Page 10 of Freed
When he comes back, he studies me for a moment, as if seeing the outline of the life I’m about to shed.
“We’ll need to do something with your hair,” he says.
“My hair?” I echo, distracted.
“A blonde woman will stand out too much,” he explains. “We need to dye it. Maybe cut it.”
I don’t hesitate.
“Okay,” I say.
Because if disappearing is the price of freedom for me, and for the child growing quietly inside me then I’ll pay it.
The woman arrives just after sunset. She’s older, with kind eyes and practiced hands, the kind of person who’s seen enough to ask questions silently and keep secrets without being told. She carries a small rolling case that clicks softly over the marble floors, nodding once to Dante before turning her attention to me.
She doesn’t ask my name. Just has me sit in a chair near one of the tall windows, the sea beyond it dark and endless. She drapes a towel around my shoulders, fingers gentle as she sections my hair. The smell of chemicals fills the room, and I breathe through my mouth, hands folded in my lap.
There’s no going back after this.
She works quietly, methodically, like this is just another evening appointment. Like she isn’t helping erase someone. When she’s finished, she rinses and dries, the hum of the dryer loud in the stillness. Snip by snip, she trims just enough to change the shape—enough that someone looking for me might hesitate.
Finally, she turns the chair toward the mirror.
I don’t recognize the woman staring back at me.
My hair is dark now—rich, deep brown, almost black in the low light. It frames my face differently, sharpens my features, makes my eyes look bigger, more serious. Older. Like someone who’s learned how to survive. For a second, my throat closes.
Birdie is gone.
This woman looks like she belongs somewhere else. Someone who could walk through narrow stone streets withoutbeing noticed. Someone who could vanish into a crowd and never be found.
I lift a hand, touching the unfamiliar strands, half-expecting them to fade back to gold. They don’t.
Behind me, Dante watches in silence, his expression unreadable.
“Does it look okay?” I ask quietly.
The woman meets my eyes in the mirror and gives a small, approving nod. “You look strong,” she says in accented English. “Very strong.”
Strong.
I swallow hard, blinking back the burn behind my eyes. Because strength is what this is going to take. Strength to stay hidden, to keep the truth buried, to raise a child who will never know how close they came to a war.
When the woman leaves, the room feels different. I keep staring at my reflection long after she’s gone, committing this new version of myself to memory.
This is who I have to be now.
For my baby.
I turn to Dante. “I think I’d like to go by Juliet.”
“The star-crossed lover.” His lips lift. “I think it suits you.”
“It’ll have to.”
3
Lorenzo
