Chapter 17
Roma Will Have To Wait
It's the most excruciating run of my life.
Now, I'm not a runner, to be clear. I'll do a few miles once in a while, but I prefer to get my conditioning in other ways.
That said, I have had my share of brutal runs—be it from the distance, heat, humidity, elevation, or incline.
I've run through charley horses and cramps in the side and a twisted ankle, once. But the run— although that’s a generous term for it— that takes me from the pier to the hostel is the longest, hardest, most painful ten minutes of my entire life.
When I told Story the other wound was a creased bicep, I was being…
conservative. It's actually a round straight through the meat of my bicep and tricep and another that bounced off my shoulder bone and for sure broke something. Plus the wound to my side. Plus the blood loss. Worry for Story. Fear that I won’t make it.
I'll miss him, and we’ll be stuck here, and in our states, we won’t be able to fight off the next wave, assuming we don’t bleed out by then.
I need a phone. I need to call Mom and Dad. I'm running out of…everything. Strength. Courage. Resolve. I just want to go home.
But then I hear Story’s scream of pain, and I realize that she rarely shows physical pain.
One summer, she got stung by a jellyfish.
She was thirteen, I was eight or so, and I remember vividly seeing her face tight with pain as Selah tended to her, but Story never made a peep.
When she broke her ankle playing beach volleyball, again, she never made a sound—didn’t cry, nothing.
Not so much as a single F-bomb. Which tells me how much pain she must be in, and that spurs me onward, wakes me up, forces me to gut through my own discomfort.
I long to stop and catch my breath, but I dare not.
I round a corner and shuffle to a halt—the hostel is just there, roped off with caution tape, although the cops and ambulances are all long gone by now.
I have no phone, no watch, no way to tell the time, but it feels like it's been less than ten minutes.
I have to have made it.
Have to.
I slump against the corner, panting, scanning. There—down at the end of the dead-end street, a lump of darkness pulls away from the wall and saunters this way.
"American?" A voice, pitched low, familiar. "That is you?"
"Yeah," I mutter. "My name is Killian." I realize belatedly that I probably should have given him a fake name, but I’m woozy, exhausted, in pain, scared, and worried—not thinking straight.
"I am Dante." He's still just an outline in the darkness. "Come-come. Where is your girlfriend?" Girl-FREN.
"Pier. Hurt."
"Ohhhh, merda. All of that shooting? That was you?"
“Yeah."
“You win?"
"Alive, so yeah."
A white spot of light flares to life—a cell phone flashlight; he waves it over me, scanning me. "Cazzo! Mio Dio, you are not so good, huh?"
"Been better. She’s worse.”
He shoves his shoulder under my armpit. “Okay, okay. Mio tio, he will help you. He is parking his boat not far from where you are shooting."
We make our way back toward the pier, and still the local law enforcement is suspiciously absent from a full-blown, extended firefight. I remember hearing sirens in the distance, and then…nothing.
"Is it normal for the cops to not respond?" I ask as we reach the pier, where all is still dead silent.
Poor choice of words, I suppose.
Dante just laughs. "I should think no. Olbia is not having many crimes like this." He grunts in surprise as we shuffle to a halt at the cluster of SUVs and the dead bodies scattered around them—and it's a lot of dead bodies. "Whoever you are, they wanted you very dead."
"Sucks for them."
He barks a laugh. "Sì sì, very big suck for them."
"That's not—" I halt, laughter turning into a cough of pain. "Never mind. This way. She’s over here."
Dante helps me over to where I left Story, and I find her slumped against the tire, head lolling to one side, hand flopped to her lap.
"STORY!" I cry, falling away from Dante's support, dropping to my knees and reaching for her. "Story?"
I press two fingers to her throat, and I have to hunt around a little bit until I find a faint but steady pulse, and I let out a sob of relief. "Thank god, she's alive. Just unconscious. You help her, I'll follow."
"You barely can walk, mio amico.”
"I'll be fine." I reach up. "Can you shine your light on her?"
The white light flares, and I check her wound—it's bled through the gauze. I slide a hand under her, which must cause pain since she moans even unconscious—no exit wound. Shit.
I do for her what she did for Enzo and the only thing I can do—shove a tampon in there and hope for the best. I stick a pad over it and then shoulder the bag. "Okay, let's get her up." I take her hands. "Story? We gotta move, babe."
"Mmm."
"Story?"
“Mmm."
I cup her cheek. "Hey. C'mon. Need your help, sweetheart."
"Killy?" It's a muzzy whisper, tight with pain, slow, confused.
"I'm here."
“Hurts."
"I know. We're gonna get you help."
"How…you?"
