Monomaniac

Chapter 23

Dante

"MALFERMO, IT’S BEEN A WHILE," Damian Evans says with an arrogant smirk as he pulls a Cuban cigar from a polished wooden box. Self-important bastard, nothing has changed.

"If I had known you were the groom, I would've made sure it stayed that way," I say tersely, shoving my hands in my pockets and staring at the dead landscape outside the window.

The last I heard of him was when he suffered a sudden heart attack from a rare poison induced by some so-called friends, although in his case I would have opted for water boarding. They should have known that rats like him have built up a resistance to lethal substances.

"Ever the charming gent. Don't you ever get tired of being so hostile? I imagine it's quite a bore," he deadpans, propping his feet up on the desk like the scumbag with a God complex I know him to be.

I give him a look that puts him in his place without having to say a word, his adam's apple bobbing as he takes a drag from his cigarette.

The man's a two-faced imposter, and a damn lucky one considering his head isn’t currently shoved into the nearest toilet as we speak.

My shadow cares a great deal for her cousin and I'd hate to spoil her evening, so he'd better thank heavens for that.

"What do you want?" I ask with irritation, restless at the thought of Ophelia being left unprotected in the middle of the venue.

It’s getting increasingly harder to keep under wraps the aggravating feeling that something might be lurking under the light of chandeliers and crystal glasses. It has been eating me up from the second I woke up.

"Now now, this is my wedding day. Shouldn't we reminisce about the good ol' times?" I wonder if his new wife knows the kind of man he is, and if she does, well – she must really love traitors who have a penchant for running away when the line of fire grazes their gutless loyalties.

Beyond irritated, I seize him by the collar across the desk and haul him to the edge in one swift tug, his body slamming hard against the floor after I let go. On impact, his sorry ass coughs from the smoke he failed to exhale just before I lost my patience. Pathetic.

"Just because some imbecile failed to slip the proper dosage into your deserting veins doesn't mean you're invincible. These days, my patience is wearing thin and I don't forget, ever. Make sure your thin skull remembers that," I hiss, resting my heel on his heaving chest.

"Damn it, Malfermo, you're ruining my suit, for fuck's sake. A little consideration for once will take you places," he laments pushing my foot away before sticking his cigar back between his teeth and making a spectacle of taking a long drag. It’s a mystery how Caroline committed to this.

"Was it worth it?" I don't know why I even care enough to ask this empty question, especially after all these years. Despite that, I have no problem admitting that I'm fractionally intrigued by the life Damian led after turning his back on his brothers.

A charged moment passes in silence, giving me time to check Ophelia’s location on my phone. It shows that she's at the back exit of the chateau, presumably having a cigarette with Caroline, as she said they would before I left. But why not do it inside though? This is strange.

"I'd like to imagine that, after all this time, you would grasp the notion that every story has two sides. No bloody man who walks this earth is a villain only, and you know it best, so don't be a hypocrite," he states, getting up on his elbows and leaning his back against the desk.

"You're one to talk. Nuances are one thing, but guess what? They mean shit when it comes to betrayal," I point out, shaking my head when he offers me a cigarette. Bastard.

"Dan, I–" my knife is against his throat before he can continue his sentence.

"You lost the privilege of pronouncing my name. We are no longer a family. You've abandoned us like the snake my gut always told me you were," I snap, pressing the blade down just enough to draw blood.

"Fair enough, I get it. Jesus," he mutters, petulant like a child as he drags his fingers over the fresh wound. "Thing is, I was just a scared kid. A pretty guy like me would’ve been walking candy in any prison. I was selfish and that’s a fact, you don’t have to spell it out," he shakes his head and fingers his collar with what most would translate as regret in his posture. I know better.

"You're forgetting one thing," I say, watching the screen closely and furrowing my eyebrows when the dot marking Ophelia's location doesn't move an inch. Something's not right.

"Care to elaborate?" Damian asks, but I can barely hear him, a line of dread-filled sweat falling down my spine.

"We were all young and scared," I say, without sparing him another glance. Done with his false apologies, I head for the door as my mind runs through a number of scenarios; the kind I would give anything not to be translated into any possible reality.

She hadn't moved an inch in the last four minutes.

"Dante, look, I've changed. I'm not the same money-hungry kid, my loyalties..." his words ricochet off the high walls as I walk out the door.

