Chapter 23 - Garrett
It was dark by the time we left the study. Lucas escorted Marella and me from the building, trying to keep up the ruse that she was his niece. He walked with us around the corner, none of us speaking, until we were far enough from home to slip into the crowd.
All the while, I felt her presence beside me like the wind. She was there, so close that her arm sometimes brushed against the sleeve of my Fratelli robe, but we never really touched.
And I was suddenly very aware of how badly I wanted to touch her. Maybe it was the knowledge that this desperation was explicitly feeding the monster responsible for her—and now my—curse. Maybe it was just… her.
But the longer we walked, the more I wanted to ask Lucas to simply… fuck off.
Finally, he cleared his throat. "I’m going to go for a drink," he said. "Would you two care to join me?"
I glanced at Marella. Her eyes met mine for a fraction of a second before looking away again.
"I think I’m going to go back, actually," I said, feigning a yawn. Lucas’s raised eyebrows told me that he didn’t believe me in the slightest.
"I assume you have somewhere to be as well?" He addressed the question to Marella, but he shot me a sly look as he spoke.
I rolled my eyes.
Her face remained impassive. "No," she said flatly. "But I don’t want a drink."
Lucas burst into laughter. "Fair enough. I appreciate the honesty."
With a quick glance between us, he turned on his heel, waving over his shoulder as he walked away.
And then, finally, we were alone.
We stood for a long moment, watching Lucas fade into the mingling mass of bodies.
What was I supposed to say to her?
I opened my mouth once, then closed it again. When I turned to look at her, I was startled to find that she had walked away. I scanned the crowd for a few seconds before I spotted the red dress swishing against the back of her thighs.
I ran to catch up with her. When I did, she barely glanced at me before continuing forward.
We walked like that for a while. At first, I thought she might be heading towards Piazza Centrale, towards her family. But then, she turned down a side street, and I followed.
I followed her for what felt like ages, passing in and out of busy streets, winding through alleys and narrow passages.
Finally, we reached a gate. I was fairly sure we were somewhere on the north side of the city, not far from where we first met just a few nights ago. She stopped in front of the black-painted metal, clasping it in both hands and looking out at what lay beyond.
I let my eyes move in the same direction as her, but I couldn’t tell what she was looking at. The gate seemed somewhat randomly placed; there was no driveway or home on the other side, just a long slab of concrete, slightly curved, that was covered with trash and stank of piss.
"This used to be water," she said after a long while.
"It wasn’t even that long ago. I remember seeing tourists take pictures of this place with modern cameras.
At night, especially, the water in this canal would reflect the lights from the buildings on either side.
" Her throat moved heavily, like she were swallowing back a bitter pill. "It was beautiful."
I nodded. I remembered now. This place was depicted in older tourism books describing Rossaia. It had been one of the last remaining visible canals.
"What was it like?" I asked, staring out at the piles of trash, at the shadows they cast along the bottom of the old waterway.
She glanced at me. "What was what like?"
"The city." I inclined my head. "When it was… I don’t know… nice?"
A laugh escaped her lips, and the sound made my heart stutter. It was such a rare and precious thing, I wanted to catch it and hold it tight.
"You don’t think the city is nice now?" She was making a joke, but I could hear the edge in her voice.
"I think the city is decaying," I answered carefully. "Like, everywhere I go, I smell… something rotten. But I don’t get the sense that it was always like this."
Something sad crept into the corners of her eyes, and she looked away from me again. "No," she said. "It wasn’t always like this."
Slowly, she released her grip on the metal of the gate. Flecks of black clung to her skin, and she brushed them off as she started to walk.
Again, I followed her.
"Do you know how the ground smells when the weather is hot and it suddenly rains?" she asked after a few minutes.
"Yes?"
"That’s what the city used to smell like." She navigated the streets deftly, like she could do so with her eyes closed.
She probably could.
"Everything was fresh and clean. Things just… worked. They worked slowly, but they worked. And we were there for all of it, supporting where we could, bringing fish and playing with children. Life was quiet and simple. There were conflicts, of course, but for the most part, people just lived."
As we walked, she occasionally raised a hand and let it drag against the walls around us, flakes of stone falling to the ground behind her fingers.
Before I realized we were even close, I looked up, and we were standing beside the fountain at Piazza Centrale.
I eyed the swirling water nervously, remembering what had happened when I’d taken a sip in her apartment.
She, on the other hand, was no longer bound by that particular piece of the curse, and she reached in and swirled her fingers around in the clear water.
"Why can you touch the water and I can’t?" I asked, feeling an uncomfortable tickling sensation at the back of my throat. I was thirsty, but I knew it wasn’t for this.
She glanced over her shoulder at me. "You think I understand her reasons for anything?" Her tone was flat, with just the slightest hint of incredulity. "If we’ve learned anything about her, it’s probably safe to guess that she just wanted to make things harder on us."
