Deep Shadow

V

The darkness has always been my friend. Wrapped me in its arms when I was scared, cloaked me in my times of need. Balancing on the brink of dark unconsciousness, it had never seemed like more of an enemy. I stumbled, numbly, into something, might’ve fallen. The world was a blur, one big mess of color in front of my eyes. No matter how many times or how hard I blinked, it wouldn’t go away. The only thing that snapped me from my reverie was the snapping of cuffs around my wrists, the ice-cold bite of the metal as jarring as a blow to the head.

“What are you doing?” I said, trying to pull away from the handcuffs. Ratchett held fast, yanking me to my feet so hard I had to bite my lip to keep from crying out in pain.

“Let her go!”

“Don’t touch her.”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

The two guards were ambushed. Hands pulled me back and forth whilst I stumbled uselessly between them like a rag doll. Mustering up the last bit of energy into my body, I slammed my shoulder into the next person that yanked me their way, throwing them hard enough to free myself completely, taking the other by surprise. I stumbled free of the mass.

“Enough!” I screamed. Everyone quieted down. “What’s going on? Why am I being arrested?”

Cimorello took a step towards me, only to be headed off by Brighella. He grabbed the guard’s hand, slammed it down on the card table, and quick as a flash, withdrew a knife from his bathrobe. “Take one more step and you lose it,” he said, growling.

“I didn’t kill Emilio,” I said, and pain jolted through my body. Speaking his name was too hard. He couldn’t be…dead. Only a matter of hours ago we’d been standing on the very rooftop of that building.

“We know,” said Ratchett, eyeing Brighella with concern. He reached into his suit jacket and pulled out something flat and square. He held it out to me. It was a piece of paper, stained by water droplets and blood. “This was on the victim’s body.”

I have judged him and found him guilty.

A little scrawl at the bottom signed the letter from Il Giudice. I swallowed hard. Bile was trying to inch its way up my throat. Don’t hurl, don’t hurl, I told myself. My head was throbbing. Every scent in the room was heightened, from the smell of the soap I’d used in the shower, to the very faint tang of blood. It made my already squeamish stomach flip-flop.

“For the first time, he wrote something on the back.” 

For a moment, I hadn’t even realize Ratchett had spoken. The room seemed like it was actually a million miles away, and I was standing outside my body, staring down at the world like a spectator. He turned the letter over.

Il Capitano.

“We think you’re next,” said Cimorello, giving Brighella the stink eye. “You’re his next target.”

“Oh.” Nothing else seemed applicable, like it would cover the magnitude of that evening’s revelations. It slipped out of my mouth before I could think of anything better. Which was supposed to shock me more: that Emilio was dead, or that I was next? Despite the realization that I might be a corpse soon, I couldn’t bring myself to be afraid. There were too many other emotions already clouding my mind. Anger, desperation, sadness. Guilt. If only I’d know, I could have stopped him.

“I still don’t get why you’re arresting her,” Beatrice piped up, crossing her arms around her stomach, like she too was going to be sick. 

“We’re not arresting her.”

I shook the handcuffs angrily. “So, you just like to chain people up for fun? Or are you going to try and protect me now?”

“Neither,” said Ratchett, then looked down at my hands and smiled a little. “Well, mostly. We’re escorting you.”