I try to swallow, but can't. The lump in my throat won't move. My legs buckle, and I hug my knees tighter, intending to bury my face.
Sean's voice makes me tip my head to the side.
"Avery?"
I blink once, slowly. Suddenly, the room shifts violently and my face lands hard against shards of glass on the floor. I try to shake it off and sit up, but I can't. The room won't stop spinning. I blink a few times, trying to focus my eyes and failing. Sean's voice echoes as if he were far away.
Constance's ring is the last thing I see before the world goes dark.
CHAPTER 4
My body prickles with goose bumps, but I can't feel the night air. I move my hand through the thin layer of fog feeling nothing.
I'm not outside. I'm alone, standing in the middle of a vacant room. There are no walls, only darkness. I don't know where I am. My heart thumps harder in my chest, and I can't breathe. There's smoke. It's everywhere, filling the room from top to bottom in thick, billowy black clouds.
I scream out for Sean, but I have no voice. I try again, but the only sound is a blood-curdling scream. It seems like it will never end. I fall to my knees and press my face to the floor, covering my head. Tears streak my cheeks, but I can't feel them. I don't feel the heat of the room or the smoke, but it chokes me all the same.
My body betrays me, and I slump to the floor like a rag doll, no longer able to move. It's like I'm trapped on tar paper, pinned in place. I open my mouth and inhale deeply, intending to scream as loud as I can, but the scream is silent.
No one can hear me. I'll die here, alone.
I blink, trying to focus. Across from me, like a tiny sun in the darkness, something flashed. I blink away the smoke and swallow the pain, trying to see what it is. I reach out toward the light and find a familiar touch--Sean. He's wearing his mother's ring on his pinky. He reaches out toward me and takes my hand.
"I'm sorry, Avery." His words are a whisper. They carry through the smoke and touch my ears like a kiss.
Fear courses through my veins. Is he giving up? We can't die here! Sean's grip on my hand loosens, so I tighten my fist. I try to yell,
"NO! Don't leave me! Sean!"
I manage to pull my heavy body forward, enough to grip his hand firmly. I want to pull his hand to my cheek. I want to touch him, to hold him one last time.
My stomach is in knots as fear pushes my pulse into the stroke zone. I say things, things that have no meaning and lift his heavy hand, pulling it toward me. I press the back of his palm to my cheek, and when I lower my mouth to his skin, I press my lips to his skin.
When I open my eyes, I see what I'm holding--Sean's severed arm, dripping with blood. A scream rakes through my body, bellowing out of my mouth.
I shoot up, covered in sweat and wailing like a banshee.
A hand firmly grabs me and silences my shriek. Sean's warm breath brushes against my ear.
"You're all right. Avery, we need to be quiet. Vic's men are still here."
I blink, confused. Slowly, I turn toward Sean, heart still pounding in my chest.
"You're alive." Tears sting my eyes as I throw my arms around his neck. "Oh, God, Sean."
"You were dreaming. I'm right here," he says, kissing the top of my head.
He holds me for a moment; his touch normally chases away my nightmares, but this time it doesn't. Those hands, those strong, sure hands will end up as lifeless as his mother's hands. A lump the size of a tennis ball forms in my throat. I can't imagine my world without him.
This is my fault. All of it.
Sean pulls back but holds onto my shoulders. He offers a small smile before pushing a lock of hair out of my eyes.
"You've been through Hell today. If you didn't have nightmares, I'd be worried. It's okay, Avery."
My lips try to pull into a smile, but they quiver and fall. I'm going to lose him. If we keep going down this path, Sean will end up beneath six feet of dirt. I look away, not wanting him to see my thoughts.
My brows pull together as I notice my surroundings. Planks of age-darkened wood cover the walls and floor. A patch of moonlight shines through the roof, casting silver light across the aged floor. In the center of the small room is the trunk of a massive oak tree. I blink again.
"How hard did I hit my head?"
Translation: Where the fuck are we?
"Welcome to Casa Dei Diamanti," Sean answers, laughing. He breathes in the night air lustily, mirth reaching his eyes for a brief moment before the sadness sucks it away again.
"Welcome to the demented house? Seriously?" My eyebrow shoots up inquisitively.
