The Fall of Mangiatorvi

24: Seven Minutes

Luca slipped, losing his balance with his first step out of the portal. "Well, fuck."

The sudden drop in temperature forced a shiver down his back. Luca rubbed his hands together, his eyes scanning the dark room. A foul odor overwhelmed his senses with each inhale and each exhale manifested into a light fog in the wintery air. Solid ice encased the entirety of the cramped apartment, except for the lifeless body left by the open doorway. Luca took a few reluctant steps and let out a solemn sigh, closing his eyes to give a short prayer. Despite self identifying as a devout catholic, Luca could not recall his last confession.

He looked to the pictures of her hanging on the wall, commemorating the life of a woman gone too soon. A single bullet wound to the back of her head, he took solace in the fact she passed quickly. Rigor mortis indicated that she had been there for far longer than the few minutes it took Luca to follow Gemma across the border. He followed the path of icy destruction out to the hall, treading lightly around the remains of who he knew to be Gemma's adoptive mother.

Luca brought his hands to his lips, letting out a deep breath that warmed his hands, lighting them with a dim orange glow. He did his best to melt the ice off the walls as he followed it down the stairs, but his eyes grew wide as he approached the main entrance. as he moved, down the stairs to the front of the building. His eyes grew wide as he approached the main entrance. Jack Frost had visited in the middle of an American summer. The sleeted pathway continued outside, meters wide everywhere Gemma had stepped foot, accompanied by daunting spikes of razor-sharp ice in all directions.

"Fuck," Luca repeated again.

A small crowd started to form where a five-car pile-up had occurred due to the unexpected hazard. Luca quickly turned back into the building, running his hands through his hair. He tried to breathe but he could not catch his breath. A heavyweight pressed into his chest, consuming him in irrational claustrophobia. His thoughts sprinted a million miles a second. He shut his eyes tightly, struggling to navigate the sudden onset of panic over the devastating debacle.

A catastrophe of this magnitude, in the United State's most populated city, was bound to alert the Brigade who would then alert the Concord. His father was already on thin ice with said Concord, considering the over looming war between the gifted and the witches- and Luca was on thin ice with his father. If Luca made one wrong move on foreign soil, the cold war would turn hotter than the magma Luca's father would execute him with. Then again, if he came home without Gemma, Daniel may find slower, more creative ways to mangle him. And if not, Haruhi's disappointment in him alone would kill him.

"Fuck me." Luca looked up in desperation.

He thought of Ian. His cousin wouldn't hesitate. Ian always did what needed to be done, regardless of the consequences. Then again, Ian was a gigantic fucktard. He glanced back outside at the growing crowd. He spent his entire week trying to coax a single splash, a single ice cube from Gemma- nothing. Yet she chose now to go rogue. Then again, her mother was just murdered.

Luca lowered his head. He tried desperately to remember what his own mother and sister looked like. He reviewed his memories every night in hopes of securing them in his heart, but they continued to fade from him. What failed to fade was the sorrow. He vividly remembered the despair he felt when they took Liona from his arms, kicking and screaming, the heartache when they told him she had passed away, and the misery when he realized he would never see his mother again dead or alive. He let out a long, shaky breath. He called Haruhi.

"Is everything okay?"

"No," Luca said. "Gemma's mother is dead."

A round of condolences, profanities, and exclamations flooded through the background.