AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"I haven't seen any yet. I was just—"
I glance down to see what he was looking at. Puke. I wrinkle my nose and then more worry floods me. Sybil. This might have been her. She hasn't been feeling well, she said. Maybe it wasn't just menstrual pain. Maybe she's actually sick—sick and terrified and running into the woods. She must have realized that she was being tailed.
Ignoring whatever else One Thumb is saying, I veer off the path, trying to identify where leaves and foliage have been crushed.
I'm so invested in tracking Sybil that I nearly don't see the Gatto until he's already spinning to face me, hand going for his gun.
I tackle him before he can, yanking the weapon away and shoving his face into the rocky forest floor hard enough to break his nose. He cries out and struggles until I put enough pressure on his arm that he knows I mean to break it.
"Where is she?" I snarl.
"I—I don't know!" He folds quickly. "I don't! We just saw the car and knew it was Attolini, I swear! Didn't know Mad Blood's girl was in it until—"
Bone snaps with a sharp crunch, and he screams. I grab his other arm, fury boiling over. I want to take out more of my anger on this pathetic foot soldier, but I just shove his face into the leaves again.
"Give Mad Blood a message for me. Tell him and his father to man the fuck up and leave her out of this. Otherwise, I'm cutting up his men one by one and mailing them back to their families in pieces. Got it?"
He whimpers and scrambles away the second I release him, cradling his face with his one good arm as he races away. If he's stupid enough to run back to my men, he deserves to be taken in for interrogation.
Nearly shaking with the residual fury that he dared call my Sybil "Mad Blood's girl," I turn back to the trail more carefully, following it with a bad taste in my mouth. Despite the morbid satisfaction I feel whenever I give in to my violence, I know this will always follow. The remembering that I'm not really like this. That my mother would shake her head sadly if she saw me like this. That I'm not really The Undertaker in my soul.
Finally, I pause, examining a long stretch of a ravine in front of me. Zeroing in on a place where leaves have been disturbed to reveal a skid of forest floor, I hurry forward.
And swear.
It's not the steepest ravine I've seen, but it's a far enough drop that I don't drop down from here to run to Sybil's little curled-up frame.
"Sybil!" I shout, looking for the best way down. I begin working my way down swiftly in a reasonable place, an endless stream of profanities escaping me. My vision is turning red. "Sybil!"
I hurry to her side just as she sits up with wide, terrified eyes. "N—Nico?"
Her voice is a fragile waiver. I can sense her vulnerability, but my fury steamrolls right over it. I scowl and lean over to haul her to her feet. "Sybil, goddamn it, why the fuck—"
She yelps and staggers, face twisting in pain as she pulls away from me to lean against the side of the ravine. I look sharply down. One of her pant legs is rolled up to reveal a swollen, quickly bruising ankle.
I growl, reaching for her again. "Dio aiutami,you broke your fucking ankle. Happy? Why the hell did you—"
"It's notbroken,you possessive asshole," she snaps, glaring at me fiercely. "It's just sprained. Stop overreacting."
I throw my hands in the air. "'Just sprained?' And how were you going to get away from those Gatto motherfuckers on ajust sprainedankle, Sybil?"
She balks. "Th—they were really here? Was that what the screaming was about?"
"He's lucky I only made him scream," I growl, reaching for her again.
Sybil smacks my hand away, defiance and something akin to panic clear on her face. She's covered in dirt and leaves, and I would be worried about how pale she was right now if I wasn't so mad at her.
"Can't you take a hint? I don't want you to touch me."
I clench my jaw. "You liked me touching you this morning. You wanted me to touch you when I came back later. What happened, Sybil? Why did you do something this stupid?"
"Of course,youthink it's stupid—because I was trying to getawayfrom you. And you didn't ask me if I wanted you to touch me later! You make a lot of assumptions about me, and it’s really fucking annoying."
She shifts and winces glaring down at her ankle. I squat to look at it, but she hides it behind her other leg with a scowl. I give her a deadpan look.
"You're fucking impossible. Do you have a death wish? Is that it?"
"Sure," she sneers. "Because it's so impossible to believe I'd leave for any other reason."
