by Sienna Blake
“I read about it in the news,” I said, my voice wooden.
Father Laurence’s face dropped. “I’m so sorry, Roman. You shouldn’t have had to hear about it that way.”
“I’m sorry about a lot of things.” I pulled the gun out of the back of my belt, a gun I had bought off a street thug on my way here. There were only three bullets in the chamber. That was fine. I only needed one.
“What are you doing?” the Father asked, his palms coming up, his face turning pale.
“You need to leave this room. Right now.”
Realization sparked in his eyes. “Roman, I can’t let you do this.”
“You can’t stop me.” I raised the gun to my temple, the cold eye of the barrel biting my skin.
“No, wait,” he said. “I beg of you, just one more minute. It’s not what you think.”
“What will change from this minute to the next?” I cried, letting out an angry growl. “Julianna is gone and—”
“Roman?” a soft girlish voice called, heavy with sleep.
I turned my face towards the voice, my breath a solid ball in my throat. Julianna was lying in the coffin, in the same position as before. But her eyes were fluttering.
I couldn’t speak. I tried.
I felt Father Laurence pulling the gun from my hand. I let him.
Those perfect whiskey irises looked right at me, right into me. I wanted her to be alive so much I was hallucinating.
“Roman?” she said, her voice cracking as if her throat was too thick. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard.
Speak again, bright angel.
My heart began to rattle in my chest like a cage. My body coursed with fire. But my feet had turned to sand, my body to wood. I just stared at her. Looking at her. Trying to understand. What was happening. To fit these missing pieces together. Two seconds ago, she was dead. My life was over. Now…she was blinking. Speaking.
Could it be that there was a God? Could it be that there were such things as second chances? Had He decided I was to deserve one?
Julianna tried to sit up, her movements weak. She fell back down on her pillow.
“Help me get her out,” Father Laurence said.
On autopilot, I stepped up to the side of the coffin and reached in for her. My arms went around her tiny waist. Her arms flung around my neck.
She felt so real.
“Father,” I said, “it’s the strangest thing. She feels alive to me.”
“I’m alive, Roman,” the ghost of Julianna said into my ear.
“I’m dreaming, then.” I inhaled deeply, taking in her smell of clean skin and the hint of her sweet perfume. I pulled her out of her death-box and placed her on her feet. I didn’t let go. I couldn’t. She’d disappear if I let her go.
I was losing my mind. Or maybe I was actually dead. I had pulled the trigger and shot myself and this was heaven. Julianna’s arms were heaven. So in heaven I must be.
“I’ll just leave you two,” the Father said quietly. The door clicked shut behind him.
“You’re not dreaming,” she whispered. “I’m here.”
My head spun with all of my wildest hopes and dreams. The relief was so palpable it hurt. Like boiling water over icy glass, cracking my grief to pieces. I just kept whispering her name and rocking her in my arms, holding her so tight I was sure I was hurting her. She didn’t complain. She clung to me with her own delicate fierceness.
I pulled back and touched her face. I brushed her hair. I ran my fingertips across her cheekbones and jaw. My eyes sought every freckle, ran over every crease in her bottom lip. Everything was in place.
This was real. She was alive.
I shook my head. “How?” I asked. She began to speak. I shushed her. “I don’t care how. Just that you’re here and alive. Jules, I couldn’t live without you.”
“You don’t have to.”
Our mouths closed against each other’s, my tongue swiping across her lips before she let me in. My arms wrapped so tightly around her, pulling her soft, warm body flush against mine. She moaned into my mouth and fisted her hands into my hair, telling me she wanted more.
It was a kiss made of stars and light. Of gunpowder and sparks. A kiss that stirred up a lost hope as fragile as snowflakes. We kissed for what had ended and for what was only just beginning.
33
____________
Julianna
My head spun with lightheadedness. From the toxin’s effects. From his kiss.
His lips moved over mine with desperate tenderness, with pained hunger, with crazed relief. Our hearts collided against each other, drumming the same beat, as they had always done. If there was a way to draw him all into me—his scent, his taste, everything—I would.
I couldn’t believe it had worked. The Father’s plan had worked. The drug had worked, thank you, God. The Father warned me that the toxin was dangerous. He warned me that it could actually kill me. Or that I might never wake up.
I hadn’t cared. I was dead anyway if I couldn’t find a way to be with Roman.
Now that I was “dead”, I was released from the shackles of my previous life. I could go with him, anywhere, be anyone…
“Julu?”
I jolted away from Roman, lips swollen, breath caught in my windpipe. I spun towards the familiar voice. My father, the chief, stood at the doorway in a black suit, tie askew, purple shadows under his red-rimmed eyes. “You’re…alive?”
Oh my God. We’d been caught. So close to freedom and stopped just before the line. We were so screwed. Roman broke his immunity deal by coming back to Verona. I knew what this meant. He was going away for life.
Screw this. Screw the system. I did not come this far, risk this much, to back down.
I stepped forward, shielding Roman from my father. “Don’t you dare blame him. Don’t you dare make this his fault. We wouldn’t have had to lie if it weren’t for you.”