I should have never left Ophelia’s side. Dammit.

My eyes keep returning to the tracker, making me want to rip the hair off my head with every agonizing second the red dot remains still. Has she fainted, is she injured and cannot move?

No. She's probably caught up in a story, maybe dropped her phone or left it by her cigarettes, she...

I look for her lustrous black hair on the crowded floor, but she is nowhere to be found among the wedding guests.

Taking a deep breath is far from easy as I open the back door where she should be. My stomach sinks when I see two waiters having a cigarette in the alleyway, their heated conversation halting as soon as they see me.

She's not here.

All the blood drains from my body when I follow the route of the red dot on the screen and stop at the dumpsters. With numb hands, I lift the lid and find her phone on top of a garbage bag filled to the brim.

She’s not gone – she can’t be…

Slowly, I bend down and take it in my hand. As if parting with reality, I stare at it with distant eyes, brushing the cold glass screen as if it were her cheek before gripping it tightly in my fist.

I want to scream at the sky, to damn it all, but time is of the essence. And she needs me sane.

I have a hunch that neither the staff nor the guests know anything, but I shove the barely legal waiter against the wall anyway and demand answers. As expected, he knows precisely nothing.

The automatic next move is to go straight to the source. I track down Damian, meeting his glassy eyes from across the room.

He somehow understands that we need to talk urgently and as soon as he's within hearing range, I tug him into a corner, away from prying ears.

"Don’t ask questions. If you want a grain of my tolerance in the future, take me to the surveillance cameras. Now!" I say hastily, consumed to the bone with desperation.

A grave expression settles on his features; perhaps for the first time today save for his vows. Without another word he paves the way toward a room nearby, knocking twice before entering it.

Two security guards, comfortably seated in cushioned armchairs, seem to be having a grand old time sipping whisky and playing poker, while my future wife is held captive by a psychopath God knows where. I want to strangle them both.

"My unemployed gentlemen, before you gather your things, would you be so kind as to look for anything my guest here asks of you?" Damian demands with authority.

"Ah, sorry boss, you see..."one of them says standing up, but I don't give him time to finish his lame excuse concerning his incompetence.

"You either show me the footage from the last twenty minutes or you'll need a guide dog for the rest of your life. Choose carefully," I say with a lethal calm as I shove his head into the table, a handful of cards falling to the floor and reminding me of her tarot, of her all alone and scared and...

"Okay, okay! It'll only take a second," he says in a shaky voice, raising his hands.

With unblinking eyes glued to the screen, less than half a minute feels like a lifetime as the footage continues to move forward at double speed. I see her and Caroline going into an alcove where there is no surveillance. After ten minutes or so, they separate and shortly after the cameras manage to capture what I feared most.

Even if he's wearing a custom waiter's suit, I'd recognize him with my eyes closed. I want to smash the damn screen as I watch it all unfold but the moment I lose it is when her delicate wrist falls off the bottom of the cart covered by a tablecloth that he hurriedly pushes towards the exit.

Her elegant hand, my Ophelia, Ombra...

"Show me the parking lot in this exact time frame."

The screen shows Jack fucking Travers dragging her in an unmarked white van – nervously looking around for witnesses before he closes the door that now holds her prisoner.

The burning need to disintegrate him as I keep going back and forth between the thirty seconds of her being in the frame is maddening. I want to spill blood, crush bones, inflict the kind of pain no human could endure for more than a split second. And so it will be the second I find him.

My fingers blanch as I grip the edge of the desk with inhuman force and squeeze my eyes tightly shut while imagining all the ways I will make him suffer and plead for the relief of death.

This is all my fault – I failed her by not being there to protect her. Have I learned nothing from the past? Is this the cruel reason it repeats itself?

I want to die at the thought of her being at his nonexistent mercy, at the sickening thought that she might not...Hell, I refuse to go there.

Before I can break anything, or crack someone's skull, my phone vibrates in my pocket. And though I'm aware it's just a wishful thought, I can't help but imagine it's her; that she somehow found a way to escape.

Kane's name appears on the screen and I feel like throwing it at the nearest wall. I answer instead, because I feel so goddamn lost in this choking wave that threatens to drown me alive. Maybe he knows something, maybe...

