Page 1 of Where Quiet Hearts Scream (Dark Hearts #3)

S erafina

Seven years earlier.

It’s clear the moment we step out of the car that something is wrong.

Instinctively, I reach for Bambi’s hand, a reflex I’ve developed since we buried Mama three weeks ago. My little sister is only ten, four years younger than me and two years younger than Tess, and though she may not always show it, she feels Mama’s absence just as we all do.

Aunt Allegra comes up behind us, pressing soft palms to our backs and moving us along the driveway to the front door. She doesn’t say anything but I know she can feel it too.

I glance up at her and for once there aren’t tears streaming down her cheeks. It seemed like those were going to be a permanent fixture for a while. But her firm jaw and gaze trained on the door handle unnerve me.

She turns the lock and we step inside. The entranceway feels dark, as though the walls have closed in.

I thought I would have gotten used to that by now, but I’m beginning to understand it’s something I’ll never get used to.

The sound of Mama’s laughter doesn’t ring around the hallways anymore.

The click of her heels can’t be heard on the kitchen tile.

The absence of those is louder than silence.

“Go to the living room, girls. I’ll get us some sodas,” Allegra says, her tone tight with apprehension.

I keep hold of Bambi’s hand as we walk carefully through the house to the living room. Before we reach the sofa, I hear it. A long, low wail followed by a series of frantic raps on a door. My shoulders stiffen.

“Trilby, love. Please come out. I’m worried about you.” Papa’s voice from upstairs cracks in half and I know he’s sitting on the floor outside our eldest sister’s bedroom, trying to coax her out again.

I hear another sob from the opposite end of the house and know it’s Tess.

Bambi tilts her chin up toward me and I try to form a reassuring smile.

“Come on.” I tug her small hand. “Let’s sit and wait for Allegra.”

Bambi cuddles into my side on the sofa and I wrap an arm around her shoulders, pulling my baby sister close. I try to muffle her ears to drown out the crying, but from the way she tenses at every fresh wail, I know she can still hear.

I focus on breathing steadily and stroking Bambi’s arm, then Allegra walks into the room and hands us each a soda. Then the sound of heavy furniture hitting the floor above us sends shockwaves through me. Bambi drops her drink to the floor.

Instead of chastising us on the stain the soda will leave on the carpet, Allegra jumps to her feet and runs out of the room. Papa’s shouted words tumble down the stairs and Tess screams in confusion. Fists pound on a bedroom door. More screams and cries rise up through the house.

Bambi’s trembling vibrates through the sofa cushions. “What’s happening?” she whispers.

I force myself to appear calm as I gaze down at her. “Everything’s going to be okay. Just wait here. I’ll be right back.”

Her eyes widen in terror as I rest my soda on a side table and gently pat her shoulder. I don’t want to leave her, but I need to help Papa.

I reach the top of the stairs and see Allegra is now banging on Trilby’s door as well as Papa. “Trilby, are you okay? What was that noise? Honey, are you okay?”

“Let me talk to her,” I call out, trying to make myself heard over the din.

Out of all of us, Trilby and I have always been the closest. We’ve been pretty inseparable up to now.

Being so close in age, we’ve shared much the same experiences and the same few friends.

But, exactly three weeks ago, that ended.

And now, neither my sister nor I—none of us—will ever be the same again.

“Sera…”

Another voice whips my head around and I see Tess standing at the door to her room, gripping the balustrade. Her face is red from crying, her slender limbs quivering.

Her brows knit together with worry. “She locked herself in,” she says. “She won’t come out. Papa’s been up here for an hour.”

I nod once then turn to my aunt. “Allegra, let me talk to her. Take Papa and Tess downstairs. Bambi’s on her own and she needs you. Please. Let me try.”

Allegra turns back to the door. “Trilby, Sera is here. You talk to her honey, please. We just need to know you’re okay.”

I wait for Papa, Allegra and Tess to make their way down the stairs. As soon as they’ve reached the bottom, I turn to face Trilby’s room.

I press my face to the doorframe. “Tril…” I say quietly. “Tril, it’s me.”

Silence .

The hallway feels humid, as though no windows have been opened in months, despite me having opened them daily ever since…

A memory flashes across my lids. The last time I stood outside this door, Mama was still alive. Trilby had been arguing with her about not wanting to go to a class.

That was the day it happened .

“I know you don’t want to talk to anyone,” I say softly. “But, you know I’m not just anyone . It’s me, Tril. Sera . You can tell me anything. Anything at all.”

A small sound sneaks beneath the door. A movement from the other side.

“You’re not going through this alone,” I say. “We love you and we’re here for you.”