My father just stared at me, an incredulous look on his face. “You… You were going to let me think you were dead.”
“It’s nothing you didn’t do to me,” I said coldly.
My father gave me a pained look, a look that squeezed in through the gaps of my shield. “I guess I deserve that.”
I glanced past my father. The only way out of this room was through him. How far was I willing to go for Roman?
All the way. I was prepared to die for him. If I had to shoot my own father to get us out of here, I would. We’d have to go on the run. But at least we’d be together.
I turned my eyes back to my father, trying to calculate my next move. He started forward and I flinched, making him pause.
“I won’t let you take him,” I cried. “If you try to arrest him, I’ll—”
“I won’t.”
“You…won’t?”
My father’s gaze settled on Roman standing at my side. “You look at her the way…” he cleared his voice, “the way that I used to look at my wife. You really love her, don’t you?”
Roman’s hand slid around my waist and he pulled me close. “With everything that I am.”
My father turned his gaze to me. “You really love him too, don’t you?”
I nodded, my throat too closed with emotion to speak.
My father deflated, his shoulders falling. “I have been…an old fool. A short-sighted old fool.” He looked at me. “Can you ever forgive me?”
I flung myself into his arms and he hugged me back. “I already have,” I said to him. “I love you.”
“Oh, Julu,” he muttered into my hair, “you’re alive.”
“I’m alive,” I repeated as I laughed, my body filling with warmth.
My father pulled back and faced Roman. “I’m… I’m sorry for forcing you to lie to her. I’m sorry for trying to keep you two apart.”
Roman nodded. “You were just trying to protect her.” He shot me a look. “I understand the impulse.”
“But how did this happen?” my father asked, staring at me. “How are yo
u not…?”
“Dead?”
“I’m afraid I am responsible,” Father Laurence stepped in from the doorway, joining us.
“The Father knew Roman was really alive,” I said quickly, in case my father turned on Father Laurence with anger.
Roman nodded. “He had to help fake my funeral.”
“So, when I begged him for something to end my life…”
“You what?” Both Roman and my father snapped their heads towards me, a mirrored image of shock and horror on their faces.
“I gave her Atropa Belladonna instead,” injected Father Laurence, “otherwise known as Sleeping Nightshade, an herb when prepared properly, mimics death.”
Roman grabbed my shoulders. “You were going to die for me?”
“You came here to die with me,” I reminded him.
His grip loosened. He lowered his forehead to touch mine. “Don’t ever die for me again,” he whispered.
I broke into a smile. “We will live for each other instead. I’ll come with you, we’ll leave Verona and go back to where you were sent under witness protection.”
“Julu,” my father exclaimed, “you don’t have to go with him.”
“Where he goes, I go,” I said firmly.
“But your job—”
“You’ve suspended me,” I said. “Besides, I quit.”
“You can’t just throw away everything.”
“I’m not throwing away everything.” I turned to look at Roman. Once again, he left me breathless with his dark, intense stare and the midnight hair that curled over his collar. “I’m grabbing on to what’s important with both hands.”
My father sighed. “I’ve never been any good at telling you what to do, have I?” My father shot Roman a stern look. “You better take care of her.”
Roman straightened up. “I will, sir.”
“It is best that you stay ‘dead’, at least until the trials. The extradition request for your brother from Colombia is underway. The Tyrell empire will soon be dismantled piece by piece. I will try to expedite the court process, see if we can’t get you both back here any quicker, but it’ll take time.
“How much time?” I asked.
“A year. Maybe more.”
“A year?” We’d have to stay hidden for an entire year. We couldn’t come back to Verona for a whole year.
“A year is fine,” Roman said.
I snapped my head toward him. Was he crazy?
Roman smiled at me, a glint in his eyes. “I know just where we can go…”
34
____________
Roman
Julianna and I sat in the car parked on the side of the road in a leafy part of Verona, a familiar cottage with a faded blue door to my right.
We’d just stopped at Nora’s apartment and surprised the hell out of her. She screamed so loud that I was sure the entire population of Verona knew we were still alive. Hell, my ears were still ringing from her ruckus.
Jules and I agreed we would let Nonna know as well. It wasn’t fair to her if we didn’t. I could see the soft, cuddly frame of the woman who’d stepped in as a mother figure to me. The same woman whose grandson I’d sent to his grave. I couldn’t make myself get out of that car.
“We should go,” I said. “It’s getting late.” I reached to turn the car key but Julianna’s hand slid over mine.
“Roman,” she said. “It would only be ‘too late’ if you drove away without telling her you’re alive. Don’t leave her in pain because she thinks you are dead.”
I know. I was being a coward. I was more nervous now facing up to Nonna after what happened to Mercutio than facing my father. Be brave. I forced myself out of the car. Jules followed me.
Every trudge up her front path felt like I was sinking in concrete, my feet getting heavier and heavier as I approached the blue door.
“Don’t you usually go in the back way?” Jules asked.
The back door was for family. I had destroyed hers. “Usually,” I mumbled. I lifted my hand and knocked.
“It’s open,” I heard Nonna calling through the door. Trust Nonna to still keep her doors unlocked, no matter how much I told her to lock them. She was too trusting.
