Of Blood and Bone (The Minaldi Legacy #1)(45)
Author: Courtney Cole

I raped her.

I am aghast, appalled; filled with hatred and repulsion.  Of myself.  I’m a monster.  I don’t deserve to remain alive.  This has to end.  I can’t do this anymore.  The desolation of it all has finally pulled me under.  I cannot continue to exist in such a way.

I sit with my head in my hands until I feel Eva’s presence. I feel her before I see her, but when I look up, she is here.

She found me.

And then I realize that there is blood on my hands and my stomach turns over.

“It happened again,” I tell her needlessly.

Her face is tortured and sad as she nods silently.

There is no need for words.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Eva

Luca doesn’t remember anything that happened last night, but he insists that his episode came on differently than before.  He was cognizant for longer than normal, then there was absolutely nothing but fog.  No memory whatsoever.  He’s insistent that his curse is changing, that he will not live in such a way.  He wants to go to town and turn himself in to the polizia, but I was able to talk him out of that for the time being.

I don’t know why.

The ethical side of me knows that that is the right thing to do.

But the side of me that is in love with Luca can’t bear it.

I’m in love with Luca.

I swallow hard as I label the vial of his blood that I took from him this morning.  I love him.  He has broken through the barriers that I have surrounded myself with and he stole my heart.  He holds it unwillingly in his hands, because he doesn’t want me involved with him.  But I cannot do anything else.  I love him.

I write his name on the label and wrap it around the tube of crimson blood, dropping it into a padded envelope.  I give the envelope to a maid to send out with a courier.   Luca relented so easily this morning, allowing me to take his blood even though he is certain it won’t reveal his problem.  He truly feels that he cannot be helped and that breaks my heart.

He is secluded now, closed away in his cave.  He doesn’t want me there.  He wants to remain there alone until he sees that his curse isn’t returning today, until I can try and figure out how to help him.   The bruises that he left on my neck filled him with such anger and self-loathing that he couldn’t even look at me.  I tried to tell him that he didn’t rape me, that I could have stopped him.

But truthfully, if I had wanted to stop him, I don’t know that I could have.  But I didn’t tell him that part.  I didn’t have to.  He already knows and it is tearing him apart.  I picture him, alone and chained in his cave and my heart splits into two.  I cringe and my eyes grow hot.  But I push that away.  I can’t help him if I fall apart.  And I know that in order to help him, I need to speak with someone who has been there all along, even longer than Adrian.

I have to speak with Melina.

I find myself at her door, a tiny tape recorder in my hand.

I knock and Sophia answers, her face surprised.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Talbot,” she tells me politely, her body blocking the entrance to Melina’s rooms.  “But we weren’t expecting you until tomorrow. She’s not even dressed.”

“That’s fine,” I tell her. “I’ve just had to rearrange my schedule.  I’d like to see her now.”

I practically push past her.  Nothing will deter me.

“Very well,” Sophia says, allowing me to pass.  “She more lucid in the mornings, anyway.  You will probably be able to help her more this way.”

Her words don’t surprise me.  Most people with dementia are this way.  But since Luca wanted me here in the evenings with her, to help diffuse difficult situations, that is what I did.  Someone with dementia truly can’t be helped, their disorder can’t be healed.  It can only be controlled as well as possible with medication and therapy.  There was no way that I could heal her by meeting with her during lucid mornings.  But I can glean information that I can possibly use to heal her son.

I find Melina seated at her dining room table, an elegant shawl wrapped around her thin shoulders.  She looks up in surprise.

“Dr. Talbot,” she greets me.  I am surprised that she remembers me.  She hasn’t yet done so in any of our other sessions.  “Please sit, have breakfast with me.  You are here quite early today.”

She is acting as though nothing is out of the ordinary, even though she seems as lucid as I am.  I am flabbergasted as I sit across the table from her and inconspicuously push the button on my digital recorder to “Record.”

“Mrs. Minaldi, you seem bright eyed and bushy-tailed this morning,” I tell her with a polite smile.  She looks up at me, intrigued.

“Is that an American saying, dear?” she asks, as she butters an English muffin.  She offers one to me, but I shake my head.

“Yes, it is,” I answer.  “It’s an idiom that means you are full of energy and ready to face your day.”

She smiles at that.

“Of course I am,” she tells me.  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

She proceeds to eat her breakfast, oblivious to the fact that I am astounded by her clear state of mind.  It is normal for a person with dementia to be clearer in the morning.  It is not, however, normal for that person to be completely lucid, a night and day difference.  That is not normal at all.

I don’t point that out.  Instead, I observe her and plan how to get crucial information from her.  The woman that Luca had described from his childhood would most likely not offer that much up voluntarily.  I watch her eat for a moment more before I speak.

“Mrs. Minaldi, do you remember much from Luca’s childhood?”

She stops what she is doing and lowers her hands to the table.  “Of course.  Why do you ask?”

I consider my next words carefully as she watches me with a hawk-like gaze.  Gone are the clouds of delirium.  I’m sitting in front of a person who is as sharp as they come.  I feel slightly like I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole.

“When did you know that he was different?”

Melina stares at me.

“Different?  You mean, when did I realize that he walks in his sleep?”

She isn’t going to tell me anything.  I can see that from the determined set to her jaw.

“Yes,” I reply limply.  “When did Luca first start walking in his sleep?”