Chapter 12
Chapter twelve
ISABELLA
Sleep won't come.
The room that was designed to comfort me does the opposite—every carefully placed object a reminder that someone's been studying me for years.
The ballet barre catches moonlight through the window, casting shadows that look like prison bars across the bed.
The books on the shelf seem to watch me.
Even the lavender sachets, which should smell like childhood and safety, now smell like surveillance.
I've tried everything. Counting breaths. Reciting ballet positions. Running through the choreography of Giselle in my head, step by step, until my mental feet ache from mental pointe work.
Nothing helps.
At 2 AM, I give up.
The hallway is dim, lit only by small night-lights positioned every seven feet—of course, everything in sevens. My bare feet make no sound on the cool tile as I move toward Franco's room. I need to check in. Need to know if he's found anything, learned anything, planned anything.
Need to not be alone with my thoughts anymore.
But Franco's door is closed, and when I press my ear against it, I hear nothing. Either he's deeply asleep or he's not there. I try the handle—locked. From the outside.
They've locked him in.
My pulse kicks up. If Franco's locked in, Manuel probably is too. Which means I'm the only one who can move freely right now. The only one who can see what happens on this island when they think everyone's asleep.
The thought should terrify me. Instead, it feels like the first real choice I've had since I stepped off that plane.
I move deeper into the villa.
The main house is different at night. The warm Mediterranean charm feels colder now, the white walls taking on a bluish tint in the moonlight.
Somewhere, a clock ticks. Somewhere else, I hear the faint hum of medical equipment—monitors, maybe, or the oxygen concentrators that keep the sicker believers breathing.
Voices.
I freeze, pressing myself against the wall near Dr. Theos's office. The door is ajar, lamplight spilling into the hallway in a thin golden line.
"—the extraction will need to happen in stages." Theos's voice, calm and clinical. "Bone marrow aspiration first, while she's still strong enough to recover. Then the blood draws over the following days. We can't take too much at once or we risk—"
"But the ceremony will amplify it, yes?" A woman's voice. My mother. Eager. Almost fervent. "The lunar alignment. The witnesses. You said their faith strengthens the transfer."
"It does. The collective belief creates a field of intention that—"
"Then we need more believers. Stronger ones." She's breathing harder now, the oxygen hissing. "Siobhan's faith is pure. Madame Pushkova has been here five years—her devotion is absolute. But some of the others, the newer ones—I can feel their doubt. It weakens everything."
"Your daughter's markers are unprecedented, Katerina.
Marco's early research identified unusual immune response patterns in certain cancer survivors—what he called 'educated immunity.
' Their systems learn to recognize threats more efficiently.
Isabella's markers are the strongest we've ever documented.
" Theos pauses. "The science is sound. The faith simply. .. amplifies it."
"If." My mother's laugh is bitter, but not cynical—desperate.
"You've been saying 'if' for two years. Meanwhile I'm dying.
Actually dying, not theoretically dying—and I have done everything you asked.
I brought her here. I believed when believing was all I had.
" Her voice cracks. "Tell me it will work.
Tell me my faith hasn't been for nothing. "
"It will work," Theos says, and his voice is warm now. Gentle. The voice of a shepherd with his most devoted sheep. "Your faith has brought us to this moment. Your daughter is the key. And when the moon rises tomorrow night, everything you've sacrificed will be rewarded."
"The gods will fly," my mother whispers. Like a prayer.
"The gods will fly," Theos confirms.
"And our benefactor?" she asks. "When does he expect results?"
A pause. When Theos speaks again, his voice has changed. Colder. More careful.
"He's been patient. But patience has limits. He'll want to see progress soon."
"How soon?"
"Soon enough that we can't afford delays." Another pause. "The ceremony needs to happen before the weather turns. Before her husband finds a way across the water. Before our investor decides he's waited long enough and comes to check on his investment personally."
"He wouldn't—" My mother's voice rises. "You told me he preferred to stay remote. Anonymous. You said—"
"I said what was true at the time. But circumstances change, Katerina. And this particular investor has... personal interests in Isabella. Interests that go beyond medical data."
The bracelet in my vanity drawer. The unsigned card. I've been waiting a long time to give you this. This room wasn't just reconstructed from surveillance—it was prepared by someone who wanted me to know I was expected.
"Personal interests? What does that mean?"
"It means we proceed quickly. It means we get what we need from her before anyone else complicates the situation." Theos's voice is flat now. Final. "You brought her here. I suggest you focus on keeping her cooperative."
Footsteps. Coming toward the door.
