"Did it mention you?" he asked after a while.
Genna shook her head as she grabbed another piece of licorice. "Not a single word about me."
What did they think happened to her? Was her father scouring the streets, searching for some sign, some way to bring her back home? Or did he simply write her off?
Neither would surprise Genna.
Chapter Three
Dante was dead.
He was sure of it.
Death was a son of a bitch, but it came mercifully quick. There one second, gone the next. He'd been awake, and suffering, and then nothing. Nothing. It was almost like being put to sleep.
It had all been taken from him in a blink.
Yeah, Dante was dead.
But somehow, someway, he was still fucking breathing.
He inhaled sharply, but it was like sucking air through a straw. He was suffocating, drowning in the bitter darkness, while loud shrieks pierced his ears. Confusion clouded his thoughts. He couldn't see a damn thing. Fiery red splotches melding with pitch black, like blood drops in a void.
He couldn't get a grip. Nothing he did made a difference. His body no longer worked. He couldn't move a fucking muscle. His voice was lost.
Heaven wasn't meant for him.
He was in Hell.
But goddammit, some way, some how, his lungs kept inflating.
"You need to hold on, okay? Can you do that for me? Try to relax. We’ll get you through this."
The soft-spoken voice, serene and feminine, broke through the haze. It felt like déjà vu, like he'd heard it before. Like maybe this wasn't the first time he'd been told those words. Like maybe, somewhere, somehow, she'd already called to him. They washed through him until he could almost feel them, a strange sensation rushing through his comatose veins.
It took every ounce of strength he had to break through the darkness. Bright white light blasted him, blinding him, as he forced his eyes open. Blinking, his vision cleared just enough for him to make out a blurry face. It was just a flash of creamy skin, dark hair and dark eyes, but there was something kind about them, something kind about her. It was something that warmed him from the inside when a soft smile touched the corners of her pink lips.
He was looking at an angel.
He was sure of it.
The piercing shrieks continued, so loud he almost didn't hear it when she spoke to him again.
"That's it," she whispered. "Just keep holding on."
The bright light surrounded her like a halo.
She was an angel of mercy.
She'd almost rescued him from the pit.
The sight of her nearly brought him back to life, but the world faded black again, and he could do nothing to stop it.
Dead.
Days. Months. Years. It still didn't matter. Dante had figured they would kill him, and he could've sworn they did. But that voice just kept calling to him, urging him to hold on, pulling him to the surface, again and again.
The first thing Dante saw, when regaining consciousness, was the face again.
That face.
It was still blurry, and he struggled making everything out, but he saw her standing by his side. While her presence should've brought Dante relief, panic bubbled in his chest. He couldn't move. Literally. He inhaled sharply, shrieking shattering the air when he did. He tried to turn his head to see where the noise was coming from and caught a glimpse of his surroundings.
Wires and tubes ran from his body in all directions, hooked to machines all around the room. Alarms went off as a heart monitor raced, the obnoxious blaring and beeping grating his skin.
A hospital.
The worst Hell there is.
“Try to relax," she said as she reached over to quiet the machine. "You may not like it, but the ventilator's helping."
It took Dante a moment to understand. The ventilator.
He might've still been dead, but now he realized he wasn't going to stop breathing... not as long as a machine did it for him.
It took some effort, but Dante managed to lift one of his arms as the woman tinkered with a machine beside him. He felt around on his face, his fingertips faintly grazing over bandages, before he found the piece sticking out of his mouth, the tube shoved down his throat. He wrapped a hand around it and pulled, panicking, and gagged when it started to budge. More alarms sounded, and the woman jumped into action, shouting for help. Others descended upon the room, crowding around him. It was a blink to him, flashes of people moving, as wooziness set in, a strange sensation rushing through his veins after a man shouted, “Sedate him!"
The woman appeared again then, looking down at him, another smile on her lips, but this one was different. This was a smile of sadness, not one of relief, as she shook her head, a peculiar twinkle in her dark eyes, like maybe he amused her. “What are we going to do with you, Mr. Galante?"
