Chapter 7 - Garrett
Everything hurt. I didn’t think I could recall a time in my life when I’d been in more pain. I was lying down, as far as I could tell, but the only thing orienting me was the feeling of softness against my back, contrasting the cold air above me.
It was bright, wherever I was. I’d assume Heaven, despite never being much of a believer, but everything I’d ever learned about the place suggested that it would not be filled with this much agony.
Perhaps the other place then?
"I can see that you’re awake."
A familiar voice cut through the quiet, and although it was soft, it punched through my ears like a fist. I swallowed once and tried to respond, but I couldn’t get any sound to pass through my dry lips.
"Oh, come on," Brother Lucas’s voice sounded almost amused, and I was glad to discover that I was able to feel something other than pain, even if it was blind annoyance. "It can’t be that bad."
"I assure you," I croaked, "it can."
He chuckled, and when I finally peeled my eyes open to look at him, he was holding out a glass of water. Gingerly, I pulled myself into a sitting position, every piece of me screaming in agony as I moved, and reached out to take it with shaking fingers.
As I did, I froze.
It took me a few seconds to register that the hand reaching for the glass of water was, in fact, mine. Covered in cuts and bruises with swollen knuckles, it looked like the hand of a prizefighter.
Then I remembered that I wasn’t just a mild-mannered office worker anymore, and the events of the evening came flooding back to me.
Watching my internal struggle without commentary, Lucas moved the glass the final few inches into my hands, and I allowed my fingers to clasp around it on autopilot.
I took a slow sip at first, then let the cool water rush down my throat in a few deep gulps.
I had never tasted anything so delicious in my life.
When I finished, Lucas took the glass from me and refilled it from a carafe on the bedside table without a word, and I repeated the action. This happened at least twice more before I finally felt satiated, and I sat breathing heavily in my bed.
"So," Lucas finally said, setting the empty glass on the table beside the carafe. "You’re clearly alive, which means that whatever did this to you wasn’t one of them.
" His tone was pointed. "But when Brother Miles found you, you were nearly not alive, so we would very much like to know who exactly did do this. "
I swallowed again before answering, somehow already thirsty again. "Do you remember those men we saw at the fountain the other day?"
"The obnoxious group fondling the statue?" Lucas’s voice was more alarmed than I would have anticipated. He raised his eyebrows. "They did this?"
"All of them together, yes." I nodded. "They were harassing a woman, and—"
I cut off, a flash of memory from the previous night blazing to the forefront of my mind.
A woman, tall and statuesque, with short cropped hair, cornered against the stone walls in the alley behind a club.
Even as I approached the confrontation, even seeing how they outnumbered her, something had told me that it was not she who was trapped with them.
They had been trapped with her.
"And?" Lucas prodded, looking troubled.
"And I don’t remember much, to be honest," I shrugged, staring down at my hands in my lap. "I stepped in to try to make them leave her alone, and when they saw it was me, they attacked. I woke up here. I’m not sure what happened to her."
A flash of sharp, concerned green eyes. The tight pull of a slender arm as it carried me down the twisting back streets of Rossaia…
When I looked up again, Lucas was chewing on his bottom lip.
"What’s wrong?" I asked.
It took him a moment to respond, as if he were weighing whether I was well enough to hear the answer. "Those men were found killed early this morning," he said slowly. "About a mile away from where we found you, actually." His tone was loaded.
I felt the blood drain from my face.
"Lucas, you have to know I didn’t do it," I said, voice high and desperate.
Lucas shook his head. "I know you didn’t." His eyes studied my face carefully. "It was one of them."
A hot and heavy dread settled on me like a lead weight.
"One of… them?" I repeated dumbly.
He nodded. "The police found them before we could, unfortunately, and it led to a lot of uncomfortable conversations. Not all of them are wholly aware of our operation, and we like to keep it that way. But we couldn’t hide what had been done to them. Not after the fact."
I closed my eyes, knowing I didn’t want an answer to the question I was about to ask. Somewhere, in the far corners of my consciousness, the sound of tearing flesh echoed in my memory. "What had been done to them?" I finally asked, barely above a whisper.
"Well… they were exsanguinated." He looked sick as he spoke. "And that was just the start. There were pieces of them scattered around an alley in the north part of the city, outside a pretty popular nightclub. But I’m sure you already knew that."
I nodded, and he continued. "A cleaning lady had found them. She was taking out the rubbish and stumbled upon them on her way to the bins. Apparently she was still screaming long after the police arrived, poor girl."
My mouth suddenly felt dry again, and I reached for the carafe and glass only to find it empty.
"Garrett." Lucas’s voice was tight as a bowstring. "I think that the woman you saw might have been one of them."
I shook my head. "It’s not possible."
"I don’t believe it myself." He bit his lip as he spoke. "Because why would she leave you, an obvious member of the Fratelli, alive?"
All the blood in my veins suddenly chilled. Because why did she leave me alive?
"She couldn’t have been," I insisted. "She was too…" I trailed off.
"Too… what?" Lucas asked sharply. "I went over this with you. They don’t look like monsters. They look like women—beautiful women." He leveled me with a withering stare. "Was she beautiful?"
I didn’t answer, but it seemed like my face spoke for me.
"What do you remember about her?" His tone shifted, suddenly eager in a way that made my skin crawl.
Again, green eyes and short, sharp black hair flashed through my mind.
"I don’t remember." I wasn’t sure where the lie came from, or why it came so easily, but it was out of my mouth and hanging in the air before I had a chance to second-guess its prudence. "I didn’t get a very good look at her, and I think my head was hit pretty badly."
Lucas stared at me for a long few seconds, as if searching for the truth behind my words.
"Are you sure?" he finally asked. If he knew I was lying, he was obviously unwilling to accuse me outright.
"It’s rare that we know what one of them looks like before they have a chance to attack.
Knowing what to look for could save the life of one of our brothers. It could help us get a leg up on them."
Guilt trickled down my spine, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell the truth. "I genuinely don’t remember what she looked like," I whispered. "I think she had dark hair? But the rest is all a blur."
A small part of me felt less guilty, telling at least a small piece of the truth. Her hair was definitely dark. Unfortunately, many women in Rossaia had dark hair.
He stared at me for several long seconds before finally deflating against his chair. "That’s unfortunate."
I turned my eyes from his to look out the window at the bright, blinding sunshine outside. "I’m sorry," I said quietly, although I wasn’t absolutely sure for which sin I was apologizing.