Chapter 3
SOPHIE
PLAYLIST: DOWN ON YOUR KNEES – FLORA CASH
“Go,” I say. “Seriously, I will survive. I’m right there around the corner, eating the entire menu where they have the street food.”
“I don’t have a good feeling,” says Luisa. “Don’t you really wanna join? I can make it brief.”
“You never have a good feeling about anything. What shall happen? Nothing bad ever happens.”
“It does to me,” she says and is not entirely wrong.
When something happens, it’s always Luisa.
She’s the one who got beaten up once by a group of men.
Who got run over by a car. and nearly died.
Who had this aggressive man stalk her—overall, she seems to attract everything that could possibly go wrong.
“You need to see life more positively, Lu. It’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you expect bad, bad will happen. Do it like me, I am certain everything will be fine, so things will be fine. Seriously, I am just around the corner.”
“Meh,” says Luisa. “I am rather prepared. But fine. I’ll be back in an hour, don’t go anywhere.”
I laugh. I wouldn’t go anywhere without her, even if I wanted to.
I have the orientation of a rotten tomato, even with maps on the phone.
I watch Luisa walk towards the museum, and I turn to head to the street-food restaurant I looked up for some authentic Italian food.
I had no breakfast because I wanted to eat it all: Pizza.
Pasta. And dessert—Dolci. What a beautiful name for the treats.
I walk in the direction of the restaurant.
“The other way,” Luisa says, and groans.
I look at the maps on my phone.
“Oops,” I say, and I know Luisa rolls her eyes.
“I have it now!” I call back to her before I walk around the corner into the small cobblestone alley leading to the restaurant. I enjoy the tiny alleyways here in Rome, and I am utterly amazed at how people drive through them.
A pigeon flies past my head with its distinctive pigeon-like flapping, and I twitch, jump out of the way as panic spreads through me. I hate these birds. They’re called rats of the air in Germany, and I find that very fitting.
What I didn’t see was the woman walking behind me, whom I jumped into.
“Oh shit,” I say, jumping back. “Sorry—Scusa!” I add. I know a bit of Italian, but I can only pull off the basic words. I learned French and Spanish—and Italian is, in many cases, understandable to me—but speaking it is an entirely different matter.
“No worries,” says the woman, in perfect English.
I am flabbergasted by her appearance. She is tall, with intense dark eyes and a wonderful smile, yet she has a distance in her.
Her eyes stare at me, but I am distracted by her body.
Someone that hot should be forbidden. Every woman would swap her for it, and I flush.
“I was scared of the pigeon—“ I start rambling. “Hate them, they give me anxiety. Anyway, I didn’t see you. I’m so sorry. I hope I didn’t hurt you.”
Damnit, shut your mouth, I curse myself.
“As I said, no worries,” she says, her head slightly tilted. “Are you visiting?” she asks.
“Yes, we’re here for a few days,” I say, “My friend and I are taking a gap year, she’s at a museum, and I am about to grab some food—” For heaven’s sake, stop talking.
“Where are you from?” she asks.
Does she want to know where I am originally from or where I live? I ask myself. I hate small talk because those questions have no easy answer, and I don’t know what people want to hear. Hate hate hate it.
“Germany,” I say nervously.
“You don’t sound German,” she says, and I flush.
“Well, yes. Because kind of. My father is, well, was British; he’s dead, and my mother is half-German, and we lived there.
But my German isn’t very good, even though I was born there.
Worst language to learn in the world. We moved to England after my father’s death, my mother, she—“ I tell her all the stupid, irrelevant things because she is so hot, she makes me nervous. “Anyway, sorry, you might not want to hear all that, I’m rambling,” I say, dying internally. I always talk too much.
“No, no,” she says. “It’s quite illuminating,” she adds, and before I can do anything else, she grabs my hand and something pinches me.
What the hell?
I look at it in horror, look at her, but my eyes unfocus, and everything goes pitch black.
When I become conscious again, I first hear voices, and then realise the pain in my shoulders and wrists.
My eyes fly open as I remember what happened. That woman. She—
My eyes dart up and around, but I cannot see a single thing. I am in complete darkness. I can only feel. I am fixed with what sounds like chains, somewhere above me. Panic surges through me immediately.
The room or whatever it is where I am, the entire world, the space around me zooms in on me and my heart races. My limbs get cold while sweat pearls run down my temples.
I can’t move.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t—
My breath flattens.
Not enough air.
I hear screaming, and I am scared to the bone until I realise it is my own voice resounding painfully from the walls of the room I am in into my ears.
I scream more.
I am screaming out in fear.
