Gianni whispered my name under his breath—soft, like he knew the exact moment I crossed that invisible line.But it was too late.
The Marcello who walked into this room was gone.
What was left was a man built on two sins: the brother I didn’t protect, and the calls I didn’t answer.
The truth hit so hard my knees nearly buckled.My vision blurred.My chest twisted until something snapped loose inside me and I let out a sound that didn’t sound human.
I roared.
The sound tore out of me like it had been waiting years to escape, scraping my throat raw, violent enough that Gianni flinched.It was agony and self-hatred and grief all detonating at once—a sound too big for the room, too ugly for prayer, too broken for redemption.
It ripped through me—an unholy, wounded, animal scream that shook the metal rail, burned my lungs, and dragged every shard of pain to the filthy surface.
It was everything I never said and everything I failed to do.It was every fucking thing I lost in one brutal, echoing bellow.
And when it died in my chest, when the last ragged breath left me, I was left shaking, hollow, and trembling over the body of my brother—a monster made from guilt and the ruins of love.
46
Neve
Metal screamed beneath me as the freight car tore through the night, a wounded beast barreling across rails that shook beneath my feet.Wind slashed at my face, whipping my hair into my eyes until all I could see was the blur of darkness and the smear of passing shadows.
I clung to the rusted rail with frozen fingers, breath burning in my throat like I’d swallowed fire.Zelda’s voice rang in my skull:
Jump.
Run.
Survive.
So I did.
The chance appeared, a chasm of opportunity between terror and instinct, and I hurled myself into it.
I didn’t remember hitting the gravel or scrambling up the embankment while Zelda shoved me toward the tracks.I didn’t even remember pulling myself into the freight car, limbs stiff and trembling, the metal floor cold enough to bite into my bones.
All I remembered was Atlas’s name tearing itself through my chest over and over, carving a wound it refused to let heal.
He had to be alive.He had to be.And I had to stay alivefor him.
But minutes dripped into hours, and time dissolved into something shapeless and cruel—a hollow, echoing world where hope eroded in the corners of my mind.
By the time I felt the train begin to slow at dawn the next day, I wasn’t sure I was still alive.I felt scraped out.Weightless and ghost-like.
Mist curled over the tracks as I climbed down, swallowing the horizon in soft gray shrouds.My legs were unsteady, numb from cold and hunger.I had no idea where I was.
I had no money.No phone.There was no plan.And I was aimless without Atlas.
Only one place in the world had ever felt safe, even if safety was only borrowed time.So I walked.Through fields that stretched forever, the grass brushing my ankles like skeletal fingers.Through villages where strangers stared too long, reading desperation in the slump of my shoulders.
Fog clung low to the earth, following me like sorrow given shape.
I relied on kindness I didn’t ask for; a woman at a well pressed a loaf of bread into my hands without meeting my eyes.A boy offered me an apple, cheeks pink with pity.An old man handed me three figs and mumbled something about angels and orphans.
I must have looked like a bedraggled cat, a vagrant drifting between towns with nothing but exhaustion trailing behind her.A ghost muddied by dirt and blood and a quiet fear that knew no solace.
By the second evening, my feet throbbed.Blisters burst.My throat burned from thirst and crying.