Chapter 150

"Everything, Dante." I took his hand and placed it over my chest, almost exploding from everything that was happening. "My heart will wait for you." Faulkner was quick to pull me against him, making us both fall onto the wet ground, still soaked and hot in the midst of a cold air. His arms tightened around my spine, turning into a huge mountain while I was nothing more than a small object beneath him. His head tilted to my neck, and I felt his breath strong and warm on my skin. It was a hug filled with the fear of losing. A possessive hug. The one that told me I was his. That I had signed an agreement to be his forever. "Dante..." His arms were taking me whole. If this was the way he was telling me he was swallowing me up, I could stay there for the rest of my life. "You'll hate me, Emilia. I know you will, but I will demand it. I will make you give me everything you're promising. Every part of you is mine." I placed my hands on his shoulders. "I'll never hate you." His mouth slid down my neck. My nerves went into ecstasy. He sucked the area. He marked the spot, stealing a strangled moan from me. "I'll make you worse than I am." "No... Don't say that," I stammered. He kept his strong arms around my body, crushing me against his chest. I felt his warmth, wishing to be part of him. I didn’t care about what he said. I believed in what I felt. Our atoms danced in the same rhythm. They loved each other’s chaos. And I wanted to be conquered by all of it. I wanted to be loved by every inch he said was tainted. So, I stayed there. And I was sucked into Dante until there was nothing left that didn’t belong to him.

***

"Penélope! Penélope!" I was brutally hammering on my friend's door. With my chest wildly oscillating, sweat forming a thick layer on my forehead, and my legs trembling as if an adrenaline shot was draining through my veins, I was hammering in pure distress on the poshest block in town. By some miracle, I had managed to escape. I wasted some time trying to make that car explode, but I got tired of waiting for it to happen. I had watched some YouTube videos because of Daniel and his obsession with cars. I never expected that to be useful at any point in my life. I doubted they were always like this. In fact, I had the distressing feeling they weren’t taking my presence seriously. However, I had probably triggered a button that would make them furious. And I didn’t want to face those consequences. If luck was still on my side, Dante could be dead. But I didn’t know how I should feel about that idea. I pounded on the door more, until my friend opened it, her hair messy, her face tired, and her pajamas showing she had been asleep. "What happened?" "I need you to help me get out of the country," I simply said, stepping into her house. She lived with two other girls, so I made sure not to speak too loudly. "What?" she exclaimed, closing the door behind her. "Is it about the landlord? You’re being dramatic. We can solve it." "I... I can’t tell you," I confessed. I was afraid they could track me down and find out I had told Penélope the truth. It was already dangerous enough to have gotten this far, but I couldn’t see any other option. "What do you mean?" she asked, wrapping herself more tightly in her robe. "You haven’t been to class these last few days. I thought you were working like crazy. Is it about your plan to escape the country?" I ran my fingers through my curls. "Can you just help me, without asking too many questions? Please?" Her eyes narrowed. "Of course not, Lia." I groaned in frustration. "I’m calling Kay." "No, no!" I interrupted her attempt to take out her phone. "Don’t call her." Her doubts grew as I sat on the armchair in the small living room, considering countless ways to escape. If I found that map, I could use it to protect my life. But who would have it? Who? The will left me with no chance of having anything from my parents. From Dante’s conversation, it was likely they had put it somewhere else, because that map seemed to have important information. What kind of information? My mind buzzed, digging and digging for something. I only remembered the name "Fábrica," and how it sounded strange when spoken by each of the Faceless Faces. "Lia, what’s going on? You look tired..." Penélope sat beside me on the armrest, her hands soothing my shoulders. "I don’t know if I can…" I broke down, hiding my face in my hands. "Damn it, why is he doing this to me?" My eyes filled with fury, panic, and a pain that was more than a familiar old acquaintance. Everything exploded inside me, like a devastating volcano. I was sinking. "He? Are you in love?" My heart flipped. I quickly wanted to deny it, make it clear that it wasn’t about love because that would be the last thing I would feel for Dante. He awakened a dark side of me that I didn’t like to live with. He made me reserve a spot in hell, firsthand, burning and burning until it seared deep in my core. "It’s not that..." "Stay here, Lia," she pleaded. "I can’t." "Yes, you can, and you will." She stood up, pulling my hands so I’d get my butt off the chair too. "Blake won’t be around for a few days, so you can sleep in her room until we figure out a better plan for you to get a place to stay. Is that okay?" That was my last problem. I didn’t know if in a few days I’d have a place to stay, let alone if I’d be alive for that. However, I needed to think and rest. Penélope’s house wasn’t the best place to recharge because it would likely be one of the first places they’d search. And what would they do to her? Dante had made it clear he would kill anyone who knew information they shouldn’t. Although I wasn’t going to tell my friend, how could I prove the truth? Just as they suspected I knew something about that map, they might do the same with Penélope. Or worse, because she had nothing to offer them. The dead body of the intern resurfaced in my mind again. As did all the dead I had seen throughout my life because of Dante. That night. The bodies tied by thick ropes around their necks, the blood letters drawn on the wall, haunting that cold and memorable night. Dante always brought me the monsters I feared. Those that lurked under the bed, waiting to swallow us whole. Dante was all my various demons in one human body. And I couldn’t let him win the battle inside me. But, for some damn reason, I still had hope that he hadn’t blown up in his car? "You don’t know the mess that happened yesterday." Penélope came back with two mugs of tea, offering me one. I warmed my hands on the heat radiating from the mug. "What happened?" I asked, though I was more worried about getting out of there. Maybe I’d do that when Penélope went to the bathroom, or even when she went back to the kitchen. But what would I do after that? How would I escape the country? How would I escape them? "Do you know Hunter?" I shook my head. "Seriously? Killian’s friend?" "Who’s that?" Penélope huffed. "How do you not know them? They’re part of that trio of assholes. It’s Hunter, Killian, and Vance." I almost dropped the mug from my hands. My bronchial tubes closed, and my whole system seemed to overheat to the point of dysfunction. "You know Vance, right?" I nodded, avoiding showing the shock. "So, he and his friends hate Blake. More Hunter than the other two." "Why?" I asked, sipping my tea to avoid seeming strange. "I don’t know. But from what I’ve heard, Hunter wanted to be with her, but he couldn’t. Blake seems to have fucked several guys in town, and he thought he could get something with her, but it didn’t work out." "And Vance?" Penélope shrugged. "I don’t know, girl. Like I said, I think it’s more of a mess with Hunter than with the other two. He’s also very quiet. No one knows anything about him." If they knew who Campbell really was, they’d tremble just like I did. "But, continuing," Penélope perked up excitedly in her chair, "Hunter was a little aggressive with Blake when he tried to kiss her, and her dad’s a cop, so she filed a complaint because it seems like a case was raised against him." My eyebrows shot up. "He deserves it." "Yeah. I never thought Blake was Christian Norman’s daughter. If I had known, I would have talked to him to make him beat the shit out of the guy who groped my ass at that party." My neurons fired up immediately. The long-buried records in my brain were read in milliseconds until it reached where the solution could lie. Christian Norman. The cop Dante hated. The one who had sworn to arrest Faulkner and search for him to the ends of hell. It was him I needed. He was my pot of gold. But where would I find him?