Sean shakes his head, his dark locks falling forward. When he looks up, he glances up at me from beneath those dark lashes, as if he were going to share some deep dark secret.
"You're joking, right? Everyone has to take a second language in high school. You are an over-educated woman, Miss College Graduate. How do you not know what ‘diamanti' means?"
Offended, I smile with feigned patience.
"Spill, Mr. Jones. Where am I? The Batcave? Did the tree lift your evil underground lair into the sky as it grew?"
He snort-laughs boyishly as if I tickled him in the perfect spot.
"Why does everyone say that? I wasn't a dark child." He drops his gaze and looks at his hands, his tone serious now. "That came later, much later."
I know this place is right on top of a raw nerve for him, but I'm not sure why. I look around, hoping he'll tell me more, but he's silent. There's a chest on the side of the room, right below a little window. There's no sign of the escape hatch or hole in the floor, but there is a rickety rope ladder piled into the corner. I wonder how he got me up here. He must have carried me.
The ceiling is low and crumbling, cedar shakes tumbling through holes in the roof. In its heyday, the little fort must have been swicked. I feel almost sad to see it in such disrepair, vines and branches growing through it unchecked.
"So, we're still by the mansion, then?" I ask, crawling over to the window. I test the floor carefully, pressing on each plank, worried I'll fall through.
"It's sturdy. You won't fall. And yes, we're still by the house." Sean scoots back and leans against the wall.
I glance over the sill and look out. All I can see is trees. Disappointed, I sit back down. The floor beneath me creaks under my weight, and I crab-crawl forward toward the tree.
"Are you sure this isn't like Owl's house? That sucker blew away with Piglet and Pooh in it."
"Are you talking about a children's book?" Sean blinks and grins.
"Winnie the Pooh was stuffed with fluff. I'm a little more, well, stuffed with bones that don't want to shatter when this thing falls out of the sky."
My heart is racing, unable to calm down. Sean smiles softly, taking my hand and pulling me toward him. I shake my head, refusing to move.
"Are you afraid of heights, Miss Smith?"
"Only when there isn't a plane around me."
"Seriously?" Amusement lights his face, his expression betraying his belief that this is a silly thing to fear.
"Tell me something," I say nodding and closing my eyes tightly. "Talk, or I'm going to flip out."
He notices the way I'm shaking and comes to sit beside me. He places his hand on top of mine and gently squeezes it.
"We're in my old tree house. Peter and I played up here as children. I had a tendency to find the tallest tree and climb it. My mother," his voice catches in his throat, but he spits out the rest of the thought, "didn't like it, but my father encouraged us to climb higher and go further. One day he took us back here and asked which tree I liked best. I picked this one. I showed him how high I could climb. The next time he walked us out this way, this tree house was two limbs higher than I'd climbed. When we were children, the man was always pushing us to go further, to climb higher, and to dream bigger. God, he's changed." Sean rubs his hand over his face and tips his head back against the wall.
"So, once upon a time, your dad was nice?"
Sean's eyes cut over to me. He shrugs.
"Yeah, he was. Before the mistresses came around, he gave Pete and me all his attention. He told me that I could have this place and do anything I wanted with it if I could get up here. There wasn't a ladder. It took me a month to get up here. I suppose it was more for me than Pete. He was still young then and couldn't climb the way I did. Dad added the ladder later for him."
"So, you played up here when you were little?" I look around again, wondering about the man sitting next to me. It's a normal tree house, except that it's practically in the clouds.
"Yeah, I did. I can't remember the last time I was up here. I had to be thirteen or so." He smiles softly, lost in thought. "I'd just had my first kiss, and came up here afterward to get away from Pete and Jon. By then, it was overgrown and aging poorly. This morning, I almost couldn't find it. The forest has grown up around it, devouring it."
The terror melts away as he speaks, and I get to see a side that he usually keeps hidden.
"First kiss?"
"Yeah." He smiles. "It was sweet and quick. But at the time, it felt like a lifetime of bliss." Sean realizes he has a smile on his face, and it vanishes.
"Sean Ferro kissed a girl sweetly? I can't imagine it. That's like saying Dracula's teeth are candy corn."