I feel the toe of Giovanni’s boot nudge me until I’m rolled onto my back. I lay there, the action having winded me. As movement floats around my hazy vision, I feel hands clasp around my ankles, aiding someone into lifting my legs. The movement causes even more pain than I thought plausible to shoot through my stomach. I groan before I dissolve into tears. My cries aren't sobs, my body cannot find the energy to exert such emotion and I'm silenced by pain when we begin to move. I whimper as my body struggles to tolerate what’s happening and I’m barely able to comprehend what’s truly going on. My body lethargically follows the motion I'm being forced in. I open my eyes, finding the ceiling passing me by and really take note that Giovanni is dragging my dying body through our house. Lights swim into my vision before passing on to clean white space, cutting off as we pass through the thresholds of rooms. When we stop, I find it hard to gather where we are, but when my feet hit the ground, jolting my entire body, causing me to once again cry out, I know we’ve reached whatever destination my brother has in mind.
I close my eyes, trying to manage the pain I’m in, but when I open them, I find Giovanni leering down at me. His eyes watch me for a moment, the dilation of his pupils no less than they were, and my breathing becomes rapid with fear. He leans down, causing me to close my eyes before my body starts to lift into his arms. I look up to see Giovanni, this time while he has me cradled in his arms. My head lulls against his heated body, the blood of three siblings merging as one, and I take a moment to really try and fight for a way to get help.
“Gio,” I silently speak his name. “Gio, wh-what are you,” I pause momentarily, my ability to speak stilted by how tired I’m becoming. I take a steady breath, licking my lips as I strive for the words. “What are y-you doing?”
“What I should’ve done a long time ago to prove to Papà that you are three of the weakest links he ever invested hope in,” he says, walking us down the few steps to our father’s office. Every single step ceases my body with blinding, tortuous smarting, and I don’t know how far off I am from blacking out once more. "And you are the weakest of them," Gio spits, carrying me further into the room. "Wonder what Papà will make of finding the biggest human sacrifice to date."
He sets me on the edge of the desk before he starts to swipe away every object upon the surface. I hear every fall and clatter to the floor, objects break as others scatter across the marble flooring. Moments later, I’m lifted again, but this time to be laid out flat upon the grand, overbearing oak desk that adorns the center of our father’s office.
“Gio,” I now sob at him. “Don’t-don’t do this. Wha-whatever you thi-think, i-it can be undone. Ww-we can sort it.”
“No, we can’t!” Gio ferociously yells, igniting into an angry version of his psychosis. “This is what is meant to happen to fix this family! This is what I was meant to do to show Papà that I am worthy of taking this family over! He doesn’t get to forget about me in favor of fucking Maverick!”
I have no time to speak out as Gio leaves the room in a fury, bloodied hands on his head, and he leaves me alone. I struggle to look around the room, trying in vain to find some way to get myself help, but that moment of begging with my own brother has cost me more energy than I had left. The phone that usually sits on the desk is now discarded across the room, my phone is back in the other room, I remember dropping it when Giovanni stepped back away after stabbing me. I have no way to get help, and I’m left alone.
I roll my head back, staring at the ceiling once more. My life drips away with every beat of my heart and I can feel it ebbing away. The tears fall down my face as I find it increasingly harder to keep my grip on this reality. I have no idea how much longer I’ll last, but I’m striving to hear a voice that will heed some sort of rescue.
In all my years, I have never found living to be the hardest part of my life. But as I struggle to keep a hold on my grip on reality, fight for consciousness, and wait to hear the sounds of salvation, I realize this is it. All the things I have started to plan, my fight back to finding the girl I want to be, giving into loving the man I want is all about to end here and all a little too late.
And that thought on its own causes me to break down.
I tell myself to move, to use my legs to swing my body from the desk and onto the floor to find an escape, but none of my limbs seem to want to work anymore. Blood loss is taking effect as it shuts my body down piece by piece, and I hate myself for this newfound weakness I am a victim of.
“Quit the fucking waterworks. No one’s coming for you,” Giovanni spits at me, entering the room once more. His tone is off as if his senses are finally coming to life and toying with his dirtied conscience.
I look to my side, my head lulling heavily, to see Giovanni marching back and forth. My body convulses painfully, and I roll my head back, unable to watch him. I’m staring up at the crystal chandelier my father uses to adorn his room in bright lights. I feel like he’s watching me until I bleed out.
The crystals hang well balanced, illuminated with penetrating rays of beautiful light and I'm left wondering – is this how I'm supposed to die? Spread out on my father's desk as if I'm a human sacrifice, my brother pacing like a maniac beside me while my life pours from fast crimson rivers, spreading around me with a dramatic cause. Is that how my death is written in the stars?