"Dante, son, you need to come to Tommy's place pronto," he says with an unnerving tinge in his voice. At the sound of it I freeze, because thirteen years ago it delivered the news that eventually led to unimaginable loss.

"Ophelia’s gone," I answer instead, gone myself.

Instinctively, I check for the guns molded to the sides of my body like a second skin, already having an inkling of the life-changing news he's going to swamp me with.

I just know in my gut that something terrible has happened on the other side of the phone. Life instills in you a sixth sense of reading it between the lines, whether you welcome it or not. Although I wish I was just being paranoid.

"Just come over here, Dante," he says solemnly, and I swear I can see in the corner of my eye the floor splitting in two and making room for me to fall.

"I can't, Ophelia…" I say, trying to contain the battle raging in my mind between panic and being rational enough to find a solution.

He sighs heavily, followed by a series of curses that I can barely hear at this point. "Listen to me boy, take a deep breath. We'll work everything out together. Just like we always do," he says, as if struggling not to have an emotional outburst. Not a good sign.

This place is a dead end. The psychopath removed his plates and the footage doesn't point to any other route to explore. Maybe at Tommy’s we'll find a faster way to locate her.

I suppress the urge to exhale, because I won't breathe properly until I have her in my arms again; since I don't know if she has the luxury to do it freely. So why should I?

Slowly, as if preparing for an invisible cold war, I turn around, meeting Damian's concerned eyes and feeling nothing.

"Not a word to anyone," I demand, making an unearthly effort not to extort my rage on everything existing near me.

He nods, being wise enough to keep his mouth shut as I walk past him on my way out. There, I leave behind a life that has deceived me into believing once again that I can exist, even in passing, without thinking twice before taking a sip of water.

* * *

The familiar smell of grief hangs in the air, putrid and acerbic. I know it, because I've worn it on my skin for what seems like a lifetime. Still, my mind is cold to the world, as is my entire being, down to the last cell without having her safely by my side.

Tommy's neighborhood is quiet at one in the morning, and so is Kane, as I approach his hunched form. He’s having a smoke on the porch steps, defeated and inert as a fallen tree.

"What happened?" I ask, so tired of asking this question and being slapped with the taste of tragedy time and time again.

"You need to talk to Aurora. She refuses to come out of her hiding place," he says, ashing his cigarette on a rose, planted there most likely by my niece in the dead of late November.

"Why is she hiding?" I ask, the words burning my tongue because there’s only one answer to such a seemingly inoffensive question.

"Dan, Tommy’s dead," he says.

Tommy. Dead. My brother is dead. No fucking way.

Panic rushes through me as I open the door. Somehow, I know exactly where to find him, ending up in front of his collapsed body near the kitchen island. He can't be...

I lean on the wall facing him, the soles of my palms pressing into my sockets, refusing to believe my eyes. This night can't be real.

"I needed some pressing intel on a guy, but he wouldn't answer. When I came by and opened the door with the spare key…" he pauses, "I found him foaming at the mouth, with no pulse and unresponsive."

Tommy's inanimate body becomes a dark blur as my hands clutch the knife I suddenly have in my hand. I sink it into the couch again and again, consumed with savage rage because there is nothing left, nothing inside me – because there is an empty syringe next to his neck and the words 'This is on you Malfermo – your girl is next'.

An agonized scream slices me open, my own blood coating the couch as I tear it to shreds. I can’t–

"Damn it all! To hell with this life–" I howl at the barren walls as I destroy everything that comes in contact with me, shaking with a pain that cannot be contained in my limbs, in my bones, in my fucking body.

My throat thickens, constricting with uncontrollable sobs as my extremities shake in their desperation to rip the world apart. Suddenly, I'm thrown face down to the ground, someone planting their hand on my writhing back.

This is too much to endure, to contain. He ripped away from me the woman I love and killed my brother in cold blood.

How have I allowed this to happen? Have I become my father after all?

I want to crawl on hot coals for being so reckless with the lives of the people I love in the face of danger; for not fucking barricading them in a bunker, until I drained, slowly and torturously the life out of that motherfucker.

"Dante you have to calm down. That little girl can hear you and Ophelia needs you now more than ever. You have to get a grip, son," a voice says somewhere to my right, the knife disappearing from my hand.

