Although Hal was confident no one had followed them back to the compound, as an added precaution Prosper sent out a decoy car about fifteen minutes before Valentina and Sal made their way to the hangar. Prosper also wanted to send a convoy along with the Town Car but Gianni nixed the idea. He had every confidence that Salvatore would get Valentina to the hangar safely, and he was worried that it would bring unwanted and unnecessary attention to have an MC escort. Prosper was not used to having his orders questioned and thought that Gianni was making a big mistake. However, he also recognized that G was Valentina’s father so, despite Prosper’s better judgement and Hal’s scowling disapproval, Prosper acquiesced.

Hal held Valentina’s hand tight as he walked her to the Town Car where Sal waited to speed her off to safety. When Hal lifted Valentina’s chin to give her a long and deep kiss good-bye, she wished that she could make herself very small, hop into the pocket that sat over his heart, and stay in there, close to him forever. A cold chill ran up Valentina’s spine as Hal reached to pull out the strap to the seat belt. When she heard the snap of the buckle holding her in place, Valentina had a sudden and strange foreboding feeling that she was never going to see Hal again.     She pushed that thought away quickly and attributed it to the whole deadly vibe of the day. Then Valentina sat back into the deep leather car seat and forced herself to try and relax.

She watched through the window as the landscape flashed by in a series of long blurs.  With one hand on the wheel and the other holding a cell, Uncle Sal kept his eyes glued to the road. He spoke low and fast into the phone using a Sicilian dialect that Valentina had trouble following. Sal’s suit jacket hung on the back of the car seat, a Colt 1911 .45 semi-automatic pistol was strapped to his side and sat in a custom-made shoulder holster.  The air was thick with a sense of urgency and danger that made Valentina bite down on her lip and clench her fists.

When she let out a long, fractured sigh, Sal threw her a look of concern. He abruptly ended the call and hastily stuck the cell into his shirt pocket. Then Uncle Sal reached out his hand and gave Valentina’s thigh a pat of fatherly reassurance. “Va tutto bene. Non ti preoccupare—Everything is going to be fine, don’t worry.”

She smiled at him just to ease his mind. “I know I’m safe with you, Uncle Sal.”

Valentina had barely gotten the words out of her mouth when a cacophony of confused sounds sprang up in deafening decibels all around her.. The ping of shattering glass, the whomp of exploding tires, and the crunch of metal being torn and crushed mixed in with Valentina’s screams as bullets sprayed all around them; Sal lost control of the car and plowed through the guardrail.

In an instant, pointed shards of glass from exploding windows became lethal projectiles. The glittering, razor- sharp splinters volleyed through the air like tiny deadly arrows. Sal’s arm shot out, and his thin palm covered the top of Valentina’s skull as he forced her head down. He shouted at her, “Brace your body, cover your head and close your eyes!”

Valentina steeled her body and waited for the final impact from a stop that just didn’t come; the car only seemed to pick up speed as it went careening down the long, steep embankment. As Valentina and Sal continued to tumble towards the rocky ravine, the earsplitting screech of a door being savagely ripped from its hinges tore through the air. That horrific noise was instantly eclipsed by the sickening sound of metal as it crunched and twisted through thick layers of trees and scraped against enormous, jagged-edged ledges of rock. Valentina’s seatbelt was both a blessing and a curse. It held her securely in place when otherwise she would have been thrown to certain death. However, while her body tumbled and bent and twisted, Valentina felt as if she were being squished and squashed and smashed into a tiny box. Her lungs contracted with such force that she was afraid they would collapse inside her chest. When the airbag was violently released, it thundered out in deafening decibels. Almost instantly, the car shuddered, heaved and teetered like a fallen soldier. Then it shifted to its side and continued its violent descent to the bottom of the ravine.

A deadly silence followed.

When Valentina recovered consciousness, she found that her face was pressed into the airbag while the seatbelt still held her firmly in place. Her ears were ringing, she was disoriented and dizzy, and her head hurt terribly. The sudden overwhelming smell of gas caused Valentina to erupt into a spasm of coughs that sent her diaphragm screaming out in pain and made her wonder how many of her ribs were broken.

Sal

She couldn’t see him past her airbag. Desperately Valentina began to claw, wrestle, and grapple with the inflatable until she had somehow managed to push it aside and could see across to the driver seat. Valentina looked at Sal through the haze of smoke and noxious fumes with dawning realization.

His airbag hadn’t gone off.

His airbag hadn’t gone off.

Valentina’s eyes were glued to Sal, but weirdly she could only see him in small frames— his right shoulder, one eye, the blood pooled in his ear. It was as if her psyche was revealing the truth to her one terrible puzzle piece at a time— giving her the time to register the shock in small degrees. Slowly, slowly, the whole horrible picture came into place.