I opened the front door and stepped into her living room. The smell of cinnamon and vanilla warmed the place, making my stomach twinge. Nonna baked when she was happy. She baked when she was sad. Jules stood close to my side, her presence giving me strength.
“I’ll be there in just a—” Nonna cut off as soon as she stepped from the kitchen, her eyes locked on me. She froze, her cheeks paling.
“Surprise, Nonna,” I said. “I’m—”
“You’re alive,” she said, her voice warbling as if she was unsure of whether to be shocked, angry, sad, or to shriek with excitement. She stared at me as if I were a stranger. Perhaps to her, I was.
I gave her an uneasy smile to test the waters. “I’m alive.”
She slowly wiped her hands, dusty with flour, on her apron. “Well,” she said, a slightly defensive tone to her voice, “I’ve already packed up all your things that you left here and given them away. Clothes and shoes and video games. Although I suppose you don’t fit into those clothes anymore.” She placed her hands on her hips.
She’d kept my things for eight years? I didn’t go into Mercutio’s old room the last time I was here. I bet it was still the same, twin beds covered in comforters decorated with Marvel comic superheroes, large boxes in the corner stuffed with our toys and games.
Jules slipped her hand into mine and squeezed. Go on.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“You should be. You should have told me.” She glared at me. “I don’t have any dinner ready for you.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
Tears filled her eyes. She ran over to grab me, pulling me into her fleshy warm arms. Jules stepped back so Nonna and I could have a moment. She broke into an undignified sob on my shoulder. “Oh, Roman. I’m so happy you’re alive.”
I leaned a chin on her graying hair that always smelled like her lavender shampoo, feeling like I was finally home again. “I’m so sorry I let you think I was dead,” I whispered. “I’m sorry for…everything.”
Nonna pulled back, wiping her eyes with the edge of her apron, and composed herself with dignified sniffle. “Why didn’t you come to me earlier?”
“I thought you might not want to speak to me after…Mercutio.” My voice broke on his name.
Nonna’s eyes teared up at his name. “My poor Mercutio. Why are you blaming yourself for him?”
“He died saving my life.”
Nonna sniffed. She shook her head, but there was an edge of wistfulness on her lips. “That boy would have followed you to the edges of the Earth. He was loyal to a fault. That’s not your doing, Roman.”
“It was my fault,” I squeezed out. “I’m so sorry.”
“Did you pull the trigger?” she asked, her voice eerily calm.
“Well, no, but—”
“Then you didn’t kill him. You hear me?” she asked, her tone firm and commanding. She grabbed my arm and repeated, “You. Didn’t. Kill him.”
I stared into Nonna’s face, stern and yet warm. I saw sorrow still fresh in the creases of her face. But not a thread of blame. I pulled her into another hug, taking in her comforting “Nonna smell” of baked goods and the hint of lemon cleaner, and let her begin to mend another broken piece of my soul.
35
____________
Julianna
Three months later…
Paris was everything I dreamed it would be.
We were free here. Just two strangers holding hands among the lively fashionable rush, strolling down the cobbled streets lined with chic boutiques and cute cafes, green shutters flung open to the sun or walls draped with ivy. All my senses were pulled left and right; the earthy smell of coffee and sweet, warm pastries, the sharp music of market sellers calling out their wares, flowerboxes spilling with pink and purple geraniu
ms.
I sat close to Roman on the sidewalk of a café in Montmartre, a tree-lined part of the city built on a hill with winding cobblestone streets. Our cozy rented apartment was above the cafe, in the attic. We came down here every morning for a cafe au lait and a croissant and watched the people stroll by or glide past on bicycles.
Roman held a small tablet out in front of him.
“How the hell does this thing work?” Nonna said with a growl from the depths of a black screen.
I giggled behind my hand. Nonna still hadn’t gotten used to internet video calls.
“It’s on, Nonna,” Nora’s voice came through. “See? You just have to turn the video on.” Both their faces came on the laptop screen. The four of us let out a cheer.
The last day that Roman and I spent in Verona, my father, Nora and Nonna came to our hotel room to say goodbye. They met each other properly for the first time then. Since then, Nora and Nonna had been inseparable. They often ambushed my father at his place to make sure he was eating properly and that the house hadn’t turned to mold around him. It made me happy that they were looking after him and each other.
Nonna’s face broke out into a huge smile. “How is Paris?”
My eyes met Roman’s. It was a dream. Waking up every day next to him, getting to walk without fear or shame down the streets, holding his hand, and kissing him, oh, the public kisses. I think we’ve even made a sport of public kissing.
We filled Nonna and Nora in on Paris and the apartment we’d rented here.
“We miss you,” Nonna said. “Our lives are so dull without you two.”
“Speak for yourself,” said Nora.
Nonna snorted. “Did you hear that this floozy here has a new boyfriend?”
“When does she ever not have a new boyfriend,” I said.
“I’m not dead, so I don’t have to act like it,” Nora said in a haughty tone.
Sounded like everything back home was as we left it. Roman squeezed my hand under the table.
We spoke for another few minutes before we signed off with promises to call again next month.