Of Blood and Bone (The Minaldi Legacy #1)(47)
Author: Courtney Cole

He’s attempting to joke, to lighten the situation.  But it doesn’t help. I’m in no mood.  I nod.

“Please let me know the second that you are back.  And please, tell Luca that I came.”

Adrian nods.  “He knows.”

“Okay,” I whisper, as I turn to leave.  There’s nothing else to do.  Luca controls everything that happens on Chessarae.  If he doesn’t want me to see him, I won’t be seeing him.

I choke back tears as I make my way back to the house.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Luca

“She’s gone?” I ask Adrian as he returns from the passage.

He nods, not saying a word.

“Was she upset?” I ask, although I know the answer.

Adrian nods again.

“Luca, you know you have to do this.  You don’t want to harm her.”

I flex my wrists, straining them against the manacles that restrain them.  I slump against the headboard.

“No, I don’t want to harm her.”

Adrian returns to his book, and I return to thinking about a life that I can never have.  Both of us are waiting for me to snap, to re-enter the darkness that has consumed me of late.  So far, it hasn’t come.  But it will, because it always does.

I am more alone than I have ever been.

I bow my head and close my eyes.

I would pray, but I know that God doesn’t want to hear from monsters.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Eva

I have dubbed Luca’s affliction Dr.Jekyll/Mr.Hyde’s disease.

I cannot bring myself to continue calling it a curse or even an affliction.  It is a medical condition because there is no such thing as a curse.  As a physician, I know that.  And as a medical condition, there has to be a cure somewhere. We just have to find it.  Depression, schizophrenia, polio, measles, mumps… they all started out as incurable diseases and now they all have treatment.  Luca’s disease will be the same.  This thought is what is keeping me going.

It has been two weeks since Luca secluded himself in the cave.

The darkness of Chessarae has closed in around me and for these two weeks, I have been a woman obsessed. I have had one singular thought and that is to help Luca.  I have spent my time creating endless notebooks filled with notes and more sessions with his mother.   I have scoured the internet and medical research books looking for any indication of similar diseases reported by others. 

So far, there is nothing.

I am utterly dejected and I feel like I haven’t slept in days.

I sent an email to a mentor of mine, a renowned psychiatrist, asking his input.  I am anxiously waiting for his reply.  I didn’t include all of the details, of course.  Only the sketchy basics and obviously, I didn’t include the part where Luca has acted on his violent tendencies.

At the thought, my hands automatically flutter to my throat, although the bruises from Luca’s hands have long faded.  That night flashes through my memory like lightning in a storm.  His face was so dark and troubled as he clutched me to him, then thrust me away.  He turned me over and entered me from behind, pulling me to him, closer and closer, as he thrust harder and harder.  Then he wrapped his fingers around my throat and squeezed, whispering words that I couldn’t hear or understand.

My words, my pleas for him to stop, grew louder until he finally listened.  He turned me around and looked into my eyes and I begged for him to focus, to focus on my face.  His eyes grew slightly clearer and filled with distress before he curled up and fell asleep. I had stroked his hair until I fell asleep myself, hunched over him.

When I woke, he was gone.

He had climbed from my balcony and somehow survived the fall.  To this day, I don’t know how.

My eyes fill with tears now at the memory.  The thought that he is confined to the cave, a self-imposed exile, is tearing me apart.  Adrian comes out from time to time but there is no news.  Luca hasn’t had another episode, but he wants to be cautious and wait longer.  I want to see him, but he refuses.

And I feel like a shell of myself.  I know I need sleep, that I will feel better if I do.  Yet whenever I try, all I see are Luca’s tortured dark eyes and I can’t.

I push the mountain of research on undefined psychological disorders to the side and stand up, stretching.  I haven’t even showered today.  I’ve been up since the crack of dawn, sifting through page after page of research reports.  I have a crick in my lower back, so I stand in the shower for quite a while, allowing the hot water to work out the muscle cramps.  Finally, I step from the shower, into the steam-filled bathroom and towel off.  I pull on jeans and a soft shirt, and towel-dry my hair.

Instead of taking my daily walk through the maze to beg information from Adrian, I decide to walk along the beach instead.  The beauty of the sea will do me good.

I slip my shoes from my feet and allow my toes to sink in the sand as I absorb the morning’s beauty.  Sea gulls scream overhead and the foam lip of the water slides toward me and then away, over and over in a rhythmic cadence that soothes me.  I am staring at the horizon absently as I walk back toward the house when I hear my name.

I look up to find Adrian walking toward me.  He is freshly showered and in clean clothing and most importantly, he has emerged from the cave.  That can only mean one thing:  That Luca has too.  Adrian wouldn’t leave him there.

I run toward him, drawing to a stop when I reach him.

“He’s out?” I ask breathlessly.

“Yes,” Adrian nods.  “He never had an episode and so he finally decided it was safe to return to the house.  For now, anyway.  But we’ll need to keep a close eye.  He says he doesn’t feel like himself, that he hasn’t for weeks.  I don’t know what to make of it.”

I see the pain on Adrian’s face now, something that I haven’t noticed before because I was so immersed in my own.

“This must be hard for you,” I observe, reaching out to touch his arm.  “You love him, too.”

Adrian nods.  “He’s like my brother,” he answers.  “I don’t know what to do for him.”

“I don’t either,” I admit.  “And it’s killing me.”

He looks at me now, really examines me, and he looks surprised.

“Eva, you look horrible.  You’ve got to get some rest. You can’t help him if you run yourself into the ground.”