Page 56 of Untouchable

“Alessandro!”

Still again, he doesn’t look up, his pace quickening with each stride, increasing my rapidly rising anxiety by the second.

“ALESSANDRO!” I scream.

His eyes snap up to look at me as he freezes mid-step.

“He said that we were dead. He knows about us, and he said that we were both dead. That we should enjoy our last few moments together.”

Alessandro’s eyes widen before his head snaps to the window. Quickly he strides over and discreetly looks out. I tip toe over to follow him. As soon as I reach the window, I hear a distant rumble of what sounds like bikes. The sound getting louder and louder by the second.

Alessandro quickly pulls away, grabbing my arm and yanking me into the center of the room.

“Shit, shit, shit,” he whispers as his eyes scan the living room rapidly. He stiffens for a minute before he rushes to the other side of the house towards the garage.

I start following him but am stopped in the middle of the hallway when he comes back inside, a large gasoline can in hand. Shoving it against my chest he ushers us back into the living room.

“Cover everything you can,” he says as he begins searching through drawers.

“What? Are you insane?”

He grabs a pack of matches out of one of the junk drawers and closes the distance between us. He grips my head tightly before diving down and capturing my lips. Even now his kisses take my breath away, there are a lot more important things to be doing than kissing right now but I can’t seem to stop. It is like I am dragged under water when his lips touch mine and only when he pulls away is when I can finally come up for air.

When Alessandro leans back, I am left feeling a little more clear headed. But only for a second before our situation comes into better focus.

“Trust me,” Alessandro practically begs before he pulls away and runs into his room.

I do as he says, shaking the gas can all over the house, focusing on the furniture and curtains before dumping the last bit at the back door. Not sure how Alessandro is expecting us to make it out of this alive, but he hasn’t let me down yet.

Alessandro tosses a duffel bag into the hallway before going back into the garage. I hear some muffled thuds until the door opens. Alessandro is dragging something, no someone, two someone’s. I freeze in place as I watch Alessandro drag two ice blue bodies by their stiff arms into the living room before dropping them.

“What are you doing?” I ask as my eyes flick down to the frozen faces of two men who can’t be older than 25.

“Creating a distraction,” Alessandro says as he walks back over to the duffle bag and intertwines our hands. He stops before turning on his heel and walking into the kitchen, grabbing his sketch book and shoving it into the bag before coming back to me.

He hands me the bag before dropping to the ground and tossing the fur rug in the middle of the living room to the side, revealing what looks like a hatch door.

“What is this?” I ask, as Alessandro opens it quietly.

I peer down to see nothing but darkness. There looks to be wooden steps built in on the side leading down, to where I am not sure, just down.

“Old mining tunnel. It is why my family bought this place. Always good to have a practically undetectable exit strategy.”

I nod at that as I look back to the bodies. They look like they have been frozen. How long have they been here? Who are they? Their cold dead eyes practically stare into my soul, leaving me with a creeping feeling that I try to shake off as I turn back to Alessandro.

He stands up and grabs the gas can, dumping some of the remaining bits on the bodies before tossing it to the side.

“Come on,” he says as he holds his hand out for me and leads me to the stairs that go down the hatch. He takes the duffel bag and tosses it down the hole. It takes a few seconds before I hear the loud thud of it hitting the ground. Alessandro gestures for me to go and I hesitate, looking up into his eyes pleadingly.

“Do I have to?”

“Yes, Bella, you do.”

I worry my lip between my teeth as I look at the long dark hole, but when I hear the sound of several bikes right outside the door, it spears me into action as I begin to climb down the steps. Alessandro follows quickly behind, striking a match and tossing it before grabbing the rug and the hatch door, essentially covering our tracks.

The sound of the house slowly catching fire echoes above us louder and louder as the cracks and snaps of the wood, furniture, and no doubt the obscene amount of gasoline that was poured, swallow the house and the two bodies inside. Bodies I am guessing are meant to look like ours to our unwanted visitors. Obviously when police reports are drawn up and dental records checked, it will be obvious that it isn’t us. But for now, I think Alessandro was just going for a clean get away. No one is going to look for us when there will be two bodies burnt to a crisp in the house.

I breathe out a sigh of relief as my toe grazes the ground. I hop down and slowly creep backwards, since it is so pitch black down here that I can’t even see my hand in front of my face. I hear Alessandro’s heavy feet drop next to me and only seconds later light floods the tunnel from the cell phone.

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