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“Marcello? Are you okay? You need to stay with me!” June says frantically as she runs over to me, lightly smacking my face as she attempts to bring me back from the edge of consciousness where I currently lie.
“You need to watch out for backup, June. When they get here, I need you to open the door,” I say, trying to elicit the calmest voice that I can to keep her from becoming hysterical.
She remains by my side, grasping my hand and squeezing it. “I don’t know how to do any of this. Please don’t pass out on me,” she begs.
I realize that it’ll take Tommaso at least twenty minutes to get here. It’s moments like this that I wish I could call an ambulance, but if I was able to do something like that, I wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place. Bleeding out on the floor of your mansion is a good time to reassess your choices, but it might not matter soon.
“Are you hurt? Do you need anything?” I ask as I look June directly in the eyes. I can’t hold her gaze for long, but having her here might be the only comfort I’m afforded before I die.
“No! You’re the one who needs help! Just hold on a bit longer, please!” she cries, holding her hand to my chest wound to keep it from bleeding. It’s an exercise in futility, but it’s all she can do. If it makes her feel like she has control of the situation, I’ll let her do it.
I’ve never been shot before, but I have been stabbed. One thing about fatal wounds like this is that you can go into shock within minutes, rendering you unable to save yourself at all. Gunshot wounds are the easiest to die from, but stabbings hurt far worse if this is anything to base my experience off. After I was stabbed, I realized that I never wanted to die from blood loss. The drop in blood pressure is one of the most sickening, fear-inducing feelings I’ve ever felt, and I swore I’d avoid it again at all costs.
It looks like I’ve broken that promise to myself.
After around thirty minutes, I hear Tommaso and two other cars speed up to the house. “You need to go let them in if you deadbolted the door,” I instruct June, who is still gripping my hand in hers.
“I don’t want to leave your side. What if something happens?” she replies.
“I need you to think clearly for a minute, June. They’re here to help us. Go let them in, or I’ll die,” I warn. I understand that she’s terrified, but I can’t let her brain shut off just yet. I’ll need every capable person to keep me alive until I’m certain I’ll make it through this.
Fear overcomes her expression, and she rises to her feet and sprints to the front door. I hear her screaming as she opens the door to let everyone inside, and the sounds of her cries put me right back into that vortex of dread that I’ve only ever felt at the crosshairs of life and death. It’s a feeling I loathe, and I’ll need to pull through if I want to avoid hearing it until my dying breath.
“Marcello? Can you hear me? Fuck, he’s white as fucking paper,” Tommaso says in a panicked tone of voice.
“Hmm,” is all I can say in response.
June begins to cry as my eyes roll back in my head. I’m certain that I look horrifying, and she’s not prepared in any way to watch me die right now. She’d be scarred for life, and it would be my fault.
I need to take responsibility for everything I’ve put this woman through, and my death can’t be one of them.
The room begins to spin again, and I feel as though I could never get close enough to the ground for my blood pressure to equalize. I’m fading fast, and as much as I don’t want to panic, June, I need someone to intervene as soon as possible.
As soon as I hear footfalls in the hallway, my vision blacks out and I become completely lost in the void.
ChapterTwenty-Four
JUNE
There’s no way that any of this is really happening. I’m watching myself from a disembodied standpoint, looming overhead as all of these men come rushing into the house. They sprint straight to the back where Marcello has collapsed, and they immediately get to work laying out all of their medical supplies.
“Who the hell are you?” barks one of the men as I follow them back towards Marcello. He towers over me, so large that he could throw me through the front door if he really didn’t want me here.
“I’m his girlfriend!” I lie. I can’t say that even I would be convinced of my statement, and it’s clear that none of these men are either.
Despite this, they let me follow them.
There are five men here, and two of them are ripping gauze and medical tape out of their bags while the other three try to stop the bleeding. Marcello’s skin is almost translucent in this lighting, and the panic in me rises as I watch him lie unresponsive as these men butcher him.
One of them has pulled out a field surgery kit, and he fishes out a pair of forceps from the bag to retrieve the bullet in Marcello’s chest. It’s horrifying to watch, and I feel like I’m going to be sick as he begins to violently tear at the wound.
Nobody is speaking except for the occasional request for supplies, and at one point, the man I’ve identified as Tommaso runs back out to one of the cars to find another piece of equipment. They’re all speaking Italian, which sends my stress through the roof. Now more than ever, I wish I had studied the language before coming here. Since I can understand so little, I feel powerless.
One thing that captures me is the precision with which these men function. How did they become so adept at this? How do they remain so calm in the face of their leader’s potential death?
It wouldn’t surprise me if things like this happen all the time around here, and it makes me look around at Marcello’s house with a brand-new perspective. Everything he has, everything he’s given to me, was purchased with this lifestyle that might kill him right before my eyes.
My stomach turns as I consider the gravity of this moment. Marcello traded a life of relative safety to pursue everything he ever wanted, and this is where it got him. Maybe he got what he wanted in the end, but I’m afraid that I’ll never know. I’m watching him disappear before my eyes into the contrast of his deep red arterial blood on the pristine white floors.
