Jesus! I can’t. My body is shaking, my bones rattling, and my heart can’t take this. Not any of this. I spot Signoria’s purse on the far table, and I race to it, opening it as I speed back into the plastic room.
I fall to my knees and dump the contents out. A litany of female shit spreads across the floor. Gabe has Marcella on her side, holding her body as she continues to seize. Her eyes are closed now, her face ashen, and her lips caked in blood. Holy shit. She’s going to die. She can’t fucking die, and there are about four bottles of random shit in here.
“It’s the blue bottle. The blue one. Spray it into her mouth.”
My hands fumble as I pick it up and uncap it. I get right in her face, open her mouth, and spray.
“How much?”
“Four or five sprays, I think.”
I don’t know if it’s five or six I end up doing. I can hardly count, let alone think. I simply spray the antidote into the back of her throat. Can I give her too much? What happens if I give her too much?
“Come on! Fucking work!” I growl.
It does. She stops seizing, her body sagging into the plastic. Thank fuck.
Gently I roll her onto her back, but something isn’t right. Gabe is on it, same as I am, checking her pulse.
“Fuck!” He starts doing chest compressions, and my world spins. No. This was supposed to fix her. Not kill her.
I glance to my side, but Signoria Batorini is dead. Her eyes are open and fixed, and her body is still. She, too, is caked in blood and foam, but I don’t care. She deserved worse. I hope that hurt like fuck and she was scared.
“Come on, sweetheart.” I cover Marcella’s head with my arms and press my mouth to her forehead. “Come on. Come back to me.”
Except I can hear that she’s not breathing. I pinch her nose and blow into her mouth to inflate her lungs.
“Gabe?” I rasp, barely able to make a sound as fear thunders in my chest as I’ve never felt before.
“No pulse. Compressions only.”
“She needs air,” I fire back.
He shakes his head as he pumps her chest. “Compressions are more important. And she likely still has the toxin in her mouth. Don’t do that again. Switch.”
He pulls back, and I take over, knotting my fingers and thrusting down into the center of her chest over her breastbone. I don’t know how long I go for before Gabe pushes me off and continues compressions.
I kiss her hair, her forehead, her cheeks, her nose. “Come on, mia stella. I love you. I fucking love you!” I rage. “You can’t leave me. We have so much to figure out, but I’m not giving up. I’ll keep chasing you. I’ll always fight for you. Please.”
Tears course down my face, dripping onto her cheeks.
Just as I’m about to give her another breath, Gabe fucking be damned, a gasp startles all of us. I fly back and cup her face, searching it. Her eyes stay closed, but her color is improving.
“We’ve got a heartbeat. It’s weak, but it’s there. She needs the hospital, though. I don’t think it’ll last without intervention. Is she still breathing?”
“Barely. It’s shallow and sporadic. Marcella, baby? Can you hear me?”
She doesn’t reply, and I press my fingers into her neck, searching for her pulse. I find it, but it’s as Gabe said, barely there, like her breathing. Then it fades.
“Fuck, I lost her pulse.”
“Shit,” Gabe hisses. “Is she breathing?”
I hold my ear to her lips. My eyes pinch shut. “No. Maybe she needs more antidote.”
“Or maybe it’s not strong enough,” Gabe challenges, once again doing compressions.
In the distance is the sound of a helicopter, but they’re too late. We’re too late.