“You leave Roma so soon?”’ the driver asked, pulling me out of the motion-induced daze. “Where do you go to next?”
I glanced at Raiden.
“It’s a surprise,” he said.
“Ah . . . you are American?” the driver asked.
“Yeah,” Raiden said. “Was my accent that bad?” he asked wryly.
I stared at him, chest heaving with each quick breath. Here he was, chit-chatting with our driver after we’d barely escaped from the airport with our lives. I, on the other hand, was practically hyperventilating.
“No,” the driver said. “It was very good . . . very subtle. You have spent time in Italia?”
“Some,” Raiden said. “Not enough.” Surprising the hell out of me, he slung his arm over my shoulder and pulled me close.
I squeaked, my entire body going stiff. My muscles hummed with tension, and hyperventilation was suddenly no longer an issue. Now, it was an effort to take even the shallowest of breaths. There was no skin-to-skin contact, but there was still so much touching. Too much touching.
“Just had to bring the wife here to show her some of my favorite spots,” Raiden said.
I felt hot and cold all over, totally overwhelmed by the contact.
“Ah,” the driver said, smiling broadly and glancing back at us over his shoulder. “You are on honeymoon?”
“Something like that,” Raiden said. “Every day feels like a honeymoon with her.” He brought his lips close to my ear, making my heart skip a beat. Or three.
If breathing had been a struggle before, now it was impossible.
“Buckle up, Cora,” Raiden whispered, so quiet I almost didn’t hear him. “This guy is no driver.” He tapped the base of the middle finger of his left hand with a fingertip as he pulled away from me.
I glanced at the driver’s left hand. Sure enough, he wore a ring, the golden face displaying a shocking insignia: an eye and triple crown tucked within a monogrammed C and V.
Raiden was right. This guy was no driver. He was with the Custodes Veritatis.
I thought back to the two pairs of goons in the airport. With the way they’d come at us from opposite directions, it was almost like they’d been herding us toward the exit. Toward this car.
My eyes opened wide. It was a trap. A hastily set trap, what with the driver not thinking to remove his ring, but a trap we’d unwittingly sprung, nonetheless.
I looked at Raiden, certain the sudden burst of fear was written across my face.
Raiden smiled, expression easy. Eyes sharp. He slid his arm off my shoulders and settled in on his side of the car. He reached over his shoulder and pulled the seatbelt across his body. “I forgot how exciting driving through Rome can be,” he said to the driver as the latch of his seatbelt clicked into place. How he could continue to talk to the guy with such laid-back ease was beyond me.
I followed suit, buckling my own seatbelt as I forced air in and out of my lungs, eyes locked on Raiden’s face. Something was happening . . . or about to happen. I just didn’t know what.
My chest constricted, and my heart seemed to be stuck in a vice. I curled my fingers around the door handle, squeezing tight. The leather of my gloves creaked against the textured plastic.
Slowly, silently, Raiden unbuckled his belt and pulled it out from his beltloops. With that same, painstaking slowness, he coiled either end of the sturdy canvas belt around his hands, careful to keep the metal d-rings from clinking against one another.
He looked at me, his gaze overflowing with a thousand unsaid things. Time seemed to slow as we stared at one another.
A heartbeat later, Raiden reached over the headrest of the driver’s seat, pulling the belt tight across the driver’s neck. He yanked back, hard, the effort making the veins and tendons in his neck stand out.
The car swerved as the driver clawed at the belt cutting off his air supply.
“Get his seatbelt,” Raiden ground out. “Release it!”
Shock paralyzed my overactive thoughts, and I reacted instantly. I leaned forward, reaching over the center console, and pressed the button on the latch of the driver’s seatbelt. As the seatbelt popped free, the car swerved violently to the left, and I was thrown against the door.
I gripped the top of the seat in front of me and looked up just in time to see a stone wall hurtling toward us.
20
My ears were ringing, my brain felt numb, and I was surrounded by darkness. The blood rushing through my veins roared like ocean waves in my ears. My neck ached—along with a dozen other parts of my body—but it dulled in comparison to the searing pain in my left forearm.
A buzzing sound was growing louder, pulling me out of my head and further into the discomfort of consciousness.
I cracked my eyes open. It was bright, and my mind was a jumble, but after a moment, I figured out where I was—the backseat of a car.
Thoughts floated up from the murky depths of my mind.
The men chasing us at the airport.
The car.
The driver’s ring.
Raiden . . .
I looked to my left. Raiden sat beside me, exactly where he’d been before the crash. He was slumped forward, his seatbelt the only thing holding him up. One end of the belt was still wrapped around his hand, propped up on the top of the driver’s seatback, but his other arm hung limply, his knuckles skimming the car floor.
For a moment, I didn’t think he was breathing.
My lungs froze, and my heart turned leaden, sinking into the pit of my stomach.
But then I noticed the slightest rise and fall of his shoulders with each shallow, steady breath. Relief melted away the paralyzing fear. Until I recalled how and why we ended up in the back of a crashed car in the first place.