There’s still no response, and now all I can hear is the thud of my pulse counting down to the possibility that Trilby might have actually hurt herself behind this door.

I close my eyes and press my palm to the wood. “I know you think it was your fault, but it wasn’t.”

The faint sound of a sniff comes from the other side of the door as if she’s pressing her back against it. “Yes it was.” Her voice breaks. “I was the one who made us late. It was my fault we stopped at the red light for so long.”

I shake my head then rest it against the door, squeezing my eyes shut. “Trilby…” My heart shatters into a million pieces. “You didn’t load the gun. You didn’t hold it up to her. You didn’t fire it. They did.”

I swallow the bitter lump that seems to have attached itself to my throat.

“The Marchesi’s did.”

Until three weeks ago, the Marchesi’s were just a crime family that existed far outside of our happy Long Island lives. Now, they are a part of us. Part of a history we’ll never be able to erase .

I hate them the way no fourteen-year-old should ever hate. With an intensity that makes my bones ache.

With my mind wrapped around darkness, the lock turning feels like something happening in the distance. So, when the door moves inward I lose my balance and fall into my sister.

We hug each other tightly, my T-shirt absorbing her tears. When I pull back, her face is pale, her lips trembling.

“Sera,” she whispers, her voice barely a breath. “I can’t do this.”

Stone-cold fear slices into my heart.

“Yes, you can,” I insist, pulling her back into my arms. “ Mama needs you to.”

She moans helplessly, like a small animal who’s been dragged from the nest before it’s even learned how to walk.

I wish with all my heart there’s something I can do to erase the memories, the guilt, but Mama’s death has broken all of us. The pain is soul-deep, unreachable. Nothing can take it away.

So, I do the only thing I can. I hold her. And for the first time since the gunshots, since the screaming, since the blood on the window, she lets me.

After I’ve walked my sister down the stairs and settled her in Papa’s arms, I quietly retreat. Picking up the bag I got from the store, I head back up the stairs to my room .

Once inside, I empty the contents onto my bed. A pack of Tarot cards, a notebook to keep track of the spreads, a book about astrology for beginners, and a set of instruments for calculating birth charts.

In the days since Mama’s murder, I’ve found my thoughts being drawn more and more toward the divine—to some explanation for why things happen in this life.

I cannot accept that Mama’s life was so dispensable—something that could be simply snuffed out like the flame of a candle.

As if our entire universe hasn’t just been spun off its axis.

No. It has to mean something. Something bigger. I have to figure out what good will come of it, because I can’t believe it was all for nothing.

I drop my gaze to my fingers. They’re shaking from the shock of not knowing what Trilby could have done to herself locked up in that room alone.

Adrenalin is still racing from the fear of how I would have coped if we lost someone else.

My nerves are shot at the harsh reality that I was the only one who could talk Trilby out of her room.

The weight of that now sits firmly on my fourteen-year-old shoulders.

Still shaking, I open the packet of instruments, trying to distract myself from the dark and heavy emotions swirling around inside my chest and stomach.

I can’t lose control now. I need to hold myself together because I need to hold everyone else together.

Bambi needs me. Tess needs me. Trilby definitely needs me.

Even Papa needs me. I need to hold myself together for them .

But the more that realization works its way into my marrow, the darker and heavier I feel. Panic begins to rise up through my nervous system, tinting the room white. I press a hand into the comforter as if to steady myself.

I think I’m about to have a panic attack. The third one in as many weeks. At least, I think that’s what it is. I don’t know though, because I haven’t told anyone. I can’t burden anyone with my pithy meltdowns, not when Trilby is suffering real trauma.

Once the lightheadedness has passed, I empty the packet and turn the instruments over in my fingers, trying to imagine myself using them like a professional astrologer might, measuring angles and connecting lines.

My gaze turns to the drafting compass and I pick it up.

It feels cold and heavy in my palm, reassuringly solid.

My heart thumps as I stroke my thumb over the pointed tip.

It cuts the skin instantly, drawing a sharp gasp from my lips.

I suck the blood away, thankful for the small reprieve from my living nightmare.

Then, without thinking, without even a questionable doubt or kernel of curiosity, I lower the compass point to my exposed upper thigh.

Taking a deep breath in, I lift my gaze to the ceiling and let my lids drift shut.

It feels like a dam has burst. A giant wave of relief floods through me. Being able to focus on acute, real, tangible pain for just a moment takes my mind away from the visceral ache of mourning, and the weightlessness of it shakes me.

In the midst of rapidly deflating emotion and lifting grief, only one thought anchors me. How can hurting myself like this feel like the only good thing left in the world?

Tears leak from my closed eyes as the ache in my bones lessens with each passing second and I know, with haunting clarity, I have found a way through the pain.