In helplessness.
Someone must hear.
But nothing happens.
I am just hanging there, the chains digging into my wrists like knives.
Pain.
Somehow, focusing on the pain helps me control my fear.
Focus on the pain.
More pain in my shoulders.
Maybe if I stretch myself—
My toes can reach the ground, but it hurts so much.
Everything hurts.
This must be a nightmare.
It must.
A shudder runs through my body as the panic attack flattens.
Suddenly, I am so cold.
I can’t string two thoughts together.
Maybe I am still asleep.
Yes, this is a nightmare.
And when I close my eyes, I’ll wake up soon, next to Luisa in our hostel bed.
Luisa.
Who had a feeling.
A loud shot-like sound rips me awake.
Smack.
My arse burns in pain.
This can’t be real.
Smack.
I scream.
“Good, you’re awake,” says a female voice. It takes me a second to collect my thoughts and realise that I am still in the pitch-black coldness. It is not the woman who took me. This woman has a local accent.
“You little bitch,” she says. “You took my blood from me, and I will take yours.”
What? My brain is not working.
“But do tell, where’s the money?” she asks.
Money. What money?
I don’t know what to do.
They abducted me because of money? Because I took something? What?
Smack.
I scream again as I get my arse hit with some sort of hard surface.
“I asked a question,” says the woman.
“I don’t know anything about any money!” I scream.
“You know exactly what money,” she says darkly. She is so close now that I can scent her perfume. It’s a rich one, consuming me with her presence.
“I don’t know about any money,” I say desperately in a pleading tone. “I am a broke student, I don’t have any money.”
She steps around me and pulls my head back by the hair. It cracks slightly in my neck because it is stiff. I can’t even feel my hands at this point.
“Liar,” she says. “We can do this the easy way, or I can peel the skin of your body inch by inch until you tell me the truth.”
Tears flood my eyes.
“I don’t know about any money! Please, you have to believe me!”
“Well,” she says, and pushes my head back to the front. “I don’t.”
Heels walk away from me, and then a door falls into its hinges. A heavy door. Probably steel.
And I am left in the darkness. With fear, horror, and the dire need to pee.
My mouth is dry and tastes horrible, and I can scent my own sweat.
I try to hold the pee, I really do. But at some point, I can’t.
The warm fluid runs down my legs, making me realise how cold I am. Disgust spreads through me as the scent trails up my nose.
Voices in my head battle themselves for screaming thoughts at me. Asking me how I could be so stupid. Telling me that I should have stayed home. Convincing me that I am going to die here. Because of money I do not have.
Why would they think I have money?
“I don’t know about any money!” I scream into the void. “We never had much since my father died and my mother fell sick!”
But no one answers.
I feel so weak.
Dizzy.
I have no idea how long I have been here.
My body is exhausted.
My mind shuts off.
I have read in one of the lecture books that traumatic experiences cause parts of the mind to separate itself. I can’t feel myself. I feel nothing right now. I am a shell, nothing else.
“Wake up,” says another female voice. It’s the woman I met on the streets while I wanted to grab some food, waiting for Luisa.
Luisa.
“What the hell do you want with me?” I say with a croaky voice. My throat feels like sandpaper.
My body feels weak, and one sentence is already exhausting me.
“You know what we want,” she says. “The money.”
“I don’t have any money, please! Why do you even think I have it?”
“Because your father took it, and hid you with it, just after you killed.”
My body is so exhausted, it takes me a moment to process. My father. Hid me with it.
Killed.
“I didn’t kill anyone!” I scream.
“Oh, but you did. And we have proof.”
I laugh. A displaced one, slightly maniacal, coming over my lips without my control, because the thought is so absurd that my mind snaps.
“My father was an architect,” I get out between laughs. “He didn’t hide me. No one hid. I would remember if I killed anyone, wouldn’t I?”
“So you’re trying to convince me that your father wasn’t Antonio Amato?”
“Who?” I ask. “I have never heard that name before!”
“I think you’re lying.”
I am at a loss as to what to do. “Please, take my phone, call my mother, my friends, my mother’s brother, do whatever you need to do. But I don’t know a man by that name!”
“What was your father’s name?”
“Ian,” I say. “Ian Onto. Look him up, he was a renowned architect. Can you please, please let me down?”
Sickness spreads through me as my head becomes lightheaded.
“I can’t—I’m—“ Consciousness fades from me.
“Kat,” says another voice far away. It was the woman from before. I didn’t even recognise that she was there. Or maybe I am imagining it—
“Swab her, we can match the DNA.”
DNA, I repeat in my mind. Where the hell did I end up?