Her face collapsed into a frown. "Or," she said, chewing on her bottom lip in the frustrated way she sometimes did, "maybe it’s something to do with the fact that I’m… free." She struggled to get the last word out before turning her attention back to the water. "I’m sure you’ve noticed that you’re thirsty again," she said, quieter.
I nodded. She couldn’t see me, but she seemed to sense my response anyway.
"That’s another thing that’s different." She didn’t look at me as she spoke, addressing every word to the statue above us.
"When we woke up, we just needed to feed once, and we were fine until the next month.
But now, I can already feel myself needing more.
I never felt thirsty when we were encased in stone, but it was always there when we were awake.
I can only imagine that the volume necessary for survival has increased to match the extra energy expenditure. "
I swallowed against the sensation in my throat.
She straightened and removed her hand from the water, shaking it dry carefully, so that nothing sprayed onto my skin.
"I think we’ll be okay tonight," she said.
"At least, I hope so, because I don’t have the energy to go hunting.
" Her lips pulled into the facsimile of a smile. "But tomorrow, we should probably do something about it. If you come to the apartment, I’ll go find someone to drink from, and you can drink from me again, if that’s easier—"
"No." I cut her off harshly, surprising even myself. Her mouth snapped shut audibly, and she raised her eyebrows. "Sorry," I said, more quietly. "But I don’t think that’s a good idea."
I tried to make myself forget the way it had felt to drink from her before. Tried to shake the noises she had made from my memory.
I tried to erase everything that had happened next…
We couldn’t do that again. Because I didn’t know if I’d be able to stop if it happened a second time.
"I mean," I continued, trying to sound nonchalant. "I’m going to have to learn how to hunt at some point, right? We don’t know how long it’ll take to break this curse, and I can’t just keep relying on you to feed me for years."
I laughed, but she didn’t join in. Instead, her face collapsed. Her eyes fell to the ground at our feet, and her shoulders slumped.
She looked like she was about to… cry. And the thought alarmed me so much that I didn’t think before reaching out and grasping her shoulders with both hands.
"Hey," I said as gently as I could manage. I was tempted to pull her close, but thought better of it. "Hey, hey, hey. I’m sorry. I was just teasing…"
I trailed off. She refused to look at me.
Around us, a few bystanders were starting to notice. They giggled and pointed, clearly trying (and failing) to be discreet about it.
Marella glared at them. She shook off my hands and turned away from the fountain, marching towards the apartment building. I trailed after her, wondering what I’d said to elicit such an emotional response.
Thankfully, the entrance was at least somewhat private, hidden off to the side of the piazza. When we reached the door, she paused before going inside.
She turned to look at me, face partially obscured by shadows, but I could still see the bright green of her eyes as they studied me.
The intensity of her gaze made me feel like an insect, pinned to a wall. I could see the glittering tracks of tears sliding down her cheeks. In that moment, all I wanted was to reach out and touch them, to wipe them away. I wanted to be the reason they disappeared, not the root of their existence.
And so, I raised my hand, slowly, and placed it against the side of her face. I heard her breath catch, watched as her eyes closed, and she tilted her head ever so slightly into my touch.
I lifted my thumb and brought it back down at the corner of her lips, then gently swiped it upward, towards her eye.
When she didn’t move away, I repeated the movement with my other hand, wiping at both sides of her face until the tears were gone. All the while, her eyes fluttered, but didn’t open.
I looked at her lips, at the way they were parted, just slightly, beneath my fingers. Without meaning to, I had moved closer to her. Our faces were close enough that I could feel her breath against my nose.
When I looked up again, her eyes were open. She lowered them a fraction, to my lips, before raising them again.
The air between us thrummed with heavy anticipation. It was like last night, but softer, thicker, and slower.
This time, when I bent down to kiss her, I didn’t feel rushed or frantic or desperate.
This time, when our lips met, they melded together like waves and sand, pushing and pulling and sliding. Her arms wrapped around my back, and I slid my fingers away from her face and into her hair, letting the soft, silky strands slide around my knuckles.
I felt my heartbeat in every part of my body, like I was tumbling down a rollercoaster with no end in sight.
And then, just as suddenly as it began, she pulled away. The places where her arms had been felt cold in the night air.
She turned her face from me and stepped backwards until her back hit the door.
"I’m sorry," was all she said as she wiped the back of her hand against her lips.
"I’m sorry," she repeated as she fumbled for her keys—the keys I’d given her just a couple of days prior.
When she finally looked at me again, her eyes held more weight than I ever thought one person could carry.
"I’m so sorry," she said again.
This time, when she said the words, she swung open the door, stepped inside, and swung it closed. But just before it shut completely, she spoke again. "Meet me here tomorrow. I’ll take you hunting."
And then, there was nothing but wood and metal in my face, and I was left standing there, alone, my hands still raised, holding onto the ghost of her presence.