From this angle, I meet Tommy's brown eyes that are still open and something in me shifts at the sight of the lifelessness behind them. I stare past their fixed coldness, wondering how he must have felt when that poison was injected into him, not knowing if he would ever wake up again; without having the certainty that his little girl will be safe once he takes his last breath.

"That’s it boy, take it all out," Kane says, as I shake with hollow sobs; bloodied hands covering my contorted face as I internally remove myself from the present reality that feels too much like my past.

I swore. I swore to myself that this won’t ever happen again. How did I get in the same fucking place? Will this circle of pain ever end? Why do the people I love get executed by soulless monsters like it’s a sick game I am forced to witness and play? Why?

Silence follows, the kind that builds a man into something unrecognizable – not because it calcifies him, but because it molds him into a matter that cannot ever be destroyed. Because this crucial moment in my life has taught me one thing – from now on I will destroy, burn, dissect until there is not a soul left that dares even think a whisper of malevolence towards the one I love.

It's over. Sealed. Done.

I shake Kane off me. Nauseous, I head for the sink, turn on the faucet and wash my face. I don't feel the water on my skin, I don't see the blood rushing through my fingers, I don't look in the eye what's left of my ailing soul. Numbness greets me home and I don't turn my head once it digs its dull claws into my elbow.

"Dante?" Kane asks from the archway, slight panic coating his otherwise lethargic voice.

The stitches she sewed into my palm broke open...

"Call our people. Arrange a plausible motive and make sure the scene is clear for the following investigation. Pay whoever, whatever amount. Keep it clean and straightforward," I say, not waiting for a response, as I head for the hidden compartment down the corridor.

I clench my teeth, swallow what suffocates me, and rein in my temper so as to not frighten my granddaughter even more than she already is. Listening to her cry as she hides stifles any vitriol I might have in me for the moment.

"Aurora, it's Uncle Danni. You can come out now," I say, forcing myself to soften my tone as I place a hand over the wooden cupboard separating us.

"I’m s-scared. Papa didn't come back like he-he promised," she hiccups, bursting into sobs.

"It’s okay, everything will be alright," I say gently, forcing myself to believe my own words, which at this point taste like nothing but a lie on my dry tongue.

"Why are you sad?" she asks after opening the door a fraction, her puffy eyes looking at me as if I held all the answers. Little does she know that I've been lost for most of my life.

"Principessa, sometimes we just are and there's nothing we can do about it. Now, please come out," I say, trying to maintain some semblance of sanity. When she opens the door wider and reaches her little arms out to me, a pang of hope appears in my chest. There is still goodness in this world…and how I fear for it.

One way or another, I will find you, my love. I swear I will.

"Don’t be afraid. It’s all over now," but only the beginning of a life without the one who loved her most.

I pick her up and run my hand through her soft hair that she used in place of a napkin while her father slowly died.

'Forza e coraggio che la vita è un passaggio.' I hear my mother’s words in my mind and I want to say: 'un passaggio sempre più doloroso' but I remain silent even in thought.

Removing Aurora from the scene is a given. I don’t want her to see him like this, nor for his lifeless image to remain in her memory for the rest of her days. I wear that visual scar daily and refuse to let her face it if there is a choice in the matter. He wouldn’t want that.

When we walk out the back door of the kitchen, I find Marizia huddled inside herself and smoking her pain away as she stares up at the pitch black sky. There’s a grieving smile on her face that seems to have aged at least ten years since I last saw her.

"La mia bella bambina," she says trying in vain to contain the sea of anguish that covers her cracked voice as she reaches out and takes her from my arms.

"Does she know?" my aunt asks in Italian while wrapping her in a tight hug.

"I want my papa. Where is he?" Aurora interrupts her, all innocent and unaware of the horrors that cover the inside of these walls. How I wish I could keep her away from it all, but life, unwavering in its resolve, will come after us all – no matter how far or fast we run.

"He'll be gone for a while, like that time he went to Luxembourg, remember? In the meantime, Marizia will take care of you, okay?" I answer with what has to be one of the most painful lies anyone will ever tell her in the course of her life.

"Who wants macarons?" my aunt asks, trying to hold back tears as she bounces Aurora on her knees.

"Macaroons? Before bed?" she asks wide-eyed, and I feel like shredding something to pieces because I know that all this innocence will soon be gone.

"With mascarpone filling," Marizia responds with simulated ease, shaking her head in despair at me while cradling my niece's sleepy head.

