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My father's face pales, and a cold sweat forms over my body. I don’t know what he’s saying. That my father did this to him? That he did to Javi, what Javi did to me?

I look up at Javi and see nothing but genuine sincerity on his face. He reaches out to touch my face, and for a moment, I forget everything else and focus on him. On the light in my heart. The one I thought long since extinguished, which now burns bright.

“My Bella,” he whispers. “I wanted to be selfish. I would give anything to be selfish if I did not know that there was only one possible outcome from all of this.”

My heart stops beating. My lungs stop taking in air. And I’m shaking my head before he can even say it.

“What do you mean?”

"Isa."

My father’s voice is harsh. Harsher than it's ever been with me, and he's looking at me like he doesn't know me at all right now. Like I am no longer his daughter, standing here in the house that I grew up in.

“What Javi is trying to say is that the things you are feeling right now, they aren’t real. And in time you will see that. You will understand that when you’ve had some time to heal. To contemplate the reality of your situation.”

“No,” I tell them both. “Don’t try to tell me what I feel. I love Javi. And it’s real. I will always love him.”

My father sighs and Javi looks away. I don’t like this. I don’t like where this is going. I won’t let him leave me behind, and I tell him so.

"I need a drink," my father says. "Will you get us a drink Isa, please."

His bar is still stacked against the wall where he left it, so I don't have to leave the room. It gives me the opportunity to clear my head. To digest everything that's happening.

I reach for the bourbon, and my father interrupts me.

"Not that," he says. "The Macallan."

I look back at him in question. He only drinks this whiskey on special occasions. But I guess today is a special occasion, being that he is alive.

I pour two glasses and take one to him and hand the other to Javi. They stare at each other from their seats, and I remain quiet between them.

My father swirls the amber liquid in his glass, staring into the abyss as he gathers his thoughts.

"This is over,” he says to Javi. "I'll never allow it to continue."

I rub my temples and look at my father.

"It isn't up to you," I tell him. "Dad, please. Don't do this. Not today."

"You don't know what you are saying, Isa. You have been brainwashed."

Javi meets my father's gaze head on.

"And you have a right to speak about brainwashing?"

Dad's face is red and mottled all over again.

"There are many things you do not understand," he tells Javi. "That you never could. You want to believe only what you want to believe."

Javi looks at me and shakes his head, his eyes sad.

"Bella does not need to hear these things.”

My father silently agrees, and the room falls still again. Too still. Like the calm before the storm. The tension is still there, simmering below the surface. And I am anxious now because I don’t know when it’s going to erupt. But I know one thing, and that is I won’t let Javi leave without me.

Not today. Not ever.

They both stare over the rims of their glasses, like snakes poised to strike. Javi is the first to drink, swallowing the entire contents of the tumbler in one fell swoop.

And then he looks at me again. His face contorted. At first, I think he is angry with me. But then he coughs. And sputters. And coughs again.

"Javi?"

I move to his side, but he doesn't respond.

It all happens in horrific slow motion. The color drains from Javi’s face while my father looks into his own tumbler and it shatters to the floor.

"Dad?" I scream.

Javi falls back against the sofa and begins to convulse.

"Dad! Help him. What's happening? Please help him."

My father rushes to Javi's side and begins chest compressions. I grab Javi’s face, trying to see him. Trying to see his eyes, but they are closed, and he is lifeless.

It's all happening too fast.

It's all too real. Nothing about this makes sense. He was just talking to me. And now he's lying here, and I can't see his eyes. I can't feel his heartbeat or hear his breath.

I'm sobbing. Begging him not to go anywhere. Demanding that he stops this right now. He can't trick me anymore. He can't play these games with me anymore. I’m too fragile, and I can’t survive it. Not this time. Not when he said he loved me, and I believed him.

During the chaos, the front door opens, and someone else appears. In the back of my mind, I hope that it's the ambulance. The ambulance that's coming to rescue him. To fix him. The ambulance that we haven't even had time to call. But paramedics don’t wear a mask. And they don’t have guns, either.

"Time to say goodbye, little Bella," the strange voice tells me.

"What?" I blink and cling to Javi. "No."

None of this is real. It can't be. It just can't. I don't know what's happening. Only that I'm sobbing hysterically and Javi isn’t moving, and I’m so scared. My father keeps saying that he's sorry. He's so sorry. There's nothing he can do.

But he’s a liar, and I hate him.

I hate him so much, and I can’t even comprehend why at this moment. He's dragging me away from Javi.

The masked men are shouting orders. But I can't hear them. Because I'm trying to get to Javi. I'm trying to fight my father off. But he's too big. Too strong. And the men are taking Javi away from me. Dragging him out the front door.

I scream at them to stop. Only one of them does, just to look back at me one last time.

"I will send you the ashes, little Bella. It's what he would have wanted."

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

DARKNESS.

It possesses me. It entombs me. And darkness is all that I am now. The void is empty and vast. It cannot be mended.

Nothing can ever be fixed again.

My father comes to my room often to check on me. The room where he has locked me. The room where he tries to feed me.

I have traded one prison for another.

He tells me he wants to keep me safe. He tells me he doesn't know who to trust. But when I look at his face, it is him I don't trust.

I trust nobody. I feel nothing. Nothing can hurt me anymore. It's what Javi wanted. And I refuse to believe that this is my reality. I refuse to believe that he isn't here with me.

I'm back in the piano room. Everything else is an invention of my imagination. My hallucination. That's what I keep telling myself. That's how I go on, breathing and thinking and living.

He's going to come for me soon. He will tell me that it's all been a trick. And now it's time for my reward. Because I've been a good girl for him, he will comfort me. He will take me in his arms and hold me. Fix me. Give me the thing only he can provide.

My sanctuary.

My peace.

"Isa," my father's voice echoes through the cavernous space of my new prison. "You must eat. You must stay healthy and strong."

I blink up at his distorted face, and I am glad that he is obscured. I can’t bear to meet the eyes of this man who has raised me.

This man who- in my nightmare- took Javi away from me.

It plays on in my head. Over and over again. The whiskey. The whiskey he asked me to pour. The whiskey he did not drink. And the expression on Javi's face.

Betrayal.

It was the last thing I saw in his eyes. The last thing he felt in this nightmare. He thought I had betrayed him. My stomach churns, and I curl into myself. My cheeks are wet, but I know the tears don't mean anything.

It still isn't real.

Javi will come for me. He will ask me to play him a song with words only he can hear. I will play him a million songs. And I will sing words that I have never sung before.

When my father leaves, I scribble th

em down in my journal. I write pages upon pages of lyrics. Frantically. Endlessly. Until my hands are black with ink and my eyes are too blurry to see anymore.

"Sing me a song, Javi," I whisper into the darkness. "With words only I can hear."

I repeat it, over and over. I cry. I pace. I never sleep. I don't eat. I drink water only when my father makes me.

I'm dead inside already.

And the longer the days go on, the less certain I am. The harder it becomes to deny. He will come for me. That's what I tell myself. That's what I tell my father. Until the day that he comes for me instead. And he carries something with him this time.

It is a card. And something else.

A silver urn.

An urn painted with crimson roses.

"This came for you today.”

His voice is solemn, and I hate him.

"No." I yank the urn from his arms and clutch it to my chest. "No!"

I scream. I scream it over and over.

"This is your fault! You did this to me!"

Tears fill his eyes, and he looks at the floor. I can't pretend anymore. Because I'm dead inside. There is nothing left in me.