Six Times A Fool, This Time, I’m Gone Chapter 06

Six Times A Fool, This Time, I’m Gone Chapter 06

After more than ten hours in the air, I finally set foot in Iceland.

When the plane landed, the world outside the window was still washed in gray light. The sky here hung lower than any sky I’d ever seen. Beyond the runway stretched endless black volcanic plains, with jagged snow-covered mountains rising in the distance.

The air smelled strange.

Clean. Cold. Like glaciers and sulfur.

“Welcome to the edge of the world, Seraphina,” Professor Sterling said. “No Luca. No Celeste. No more sleepless nights. Just ice, snowstorms, and yourself.”

I smiled faintly and pulled my scarf higher over my windburned cheeks.

That night, the second the station connected to satellite internet, my phone started vibrating nonstop.

Message after message flooded in.

All from Luca.

“Seraphina, please answer me. I know I screwed up.”

“I cut Celeste off completely. I’m done fighting. I blocked every single way she could contact me. I swear.”

“Please give me one more chance. Just one. Let me explain this to you in person.”

“Do you remember our first date? You said your favorite thing was seeing me smile at you. I’ll smile for you every day from now on. I’ll never make you cry again.”

“Are you cold over there in Iceland? Did you bring enough clothes? Your stomach’s sensitive—can you even eat the food there?”

“Seraphina, I miss you so much. These past three days, I went to every place we used to go together. The park where we had our first kiss. That coffee shop you loved. Even the stray cat downstairs you always stopped to pet. You’re nowhere.”

The last message was a voice recording.

I didn’t want to hear his voice anymore.

The next morning, I changed into heavy polar field gear and pulled on two layers of gloves.

Professor Sterling handed me a thick stack of observation data.

“Today is just to help you acclimate,” he said. “Anna will walk you through our workflow and data collection protocols. Starting tomorrow, you’ll be out on the glaciers with me.”

He looked directly into my eyes.

“This job is tougher than anything you’ve done in a lab. Field sampling and mapping can run ten to twelve hours a day. Some days the wind is so brutal you can barely stand upright. Negative four degrees Fahrenheit is normal out there. Sometimes it drops even lower. Are you sure you can handle it?”

I hugged the heavy binder against my chest and nodded firmly.

The days after that blurred together.

It felt like someone had rebooted my entire life and forced me into motion again.

Every morning at five, before the sun was even up, my alarm dragged me out of bed. I put on layers of clothes, zipped myself into the bulky expedition suit, shoved my hair under a thermal cap, and headed into the dining hall for a bowl of hot oatmeal.

By six, we were already out in the glaciers and frozen tundra with Professor Sterling and the rest of the team.

During those first few weeks in Iceland, I was so exhausted every night that I didn’t even have time to think.

The physical exhaustion healed wounds that my mind never could have.

Three months passed in the blink of an eye.

Not only did the brutal cold fail to break me, I actually gained ten pounds. Color returned to my pale face. Even the hair I’d lost from stress started growing back in soft little strands.

One night, I sat alone by the observation station window with a mug of hot cocoa in my hands.

Far out on the horizon, green light rippled slowly across the sky.

The northern lights.

They didn’t belong to any city. Any street. Any relationship.

They belonged only to this wild, empty land.

One weekend night, after calculating the time difference, I video-called my parents.

“Seraphina, honey, why do you look healthier now than you did back home?”

“Guess Icelandic food agrees with you.”

Laughing, I turned the camera toward the snowfields and aurora outside.

After chatting for a while, I noticed both of them hesitating like they wanted to say something.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Seraphina… Luca, he—”

“Luca hasn’t been bothering us lately,” Mom said. “For the first three months, he showed up outside the apartment every weekend carrying bags of gifts.”

“But…” Dad added, “he suddenly stopped coming three weeks ago.”

Mom shot him a look, warning him not to continue.

He ignored it.

“We heard he’s doing pretty bad lately.”

Mom sighed quietly, but Dad kept talking anyway.

“The underground club where he used to fight—that gray-market ring owned by the Bellandi family—got taken over recently. Supposedly some guy named Kael Moretti bought it.”

Dad lowered his voice unconsciously.

“That man’s infamous in organized crime circles. Used to run operations on the West Coast. They say any one thing he’s done could be turned into three separate movies.”

“Mom,” I interrupted gently with a smile. “I already told you. Luca has nothing to do with my life anymore. He’s not part of my world now.”

Mom looked at me for a few seconds, then nodded.

“You’re right,” she said softly. “You’re out of that world now.”

From somewhere off-camera, Dad muttered under his breath.

“But that Kael Moretti guy… even the name sounds dangerous. Seraphina, stay far away from people like that. You fought your way out of that mafia world. Don’t ever look back.”

“I know,” I said quietly. “That world has nothing to do with me anymore.”

What I didn’t know then…

Was that Kael Moretti was already less than six miles away from me.