The steering wheel was sunk into the cavity of Sal’s chest and his head lay at an odd angle—blood flowed in crimson streams from his ears, nose and mouth.

“Sal?” Valentina croaked out, “Uncle Sal?” She pleaded and prayed and strained across the divide that separated them. Valentina pulled on Sal’s arm but his head just lolled loosely back and forth— his eyes were lifeless. 

Valentina’s heart shattered into a thousand pieces when she realized that Uncle Sal was lost to her. She reached out as best she could and closed the lids of his eyes.  Lord have mercy on your soul she began a prayer for his deliverance. 

When Valentina’s prayer was interrupted by a loud series of hisses and pops, she was forced to turn her attention away from Sal. When she did, Valentina was horrified to see licks of yellow flames blaze up from the engine; soon the whole car would be engulfed.

She lost precious moments fumbling with the door handle, only to realize the door itself was pinned against the bottom of the gulch. The seatbelt pulled hard across Valentina’s chest as she twisted and turned in the confined space searching for another way out. 

Valentina turned her attention again to the front of the Lincoln, horrified to find that the small sparks of flame had caught and turned into a blazing storm.  Valentina watched in horror as the hungry fire ate its way through the hood of the car.  Frantically she pulled at the seatbelt and followed the strap until her hand found the latch. 

She let out a cry of pain as the heat from the metal clasp burned into her palm.  Repeatedly, the hot steel blistered her fingers as Valentina pulled at the locked latch in determined desperation.   The flames danced before her eyes; they skipped and whirled towards her with such hypnotic flare that Valentina was soon lost in a stupor of mesmerizing heat. When the roar of the fire began to fade into the background and her limbs began to feel heavy, Valentina wondered idly if her central nervous system had begun to shut down. She knew that her brain was being deprived of oxygen and that soon she would lose consciousness.

Hal

Out of the smoke and blazing flame, his image flashed before her with the force of a jet plane—the ice blue of his knowing eyes, the square of his strong jaw, the warrior scars that gave testimony to his strength.  Hal was so close that Valentina could reach out and touch him, yet when she slowly lifted her arm towards him—poof—he disappeared. When Hal’s image blended in with the dark smoke that surrounded her, it shook Valentina to the core and startled her into full consciousness. Suddenly, the enormity of the situation she found herself in came screaming back into sharp focus. If Valentina didn’t act soon, not only would she never see Hal again, but she would die a horrible, horrible death. The caustic smoke was suffocating and small spurts of flame had begun to bore holes through the roof of the car. Valentina cried out in pain as hot metal rained down, sizzling her hair and blistering her scalp.

With renewed determination and strength of purpose, Valentina grasped the molten hot seatbelt, locked it firmly into her blistered fingers and with a rebel yell, wrenched open the clasp. Now able to move freely, Valentina was frantic to find something—anything— that would help her.

Water bottles! Thank god! Valentina was overcome with relief to find three two-liter water bottles in what was left on the back seat. Valentina used two of them to douse her clothes and body. Then she tore the suit jacket from the back of Sal’s seat and soaked it with the remaining bottle of water. She wrapped the sodden cloth loosely around her head and shoulders.

The worst of it was that now Valentina would have to crawl over Sal’s dead body to get to the back window. There was no other way, and she had to act fast before the whole thing exploded. 

Being careful to avert her eyes and keep her focus straight ahead, Valentina silently begged Sal’s forgiveness, and pulled herself over him. Then she slid through the leather interior of the Lincoln until she was at the back window.

Once there, she squeezed her body through the small opening framed by shattered fragments of glass. Valentina used what strength she had left to push herself off the car and onto the hard, rocky ground.

She heaved and sputtered and coughed as she tried her best to catch a breath in the hot, smoky air. Valentina had to keep moving. Once those fast-moving flames hit the gas tank, it would send out a deadly blast.  If Valentina didn’t get herself out of its range, she would be blown to bits with it. 

When the dizziness and nausea prevented her from standing on her own, Valentina pulled herself forward on her hands and knees. Every breath sent razor sharp pains shooting through her ribcage, the palms of her hands and the pads of her fingers were burnt and blistered. Valentina’s scalp stung, her eyes itched, and her ears rung.

She had managed to pull herself just a few yards when the car exploded, punching a fist of flames through the sky. She felt an instant surge of fiery wind swoop under her belly, pick her up and send her flying over the broken trees and jagged rocks.

Valentina landed hard and when she did, she felt a burst of intense pain travel with excruciating speed through her body.  Unable to move, she fought her way in and out of consciousness.  Her body had gone numb; she couldn’t feel her legs or her arms.  Logic told Valentina that she was going into shock, but fear told her that her spine had snapped.  When a hot ash landed on her calf and Valentina jerked reflexively her eyes flooded with tears of relief—if her legs could still register pain then maybe she had a chance.

