella,” he says, casting a glance over his shoulder. I follow his gaze and see Francesca and Elyse collapsed in a heap on the ground. “We have to go. Now.”

  For a long moment, I can’t make myself move. Elyse’s foot twitches. Francesca groans. I don’t know what Giovanni did to them, but they won’t be down for long.

  Angelica lowers a hand to her chest, curling her fingers around the blade still lodged in her body. Her eyes find mine, eyelids flickering.

  “Sick girl,” she says again. Her eyes go dull.

  She’s dead. I killed her.

  A hand jostles my arm. “Bella!”

  I release my fingers one by one. Then, still trembling, I take Giovanni’s arm, and the two of us start to run.

  CHAPTER 23

  Tree branches scratch my cheeks and snag in my hair. Wind blows past, cooling the sweat on my chest and forehead. Every step I take sends a jerky shudder shooting up my legs. It doesn’t slow me down; I run with all my strength. Everything from the trees to the wind to the pain seems strange. Dreamlike. The only thing that feels real is the heat from Giovanni’s hand, his fingers curled tightly around my wrist.

  The village appears below, golden and glowing in the darkness. Snatches of music blow through the trees, mixing with laughter and voices. The party’s still raging. If I squint, I can see the roiling mass of bodies moving in the darkness.

  Giovanni’s fingers tighten. He skids to a stop just before we reach the wall separating the village from the trees and hills beyond. He pulls me behind him in one easy movement, blocking the path back up the side of the hill with his body. His eyes flicker through the shadows, alert.

  “They will follow us,” he says, voice rough-edged. “They might be coming now.”

  “We should call the police. The polizia or whatever they’re called here.”

  “Francesca’s brother is poliziotto.”

  A static sound fills my head. Brother.

  Giovanni nods, as though something in the darkness has satisfied him. He pulls me through
the hole in the crumbling stones, one hand pressed against the top of my head so I don’t hit it on the wall. “Don’t worry. I have an idea.”

  The narrow streets seem to close in around us as we run. Ancient brick walls rise up, blocking the sounds from the festival. I can’t hear the music and voices, but I feel them vibrating through the streets, shuddering up into my toes. Giovanni leads me down an alleyway, turning sharp at a stairwell that seems to appear out of nowhere. And then we’re racing down steps, the hard stones cold against my feet.

  Halfway down, Giovanni stops, spinning me in place. A spiky wrought-iron fence appears from the shadows.

  The catacombs.

  My entire body goes stiff. “No,” I say, my voice flat.

  “Bella, you must listen. We have to get you out of here.” Giovanni presses his hands down on my shoulders to hold me steady. The weight of them seems to be the only thing keeping me upright. “This is a small town. An old town. The people here will do nothing against one of their own, do you understand?”

  “Francesca tortured me.”

  “I know this. But you might be in even more danger now. You must get your friends and get out of here, pronto. These tunnels are the quickest way through our village.”

  I’m still shaking my head. The darkness beyond the gate seems to pulse. I think of those yellowed skulls lining the walls, their jagged mouths snarling out at me, and shiver involuntarily.

  Giovanni reaches through the gate, unlatching something I don’t see. I hear the click of metal against metal.

  “It is the only way,” he says, one hand moving to my back. He pushes me forward, into the dark.

  Cold air falls over us. It’s silent down here. The kind of silence that seems to be playing a trick on your ears. Even my ragged breathing seems muted by the ancient walls.

  We walk slowly. Once we’re far enough from the entrance that we no longer see the silvery strips of moonlight, Giovanni pulls out his lighter. The small orange flame does little to chase away the darkness. I crowd close into Giovanni’s back, face pressed to his sweaty skin. I can feel my heart beating against his spine.

  I look straight ahead, careful not to search the darkness for the skulls, but it’s impossible to avoid them completely. I catch a corner of yellowed bone. Hollow, cracked sockets. Broken teeth.

  “Only a little farther.” Giovanni’s voice echoes off the walls, chasing the darkness deeper into the tunnels. “They won’t think to look for us here, and these tunnels go all over the village. Once you’re back at your apartment, you’ll need to pack your things. I can borrow a truck from the store, and we can drive to Florence. You should be safe there until we get you a flight back to America.”

  I nod, my chin brushing against Giovanni’s shoulder. He makes it all sound so simple. “What about my friends? Mara and Harper?”

  A beat of silence. Then: “They will have to go with you. After the polizia find out about Angelica, your friends will not be welcome here.”

  Angelica. I think of her blood spurting between my fingers, how her eyes looked up at me, dull and lifeless. My knees tremble so badly they knock together. I sink into Giovanni, no longer able to hold myself up.

  He stops walking. “It is all right,” he murmurs, pulling me close to him. He kisses the top of my head. “You’re okay, right? I’m worried.”

  I wrap my arms around him, breathing against his chest. Each inhale feels like something ripping apart inside me, something clawing up my throat.

  “How did you find me?” I choke out.

  “Bella?”

  “On the hilltop. I was so sure I was going to die. The fire was so close, and the smoke was making me dizzy. I’d given up, and then you were there.” I lift my head, blinking, trying to separate his face from the darkness. “How did you know?”

  I feel his hand on my cheek, fingers cool and damp. “I was below, looking for you at the festival, but you were nowhere. Your friends hadn’t seen you in hours, and that made me nervous. I started to worry . . .”