I sniffle a laugh. "Jesus, babe. I'm fine. No big deal."
Headlights sweep this way. "Ehi…I think maybe we go some faster, hey? Someone, they come, and it is no good for us to be here no more."
"We gotta get up, babe. Gotta move."
"Kay. I'll try."
We work together to get Story to her feet; Dante takes the brunt of her weight while I provide support on her other side.
She's delirious. "Hey, you must be the drug dealer buddy."
“His name is Dante," I say.
"Dante. Dante. Dante. Daaaaaan…tayyy!"
I clap a hand over her mouth. "We don't need to sing right now, babe. We're trying to get away from the dozen or so dead dudes without attention."
"A dozen?"
"Or so. I think. I don't know. I didn't stop to count."
"That's more than five."
I snort. “Yep, true."
"Duzzat make twenty…four?"
"Ish, yeah."
"Big numbers. Lotta dead dudes. Big, big numbers." She nuzzles me with her nose. "You've got a big number."
Dante cackles at this. "Oh man, she is a funny one."
"She's delirious."
“Sì. We are nearly there. Not so much further." He grunts as he helps Story regain her balance when she trips. "You are gonna owe me more money, American."
"Get us medical help and to the mainland, and I'll set you up for life."
"Oh, so easy, hey?"
I snort. "You've got no fuckin' idea, Dante."
"What does this mean?"
"Don't worry about it. Just know that my word is good. You will be recompensed beyond your wildest dreams.”
"But…what is it, to be set up for life?"
"Enough money that you can stop slinging dope, how about that?"
"And then what do I do?"
"Up to you. Keep slinging dope, if you want. Or buy a boat and sail off into the sunset. Your call."
“You are a very rich man?"
"Sort of."
He guides us down a length of dock to a fairly large private fishing boat—thirty feet, maybe.
Old, with a high, curved prow and a low, squat, open-backed cockpit.
The engine is idling with a low snarling burble—despite the scuffed, scratched hull and peeling paint and mess of nets on the deck, that engine sounds nasty.
Powerful, souped-up. Something tells me this uncle-nephew pair does more than sell dime bags of pot to tourists.
"Tio!" Dante calls. "Aiutami!"
A tall, broad-shouldered man with hunched posture hurries out of the cockpit, jabbering at Dante in Italian far too fast for me to follow even a word.
He's on the far side of middle-aged, Dante's uncle, with a thick salt-and-pepper beard and wavy salt-and-pepper hair swept to one side and dangling in front of one eye.
His hands are huge and weathered as he reaches to help us with Story.
He swats at Dante's hands and simply scoops Story up in his arms and carries her down below deck.
The ceiling is low enough that we have to stoop.
Wood-paneled walls, a diner-style booth with the Formica-topped table bolted to the floor, and cracked red vinyl cushions.
A kitchenette with a dorm-sized fridge, a few cabinets, a long bench that doubles as a bed, and a narrow doorway to a bedroom just big enough for the bed itself.
Dante’s uncle kneels on the bed and gently sets Story down, and then does a quick, knowledgeable scan of her injuries, probing with gentle fingers, carefully peeling her shirt up to take a look at my quick done-in-the-dark triage.
He spits rapid-fire Italian at me, and Dante translates.
"He say she is in bad shape. Need un medico, presto.
No make it to Roma." More rapid, angry-sounding Italian.
"This was to be a ride to Roma. Now all is change. There is the shooting. Un elicottero come. It fly low, fast. Now you come here with a girl who is shooted.” A pause to listen and mentally translate.
“Is big trouble. He say he make it to this old age from caution and think good about…
ehhh…i rischi." He trades Italian with his uncle, with a few English words sprinkled in.
“The risk, sì. The risk. The danger. Sì? You bring danger."
I'm swaying on my feet, my head is throbbing, my wound throbs. I'm exhausted. Scared for Story. "I'll pay whatever you want. Just please, help us."
The uncle listens to Dante, tsking in irritation, and then gently pushes me toward Story. "Lay, lay. Is okay. I help."
"We do bring danger," I murmur, grunting as I let myself collapse to the bed, sitting for a moment. "I wish I didn't have to involve you."
"Who is danger?" Dante asks.
I shake my head. "The less you know, the better for you."
Dante translates this for his uncle, who just nods a few times and then rattles off something to Dante. An exchange ensues, and then Dante addresses me. "We make for Golfo Aranci. Not so far, and my uncle, he knows un medico."
"How long?"
"Maybe one hour, or one hour and one half."
The uncle juts a chin at me. "You…" he does a finger gun with a quiet vocal mimic of a gunshot. It’s a question, asking me if I’m shot as well.