Dante scoffed. “What? Like being your Fonte? Good luck with that. The only gift you’d get from me is a slower death to watch the world end.”
“No, of course not. But I could practice on you.”
“You mean torture me.”
She flinched. “But not kill you.”
“I’m not invincible. I’ll die if you try hard enough.”
“But you’re closer than anyone else. You keep saying you don’t care about your safety. Is it so different from fighting for money? You could help me save Saverio.”
“What’s Saverio ever done for me?”
“There are children who will die horrible deaths.”
“Children grow up and become cruel like everyone else.”
“I didn’t want this duty either, but at least I’m trying.”
“You’re the savior, not me. I’m the selfish one, remember? This is your problem.”
She wanted to rake her nails down his face, to rip the cold disdain away by force. “Nice try, Dante, but it’s too late. I know you. There’s no way you’re fine with letting thousands of children die when you couldn’t even ignore one kid in trouble.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I saw you with that beggar girl getting pushed around by one of Ivini’s goons. You stopped him.”
Dante threw his head back. “Don’t make me into some kind of hero because I hate bullies. I am exactly what everyone says I am.”
“I don’t care what the stories say. You’re a good person—”
He threw his hands up. “Stop! You don’t know what kind of person I am. You have no idea what I’ve done, who I’ve hurt.”
“Then tell me. Convince me. Prove you’re evil. I dare you.”
He tore at his hair. “Fine! There was one person who tried to help me after I ran away. Just one. Ever. And I killed her.”
Twenty-Nine
Quando l’amico chiede, non v’è domani.
When a friend asks, there is no tomorrow.
DAYS BEFORE DIVORANDO: 19
Alessa’s blood went cold. “I don’t believe you.” Her words didn’t sound convincing, even to herself.
“Believe it.” His voice was flat. “This kid found me after I ran away. Couldn’t have been more than ten. Trips over a bloody, barely conscious stranger on the beach, and instead of running, decides to nurse me back to health.” He laughed bitterly. “She saw me heal. I couldn’t hide it.”
Alessa hid a shiver. The Dante she knew—or thought she knew—would never kill an innocent child to keep them quiet. But maybe she didn’t know him at all.
“So, I lied. Said I’d found the Fonte della Guarigione high on a cliff. She wanted to know where, kept asking, so I kept lying, moving it higher, making it too hard to get to. But she wouldn’t let it go.”
A curious child. A fearful secret. And Dante, on the run and desperate to hide the truth.
Alessa was going to be sick.
His eyes burned like embers. “I found her body the next morning, shattered on the rocks below.”
She swallowed back tears, even as her knees went weak with relief. “An accident. You didn’t mean for her to get hurt.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does. I, of all people, know what that’s like.”
“Stop!” Dante shouted. “We aren’t the same. You touch people and they die, but it’s not your choice and it’s not your fault. Everyone who cares about me dies, and it’s always my fault. You give. I take.”
“Then change.”
“People don’t change.”
“I have.” Her voice shook with anger. “I’ve changed so many times I’ve lost count. When I became Finestra, I was a naive girl who believed what anyone told me, followed the rules without question, even when it felt wrong. Even when I thought I’d shrivel up and blow away. I became a husk of a person, all pain and bitterness. Then you came. And you didn’t revere me or pity me. You noticed when I made myself small, and I hated it. I wanted to prove you wrong, so I changed.” Alessa drew herself up and looked him in the eyes. “I don’t care what anyone says—your gift is a part of you, but it doesn’t define you. You can choose to be better.”
His eyes were hard. “Well, I choose not to. And this”—he pointed from himself to her and back—“is not a thing. We aren’t the same. We aren’t friends. We aren’t anything. I’ll finish this damn job because we made a deal, but that’s it.”