"Grazie e stai attento," I say, running my hand over Aurora's back; the sound of her soft snoring following me into the darkened house as I walk over to the coffee table and look for the phone I saw earlier.

As the shock begins to wear off, I realize with horror that it has been more than an hour and a half since I discovered Ophelia was missing. There must be something...

A handful of our people are already here, some of them murmuring condolences and staring at the floor as I pass by. I don't see their faces, their regret, the heaviness floating in the air like a plague that has yet to show its effects. I can't.

"Sudden cardiac arrest," Kane says from beside me as I crouch down and take Tommy's now cracked phone in my wounded hands.

"Will you have a talk to the coroner? I don't trust anyone else but you with securing that kind of information," I say, thanking the sky when the password works without a hitch. File after file, I search for the surveillance app and breathe a sigh of relief when I find it in the maze my best friend has created on his phone.

"Of course. The guys are already sticking the wallpaper over the message on the wall. The police will be none the wiser," he says, crossing his arms over his chest and looking at the screen intently.

Apparently, the bastard thought ahead and cut the camera wires inside the house, but wasn't aware that there is another panel for the ones scattered around the property.

I grit my teeth until I feel the pressure in my gums for the second time tonight when I see Travers on a screen, bent on destroying my fucking life piece by piece until I'm left with nothing.

No wonder Tommy didn't have the time to fully assess the gravity of the situation. It only took a minute and forty seconds for that psychopath to end his life and my best friend used them all to hide and save his daughter.

Fortunately, the creep panicked for some reason and faced the camera for a few seconds, partially exposing the same white van from earlier, but this time around the license plates are visible. He must have realized the fact only after he went after Ophelia.

I don't waste another second, entering the license plate number into a private archive into which Tommy has never failed to include all the data, as well as the various activities Travers has carried out since we started monitoring him.

Unbelievably, he drove the car not long ago, as the tracking device indicates. I feel like slapping my brother on the shoulder for his obsessive precision when it comes to his work, but instead my eyes find his lifeless body lying on the floor.

I can almost hear him say 'Che vuoi farci, è la vita. Almeno falla tua' as he always did when things got heavy and the bottle emptied.

Now all I can do is look the other way until I gather the strength to carry on in the name of this wayward child who will be sorely missed.

Tonight I will avenge you and that’s a vow I intend to keep with my life.

When the code finishes loading in the tracking program, my brows furrow with unease. The van is on the move, in the middle of nowhere. I'm not familiar with the wooded area, but I'm relieved to see that he has stayed within the city limits and hasn't abandoned the car.

He's getting sloppy and I feel a slight sense of ease knowing that I now have a solid lead to find her. This is the only drop of light in this nightmare at last, but I won’t rest until nothing remains of him and I have her in my arms.

"What did you find?" Kane asks as I check the distance between us, wanting to drive my fist into the nearest wall, because forty minutes could mean life and death in this limit situation.

Hopefully he's taking her to a cabin or, for all I know, maybe he's even planning to let her go. I’m aware it's a wistful thought, especially after what he did to Tommy, but I have to hope, otherwise I'll go mad and that's the last thing Ombra needs.

"After the fucker killed him, he went after Ophelia and now they're headed towards a wooded area that stretches for miles," I say, checking my keys and running out the door when he yells to wait for him.

"The girls need you and so does Tommy. Make sure they stay safe," I say before opening a path to hell for the miserable bastard who tore my life apart in a matter of hours.

"Forza e coraggio che la vita è un passaggio" it. (proverb) Strength and courage, for life is a passage.

"un passaggio sempre più doloroso" it. an increasingly painful passage.

"La mia bella bambina" it. My beautiful baby girl.

"Grazie e stai attento" it. Thank you and be careful.

"Che vuoi farci, è la vita. Almeno falla tua" it. What can you do, that's life. At least make it yours.

* * *

I've been here before. Not on this deserted road, but in this desolate state of mind. I loathe it with a burning passion; I fuel it because it pushes my foot harder on the gas, bringing me closer to Ombra.

I can feel her. Weak as a comatose pulse and I have to momentarily close my eyes as I drive in a straight line, because it's getting increasingly heavier to breathe with every mile I cover.

He had stopped in the middle of a field twenty-five minutes ago and I don't want to think about what he might be doing to the woman I love.