While Valentina fought the grinding fear of paralysis, her body began to slowly check in with her brain. Fighting her fear, Valentina began to make a series of small deliberate movements. The control of fingers and toes graduated to wrist and ankles, then to calves and thighs. Each small success flooded her with relief, and led to a larger triumph until Valentina gained full motor control of her body. From that point, she was able to haul herself to a sitting position and relax her spine against a large boulder. 

Valentina knew that the twisted, flaming piece of metal was still sending up billows of black smoke—still erupting in sporadic bursts of flames— but she didn’t look that way again. Valentina didn’t want her last image of Uncle Sal to be his charred remains, and she knew he would not want that either.

Tu sarai sempre con me—you will always be with me Valentina whispered in the wind.

E tu con me—and you with me. The wind seemed to whisper back.

With a heavy heart, Valentina pushed sorrow away and turned all her energy and focus into getting herself gone. Then she logically weighed her options, Valentina knew that her father’s men would send out word when the Lincoln did not make it to its destination and that those men would be out looking for her. 

But Valentina also knew that Abiatti’s crew was most certainly behind this latest assault.  They would have to send proof of her death to the head of their family, and she was pretty sure that a photo of a mangled car taken from the top of a ledge would not be enough. 

Valentina reasoned that as soon as all risk of a second explosion was eliminated, the men who wanted her dead or captured would be coming for her. She scanned the area and decided that her only chance was to climb up the steep embankment.  From there, she could use the cover of trees until she got to the highway.  Once Valentina was on level ground, she could better assess the situation and flag down someone to help her. 

It was a well thought-out and logical plan, and Valentina knew it was a good one, she just had no idea how she was going to manage the climb. Her ears pulsed painfully, her sense of balance was shaky at best, her palms and head were riddled with burns, and every time Valentina took a breath, she felt like knives were being thrown into her chest.

I’ll just have to try my best Valentina sighed as she shaded her eyes and looked up at the steep, jagged slope.

“Try Not!  Do or do not—there is no try!”

Valentina and Gia had binge watched a Star Wars marathon during their forced confinement and now the words of Yoda, that oh-so revered ninja master, cut through her mind like a light saber and propelled her forward. 

There is no try.  There is only do.

With that edict echoing in her mind, Valentina grabbed the backpack from where it had been catapulted and put one foot in front of the other. But after only a few steps she stopped and looked up at the impossibly steep cliff.  There was no way she was going to make it up that jagged, rocky ledge—Yoda be damned. But there was a good chance that if she continued to walk around the perimeter she would find the way to a more reasonable slope.

Valentina slowly made her way to the other side of the ravine and found what she was looking for. Although this slope was not as steep, it was not without its challenges. Plants covered in thick thorns and sharp bristles grew wild along the steep, winding trail.

At one point, Valentina lost her footing and landed in a patch of shiny reddish leaves clustered in threes. Leaves of three let them be, the adage popped into Valentina’s mind and she paused long enough to wonder if she might have been just landed ass end up in a patch of poison ivy.

Least of your problems, that inner voice rebuked her. A little Aveeno bath will clear that right up…let’s keep focused on getting us out of here alive!

When Valentina finally reached the top of the embankment, to her immense relief and intense surprise, luck seemed to finally be swaying on her side. Just a few yards away the highway split, and a median separated the lane going east and the lane going west. The west route offered a rest area complete with a shaded pergola, picnic tables, and a faucet that gushed out natural spring water.

Holding one hand tight against her rib cage and using the other to grab onto tree branches to help support her, Valentina kept her eyes on the prize. She lurked low in the bushes and listened for the sound of voices or the roar of an oncoming car. When she was sure the coast was clear she limped quickly across the highway, hurried over the median, and made her way to the rest stop.

Valentina sank down on the wooden picnic bench set in the welcoming shade and stretched her blistered hands under the gushing water. It was refreshing, clean, and felt like heaven against her raw hands. Valentina scooped the water up in her palms and drank deeply for several minutes then sighed with unmitigated pleasure when she felt the cool water make a wet trail down her chin, neck, and the deep v between her breasts. Before she could give in to her fears, Valentina bent down and shoved her burning scalp under the spouting faucet.  She gasped as the icy water hit the burned patches on her head but instead of panic, Valentina felt only blissfully cool and intense relief.

She longed to take off her sneakers and run her feet under the water as well, but she didn’t dare remove them just in case. Valentina leaned back gingerly on the bench and rifled through the backpack looking for some sort of pain reliever and found —Midol?  She figured what the hell and swallowed three of the pills.  The advertisement on the package caught her eye and she burst out in hysteria induced laughter.

Midol makes it all go away.

Well, wouldn’t that be nice?