My memory clears, and I see Veronique on her hands and knees a few feet away, her back arching and falling as she struggles for breath, Giacomo standing over her, looking lost. As she sits back on her knees, I can see the gun is still gripped in her right hand. I sit up and look frantically around for Griffon, but he’s nowhere on the roof.
Suddenly, I don’t care about Veronique. I don’t care about the gun. I’m only focused on one thing. I race to the edge where I saw him last, prepared to see a repeat of the same scene I saw so many decades ago, knowing that if he’s gone, there’s nothing left for me here.
I hear scraping noises even before I reach the edge and look over. Griffon is hanging from a ledge about three feet down from the railing, holding on with his upper body while his feet swing wildly underneath him as he tries to get a foothold to pull himself up. There’s a gash on his cheek and blood is dripping down the side of his face, but I feel an enormous sense of relief. He’s alive.
“Griffon!” I yell.
Griffon looks up at me. His shoes scrape the brick wall. “I can’t get back up.”
“Hang on,” I say. He’s only a few feet from me, but too far for me to reach from this side. I wrap my left arm around an opening and ease myself over the railing, the pain increasing as I put pressure on it, but there’s no other way. Bracing my feet against the outside of the railing, I lean down, my right arm outstretched as far as possible. “Can you grab my hand?”
“No. I’ll pull you over,” he says, his words coming in short bursts from the effort of hanging on. “It’s too dangerous.”
I can see his fingers turning white where they’re gripping the ledge. He can’t keep this up much longer. “No, you won’t,” I say quickly. My breath is coming in gasps. “There’s no other choice. Let go and grab my hand. I’ll pull you up.”
Griffon hesitates, and I see him look down at the ground far below.
“Do it,” I say. “Grab my hand.” I reach down another few inches, my fingers about two feet from his face. If he lets go and doesn’t take my hand, he’ll fall for sure. We only have one shot at this. “Just let go quickly. Don’t look down.”
Griffon looks into my eyes, and a sense of calm seems to come over him. I tighten my grip on the railing just as he lets go with his left hand and wraps his fingers around my wrist. The force of his weight pulls me off balance for a second, and I close my eyes as I pull with everything I’ve got, knowing that the next few seconds can change everything forever. The strain on my arm starts to ease as Griffon uses my leverage to swing his feet up onto the ledge, and he reaches over and grabs for the railing. In one motion, he pushes me back over the railing to the safety of the roof and then jumps over after me.
I grab at Griffon as we sprawl in the gravel, feeling his relief as he pulls me into him. I close my eyes and feel vibrations, his breathing in time with my own, the rightness of it all reaching down deep beyond logic and understanding. I’ve been listening to meaningless words when all along I should have been paying attention to the feelings inside of me that always speak the truth. In an instant I know that Griffon isn’t rogue, and he isn’t lying. What he wants is to be with me.
I look up and see Veronique and Giacomo about six feet away. She looks dazed as she glances over at us as if she’s just realized we’re there, the gun hanging limply at her side. Griffon jumps up, pushing me behind him, and I can feel him ready to run at her.
“Wait,” I say to him quietly, putting my hand on his arm. “Just wait.”
“Veronique?” Giacomo calls to her, obviously unsure about what to do next. I see the devotion in his eyes and realize that he’ll do anything for her. He’ll obey every order. He’ll stay with her even though she’s spent her life looking for another love. And I have no doubt he’d kill for her, too.
She ignores him. “What was that?” Veronique turns to me, fear in her voice. Her face is drawn, and she looks suddenly older. “I was with you. I felt the breath being forced from your lungs. I saw Barone’s anger. I saw … I saw Alessandra die.” She licks her lips and stares at me. “But how? I wasn’t there when it happened.”
I look at the gun she’s holding loosely in one hand. I might be able to grab it if she’s distracted. “But I was,” I say, breathing heavily, my left arm throbbing in pain. Griffon silently squeezes my right hand, a gesture of unspoken encouragement. “And what you saw was what really happened.”
“And you were telling the truth? The newspapers didn’t lie? It was Barone who…” She can’t bring herself to finish the sentence.
“It was Barone who tried to kill me,” I say. “But he killed Alessandra by mistake.”
Veronique shakes her head as tears stream down her face. She raises her eyes to mine, and I can see the hatred replaced by the depths of the pain she feels from losing Alessandra. For her, it’s as if it has just happened. “I don’t deserve to finish this,” she says, and turns the gun on herself, the barrel trembling where she holds it against her chest.
“Don’t!” Giacomo yells, the anguish in his voice matching mine when I called for Griffon just minutes before.
I make a move toward her, but that just makes her hand shake more. She’s fired it twice already, and this time I know she really won’t miss. All of a sudden I want us all to get off this roof alive. I force my voice to sound calm and even. “This wasn’t the solution last time. Killing yourself just made things worse.”
“But it makes the pain stop,” she says. “For a while, at least.” She turns away from us, shaking her head again. “It’s better this way.”
My mind is racing. No more blood should be spilled over what Barone did so many years ago. “But what if Alessandra is back?” I ask quickly. I let go of Griffon’s hand and walk slowly around to face her. “What if you were right, and her essence is in this city somewhere, looking for you?” I take a deep breath as I see the end of the gun move away from her chest just a tiny bit.
Behind her I see Griffon moving toward us, Giacomo doing nothing to stop him. His footsteps make faint crunching sounds on the gravel, so I keep talking. “Are you willing to give up this chance to find her? For what? It might be decades before you can come back and look for her again.”
Just as she’s about to answer, Giacomo lunges at her, grabbing for the gun, but Veronique isn’t willing to let it go easily.
“Do you care nothing for me?” he shouts as he pulls the gun away from her body. “Is it so easy for you to take what I love?”
Veronique shrieks in frustration as Giacomo wrenches her hand back and the gun skitters across the gravel. His arms surround her as her struggles fade, and soon the only sound is her quiet sobbing.
Griffon reaches over and grabs the gun, putting it in his pocket before rushing to my side.
“Are you okay?”
I reach up to wipe some blood from his cheek. “Are you? This is all my fault. I should have listened to you. I should have trusted you. I’m so sorry.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Griffon says, and without looking back at either of them, we head for the stairwell.
Griffon pulls me with him as we rush down several flights. We don’t speak, although a thousand things come into my head that I want to say.
Griffon breaks the silence as we reach the ground floor. “I just need you to believe that I would never do anything to hurt you. I can’t stand going through the rest of this life alone. Without you.”
“I know,” I say, tears starting to form in my eyes. “Oh God, I know. I’m so sorry.”