There's always the possibility that he could have gone somewhere else on foot, that she's not even here or that he's not the one who took the car.

Hell, overthinking eats away at my psyche like a bloodthirsty leech and I can't live with it – I need it to keep me moving. Distress is better than nothing; it braces me to annihilate anything that might stand in my way.

I'm only a few minutes from my destination, so I have to ditch the car at a safe distance from where the signal stopped. As much as I'd like to crack his skull open, I'll be putting her in even more danger if I make my presence known before the timing is right.

My insides twist with unease after I check the ammunition in my guns and make sure my knives are easily accessible in case he didn't come alone.

With a low brightness flashlight I make my way along an unpaved path, circling the spot where the target came to a halt, bringing my heartbeat to a standstill when I spot exactly what I was looking for.

In the vast darkness, amid the sound of crickets, tall grass, the faint snap of a twig, the hoot of owls – there is a sustained...whistle. A tune. Trevors.

I abandon all thought, shedding them along with the remnants of everything that's held me back to this moment in my life, as I cut like a madman on a murderous mission the expanse that separates us. Taciturn and swift as a predator, unwavering before strangling its prey to death.

His shifty eyes meet mine two seconds too late.

There is nothing but a vacuum of pent up aggression around me as I project all my hatred into pure force and kick him square in the chest. I deliver a vicious boot, the sound of his ribs cracking before he's slammed to the ground echoing in the night.

I don’t give him the time to recover, pushing my bent knee in his caved in ribs, the pathetic creature beneath me trying in vain to cover his face with his hands from the sheer violence of my fists morphing his profile in a platter of shattered bones and an unrecognizable canvas of features. I feel neither the pain of the impact, the crushing of his bones, nor the straining in my side.

I retract my arm, panting as I deliver one punch after another, using the torque and core muscles of my body, effectively giving my fist more force and knockdown power. In this way, I harness myself in the need to destroy him for taking my only love from me, for killing my brother and leaving my niece without a father.

There is no one to stop me so I have to force myself to since he is the only one that knows where she is. From the looks of his hammered face there might be the chance he already has brain damage and I can’t afford it in this moment.

"Where is she?" I ask, dragging him closer by the collar and fighting the intrinsic need to end him once and for all.

"And question of the year goes to…" he slurs, his head bobbing back and forth as he spits more blood, the very same one that should’ve dressed the grass the second I saw him in that cemetery.

I let him hit the ground, fucking done with his games. Filled with poison, I grip the sides of his face and sink my thumbs into his eyeballs, forcing them deep enough that I feel the tissue almost breaking, his agonized screams entering the earth beneath my feet.

"Stop, I'll–ahh…tell you!" he shrieks, gripping my forearms and trashing under me like the vermin he is. I don’t let him go at the sound of his spewed plea – I don’t believe him. Just like I know in my bones Ophelia begged and he didn’t spare her.

Five long seconds pass before I feel his legs stop moving behind me, taking this as my signal to let him go for the moment.

"Talk," I fume, standing up and looking wildly around. My soul leaves my body as I lift the lantern in my vicinity and see a metal rod, stuck in the ground, barely standing upright.

No, he wouldn't, he couldn't...

"What the hell have you done?!" I scream, feeling my organs failing by the second. Unable to see, to hear, to…

"Keepin' my hobby alive," he says smugly with a disfigured face, his mocking laughter growing deranged as my world dies a slow death.

Blind, I grab him by the back of his neck, crashing his skull over the edge of the nearby van until the hysterical laugh stops. Flames of agony lick at my limbs as I hoist his limp body in the back and lock the doors with the key in his pocket. It took fifteen seconds, nine blows – I counted.

I run to you, I cry out your name, I beg you to stay.

I implore to be mistaken, to be shown mercy by not being too late when I find her. I dig my hands into the damp earth, my mouth filling with freshly turned soil and gravel as I wail my pain. Ours.

I don't remember how the shovel got in my hand; my soles pushing on its metal blade as I dig my way back to her, dying myself.

Ombra is not gone. She’s right here with me, glowing with her candlelight radiance. Touching me, breathing me in, loving me with the endless power of her redemption; saving me from perdition with the grace of her martyric soul.

Living, living, living – forever here with me, not up above, even if this earth doesn't deserve her.

