The Canary Who Learned To Fly

Seraphina Vitiello POV

Dante crashed into the water, shattering the surface.

He gathered Isabella into his arms as if she were made of spun glass, shielding her from a threat that didn't exist.

She was sobbing hysterically, her fingers clawing at his soaked shirt.

"She tried to drown me!" she wailed, her voice echoing off the stone walls. "She tried to kill me, Dante!"

I lay sprawled on the cold stones, my breath hitching as agony tore through me.

My fractured leg was twisted at a sickening angle beneath me. Pain radiated up my thigh, white-hot and blinding, stealing the air from my lungs.

I tried to push myself up, my arms trembling.

Dante turned.

His face was no longer the face of the man I knew. It was a mask of pure, unadulterated fury.

"You are sick," he spat, the words landing like physical blows.

"I didn't touch her," I gasped, fighting the black spots dancing in my vision.

"Liar!" Isabella screamed, burying her face in the crook of his neck to hide her dry eyes. "She said she hated me! She said she wished the sign had killed me!"

Dante stepped out of the fountain, water streaming from his clothes. He set Isabella down gently on a stone bench, treating her with a tenderness that shattered my heart.

Then, he turned his attention to me.

He stalked forward, water dripping from his clothes like blood.

He looked like an executioner.

"Attempted murder on a made man's fiancée," he said. His voice was terrifyingly calm, a deadly contrast to the rage in his eyes. "Do you know the punishment for that, Seraphina?"

"You're blind," I whispered, my voice cracking.

He stopped dead.

"What did you say?"

"You were blind when I found you, and you are blind now," I rasped, looking up at him through a haze of pain. "You see nothing."

Before he could respond, my father burst into the courtyard, flanked by two soldiers.

"What is happening?" the Don roared, his presence sucking the oxygen from the air.

"She attacked Isabella!" Dante shouted, never taking his eyes off me.

My father didn't hesitate. He didn't ask for my side. He didn't look at my broken leg.

He crossed the distance in two strides and backhanded me across the face.

The force of the blow snapped my head back. Metallic tang filled my mouth. I tasted blood.

"Disgrace," my father hissed, looking down at me as if I were something he had scraped off his shoe.

"Take her to the Cooler," Dante ordered the soldiers, his voice devoid of mercy.

My eyes went wide with terror.

The Cooler. The hospital morgue. The place where they kept the bodies before disposal.

"Dante, no," I pleaded, panic overriding the pain in my leg. "It's freezing down there. You can't..."

"You need to cool off," he said coldly, turning his back on me. "Maybe a night with the dead will teach you to respect the living."

The soldiers seized my arms.

They didn't help me stand. They dragged me.

My cast scraped loudly against the concrete, vibrating the shattered bone beneath.

I screamed, a raw, guttural sound, but no one listened. No one cared.

They shoved me into the service elevator.

They took me down, past the basement, into the bowels of the building.

The air grew sharp and biting. The chemical sting of formaldehyde assaulted my nose.

They hauled me to the heavy steel door of the morgue and threw it open.

Inside, rows of stainless steel drawers lined the walls, gleaming under the harsh fluorescent lights.

It was freezing. A tomb of ice.

They threw me onto the tiled floor. My hip slammed against the hard surface, sending fresh waves of nausea through me.

"Think about what you did," one of the soldiers sneered.

Then they slammed the door.

The lock clicked with a sound of finality.

Darkness swallowed me whole.

It was absolute. Heavy. Suffocating.

The cold began to seep into my bones immediately, bypassing my skin and settling deep in my marrow.

I curled into a ball, tucking my knees to my chest, trying desperately to preserve heat.

My teeth began to chatter violently.

I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to imagine the safe house.

I tried to remember the crackle and heat of the fireplace.

I tried to remember Dante's body heat, the way I had lain next to him to stop his shivering when the fever took him.

*I am cold, Sette,* he had whispered then, vulnerable and broken.

*I am here,* I had answered, holding him tight.* I will keep you warm.*

I had given him my warmth.

I had given him my blanket.

And now, he had locked me in a freezer.

The irony felt like a serrated knife twisting in my gut.

As the hypothermia set in, I started to hallucinate.

I saw shadows detach themselves from the corners.

I heard whispers echoing off the tiles.

I realized they were the voices of the girls who had died on the operating table before me. The other spares. The ones who hadn't made it.

I was going to die here.

And the man I loved was the one who had turned the key.