  He pauses to take a deep, ragged breath. “I’ve known Francesca a long time, since we were babies. She’s always loved the story of Lucia. She used to say that we need to make the same sacrifice today, to make Cambria good again. I always thought she was joking, but . . . Tonight, when I couldn’t find you, I got a bad feeling. And then I looked up at the hill and saw the fire . . .”

  “I killed her . . .” My voice cracks. “That girl, Angelica.”

  “She wanted to kill you first.”

  My chest clenches with my sobs. “But I stabbed her. There was so much blood . . .”

  Giovanni takes my face in his hands and tilts it up. His breath is warm on my lips. It’s too dark down here to see anything, but I can imagine the look on his face. The tender tilt of his eyes, the soft curve of his mouth before he kisses me.

  “Berkley,” he says in a throaty voice. “You need to listen to me. You did what you had to do. You got away. Everything else . . . that isn’t your fault.”

  His voice comforts me. I find myself nodding, even though he can’t see me in the darkness. “Really?”

  “You survived, bella. You are alive.”

  His lips find mine in the darkness. They’re warm and salty with sweat. I’m alive. I feel the words scream through my body, and I hold him closer. Press my face hard against his.

  The kiss grows deeper, hungrier.

  I’m alive, I think. Heat creeps up my neck. I’m alive.

  And then—a footstep.

  The sound is soft—the barest scrape of a shoe over cobblestones—but it echoes in my ears like a gunshot. I jerk away from Giovanni and spin around, heart hammering as I peer into the darkness. “Did you hear that?”

  Giovanni moves in behind me and starts to kiss my neck. “Hear what?”

  “It sounded like a footstep.”

  Giovanni moves away from me. Cold air rushes to fill the space where his body just was. “You are sure?”

  “I don’t know.” It was so close, not more than a few feet from where we’re standing. But now my heart is thudding in my ears and I’m staring into the darkness, and there’s a part of me that wonders if I heard anything at all. “Maybe I imagined it.”

  “I should go look, just in case.”

  “Don’t leave me.” I can hear the tremor in my voice, but I don’t care. I don’t want to be down here by myself. “Let’s just forget about it, okay? Keep moving?”

  “I’ll only be gone for a moment.” Giovanni’s feet shuffle over the packed dirt, fading as he moves farther away. “Stay here. I will be back.”

  CHAPTER 24

  The dark presses in around me. Giovanni’s footsteps fall at even intervals, growing softer as they move farther down the tunnel. I hear the click and flicker of his lighter, and then an orange glow illuminates the black.

  Giovanni turns, wiggling his fingers at me. My heart leaps, and for a moment, I forget where we are. I wave back, smiling, ignoring the jagged white teeth leering at us from just beyond Giovanni’s circle of light.

  He blows me a kiss and then disappears around the corner.

  And I’m alone.

  At first, I count my heartbeats. I don’t have a watch or a cell phone, so it seems like the easiest way to keep track of how much time passes.

  After sixty heartbeats, I’m tapping my foot.

  After one hundred and forty, all the hairs on my neck are standing up.

  After two hundred, I’m straining to hear anything in the darkness.

  Maybe that’s why I notice the quick intake of breath. Like someone sighing. Or holding back a laugh.

  I press my hand flat against my chest, as though to still the blood pumping through my heart. I hold my breath, listening.

  Nothing and more nothing and more nothing. I feel my muscles unclench, my shoulders droop. I drop my hand to my side, relaxi
ng. And then—

  A footstep.

  I whirl around. My heartbeat—nearly silent a second ago—is now a steady drum pounding in my ears, blocking all other sound. The noise came from behind me.

  I creep deeper into the tunnels, eyes peeled for movement. “Hello?” I call. “Giovanni?”

  No one answers. But the air here feels different. Charged. I’ve never been the sort of person who believed in witchcraft and auras and all that hoo-ha shit, but I feel something in the tunnels down here. It’s like the energy has shifted.

  Someone else is here.

  I blink into the darkness, willing my eyes to separate the shadows around me. I smell staleness in the air, and it reminds me of another person’s breath.

  “I know you’re here.” I don’t shout this time. Instead, I speak in a low voice, to show whoever’s hiding that I know she’s close. Then, hoping I’m mistaken, I whisper, “Giovanni?”

  “I’m not Giovanni.”

  The voice is closer than I expect, her breath a warm mist on my ear. She knocks into my shoulder, sending me slamming to the ground. Something blinks on above me: a flashlight.

  “Boo,” Elyse says, the light casting her face in an ugly yellow glow. The shadows stretch out her teeth, making them look long and pointed, leaving her eyes deeply hooded. I push myself back up to my feet, and Elyse smashes the flashlight across my face in a crack that sends stars bursting in front of my eyes. Pain flares through my skull, bright hot and burning.

  The flashlight flickers but doesn’t go out.

  I throw my hands up over my head before Elyse can hit me again, and the flashlight slams into my arm, sending pain cracking from my elbow up through my shoulder. The jolt of it sends Elyse careening backward, about to lose her balance. With a scream I launch myself onto her, the two of us rolling to the ground in a mess of limbs and hair.

  The flashlight rolls out of Elyse’s fingers, coming to a stop beside the wall of skulls. The flickering light makes the jagged teeth and snarling mouths look like they’re moving. They could be laughing.