The ground pitched sideways in an ear-splitting roar.
“It’ll be okay.” Jess held Hector’s face to her neck, his arms around her, his body stiff with fear. “It’ll be okay.”
She pressed her stinging eyes closed.
Something grabbed her shirt. Opening her eyes, a face loomed out of the darkness, fly-away white hair streaming from a slick scalp.
“Come,” growled Leone, the old groundskeeper.
He wrapped his calloused hands around Jess’s waist and lifted her and Hector up, cradled them in his arms. He ran forward, stepping through the rocks. A sharp left, then downward.
The air cleared and Jess took in a deep lungful of clear air, coughing and spitting. She leaned against the jagged rock wall of a tunnel, illuminated by an emergency light stuck to the ceiling. Leone pulled the heavy door shut behind them, forcing it shut.
With a thud, the door closed.
Panting, Jess looked at the door. She wiped ash from her face. The tunnel rattled in a violent thunder.
Leone shoved past her, still with Hector in his arms. He turned to Jess. “Nico?”
“Dead.” Jess doubled over and gagged. A wheezing cough strained from her chest.
Leone nodded, and without saying another word, he led the way down. Jess took one last look at the door, feeling the oppressive weight of the mountain around her, and followed him into the labyrinth.
The ancient tunnel wound its way through the rock. After fifty yards it opened into the wine cavern that Giovanni had showed her around. Except now it wasn’t filled with ten-foot high barrels standing shoulder to shoulder. The crates had been disassembled, their ribs collected against the rough-hewn rock walls. They were replaced by piled wooden crates, cardboard boxes and plastic bags that stretched the length of the thirty foot cave. Fifteen feet overhead, the harsh white of six emergency lights beamed down.
Two young men knelt at the side of the cavern, busy putting together a table. Jess recognized them. Lucca and Raffael, the teenage brothers who worked for Leone. She’d watched them play soccer with Hector in the gardens. Their faces lit up when they saw Jess, and they dropped their tools when they saw Hector in Leone’s arms. They jumped up to greet them, gesturing wildly and whooping with excitement.
But Jess hardly saw them. Her eyes locked onto something almost unbelievable. Beside Lucca and Raffael, in the center of it all, stood Jess’s mother and father. Kissing. Their arms were wrapped around each other.
Jess hadn’t seen them kiss in years, hadn’t seen them hold each other, not since she was a child. She brought a hand to her mouth, tears coming again to her still-stinging eyes. Her scalp tingled. She didn’t want to move, didn’t want to breath, for fear of breaking the spell.
From the corner of her eye, Celeste saw Jess and pushed away from Ben. “Jess! Oh my God!”
Pushing past the knot of Leone wrapped up with Raffael and Lucca, with Hector sandwiched between them, Celeste ran straight at Jess. Her arms spread wide, she almost knocked Jess over, gripped her so tight Jess felt the air squeeze from her lungs. Ben wrapped his arms around the two of them, his body wracked with convulsing sobs.
“We sent Leone to find you.” Celeste wept, tears flowing, crushed between Ben and Jess. “Ben was running around the walls, looking everywhere. You didn’t tell us where you were going.”
Jess laughed through her tears. “I’m sorry.”
The ground swayed and almost knocked them from their feet. Rocks crashed from the ceiling onto the packing crates. An emergency light tumbled from the ceiling and smashed against the rock floor. Jess gripped her mother and father. Even here, there might not be much time. The mountain itself was coming apart. Deafening booms echoed through the caves from the bombardment overhead.
Jess gritted her teeth and pressed her eyes closed, and saw, for the millionth time, the image of the small face disappearing into the black hole. “I’m sorry,” she moaned. “I’m so sorry.”
“Baby, what are you sorry for?” Celeste kissed her daughter’s forehead, her eyes, her cheeks. “We’re all together, there’s nothing to be sorry about.”
“No.” Hot tears streamed down Jess’s face.
She stared at her mother. She’d never told anyone before, had kept this terrible secret for twenty years. It was the demon that tore at her soul. Jess needed to be free.
“I’m sorry about Billy. It was my fault.” Jess gasped in a lungful of air before blurting, “I told him to go out on the ice.”
Time stopped for an instant, the booming above receded. Hurt blossomed in her mother’s eyes. The dam inside burst, twenty years of pressure releasing. Jess crumbled. Her knees buckled, her body wracked by heaving sobs.
Celeste and Ben grabbed Jess together, held her limp body up while tears streamed down her face.
“That wasn’t your fault.” Celeste’s voice was a ragged whisper.