I move without thinking, slipping into an alcove behind a massive potted plant. The fronds brush my face, and I hold my breath as Theos's shadow passes—tall, unhurried, certain. He doesn't look in my direction. Why would he? I'm supposed to be locked in my room like a good little specimen.
After he's gone, I wait. Count to sixty. Then sixty again.
When I finally peer back toward the office, my mother is still there. I can see her through the crack in the door—slumped in a chair, head in her hands, shoulders shaking with silent sobs.
Part of me wants to go to her. The eight-year-old who still misses her mother, who still remembers hot chocolate and hair braids and the safety of being small in her arms.
But I'm not eight anymore. And the woman in that office isn't the mother I remember.
She's just another person who traded me for something she wanted more.
I slip away before she can look up and see me watching.
The garden is silver and shadow at this hour.
I shouldn't be out here—shouldn't be anywhere but my room—but I need air. Need space. Need something real under my feet instead of that reconstructed nightmare of my childhood self.
The roses Siobhan was pruning this morning look different in the moonlight. Darker. The blooms that seemed so cheerful now look like wounds against the pale leaves.
Movement near the chapel catches my eye.
I duck behind a hedge, heart hammering, and watch as figures in white file silently toward the small stone building.
One, two, three... seven of them. The believers.
Siobhan is there, her red hair silver in the darkness.
The Calabrian. Two of the staff members I've seen in the kitchen.
And at the front, moving with that unsettling grace—
Madame Pushkova.
The Russian woman who never speaks. Who's been here five years, waiting for her loved ones to return.
She's not silent now. Her voice drifts across the garden, low and rhythmic, chanting something in a language I don't recognize. Not Russian. Not Greek. Something older, maybe. Something that makes the hair on my arms stand up.
The others join in as they enter the chapel. The sound swells, then cuts off abruptly as the door closes behind them.
A rehearsal. They're rehearsing whatever ceremony is planned. And they're doing it in the middle of the night, when the nonbelievers—the Greeks, the profiteers, me—are supposed to be asleep.
I think about what Siobhan told me. The monthly contributions. The faith that strengthens the process. The dead they're all waiting to see again.
I think about what Theos just said. Their belief has power. Power we can channel.
He doesn't believe in resurrection. He doesn't believe in miracles. But he believes the believers' faith is useful—their money, their desperation, their willingness to do anything if it means seeing their lost ones again.
He's harvesting grief. Turning it into currency. And somehow, my blood is part of the transaction.
The chapel door opens again. Madame Pushkova emerges alone, moving toward a bench near the garden's edge. She sits heavily, her white clothes bright against the dark stone, and does something I don't expect.
She pulls out a photograph.
Even from this distance, I can see her shoulders shaking. Can see the way she clutches the photo to her chest, rocking slightly, her lips still moving in that silent chant.
Five years. She's been doing this for five years. Believing. Waiting. Paying.
And her sons are still dead.
I don't know how long I stand there, watching her grieve. Long enough for the other believers to file out of the chapel and disappear into the main house. Long enough for Madame Pushkova to finally rise, tuck the photograph back into her pocket, and walk slowly back toward her quarters.
Long enough for the first gray light of dawn to touch the eastern horizon.
Day three. I've been on this island for two full days, and I still don't have a way to contact Antonio. Still don't have an escape plan. Still don't know exactly what they want from me or how to stop them from taking it.
But I know more than I did yesterday.
I know Theos is using the believers, not saving them.
I know my mother signed agreements she didn't fully understand—or didn't want to understand.
I know there's an investor coming. Someone with "personal interests" in me. Someone who's been patient for a long time and is running out of patience.
The thought makes my skin crawl in a way I can't quite name. Like a memory I can't access. Like danger I've forgotten but my body remembers.
I slip back into the main house before full sunrise, avoiding the staff who are starting their morning routines. The hallway to my room is still quiet. Franco's door is still locked from the outside.
In my room, I sit on the bed and pull Antonio's letter from its hiding place. The paper is soft now, worn from handling. I've memorized every word, but I read it again anyway.
Come back to me, ballerina. Come back and dance on the ashes with me.
"I'm trying," I whisper to the empty room. "I'm trying."
Somewhere on the mainland, beyond the clouds building on the horizon, my husband is planning something. I know him well enough to know that. He's not sleeping either. He's working angles, calling in favors, preparing to burn down whatever stands between us.
I just have to survive long enough for him to reach me.
I fold the letter carefully, tuck it back against my heart, and wait for whatever day three brings.