Kissing The Moon Goodbye - A Midnight Mafia Novel

Thirty Eight

Kate

Purple. All I could see was purple. It was not the sort of experience I had expected. There was no sudden vision of my life flashing before my eyes. Time slowed down and all I saw...was purple.

Then suddenly the sky, the dock, everything around me was moving, jumping, spinning. All at once I was pulled back into purple. Everything sounded muffled and far away. Purple. I have an infinite amount of time in this purple world. I'm not afraid, there is no panic, no desperation. Everything is just...calm.

My eyes are open and I'm looking at the world around me, I feel like I'm spinning, Alessio is talking to me but he sounds so far away. Everything hurts.

I close my eyes and I hold onto this purple world. Where I feel nothing.

"Please."

I bob in and out between the two worlds. My head is spinning, my lungs are burning, my throat or sore, and my chest is throbbing.

"Please Katherine." His hand is on my leg, I can't feel anything except his hand on my leg, I'm trying to float away but his hand is so heavy.

In and out of consciousness. I don't know where I want to be. In this purple, or with Alessio.

I open my eyes to Alessio and now I can feel everything. "Ow." I whisper and my hands went around my body. "Ow." I say again but it comes out in a sob which only made things worse.

"Katherine?" He let out a breath of air, not a gasp but more like an exhale of relief. He sounded so surprised.

I try to sit up but moving hurt too much. I groaned softly. I opened my eyes and the world was whizzing past me. A car. We were in a car. I let my eyes roll back and closed them again.

"Talk to me. Tell me something, anything. What do you remember? When is your birthday? What year is it? Who am I?"

"Purple." I opened my eyes again and turned my head to look at him. I had apparently said the wrong thing because his jaw clenched. My throat was so scratchy, my lips were dry, I licked them before speaking again but it didn't seem to help. "Alessio."

His composure flickered and his hand on my leg squeezed. "Everything is going to be okay."

How could he say that? Say that everything is alright? Nothing was alright. He'd ruined everything.

"I-I didn't know how long...how long you'd been under if-"

If my brain was too damaged to be Kate anymore. If I was here only in body. I almost wished as much. I could add another tick to how many times I had heard Alessio shaken enough to stumble over his perfect words.

"We're almost home." He said calmness returning like he'd stepped into business. Alarming calmness always washed over him in the most fretful of situations, under gun fire, in war, watching me drown. Calmness he had been lacking moments ago when begging me to open my eyes.

"How long have I been out?" I tried to sit up more in my seat, grimacing at the surprising amount of pain in my core.

"Not really that long...I just. Well I was worried. How is your memory? Do you remember what happened?"

I turned my head to look out the window and closed my eyes. I remembered. Everything. Dante forcing me under the water while I struggled just to make his point, and then letting me go completely. I'd gone down in the water so quickly, I'd struggled and trashed about desperately trying to get freed from the ropes behind me. My chest was burning as I tried to hold my breath as long as possible and then all at once I couldn't hold it any longer. I stopped holding my breath, and I opened my eyes. And all I saw.