Page 5 of Never the Same

Nothing I could do about what I’d just now learned, so I did my best to shove my emotions into the Do Not Disturb box where I usually kept them.

Maybe I’d steal one more drink with him before heading to Audrey’s to act like my world wasn’t about to spin off its axis this coming week.

I leaned forward to stow my phone in my back pocket, and I couldn’t help but clock Reed’s dark eyes journeying over my body for a brief moment.

He sipped his drink, acting indifferent, as if I hadn’t caught him checking me out in my fitted white tee. “Are you finally leaving?”

“Nope.” I refilled our glasses. “You’re not done with me yet.”

Chapter Two

Hollis

Rome, Italy; a few days later

The Secret Garden was on the third shelf, fourth book in. The second I pulled it forward, the bookshelf groaned and began to shift to the side, like it did this morning before the opening hours when I’d tested it out.

Gunfire cracked behind me. Short bursts of suppressed rounds, the kind that still rang in your skull even with the DJ continuing to blast music.

Splinters of wood stung my cheek as a bullet ripped through the shelf above my head.

I wasn’t alone. My six was covered, but I hated leaving him. No other choice, though.

Heart hammering, I hesitantly slipped into the tunnel and yanked the panel shut. The muted thud-thud-thud of rounds on the doorframe was the last thing I heard before silence swallowed me.

I flicked on the tactical light mounted beneath my Glock barrel and took off down the tunnel. The next sixty seconds passed in a blur of sprints and sharp turns as I navigated the ancient labyrinth beneath the city, the echo of my boots smothered by centuries of old dust.

When the tunnel narrowed, I dropped to my hands and knees, crawling through a choke point so tight my ribs scraped the walls. The air grew colder, damp enough to cling to my skin, with the faint reek of mildew mixed with something older. Rot, incense, and candle soot.

I emerged into the Capuchin Crypt. A thousand hollow eye sockets stared back at me from the walls, skulls stacked as neatly as books in a library.

My light swept the chandelier made entirely of pelvic bones, then moved over to the femur crosses and vertebral structures—a cathedral built by death itself. My throat tightened as I breathed in holy bone dust, tasting history on my tongue.

I forced myself forward, to the stairwell that would lead to a store, my boots whispering across the stone like I was trespassing on consecrated ground.

I ran up the steps and shoved open the door, only to have the breath knocked from my lungs. The butt of a rifle connected with my chest, and I lost my balance, wig, and gun.

Someone’s fast reflexes saved me from falling down the stairs. A man hauled me into the room before throwing me onto the ground like a doll.

I was David up against Goliath, breathing hard while scrambling backward on my ass, peering up at the huge jerk hovering over me in the shop.

As two other men flanked him, I let instinct kick in and shifted upright and into a fighting position. But all my training was ineffective with the three of them pressing in on me. Every strike was deflected. Every maneuver countered and blocked.

Aside from the hit to my chest with the butt of the gun, they didn’t hit back.

Two of the men forced me to my knees as a fourth man approached.

I continued to squirm, to try to break free from their hold, but then both shock and relief hit me like rounds to the chest.

What are you doing here?

I turned to the man at my right, expecting him to let go of me and fight his new opponent, but he didn’t budge. Neither did the other two men.

Oh God, no. No, no, no.

The dim lights of the shop flickered around us, casting shadows across a face I’d known my entire life.

The world tilted. The smell of gun oil and incense clung to the back of my throat.