Breath held, I shifted my focus to the driver. To our would-be kidnapper. He’d been jarred out of his seat by the crash and lay strewn over the center console, his head tucked under the glove box on the passenger side. His neck was bent at an unnatural angle.
I stared at his back for long seconds. It felt like years.
Thankfully, there was no movement. No sign of life.
After another long moment of staring and waiting and breath-holding, I finally exhaled, accepting that he wasn’t going to jump up and attack me. I turned back to Raiden, reaching for him.
I froze when I caught sight of my arm. It was covered in blood.
I blinked, not really understanding what I was seeing. A deep gash ran along the back of my forearm from wrist to elbow. The arm portion of my leather glove hung below my wrist, stained red with blood. Remotely, my brain connected what I was seeing with the searing pain I’d been feeling since waking up.
Like a switch had been flipped by seeing the blood, the pain suddenly intensified, and my stomach lurched with a powerful wave of nausea. I squeezed my eyes shut and swallowed repeatedly, fighting off the urge to throw up.
Beside me, Raiden coughed.
My eyes snapped open and locked on him, throbbing, bloody arm momentarily forgotten.
Raiden groaned, and his shoulders shifted slightly. “Cora?” he said, his voice faint and raspy.
“I’m here.” Using my good hand, I fumbled with latch of my seatbelt, and when I finally had it unbuckled, I scooted closer to Raiden.
He raised his head, slowly straightening in his seat, and blinked as he looked around.
I pressed the button on his seatbelt buckle, freeing him, and helped him sit up straighter. “Are you all right?” I asked.
Raiden coughed again, then winced, fingers pressing into the right side of his rib cage. “A few bruised ribs,” he said. “Nothing broken.” He cringed, his entire body tensing up, and he didn’t move again for a few seconds. “I take that back,” he said, voice tight with pain.
After a few forced and obviously uncomfortable deep breaths, he shifted his attention to me. He quickly scanned me from head to toe, stare locking on my bloody arm. “Shit, Cora . . .”
I pulled my arm in,
gingerly holding it against my middle. “I’m fine,” I told him. “It’s just a cut.”
“Like hell it is,” he said gruffly. “Hold out your arm.”
I stared at him, eyes opened wide. “Why?” I had the sinking feeling that he was going to do something that would hurt. A lot.
Raiden uncoiled the belt from around his hand. “We need to slow the bleeding until I can get you sewn up.”
I gulped, not liking the sound of being sewn up one bit. But I still did as he asked and, tentatively, extended my hand toward him.
Raiden grasped my wrist, his hold gentle, and pinched the fingers of my ruined glove, gingerly pulling it off. Once my hand was free, he dropped the glove on the floor of the car. I held my breath as he wrapped the belt around my arm, just above my elbow.
I wondered if he noticed the skin-to-skin contact, like I did. I wondered if he was even aware of the fact that his skin was touching mine and the contact wasn’t triggering an episode.
Once the belt was tight, Raiden coiled the tail around my arm, tucking in the end to keep it from dangling. He pulled his backpack out from between his boots and set it on the narrow seat between us. Unzipping the main pocket, he pulled out a T-shirt.
“It’s clean,” he promised just a moment before he tied it around my forearm, covering the wound as best he could.
Pain washed over me in waves as he knotted the T-shirt tightly around my arm. I gritted my teeth, eyes watering. Bright spots dance around the edges of my vision, and I was suddenly light-headed and cold all over. I shivered, teeth chattering.
“Breathe, Cora,” Raiden said, voice calm. Distant. “Look at me.”
I locked eyes with him.
“Deep breaths,” he said. “In . . . and out. In . . . and out.”
I forced my lungs to work in rhythm with his words. Slowly, steadiness returned, and the throbbing pain in my arm intensified. I focused on that pain, letting it sharpen my wits and hone my senses.
“Better?” Raiden asked.
Exhaling shakily, I nodded. I didn’t feel good—not by a long shot—but I did feel better.
“Good,” Raiden said. “We’ll have to clean that properly and stitch you up, but first we need to get away from this crowd.”
“Crowd?” I asked.
Raiden glanced past me to the window. I turned my head and looked outside, squinting as I finally registered the source of the buzzing sound.
People. Lots of them, backlit by the sun. They surrounded the car, pointing and gawking. Some even had their phones out and were holding them up like they were taking pictures, or maybe even filming the scene.
Beyond them, I could see that the wall we’d crashed into belonged to the base of a massive monument. I recognized it from my studies—the Altare della Patria. I remembered it, because I’d found it amusing that the locals had nicknamed it “the wedding cake” due to its glaring white marble and multi-tiered design. We’d hit the wall on the left side of the terraced staircase leading up to the monument head-on, just missing one of the fountains.
“Hear that?” Raiden said, and I looked at him. He held his head cocked to the side like he was listening to something.
In the distance, I could just make out the faint cry of a siren.
“That’s our cue to leave. We’ve been here too long already, anyway.” Raiden zipped up his bag and set it on his lap, then grabbed mine from its place on the floor of the car, by my feet. “Ready?” he asked, meeting my eyes.
No, I thought, even as I nodded.
Raiden shoved his door open, and using my good hand, I pulled the lever to open mine.
