Nicoletta didn’t want to think how they would be getting information out of Clariss. “You mean we’re going to be traveling the way we did to come here again, don’t you?” She couldn’t think about what was happening to her friends. She had no control over that. The thought of once more being torn apart by the shadows was appalling, but she’d asked Taviano to take her with him. If that was how he was traveling, then she was sucking it up and going with him.
“Nicoletta, I know it’s terrifying to travel this way, and it’s painful, but it’s fast and we have the advantage. We can never be traced by law enforcement. We can disappear instantly if we need to. You always have to hold on to me. Keep your eyes closed like you did and don’t let go. Hold tight. I can’t lose you. If you let go, there is no way for me to recover you. My younger brother died traveling this way. It’s dangerous.”
“I understand. I’m not about to let go of you.” She wasn’t, either. She was going to hold on so tightly she would leave her fingerprints etched permanently into his skin.
“When we get there, no matter what’s happening, you do exactly what I say. I don’t care whether they point a gun to one of your friends’ heads, you do what I say. I can move from shadow to shadow fast. They don’t know that. You have to trust me in every situation to get us out of it.”
“I can do that, Taviano.”
Nicoletta had seen what the Ferraros could do. She’d been a terrified teenager, threatening to take her own life because her step-uncles were going to turn her over to Benito Valdez, and she wasn’t going to let them. She’d rather have been dead. Stefano and Taviano Ferraro had appeared out of nowhere and snapped the necks of her step-uncles as if they were twigs, taken the gun from her and saved her from the worst fate possible. They’d done it in seconds.
Taviano tipped her head back and, to her astonishment, brushed his lips across hers. Her stomach did a slow roll even as she was acutely aware her breath wasn’t minty fresh anymore. He locked his arm around her waist and stepped backward, pulling her with him deeper into the shadow.
“Hold on, tesoro.”
Instinctively, she wrapped her arms around him and pressed her face tightly into his side, closing her eyes, inhaling his scent, taking him in deep, needing to immerse herself in him, her heart pounding in dread of that wrenching of every bone in her body. Her skin tore off in pieces, flying from her. She felt herself coming apart and she clutched him harder, desperate to crawl inside him. This time it was much worse, most likely because she knew what to expect.
There was a sound like the buzzing of a million bees rushing through her head. Her body was thrown sideways. She was almost jerked from Taviano’s tight grip, but he held on when she would have lost him, and that scared her more than anything could have. It felt as if they were twisted and then spat in a different direction. The buzzing was gone, and the sound was more like the roar of a freight train bearing down on them. It was terrifying. She squeezed her eyes closed even tighter and pressed her face into his ribs, renewing her grip on him.
The next wrenching moment came, tossing them in what almost felt like the opposite direction. Again, her arms slipped, and she was flung back away from him, but he kept that iron bar locked around her back, holding her to him, so that she wasn’t lost. Her lashes fluttered but no light came in, just shadows passing so fast it was insane, impossible, making her dizzy and sick. None of this could be real, and yet it was all too real, a horrible nightmare she couldn’t get out of.
Nicoletta had molded herself into being a survivor. Into being strong. She could curl up into the fetal position and hide, or she could pull herself together and accept what was happening. She forced her body to relax into Taviano’s. When she stopped being so rigid, so tense, she felt the subtle movements of his body. If they were actually molecules moving through the shadows that fast, they were doing so together and, like riding behind on a motorcycle, she would be able to follow his lead rather than get flung around every bend and corner.
She realized after a time that Taviano wasn’t being thrown around just anywhere—he was choosing a route. He knew exactly where he was going. She tried to relax, although it wasn’t easy. The noise was horrendous. The feeling of being constantly torn apart, the wind blowing through her body, the sensation of her bones missing, was sickening. Sometimes she couldn’t feel Taviano. She just kept her eyes closed and moved with him, relying on their strange connection, that weird bond that she’d felt but tried to deny from the very moment she’d opened her eyes on the plane and looked into his after they’d first rescued her.