In the distance I hear a savage scream bordering on animalistic, a bleeding wound in the cold ground that becomes a harrowing plea. It's just me.

Can you hear me, vita mia? Why don't you answer back? Why don't you call me to you? Why are you silent?

Then the rain comes down, its thunderous cry rumbling between my ribs like a punishment, the cutting light of thunder – a warning that I must push myself to death if I have to.

Soaked to the bone, I keep digging until I can't feel my limbs. Each second seems like long, torturous years that I remember nothing of, because the thought of their existence stabs at my heart. Because it hurts like the wound of a thousand knives reaching to the bone – over and over, until they strike the marrow. I pray it’s only been minutes.

I have to get to her. I have –

Suddenly, something solid blocks me mid dig. Stricken with panic I realize it’s a wooden plank, a coffin. Her.

I fall to my knees, mad with hope and shaking with grief, as I use my bare hands to burrow further into the now buttery earth until the outline of the casket is partially visible.

Somehow, one of my hunting knives appears in my ruined hand, barely managing to stick it into the small space. I carefully slip the tip between the planks and drive it into them until they give way.

When the first one breaks in two, I rip the others with my bare hands, careful not to graze her. My soul petrifies when I don't see her hands reaching out for me, nor her voice calling my name, but I keep going.

"Mia cara," I murmur shakily, chocking on my own tears as I pull out plank after plank, creating a space wide enough to cradle her in my arms.

I don't stop to reach for my flashlight or check for a pulse. I can't.

Instead, I pull her up by the underarms until she's in a sitting position. My chest tightens in fear as I hug her cold body to me, rising to my feet and heading up the slight slope I left behind me.

She’s unmoving. Wintry. Not breathing.

Not…breathing.

No.

Ever so gently I place her on the wet soil and fight like hell for both of us, because this is not the end. Not ours. I won’t allow it.

I can barely see anything in the wrathful face of the thunderstorm, as I stick two fingers in her mouth, opening up her airway. Inwardly, I curse to hell this reality where I can't feel her warm breath on my skin, or her tongue tasting my fingers.

My eyes burn as I remove the soil residue that must have fallen from the weak lid and thank whoever might be listening that it didn’t collapse and nothing else is blocking her breathing passages.

With my elbows locked and my two trembling hands firmly planted on the center of her chest, I cross my fingers, praying with a pained heart as I do compressions. Frantic for a reaction, I lose count after twenty, no longer feeling able to contain my devastation at her lack of a response.

I tilt her head and chin, firmly locking my lips to hers while pinching her nose. Mouth to mouth, soul to soul, I give her each breath of mine, in the desperate hope that she will return it.

I feel the taste of grave in the mouth. Of death, of life, of love and everything I ever wanted and needed. My life source remains rooted in her stillness.

"Come back to me," I beg, feeling hellish fires starting to cremate my sanity as I keep pushing, keep hoping…

"Come back and tell me that our love is worth the pain...worth coming back to this damned world!" I cry, shaking uncontrollably as I kiss her closed eyes.

Silence.

I press my forehead to hers, rub our noses, breathe her in deeply.

"If you don't come back, I'll follow you right here, right now!" I say with unshakable finality.

And by some divine intervention she does hear them, she does…

Even through the forsaken darkness and unforgiving rain I can see her eyes open suddenly as she draws a long, gasping breath, followed by violent coughing. The entire time, she doesn't move her limbs, though her pinky touches my thumb.

Flooded with life-changing relief, I want to collapse to the floor, squeeze her to my chest, kiss her until I know for certain that she has truly returned to me. But my desires are the last thing on my mind as I study her.

"Tesoro mio," I whisper it like a prayer as I cradle the back of her neck and rest my forehead on her chest, delirious with gratitude as I tremble for my one and only.

"Blink twice if you can’t move," I say after giving her a minute to adjust her breathing after escaping the sickest of scenarios in existence.

I take a deep breath myself, trying to contain my wrath as I damn the bastard when she barely manages to do it.

The rain continues to pour down on us with smothering heaviness but I don’t feel it as I cradle her to my chest, indebted for life to the one who brought her back to me.

"Sleep vita mia, now you are finally safe to live," I whisper, kissing her temple over and over again; not having the strength to hold back the anguish as she faintly shakes against me. "At last", beyond death.