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My muscles are no longer my own. My voice betrays me, silent in my throat. I hold the image of Elio in my head for as long as I fucking can, but it’s no time at all. He’s already fading, disappearing into darkness that smells like smoke.
Not willing to let him go, I disappear right along with him.
* * *
When I regain consciousness, I’m only just barely on the edge of awareness. My head pounds. My tongue feels like it’s been sealed to the roof of my mouth. My limbs are floppy and cold. My legs in particular feel extraordinarily heavy, and when I’m finally able to flutter open my eyes I see wet, beaded silk clinging to them. I’m sitting up. I think. In some kind of plush seat. Wind howls. But it doesn’t sound right. It’s too uniform. More like the din of a machine.
I crack my eyes open once more with monumental effort. Bright light blinds me from right beside my head. When I can finally look into that oval of light, I see clouds. Not above me, but below.
My head hurts so much. Agony just to hold my eyes open.
I could just sleep. Sleep, and then I’ll wake up next to Elio. He’ll be beside me and I’ll tell him about the clouds and he’ll give me that crooked smile of his and call me Songbird like he always does.
There’s something nudging at the back of my brain, something telling me that that’s not right, something’s wrong, and when I wake up maybe he won’t be there after all.
But it’s too late. My thousand-pound eyelids close. I drift out of consciousness, carried away by clouds and the sound of engines.
* * *
The next time I awaken, I’m much more alert. My head is still throbbing, and I’m drowsy, but I’m able to hold my eyes open and actually try to take in my surroundings.
Only my surroundings don’t make any sense.
The first thing I notice is the heat. There’s sun bathing my body, but it’s not the week winter Toronto sun. It’s bold and brilliant, warming me even as salty water splashes and sprays me. Somewhere above, a bird caws loudly, the sound making me think of the beach. I’m sitting still, but also moving.
The boat is moving.
How am I on a boat? Where am I on a boat?
It’s not very large. A sort of little speedboat. I’m facing the back of the boat, watching the wake foam out behind. I twist weakly to see two men at the front. One steering, the other staring out over the water.
I gasp loudly and begin to struggle, only to find myself strapped into the seat I’m on.
“Ah, there she is.”
I freeze as one of the men notices I’m awake and comes towards me.
He’s a man that I don’t recognize. I don’t think I know the other one with him, either.
“No struggling. No funny stuff. Or I’m putting you to sleep again.”
They drugged me.
The realization crawls through my addled brain. Whoever these men are, they sabotaged my wedding. They took me. They drugged me. And now they’ve got me God knows where. My heart feels sluggish in response to the adrenaline trying to flood my system. It makes me feel weak and queasy.
“Our names don’t matter,” the man says. “You won’t know them because you don’t know us. But I think that you’ll know him…”
I follow the man’s gaze. We’re approaching land. A lush, sun-stained beach, with thick tropical greenery beyond it. The man isn’t looking at the beach, though. And he’s not looking at the trees.
He’s looking at a dock.
And standing on that dock is my father.
Chapter 41
Elio
It feels like I’m lost in smoke and fire forever without her. Even though, in reality, it only takes a few minutes for the hotel’s emergency sprinkler system to activate and drench the few people who are left in here. Sirens wail, and I stagger out of the wedding hall, walking through what used to be a glass wall and out into the snow.
