“You have terrible luck.”
“It wasn’t a direct strike. I’ve also broken seven bones, including my nose, been stabbed and burned, and nearly lost a finger.”
She grimaced. “The gods must really hate you.”
“I’m certain they do.”
“That makes two of us, then.”
He scoffed. “You’re the savior. After Divorando, you’ll never work another day in your life. They’ll write sonnets about you.”
“Or I’ll kill every remaining Fonte on the island, everyone on Saverio will die, and it will be all my fault.” She pressed the cool, sweating glass to her cheek. “I hate hurting people.”
“No, really? I couldn’t tell.”
“I have one job. One. Why can’t I do it?”
He gave her an appraising look, trapping his lower lip between his teeth. “You said you felt hungry.”
“Hmm?” She dragged her gaze from his mouth, but his eyes—warm and dark, like molten chocolate cake flecked with toffee—didn’t make it any easier to concentrate.
“When you touched your first Fonte, you said you felt hungry. Have you ever really been hungry?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Everyone’s been hungry.”
“Not like when dinner’s late—truly hungry. So famished you’d choke down dirt to fill the hole in your belly.”
“I suppose not.”
“Well, when you’re that empty, and you get your hands on food, you know you’ll be sick if you eat too fast, but you can’t help it.”
She stared into her glass as though it might hold answers, but all she found was her own warped reflection. “Okay…”
“That’s why they locked you up in here, right? To remind you about connection and community by taking it away from you?” He waited until she looked up, then held her gaze. “They starved you, and you gorged yourself the first chance you got.”
Unease sat heavy in her gut. “Are you trying to say I kill people because I’m so pathetically lonely I gobble them up? Because that doesn’t make me feel any better.”
“I’m saying it’s not your fault.”
Her throat constricted. “Books make it sound romantic to die from loneliness, but to kill someone else with your loneliness? Now, that’s a talent.”
Dante leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Maybe if you took the edge off, you’d gain some control.”
Her lips twitched. “What, like an affection snack?”
“Something like that.” Dante drummed his fingers on the table. “Could you get a pet?”
“A pet?”
“Small? Furry? Domesticated animals?” He mimed clawing at the air. “Like a cat.”
Alessa took a slug of whiskey, coughing at the burn. “You’re proposing I get a cat. To fill the gaping, empty hole inside my soul. A cat.”
“Why not? Maybe you’d see better in the dark.”
“Or kill a cat.”
“You think so?” He looked surprised. “They have fur over their skin.”
“I don’t know, and I don’t want to find out. If I killed a sweet little kitty, I’d never forgive myself.”
“For a cat? You’ve already—”
“Killed three people? Is that what you were about to say?”
He had the decency to look uncomfortable.
“At least they agreed to it. An animal can’t.”
Dante still looked thoughtful.
She raised a finger in warning. “If I wake up tomorrow and find a cat in my room, you’ll both be put out on the street.”
He laughed and reached for her glass, as his was empty, but she swatted his hand away.
Was it possible?
She’d always believed she was supposed to embrace her isolation, blamed herself for letting loneliness fill the spaces meant to hold divinity, but Dante’s words had her doubting.
Maybe she’d been fighting the current, swimming in the wrong direction, all along.
After cutting herself on the blade of hope so many times, would she be a fool to reach for it again?
Twenty-Four
I frutti proibiti sono i più dolci.
Forbidden fruit is the sweetest.
DAYS BEFORE DIVORANDO: 20
Around midnight, Alessa poked at the front of her blouse. She’d spilled something. At some point. She didn’t remember what, exactly. Eyes crossed, she raised a blurry finger to her nose—oops, her cheek. No, that was her chin.
“That’s not whiskey.” Her words sounded squishy.