Too Late, Mr. Capo: Watch Me Shine

Nia POV

I watched Franco's face contort, but my mind was already on that freezing mountain road.

For the first half-hour after he drove away, I walked down the pitch-black road, searching the oppressive dark for the headlights of a passing car. The silence was so complete I could hear the whisper of my own breathing, and I realized quickly that this was an abandoned logging route.

The wind howled through the trees, plastering the torn fabric of my dress to my freezing legs.

Blood from my scraped knees trickled down my shins. The cold seeped into my bones, shaking my frame with violent shivers. My teeth chattered so hard my jaw ached with the strain.

A sharp crack.

I froze. The sound of a dead branch breaking echoed from the dense woods to my right.

Then, a sound of breathing—low, guttural, heavy, and wet. It was not human.

A knot of cold fear tightened in my chest, and I quickened my pace. Every step on the jagged gravel in my thin-soled dress shoes felt like a fresh wound.

I reached a fork in the dirt road. The left path led further down the mountain, while the right curved upward toward a dark, imposing tree line.

I chose the right, knowing I needed shelter, not miles of exposed, open road.

Less than twenty minutes later, what little hope I had vanished. A massive pile of dirt and uprooted trees blocked the path—a recent landslide.

In a surge of panic, I tried to climb over the wet earth, my frozen fingers finding no purchase in the slick mud.

My foot slipped on a loose rock, and I tumbled backward.

I hit the ground hard. The back of my head slammed against a stone, and my vision flared with a painful, star-like burst of white.

I lay in the freezing dirt, staring up at the stars through the skeletal canopy of branches.

Franco had always told me he loved the view from this mountain. I wondered if Mia was sitting in his passenger seat right now, looking up at those same stars.

A bitter gust of wind blew the torn fabric of my dress over my face.

My eyelids grew heavy. The violent shivering stopped, replaced by a strange lightness, as if my body were no longer my own. The pain in my knees faded into a distant hum.

A beam of light swept over my face.

Someone grabbed my shoulder and rolled me over. A thick, calloused hand pressed against the side of my neck, searching.

"Breathing," a rough voice muttered.

Strong arms hoisted me up, and the man threw me over his broad back. He wrapped a heavy, military-grade winter coat around my freezing, limp body.

The scent of woodsmoke filled my nose, followed by the savory aroma of a rich meat broth.

The first thing I saw was a ceiling of rough-hewn wooden beams.

I was lying on a solid bed, buried under two heavy, patchwork quilts. A cast-iron stove burned fiercely a few feet away, its heat a welcome pain radiating through my numb, tingling skin.

A large man crouched by the stove. At the rustle of the quilts, he turned his head, holding a steaming tin cup in his weathered hands.

He walked over and handed me the cup. The sharp, sweet scent was hot ginger tea.

I reached for it, but my hands shook so violently that I splashed half the scalding liquid over the rim.

He did not speak. He took the cup back, set it down on a nearby wooden crate, and handed me a dry, coarse towel.

"I am Dante," he said, his voice low and steady. "The groundskeeper for the estate up the ridge. I will get medicine for your knees from the town at daybreak."

I clutched the rough towel. "Is there a telephone signal here?"

Dante shook his head. "This mountain is a dead zone. The nearest town is an hour and a half away by foot."

Carefully, I picked up the tin cup with both hands. I took a sip of the spicy, burning tea, letting it thaw the block of ice in my stomach.

"Thank you," I whispered, my voice raspy.

Dante turned his broad back to me, facing the stove once more. "It is nothing. You find something alive in these woods, you bring it in."

He tossed another log into the fire, sending a shower of orange sparks up into the dark chimney.

"Who left you out there in a summer dress?" Dante asked, his gaze fixed on the flames, his back still to me.