He tried to respond, his lips parting, but no sound came out. Not a breath. Not a whisper. Nothing.
“It's okay,” the woman said, leaning closer. “Whatever it is can wait."
Not long after those words registered, darkness crept in, swaddling Dante like a blanket. As the world faded black around him, all he could think was, if I have to die, please… please… don't let it be alone in the dark again.
He fell into a deep, dreamless sleep, drugs running through his system so intense that he felt not a damn thing. And when he awoke later, he couldn’t move. Again. This time, though, he couldn’t even raise his arm. He managed to cut his eyes to the side, unnerved, his gaze settling on his hand. Thick cloth bands secured him to the bed like handcuffs. He struggled against them, trying to pull away, but they were too strong, or maybe he was just too weak. Exhaustion crept in a minute later, and he just lay there, gaze flickering to the ceiling, feeling defeated. Helplessness wasn’t something Dante was accustomed to, and it wasn’t a feeling he liked. A fucking machine was doing most of his breathing. Could he even say he was alive if his lungs wouldn’t work without help?
The glass door across the room slid open. Dante didn’t bother to try to look. Whatever drugs flowed through his veins faded more and more as the seconds ticked away. He flexed his fingers, the tips of them tingling, but he did little else in the way of trying to move. With consciousness came pain, a dull ache echoing through him, growing stronger.
He preferred it, though… preferred it to the numbness.
Someone approached, pausing beside the bed. Dante noticed them from his peripheral but didn’t turn his head, instead closing his eyes to block out whoever it was.
“I know you’re awake.” Her voice was borderline playful, so close her words ghosted across his battered skin. “Your vitals give you away."
Dante opened his eyes again, his gaze meeting hers. His vision was clearer than it had been, clear enough to get a better look. She wore a pair of blue scrubs, a white badge clipped to the pocket. Try as he might, he couldn’t make out any of the words written on it.
Even in dim lighting, though, Dante could tell she was beautiful. She was young, probably fresh out of nursing school, with a smile he suspected lit up a room, even one his presence darkened. Exotic, maybe even Italian, the kind of girl he could've brought home without any objections. In another life, he might've pursued her. In another world, he could've seen himself with a girl like her.
But in reality, she was probably much too sweet, much too kind for her own good.
The only angel he was destined to know was the fallen one.
He looked away again and stared at the ceiling. How long was this going to last? He had no idea how much time had passed. He didn’t even know where he was. There were dozens of hospitals in the city. He could’ve been at any one of them. Last thing he remembered was a basement. How the hell had he gotten out of there? He couldn’t wrap his mind around it.
He should’ve been dead.
He should be dead.
Why wasn’t he?
“You’re the most strong-willed person I’ve ever encount
ered,” the woman said, pressing a few buttons on some machines beside him. “You’re just laying there, not in distress at all, not fighting the ventilator."
Without looking at her, Dante struggled against the restraints to make a point. There wasn’t shit he could do strapped down like a prisoner.
She laughed lightly. "Oh, no… I know you’d try to rip it out if your hands were free. You’ve done it a few times this past week."
Week.
He’d been there a week?
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” she continued. “Most patients, they find it excruciating. We have to keep them so sedated they’re comatose or else they choke on the ventilator. And I get it, you know… it’s uncomfortable. Unnatural. I understand why they fight. But you’re just lying there, silent and still, biding your time. I’ve never seen someone so stubbornly calm before."
Dante glanced at her again. Her curiosity seemed genuine, but any explanation he offered wouldn't be what she’d want to hear. The truth was something he knew someone like her couldn't handle... not without it altering her view of the world.
Some people were fueled by hope.
Others, like him, long ago realized there was no hope for the future. There was only the present until your luck ran out.
His was damn near a dry well at that point.
