Page 34

Bella

The door opened one more time before the sun fully set. A bald, sour-faced man in a three-piece suit came in, carrying a large shopping bag with something white and lacy folded up inside it, bulging over the top of it.

He tossed it on the floor by the door, not setting foot inside the room.

“Put that on,” he barked. “Dante’s orders. You better have it done by the time he comes to check. Or he’ll chop off your boyfriend’s hand and bring it to you.”

He was gone before I could say anything, the door once again locked, once again leaving me alone with my waking nightmares that he just added a juicy detail to.

A wedding dress is in the bag he brought. Very old by the looks of it. Another thing that maybe his great-grandmother brought here from the old country. It’s covered in so much handmade lace I can hardly tell which way is up or down, let alone figure out how to put it on.

Every time I look at it, I see Blade’s dismembered hand lying next to it. And every time I think about disobeying the order I see his pained, contorted face as they cut it off. I did this to him.

So I have no damn choice.

My whole life I was raised to believe I had no choice in anything, especially love. I believed I was bred for the sole purpose of getting married so my father could make better connections. Everything was done for me. Everything was decided for me. What I wanted played no part.

Until I met Blade.

He gave me all the choices. Gave me all the love anyone could ever give me. And more. Believed in me, supported me, fought for me.

I will not be the cause of him getting hurt. So even though I doubt it will save him or prevent anything that will happen next, I put on the dress.

It’s huge, but at the same time barely fits.

Women back in the day were much smaller, and if it weren’t for how tight it is across my breasts and hips, I’d look like a total marshmallow in it.

The lace it’s covered with is torn in places, yellowed in others and so hard it cuts into my skin.

It smells of mothballs and a mustiness that makes my nose itch uncontrollably within a minute of putting it on.

But I’m not taking it off. The Butcher can take it off himself after he beats me into unconsciousness. Because that’s the only way he gets to have me. I will give him nothing willingly.

In another life, my wedding day would be a happy day.

I’d already began to plan my and Blade’s wedding.

Nothing concrete. Just that everyone would be there, happy, cheering for us, and that afterwards we’d ride out to our spot on the cliffs and promise each other entirety all over again. In words and deeds.

But that’s never gonna be my life.

I knew that as a young girl, stuck in my father’s fancy cage. But back then I had dreams and believed I could change that. I don’t anymore. But at least I had a life in between. However brief it was. A life worth living. I’m just sorry I brought so many people down to have it. Especially Blade.

The sky outside the windows is pitch black, no stars anywhere, and cars are arriving. That’s probably The Butcher coming to get me. It’s fitting that my marriage to that monster will take place in the dead of night like the nightmare it is.

Whoever is trying to unlock my door now is having a lot of trouble with it. They’re making noise like they keep missing the lock, and at some point it sounds like they’re just scratching at it. Like a monster is trying to get it.

My heart’s racing because I’ve had waking nightmares before, seeing things that weren’t there, fearing them so much I thought my heart is gonna explode.

The door finally opens and now my heart wants to explode in a whole different way. Blade is standing there, staring at me with his wide, warm eyes in which I can always see love. Even when it’s obscured by other things.

But I’ve been shown good things by my mind too in the past. Great things that turned out the worst.

He rushes to me and gives me such a warm and tight embrace, I literally forget to be afraid. “Bella, thank God. I thought I’d lost you.”

“Never,” I whisper.

“We gotta go, fast,” he says, holding my hand with his left and clutching a very large knife in his right.

I kick off my flip-flops so I can move faster. Whatever this is, even if it’s just some sort of hallucination of my tortured soul, I’m here for it. Because it’s better than waiting in a dark room for The Butcher to come and claim me.

But with every creaking step we take down the long dark hallway, the reality sinks in a little deeper. I am getting saved. And Blade is free too. It’s not just a dream.

He leads the way to the wooden staircase that connects all the levels of this house. Only the bottom floor is lit up and I hear muffled voices, but not what they’re saying.

“There’s another staircase. The service one,” I say and start leading the way past the main one. “We’ll be more hidden there.”

Blade looks at me questioningly, but I just nod and keep walking.

It’s behind one of the many doors, I just don’t remember which one.

I know because I’ve been here before, once when I was very young and my father promised me to Dante.

A friendly woman, his step-mother, I think, showed me the house while the men talked.

She took me all over, revealing all the hidden passages, until we emerged in Dante’s room.

He was just a boy then too. And very annoyed at seeing me.

He threw the book he was reading at me and screeched that I should get out.

I remember that very clearly, right down to the grimace on his face and that the book was actually an old Batman and Robin comic book collection. But I don’t remember which door hides the secret staircase.

Then I see it. A door just like the others, only slightly narrower.

“This is it,” I say and open it, hoping I’m right.

I am. Finally something’s going my way.

The only light in this staircase is coming from a roof window far above us where the moon is shining down, but faintly.

I’m tripping all over the damn wedding dress as we descend the stairs.

The voices I heard earlier are getting louder as we descend, at one point I hear Dante’s as though he’s standing right next to us.

“I have something for you,” he’s saying. “Something you’ll like very much. And I think you will appreciate the ingenious way I procured it for you… “

“That pompous idiot,” I whisper. “Well, the joke’s on him.”

“Not until we get out of here,” Blade says in his pragmatic voice.

As though to punctuate his point, a set of thudding footsteps enters the room in which Dante is still bragging about his achievements. His self-important voice is cut off as the newcomer tells him something I can’t hear.

“You fucking idiots,” Dante yells. “You had one little job. You fucking incompetent idiots.”

“I’m think he knows we’re gone,” Blade says. “We gotta run.”

We’d been going slowly and silently so as not to be heard through the walls, but now we’re running. I’m hiking up my dress, almost tripping and tumbling down the stairs more than once. But I somehow manage to stay on my feet.

Men are running down the dark hallway we exit into on the ground floor, but I can only hear them, can’t see them yet.

Blade takes my hand again. “This way.”

Wedding dresses were not made for running in. Probably to prevent the unwilling brides from doing exactly that. But I’m running away with the man I do want to marry. And that gives me all the wind I need.

The men chasing us have their guns drawn and are yelling for us to stop. They’re gaining on us, because every door Blade kicks down is the wrong one, none of them lead out into the garden.

So close. We’re so close. To our freedom. To our future. But what in my life ever turned out to be easy? Absolutely nothing.

A loud bang sounds, rattling the very foundations of the house just as a flash of light brighter than the sun blinds me through the door Blade just kicked down.

I can’t see, my ears are ringing and a part of my mind is sure I’d just seen the gates of Heaven open for me. Or Hell more like, given the trajectory of my life.

My feet aren’t touching the ground anymore. I’m being carried and bangs and flashes are going off everywhere, lighting up the dense darkness of night.

If I must wake up from this nightmare I hope it’ll be in Hell and not that bedroom in Dante’s house. But I’d much rather just not wake up at all unless it’s somewhere safe and in Blade’s arms.

So close. Blade and I came so close. But we didn’t quite make it. Just like we never do.