It didn’t work.
I checked the lock, then yanked on the lever frantically, but the door wouldn’t budge. It was stuck. Growling in frustration, I scooted across the bench seat toward Raiden’s open door, wounded arm held close against my middle.
Raiden grabbed my good hand as soon as I was out and led me into the crowd. One backpack slung across his shoulders, the other carried under his arm like an oversized football, he pushed through the swarm of people, dragging me behind him and dodging questions of concern and curiosity from the onlookers.
Once we were free, he picked up the pace. He seemed to be favoring his left leg even more than usual. It was the same leg that had earned him an honorable discharge, and I feared he’d reinjured it.
We jogged across the busy street curving around the corner of the monument, stopping traffic and earning a barrage of shouts and honked horns. Reflexively, I started to raise my bloody hand, intending to wave apologies, but tucked it back against my middle at the sharp sting caused by the movement.
Once we were across the street, we hurried around the next block, only slowing to a walk when we reached a small parking area wedged between some ancient ruins and a church. Raiden made a beeline for the cluster of motorcycles and scooters parked together at one end. Our walk slowed further as we closed in on the bikes.
Raiden released my hand, holding out my backpack for me to take. “Put this on,” he said.
I accepted the bag, gingerly easing my bound arm under the strap, then flung my good arm through the other once the first strap was settled on my shoulder.
Raiden stopped beside a flat-black motorcycle with the word “aprilia” spelled out in big, blocky letters in a deep crimson that perfectly matched the wheel rims. I was no expert in motorcycles—or vehicles of any kind—but even I could tell that this bike was far from new. I just hoped its age didn’t affect its performance.
Raiden shrugged out of his backpack and set it on the motorcycle’s seat. He opened the front pocket and dug out what, at first, I thought was a black, zippered day planner. That assumption died the moment he opened the case, revealing what looked like an array of dental tools tucked into individually sewn slots.
Not dental tools, I realized—lockpicks.
The case contained a couple “pages” of tools. Amazed, I watched Raiden flip the center flap and open up a Velcro pocket. He was full of surprises. He pulled out a short, coiled-up length of speaker wire, then closed the case and tucked it back into his pack.
“Anyone watching?” he asked, holding the wiring low and looking up to scan the area.
“I don’t know,” I said, copying him. I hadn’t realized I was supposed to be paying attention to our surroundings.
There were only a few people walking along the sidewalk across the narrow street, and none seemed to be paying us any attention.
“Keep an eye out,” Raiden said, crouching down by the front wheel of the motorcycle. “This should only take a second.”
He was going to hotwire the bike, I realized. I choked on the dozens of questions that sprang to mind instantly—all of the whats and hows and whys—and turned away from him, frantically searching the area around us for prying eyes.
Once again, I felt like I’d been sucked into a video game. I couldn’t believe this was real life. But it was, and knowing that there were no do-overs—no checkpoints or respawns were we to make a wrong move and end up dead—made it all the more thrilling. And all the more terrifying.
My heart hammered in my chest, adrenaline making me hyper-alert and ultra-focused. As I listened to the ever-louder sirens, I stared down every car that drove past. When there were no cars, I scanned the windows set into the building at the far end of the lot. The second and third floors looked like apartments to me, and I hoped that everyone was away at work. It was the middle of the morning, after all, and a Tuesday, no less.
Raiden couldn’t have been working on the bike for more than a minute when the engine rumbled to life. His timing was perfect; the sound of the sirens had stopped growing louder. It wouldn’t take long for some helpful onlookers to point the emergency responders in our direction. We needed to get gone, and fast.
I spun back around, watching Raiden slip his backpack on backwards so it rested against his chest.
He slung his leg over the bike’s seat, then glanced at me over his shoulder. “Hop on.”
We rode through the city for maybe ten minutes, finally slowing shortly after crossing the Tiber River. Raiden pulled the motorcycle into the space between two cars parked at an angle in front of a tall, pale brick building. A grocery store occupied the space on the ground floor, the entrance to the store directly in front of us.
I climbed off the bike, then stood near the back wheel while I waited for Raiden.
He flipped his backpack onto his back and reached down near the front wheel of the bike. With a quick, jerky motion, he pulled the added wire free and tucked it into his jeans pocket.
“Let’s go,” he said, brushing past me and heading across the street toward a six-story building constructed of brown and white stone, the exterior of the upper floors coated in a slightly orange stucco. His limp was more pronounced now, and he hugged his middle with one arm, his hand pressed against his injured ribs.
I followed him through an open, arched doorway at the center of the building and into an open-air lobby.
“Wait here,” Raiden said, guiding me to a bench hidden in a small alcove just within the lobby.
I stepped into the alcove, but didn’t sit. “Where are you going?” I asked, turning to face him.
“To get us a room,” he said.
I opened my mouth to protest. The last thing I wanted was to be left behind, even for only a minute or two. I’d seen enough movies to know that splitting up was rarely a good idea.
“I’m not sure they’ll give us one if they see you,” Raiden added, shooting a meaningful look at my arm.
Legacy of the Lost Page 14