She exhales with surprise.

This time, I squeeze.

The tan drains from her face, her eyes widening as I press against her jugular, constricting blood flow and obstructing her air. Sheer terror courses through her veins. I know, because I see it in her eyes, even more intense now than the first time I did this. Last time she was confused, and rightfully so, but this time she knows what I almost did to her.

What I wanted to do to her.

She knows, and she feels it. Her hands try to pry mine away, nails clawing at my wrist as she struggles, battling my hold and my weight, bucking her hips. Color seeps into her cheeks again, this time redness coating her skin, as she gives up trying to stop me and fights back instead. Her hands rip at my clothes before she grasps ahold of my tie and yanks it, trying to choke me back. It's futile, her fighting. I don't even budge.

It's only a few seconds. A few seconds before her eyes start to glaze over, her mouth moving but no sound coming out. Her legs quiver around me, every inch of her rigid as she arches her back, again squeezing her eyes shut. Her body explodes in pleasure the second I release my hold. She gasps loudly, her lungs hungrily devouring a breath.

A breath I granted her.

A breath she almost didn't get.

She screams, an ear-splitting shriek that rattles my bones as it batters me. Her body convulses, my name the only coherent word rupturing from her lips. "Naz!"

The sound of it is a punch to the chest. I lose it. My body shudders as I come hard, the force of it momentarily paralyzing me. I can't fucking move. I fist the sheets on both sides of her curvy frame, gritting my teeth as a curse slips through again. "Fuck."

I pull away the moment I can control myself and look down at Karissa. She has her eyes squeezed shut, and she's panting, her body desperate, greedy for all the air it can get. She doesn't move an inch, lying flat like her limbs stopped working, the only sign of life the rise and fall of her chest.

After her breathing slows down, she peeks open her eyes, instantly meeting mine. The terror is gone, instead replaced with relief. The sight of it sends a chill down my spine. It's like a rebirth, waking up to a new world, a reverence for life and an appreciation for each breath that didn't exist before. No one is more grateful to be alive than someone who thought they were going to die.

Second wind.

Second chances don't come easily. Most people don't get them. Most people don't know what it's like to come back from the brink of death.

It changes people.

It certainly changed me.

Rome's quiet at night.

The city is bathed in a burning glow from the lights of the buildings, the only thing visible in the stark blackness. From my chair on the balcony, I can see for miles, but there's not much to look at this late.

Three, I think, maybe four in the morning. I've been out here for hours, ever since Karissa fell asleep. Insomnia is a bitch that stalks me in the darkness, making my surroundings more haunting than serene.

I feel dead most nights. The walking dead, except I still have a pulse, a faint heartbeat. It's hard to feel alive when you've been obliterated inside, hard to feel real when you no longer remember how to dream.

It's probably fitting.

The only people that seem to be out at this hour are the Italian police, the military force called the Carabinieri, wielding their machine guns, monitoring the streets. You'd think it would unnerve me, but I feel more at ease here than back in New York.

Nobody here is gunning for me.

The doors to the room are open behind me, a breeze wafting through, ghosting across my sweaty skin. I'm still dressed, my sleeves shoved up to my elbows, shirt halfway unbuttoned, and tie discarded. I stretch my legs out, crossing them at the ankles, when I hear movement in the room.

Her footsteps are subdued, like she's purposely tiptoeing, as she makes her way out onto the balcony. Her presence looms right behind me, shadows falling over me. She walks right around me, approaching the edge of the balcony to look out. She's wearing only a t-shirt and underwear, the white fabric illuminated in the darkness.

She gazes out at the city, taking in the view. "It's so… orange."

The peculiar description makes me smile.

"It is," I say. "The glow reminds me of flames, like the city's on fire."

She turns around to look at me, leaning back against the wall lining the balcony as she crosses her arms over her chest. "Rome burned once."

"It did."

"I heard the Emperor did it... that he burned it down so he could rebuild it like he wanted it. They say the jackass played the fiddle while it burned."

"Is that what they say?"

"Yep."

"Huh."

Her eyes narrow. "Is that wrong?"

"Yes."

"How do you know?" she asks. "You weren't there."

"Neither was the fiddle," I point out. "It wasn't even invented then. And while I'm sure he could've had his own city destroyed, it's not really logical, since he lost his palace in the fire, too."

"He built another."

"But he salvaged what he could from the old," I say. "A man desperate enough to burn his home to the ground wants a clean slate... he wouldn't carry anything over."

"Maybe it just got out of hand," she says. "Maybe he lost control of it."

"Unlikely."

"You sound like you know a lot about this."

I contemplate how to respond to that, or if I should even humor it, since it wasn't a question.