Venice | Teen Ink

Venice

September 7, 2012
By WhenItRains21 GOLD, Magnolia, Texas
WhenItRains21 GOLD, Magnolia, Texas
12 articles 0 photos 54 comments

Silent footsteps fill the empty night. Adelina pulls her jacket tighter, afraid to let her milky white skin show.
It was her only weakness, really, the fact that she was albino. She had taken care of her left arm; in a drunken rage, her father had beaten her with a large piece of metal from his shop and crippled her. But that didn't matter anymore.
Hiding in the shadows of an alley, Adelina flexes her new arm. The metal fingers splay out smoothly. Here in the ruins of the once-great country Italy, she has found her home. While her father blames her for letting the mafia kill her mother and kicks out her brother, Raffeale, for joining a street gang, Adelina has waited. It took nearly a year, but she had saved up enough money to travel to Rome and have her arm fixed. On the way back, she had stopped at a tattoo parlor to get a small butterfly print on her left shoulder blade, just as her mother had.
But tonight, the gun strapped to her hip isn't just for show. If Adelina meets anyone in the waterlogged streets of Venice, she'll shoot. Ever since the great Catastrophe had torn the world apart, Italy had been run by the adrenaline in her people's veins. There is no order. Chaos reigns.
"Adelina?"
Relaxing, Adelina steps out to greet her brother. "Raffi. How are the boys in the gang?"
He doesn't answer, instead taking her bionic arm gingerly in his rough hands. His dark eyes glow with concern.
"I know you don't want me out here, but I have to. I have to find that man. The Black Serpent." Adelina narrows her surgically-altered purple eyes. "The bastard who killed mom."
Raffeale shakes his head. "Adelina, I don't know what happened to you. Just promise me you won't become like…" he pauses. "Like me. I kill people."
Adelina smiles sweetly. "Raffi, I know who you are. You act angry, like you hate me, like you hate Sergio." She refused to call her father by anything other than his real name. "I know you. You just want our family back."
"Out here, trust like that will get you killed." Without another word, Raffeale sloshes through the flooded, broken street.
"Don't mind him," a woman's voice purrs. "He'll be fine once he gets back to his boys."
Whirling around, Adelina pulls the gun from its holster, aiming it towards the voice.
A pair of sharp grey eyes materializes in front of Adelina. "Don't bother with that," the woman says, "because you're obviously new at it." Quicker than Adelina can respond, the woman has tossed the gun into the water and pulled Adelina's hands tightly behind her back. "Name's Ivy," the woman whispers into her ear, "and the Black Serpent is someone I'd very much like to kill."
Adelina waits, but the woman has nothing else to say. "Ok. Let's do it." Adelina agrees, ready to trust her with her life if it meant getting to the Black Serpent.
A gunshot rings through the air. Ivy collapses on Adelina, sending her onto her knees, chin deep in murky water.
"Leave my sister alone."
"Raffi!" Adelina gasps, Ivy's weight forcing her head closer and closer to the swirling water. Suddenly Ivy rolls over, coughing and gasping. Blood flows freely from her right arm. Raffeale grabs Adelina, pulling her down the street and into a broken down doorway.
"What are you thinking?!" he demands. "I just told you not to trust anyone."
Gasping for air, Adelina shakes her head. "I already told you. I want to get to the Black Serpent." With a sinking heart, she realizes that her new arm has shorted in the water. Past her fleshy elbow, she's just as much a cripple as she had been before the surgery. She strains, but the metal fingers remain curled in panic.
Raffeale groans. "Adi," he whispers, calling Adelina by a nickname she thought she'd never hear from him again, "you have to be more careful. You can't walk around a permanently flooded city with an arm powered by electricity and made of metal."
Adelina smiles, twirling her white hair with her good fingers. "Raffi, I'll be fine. I'm not a little girl anymore. I've lived with Sergio for years. I've been beaten for everything from you leaving to Mom dying to dirty dishes. I can handle myself."
Her brother shakes his head. "You're so much like Mom. You know that once the Black Serpent finds out about you, he'll be after you?"
"I wasn't ever caught up in the stuff Mom was. He has no reason to come after me."
"But you look exactly like her. He'll know you're her daughter. He'll think she left information with you." Raffeale sighs. "I borrowed some money from a shop the other day. I haven't spent it and I don't think the shop keeper wants it back," he grins, "so let's go to Rome and get your arm fixed up. Then we'll come back and I'll introduce you to the boys. We'll keep you safe."
Adelina picks up her gun from the water filled street. "This is where I belong," she thinks. "Picking up right where Mom left off. No Sergio. No rules. Just me, Raffeale, and this gun."
And for the first time since her mother died, Adelina knows where her place is.



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This article has 6 comments.


on Feb. 10 2013 at 6:03 pm
GreekGoddess BRONZE, Andover, Connecticut
3 articles 0 photos 182 comments

Favorite Quote:
"The unprepared rebel dies in the fire."
~unknown

I like it but it feels like it should be longer. I also want to know about Ivy, what happened to her, was she good or bad? I feel like you should expand it more, I want to read more!!! Keep writing, this is good.

on Feb. 6 2013 at 3:38 pm
Apollo77 PLATINUM, Brunswick, Ohio
20 articles 0 photos 103 comments

Favorite Quote:
"All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”
"Madame, all stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you."
-Ernest Hemingway

fascinating, I don't understand. I feel like, and this is meant as such a complement, this is really funny. Like, everything happens so fast and the characters are so completely developed yet barely described that they come across as funny when they discuss things, you know? because to me it seems totally random but to them it makes tons of sense...anyway, so cool, and if it isn't meant to be really quick and funny than it should be, but i suppose I would say...very nice story, just explain it more and don't allude to pas t events and things that the reader doesn't know, because it makes the story really random. but really great!

IMSteel BRONZE said...
on Feb. 5 2013 at 5:49 pm
IMSteel BRONZE, Wallhala, South Carolina
2 articles 0 photos 128 comments

Favorite Quote:
"Learn from Yesterday, live for Today, hope for Tomorrow" - Albert Einstein

"Brevity is the Soul of Wit" - The Which

Good storytelling, interesting plot, I don't really have anything to suggest changing except for some more description.  I don't really get in to these kinds of stories, but if I did, I would like this one. 

on Jan. 5 2013 at 12:28 pm
E.J.Mathews GOLD, International Falls, Minnesota
19 articles 2 photos 145 comments
I really liked this piece. It was very unique, and full of origional ideas. The only drawback was that it was a little fast paced for my taste, but still very exciting to read. You did a great job!

CammyS SILVER said...
on Dec. 13 2012 at 6:15 pm
CammyS SILVER, Papillion, Nebraska
5 articles 0 photos 188 comments

Favorite Quote:
No passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone else's draft.
H. G. Wells
Don't say the old lady screamed. Bring her on and let her scream.
Mark Twain

I love this piece! Like AthenaMarisaDeterminedByFate says, it should really be a full novel! the characters and the story are compeling, and I really want to read more. There are a couple of grammer mistakes (I noticed at the beginning there were a lot of extra commas that didn't belong.) But that's a really easy fix. Great story!

on Dec. 6 2012 at 8:01 pm
Stella_Val_Illicia GOLD, Salt Lake City, Utah
13 articles 0 photos 247 comments

Favorite Quote:
"In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people angry and been widely regarded as a bad idea."
--Douglas Adams

I am hooked on this. You should turn this into a full-length novel. It's wonderful. I noticed some grammar errors, but that's about it. I really love the tone of the story. I've never heard 3rd person present tense before, and it's perfect in this setting.