Page 14 of Bound in Blood
Marco burst through the door of the room he and Mateo had been renting, frantically starting his packing before it had fully shut behind him. “We have to leave,” he said. “Mateo, grab your things. We have to get out of here.Now.”
The two of them had been gathering resources to get out of Italy and into America for a while now, but Mateo knew they were nowhere near ready. They barely had any money saved, as Mateo wasn’t the best at holding down a stable job. He looked up slowly from where he was lying, still half asleep.
“Something wrong?” he slurred, sitting up and stretching, trying to remember if he’d said or done anything stupid the last time he was in public. Mateo and Marco, despite their government’s best efforts, had made it to nearly twenty-five years of age without subscribing to the ideals of the Fascist party. As they got older, watching the Blackshirts deal out more and more punishments, Mateo realized that remaining in Italy might not be good for their health in the long term.
It hadn’t beenthatserious, though. Sure, Mateo might not have the best filter when he spoke, and Marco was antisocial on a good day, but they knew better than to be publicly stupid. Theirdifferences, whether being Anti-Fascist or homosexual, weren’t things you could see walking down the street. They were left alone so long as they kept their heads down.
“Italy and Germany have allied,” Marco explained, finishing up with his few belongings and starting on packing Mateo’s. “We aren’t at war yet, but we will be soon, I’m sure of it. Mateo, wecannotbe here when that happens.”
Well, shit. That was more serious than Mateo expected. He stood, taking his suitcase from Marco and shoving the last couple of his things in it before clicking the latch shut.
“How do you know?” Mateo asked, mentally going over their savings. There was no way they could make it across an ocean, but they could get to France at least.
“I heard it in the streets.” Marco’s jaw was tight, his eyes red-rimmed with worry. “People are celebrating,” he spat the words out in disgust, “We can get to France, I’m sure. Get real jobs. But, Mateo, if we don’t leave now, we might not get the chance.”
They waited until well past midnight to leave.
The streets outside had mostly emptied, but Mateo and Marco tried their best to remain calm and quiet, not wanting to attract any sort of attention. While there was technically nothing wrong with them leaving the country, the two of them wanted to look as inconspicuous as possible.
No need to draw unnecessary attention on the way out. Marco and Mateo were more or less able to get away with their differences now, but they had heard some pretty unsavory rumors about how they treateddifferentpeople in Germany.
Mateo found himself holding his breath for as long as possible, afraid his fear might be obvious. Just two brothers headed on a business trip to France. A very normal business trip with a clear return date, of course. All completely real.
They had no real plan—just go. Get as far away as possible. America was still the goal, of course, but it felt more like adistant dream than a reality. Marco had spent months mapping out travel routes while Mateo gathered any documents they needed, most of them forged. Nothing felt solid enough. Mateo was always so certain they’d have more time.
They left quietly, a back door filtering into an unlit alleyway. Mateo would have done anything for night vision. As a child, Marco had always been afraid of the dark, often climbing into the safety of Mateo’s bed after lights out. Mateo knew he still carried that fear with him twenty years later, buried deep beneath all the propaganda about what a man should be like. Mateo felt Marco’s fear now, as the back door shut behind them, cutting off their one source of light.
Mateo reached for Marco’s arm, guiding his hand to Mateo’s shoulder. “I’ll lead until we get somewhere we can see, okay?” he whispered as quietly as he could manage.
Marco didn’t argue. His grip was tight, almost painful, but Mateo understood. Marco protected them by earning money, doing jobs nobody else wanted, learning to stay silent and bide his time. This was Mateo’s role. Staying calm when Marco desperately wanted to fall apart.
They moved swiftly, keeping to the edges of the alley. Their footsteps were muffled against damp cobblestones, breaths shallow and controlled. They had practiced this a hundred times, but practice meant nothing when you were in the face of the real thing. ‘Don’t act suspicious’seemed so easyin theory.
Mateo tried not to think about it, didn’t want to acknowledge that this might be the last time they saw their home country. They’d grown up under the Fascist party, and it hadn’t been good, but Mateo still found himself sentimental about his home. A government was not its people, he knew that better than anyone. He was not about to risk his life over being sentimental, though. He was not his government, and because of that, he was not safe here.
They slipped deeper into the alleyways, the city’s recognizable streets twisting into something less familiar to them. The silence around them felt oppressive, thick with unspoken fear. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked, a harsh echoing sound against the silence that made Marco flinch, his grip on Mateo’s shoulder tightening like a vice.
Mateo was pretty sure they were being watched.
He said nothing out loud, of course, but the longer they traveled, the more he felt it. That hair-raising sensation of someone following them. It wouldn’t dissipate. He wasn’t sure if Marco felt it, so for once in Mateo’s life, he kept quiet. If whoever was watching them wanted to hurt either of them, they probably would have done it by now.
Still, Mateo couldn’t stop the fear from permeating his skin. He’d spent most of his life hiding. He and Marco both had realized their lack of attraction toward girls fairly early on, and realized soon after that it didn’t matter what they were attracted to, as anything not contributing to the next generation of Fascists was frowned upon.
He’d heard that before all this mess with the Fascists started, Italy had been a sort of safe-haven for men and women like himself and Marco.
Not anymore, though,Mateo thought bitterly.
How dare he want to kiss a man? That would be “damaging to the prestige of the race,” or whatever those government idiots said.
He imagined a day when he wouldn’t have to worry about it. In Mateo’s wildest fantasy, he held another man’s hand while walking down the street, without a single glance in their direction.
Two more blocks and nobody had disturbed them, but Mateo was getting a bit restless. His instincts were screaming at him to run, at the very least to peer back into the dark and see whatwas chasing them, but he stayed as outwardly calm as he could. If he acknowledged it, it became real. If it was real, they were in danger. If they were in danger, he would panic.
Mateo didn’t have time to panic. They were close to the train station now, so close to buying their tickets to Paris and being free. Nobody would even have time to notice they were gone.
A shadow moved right at the corner of Mateo’s peripheral, so fast he almost missed it. At first, he thought it was a trick of the light. Nothing could movethatfast. But before he could process what was going on, Marco stopped moving, tightening his grip on Mateo’s shoulder and yanking him backwards.
“What the?—”