So he didn’t fight, he didn’t struggle, because death wasn’t something he feared. His last breath wasn’t something he’d dread. The time would come, sooner or later, when he’d close his eyes for the last time, never to open them again, but that didn’t leave him terrified of falling asleep. He’d accepted death at five years old, when his parents called in a priest to pray over him. Lying in a hospital bed not much different than the one he was in then, his chest ravished by fire, he silently prayed he’d die so he’d stop burning.
Since then, he’d just been waiting.
Waiting for that prayer to be answered.
Waiting for the fire to finally be put out.
Not that he looked forward to dying, because he didn’t. Some battles were just a lost cause. And if he had to die, he was going to die with some goddamn dignity, not crying like a bitch over a machine pumping air into his lungs.
A moment later, a doctor walked in, flipping through a chart as he approached the bed. Dante eyed him not nearly as kindly as he eyed the nurse. The doctor was a small man, wiry with thick-rimmed glasses and thin gray hair. He paused at the edge of the bed, not an ounce of compassion in his eyes and certainly none in his voice as he spoke. “Mr. Galante, I’m Dr. Crabtree, I’ve been taking care of you since you were brought in. We’ll be weaning you off of the ventilator soon. I’ll have the restraints removed as long as you’re cooperative, but we’ll have to reassess that if you act out. We won’t tolerate any of that roughneck behavior here. Do you understand? Nod if you do."
Dante just stared at the man. He'd raised his voice, like he was afraid he wouldn’t be heard. The condescending tone grated Dante's nerves. He figured a lack of reaction should be answer enough, but the doctor waited, eyebrows raised, like he expected some acknowledgement.
Dante nodded once.
Whatever it takes to get the hell out of this bed.
“Good, good…” Dr. Crabtree looked quite pleased with himself. “I'm glad you’re choosing to cooperate."
The doctor nodded toward the nurse, giving her permission to free him. She untied the restraints, getting rid of them. As soon as Dante was free, he reached up, feeling around on his face, fingertips grazing along the ventilator.
He almost did it.
He almost pulled the son of a bitch out just to spite the man.
The nurse shot him a look, though, that stopped him right away. It was a warning, daring him that he wouldn’t like what happened if he went through with it. Dante wasn’t one to take orders from just anybody, but he didn’t push it, not this time. Instead, he held his hand up, pressing his thumb and pointer finger together and wiggling them, making the motion like he was holding a pen. The doctor’s brow furrowed, terrible at Charades, but the nurse smiled.
“He wants something to write with,” she said. “I guess he has something to say."
Dr. Crabtree hesitated, like he was debating whether or not to allow that, but obliged. “Go ahead and get him something… something that isn’t sharp, you know, that he can’t hurt anyone with."
The nurse seemed a little put off by the request, her face twisting as if the insinuation was absurd. Dante would’ve laughed, well… if he could’ve. It was obvious the doctor knew who he was. She, on the other hand, probably had no idea what kind of man she was dealing with.
She returned with a yellow legal pad and a bright red crayon, looking like she’d taken it straight from a fresh pack. She held it up as she walked past the doctor. “This too pointy for you?"
The doctor glanced at it and seemed to consider it for a second. “That’ll be fine."
The moment the nurse turned, out of the doctor's line of sight, she rolled her eyes. Approaching the bed, she slipped the crayon into Dante’s hand, her fingertips brushing across his skin as she let go. She adjusted the bed, sitting him up a bit further, before holding the pad up to him so he could scribble on it. It took a hell of a lot more effort than he thought it would, the crayon slipping out of his hand, his grip weak, his fingers trembling, but he managed to spell out a single sloppy word. When.
“When?” the nurse read aloud.
“When, what?” the doctor asked, his face buried in a chart.
Reaching up, Dante again grasped the ventilator. Before he could do anything more, the nurse yanked his hand away.
“He wants to know when you’re going to wean him off the ventilator,” she said.
Dante cut his eyes at her. Huh. Intuitive.
“Soon,” the doctor said again.
Dante took the crayon and beat the tip of it against the paper, leaving sharp red marks all over the word ‘when’.
