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Chapter Thirty-Nine

LUNA

When I enter the kitchen, Etta says something-bambini-something , then “Eat,” patting the back of a chair as she passes. I pull it out, revealing a snake on the cushion. My gasp brings her back.

“ Disgustoso !” She whips the towel off her shoulder and snaps it at the snake. “Go! Go!” She calls to the man coming right behind me. “Nunzio!”

The snake, for his part, is cold-blooded and too slow. Etta flips the towel back and picks up a fork.

“I got it!” I hold out my arm to keep her from breaking Nunzio’s heart, and scoop up the snake. She lets me. “I know,” I say to his scaly face. “He left you here and you’re just keeping warm the best you know how.”

Nunzio takes back his snake with a, “Good boy,” and wraps him around his neck. “He’s hungry.” He leaves.

Etta slides artichoke stems onto my plate, muttering Nunzio’s name and shaking her head.

She flips her hand at the chair and turns back to the kitchen as if she couldn’t care one way or the other what I do, when in fact her emotional shapes reveal that she cares a great deal.

So I take my seat and press the edge of a fresh fork into the artichoke stem.

Etta returns with a plate of chicken covered in herbs. “ Uno o due ?”

“One is fine.”

She slides one on my plate and one on hers, though I know she won’t sit down until everyone else is satisfied and her meal is cold.

The artichoke stems—a part of the plant I never considered eating—are tender and rich, almost meaty.

“These are really good,” I say after a swallow, already cutting off a bigger bite.

“ Grazie .” Etta tips half a pot of rice into a bowl, then the rest on my plate.

“I appreciate everything you’ve done for me.” I saw the knife through the chicken.

“ Si, si .”

I know she doesn’t understand a word I’m saying, but I have to say what needs saying.

“You totally have my best interests at heart. And I love that you’re so enthusiastic about this quiet island and all the work you put into arranging it.

” I chew, and my brain is taken over by the flavor.

“Chicken does not taste like this at home and I have no idea why.”

“ Vino ?” She angles a carafe of white wine over the jelly glass at the head of my setting.

“I’m good… oh, okay then. Not too much. I don’t want to get loopy.”

She fills her glass, taps it to mine, and slugs down half of the wine before going back to the stove. I take a sip out of respect and go back to dinner.

“So, I want you to know that it’s not you guys.” I rip away a piece of bread and sop up the last of the grit and sauce in the ridges of the plate.

Standing at the counter, Etta says a few words in Italian and dunks her bread in her wine before she eats it.

“It’s just that I need to work out my own shit in my own way, and if I come back… I’ll cook for you. It won’t taste this good but… um.” The rest of the sentence dies on a dry tongue. “Do you have any water? Acqua ?”

The room is a little swimmy. I don’t feel drunk or anything. I had half a sip of wine, and instinct says it’s not that. There’s something a little insecure and untethered about the room, and the house, and…

It’s me. I’m the untethered one.

“I really feel like I need to…” Etta places a glass of warm water in my hand and stands there. She doesn’t seem concerned at all. “I can do what my heart wants and what my mind wants just not at the same… whoa.”

The room swings. I grab for Etta. She grabs me back, but shows no other outward sign of concern.

Shit.

They drugged me. These fucking bitches.

“What…” I push the plate away and almost drop onto the table. “This?”

Etta catches me and says something reassuring that I wouldn’t believe in any language.

“But…” I lurch off the chair, get a leg under me, and wind up in a crouch, gripping the counter.

Silvia swims around in the space between my eyes and some foggy everywhere. Where did she come from?

I’m going to an island. It’s peaceful and someone speaks English.

“Viaroario.” I smash the two names together, because there are two of them, and they’re not going to let me just get carted out of here.

“The sun is up.” Silvia gets her shoulder under my arm. “I hear you packed already?”

I don’t have to ask about Nunzio. If they drugged me, he’s draped over some chair. Poor guy. Carmine’s going to be so mad. Nunzio obeyed him, and I ended up on an island anyway.

“No,” I whisper, but Silvia walks my noodle-legs to the door.

Corrado’s voice cuts through the fog, barking something in Italian. Silvia responds. I tip into a wall. It holds me up.

Corrado comes into view. “He’s awake.”

“Help,” I scream, but like a dream, it comes out as a hoarse whisper.

“He needs your blood,” Corrado says.

Etta rattles off in Italian, there’s a reply. A fight and for fuck’s sake, how did I not pick up the basics of this language?

I slide sideways against the wall, hitting the door molding. It won’t hold for long. Silvia can’t catch me, but—amid the yelling—Nunzio does. He’s here. I put my hand on him to push him away, but end up touching the snake.

Nunzio’s going to keep me here, or they’re going to take me where they want. Away from Carmine, which is good, but so bad. My choice between feeling good and being good, between good for me and bad for someone else, isn’t a choice. It’s someone else’s math homework.

Corrado is screaming and crying. Reaching for me, trying to get through Nunzio. He is determined. He would force my blood into Ferrante the first chance he gets. He has no choice but to do the wrong thing.

I think no no no and get away from Nunzio so he can argue with the two women while he shoves Corrado into the dining room.

Forgotten for a moment, I push myself away from the wall.

The molding that I felt was around the laundry closet.

There’s a blob of Nike blue on the floor.

I step to the side. Balance poorly. Back into a piece of furniture, then a woman.

“Mom?”

“Are you drunk?”

“Mom.” I swipe for the Nike bag, get it, but almost fall in the process.

Nunzio catches me. The door out of here is so close. I have a delusion I can get to it. Open it. Run through it. Get to the gate.

Out—just to know if I’d go find him.

Out—just to see if I want to come back.

Out to my deepest desires or my mindless obedience.

I tuck the duffel bag in my elbow. The space between me and walking out of here with something or nothing is too big to lose it.

My hand tingles as if it’s holding an electric toothbrush. The air vibrates. The valence lines live in my sense of touch. The surface of my skin—my entire body crackles with them.

“What?” Nunzio is holding me, asking me the question I should be asking myself.

The room swims. I need to get out. Carmine is out. Life is out. Everything is out. Are there valence lines out of here? I’ll find them on my skin.

I clutch Mom so I can use her as leverage to launch myself out of this house.

“Out,” I say thickly.

“What did you do to her?” My mother’s roar saturates my entire mind. The answer is a background chorus.

“Out.”

“She isn’t safe here.” Mom grabs me by the hand. Nunzio holds on. “Enough!”

“Carmine.”

Once his name leaves my lips, everything turns white.

I blink six thousand miles away.