Page 188 of Phantom Mine

Instead, I watch helplessly as first the cop cars and then the fire trucks turn left. As the last truck turns, it reveals the view it had previously obscured from us. My stomach sinks.

Dark plumes of thick smoke rise up into the sky and filter through the puffy white clouds. The contrast between the two is straight out of a horror film, the beauty of the setting sun at odds with the dark, deadly smog. It gets darker and thicker as we get closer.

“What the…” Matteo’s voice trails off into anguished silence.

The weight in my stomach turns to lead when the emergency cars then turn right and the truth becomes unavoidable—they’re headed forFirenze.

I smell it before I see it.

Based on the way he jerks back, Matteo does too.

It’s unmistakable.

A spiciness in the nose that stings the nostrils. Not a smell I usually dislike and yet it sends a wave of nausea hurtling up my throat.

We turn onto our street and see it. Shock strangles us both into silence.

Fire.

Firenzeis on fire.

Plumes of smoke roll through the roof. The windows are still intact somehow but the flames loom large and full of life just behind them.

There’s a barricade of other emergency vehicles and a smattering of horrified bystanders with their hands over their mouths.

“Holy fuck,” I hear myself whisper.

The sound of my own voice jolts me back to my senses. I look over at Matteo to see him frozen solid like a statue carved from ice. He doesn’t move, he doesn’t even blink as his eyes stay fixed on the horror before him.

I curse under my breath.

He’s completely paralyzed by his fear, his entire body rigid down to the extremities. Sweat beads visibly at his temple, terror squeezing out of him and rolling sharply down his face.

A single eighth note clatters shrilly through the air.

Matteo erupts out of his paralysis when he sees Valentina’s name flash across his screen with a new message.

Relief melts his features as he opens the text.

“Cara—”

He stops.

A beat goes by and I watch him turn a ghostlike shade of white. “What is i—” I start, pulling the car over.

He flings the door open and lunges carelessly out of the car while it’s still moving. “Matteo!”

His phone drops onto the seat behind him.

“Holy fuck,” I curse, slamming the brakes and bringing the car to a screeching halt in the middle of the road.

Matteo hits the asphalt hard, but rolls out of it to lessen the shock to his body. He trips over his feet as he stands and stumbles to the ground. His limbs are heavy and uncoordinated, tangling with one another as his panicked brain seemingly fires off more orders than his body can process at once.

I watch through the open passenger door as Matteo hauls himself back up to his feet, stares up at the blazing fire before him, and lets loose a throat-ripping cry of four syllables so full of raw fear, they strip the lining from my stomach and tear straight through.

“Valentina!”

The scream sounds like it comes from the bottom of his gut, from the very dark, vulnerable depths of his soul, the part I’ve seen him expose only to her. It’s a heartbroken howl, like that of a dying animal.

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