“He wants to know how soon,” the nurse said. “He wants a time-frame."
The doctor sighed dramatically. “Within the next twenty-four hours."
Dante glared at him. Not good enough.
He used the crayon and tried to write again, blindly scribbling on the pad, right over the first word he wrote. The nurse watched him, her eyes narrowed as she riddled it out. “No— concert? Constant? Concept? Consent?” Her eyes widened as she looked at him. "Oh, consent!"
Dante nodded.
“He says you have no consent,” she said, turning to the doctor.
“No consent for what?"
“To keep him intubated. He's saying you don’t have his permission, therefore you have to remove it right away."
“Yeah, well, nowhere in Mr. Galante’s extensive dossier did I read that he had a degree in medicine, so I hardly see how he knows the best course of treatment. Besides, he's in no condition to be making medical decisions. He’s barely lucid."
Dante reached toward the pad with the crayon, having a hell of a lot to say to that, and scribbled jumbled words that barely resembled anything from the English language, but it didn’t matter, because the nurse chimed back in without bothering to decipher what he wrote.
“He’s lucid enough to communicate his wishes,” she said. “He seems of sound mind to me, which means he has the right to refuse care that he doesn’t consent to."
“We received consent from the next of kin when he was brought in,” the doctor said. “We didn’t need his permission."
“But you do now."
The doctor cut his eyes their way. “Pardon me, Nurse Russo, but when exactly did you become a doctor?"
“I don’t need a Ph.D. to spot an ethical issue,” she responded. “All that takes is a bit of common sense, sir."
The doctor glared at her. Pissed. Dante could tell he had something he wanted to say, something that would probably drive Dante to rip the ventilator right out and throw it at the guy, but he seemed to think better of it, shaking his head as he turn
ed back to the chart. “I’ll contact the respiratory therapist and we’ll start the process of weaning him.” He paused before mumbling under his breath, “If the patient doesn’t give a shit about his own life, why should we care, right?"
Dante scribbled on the pad again, right on top of everything else he’d written, big, fat red letters, the lines bold: FUCK YOU.
The nurse glanced at the pad, cocking an eyebrow as she cut her eyes at Dante, before she turned back to the doctor, smiling sweetly. “He's expressed his gratitude."
The doctor had no response for that, waving them off as he walked away, the sliding glass door automatically opening so he could exit. Dante gripped hold of the crayon as he closed his eyes, his pain escalating. Just that little bit had taken it all out of him. He had a brief moment where he wondered if maybe he was making a mistake, if he were fucking up, but he didn’t dwell on it long. The nurse chimed in before he got lost in his head, her voice chipper as she asked, “How about a visitor, huh? You haven't really had any of them. Might do you some good to see a familiar face."
Visitor.
Dante’s eyes again opened at the same time the glass door to his room shifted open. He glanced that way, a swell of emotion hitting him, so intense his vision blurred. His heartbeat picked up in anticipation, the beep-beep-beeping of the machine chaotic, when his eyes fell upon his father. Primo Galante stood there, all stocky six-foot-four of him, dressed in a dark suit.
It had been weeks since he’d last seen his father's face. He’d left the house with his sister in tow, never to make it back home again. Never to see his father again. Never to see his sister.
His sister.
Oh God, Genevieve. He still saw that innocent little girl every time he looked at her, the one he had done everything in his power to protect. The one who had inadvertently saved his life sixteen years earlier as she toddled through the gravel lot of the pizzeria, forcing him to linger so he couldn’t run after Joey like he so wanted to. The blast had just barely hit him that night. He’d been far enough away because of her that he'd remained somewhat intact. He owed his life to her, and it was a debt he’d never feel like he adequately paid back. He would’ve done anything for her. He had done everything for her. He compromised who he was, who he thought he needed to be, because she’d asked him to that night when he found out her dirty little secret, when he’d discovered the skeleton in her closet came in the form of a walking, talking Barsanti. It went against everything he believed, everything he thought… he ignored his gut and chose to give her a chance to figure it out herself.