Page 16 of The Savage

‘Doctor!’ His voice rips through the corridor like a commandment. ‘We’re transferring Renzo, now. I want an ECMO-ready team, full transport kit, intubation secured, pressors titrated, all lines taped and labelled. Get admin on the phone and clear the transfer; anyone who slows this down answers to me.’

He jabs a finger towards the nurses’ station. ‘Call operations. There’s an air ambulance incoming. We’re wheels up in ten.’ He unfurls his sleeves and slides in his cuffs, a blade being sheathed.

Then glances around the startled, frozen faces.

‘I. Said. Move!’

* * *

One last thing.

Putting this genie back in the bottle might be a problem for most. Not for me. At the very least, it might prove a worthy challenge.

As doctors and nurses scramble to relocate Renzo Mancinelli, I pull the keyboard closer.

New Instruction: Asset Retrieval.

Location: Santa Maria delle Nevi, Sicilian Alps.

Status: Protected. Hidden. Undisturbed.

Undisturbed. The word makes a single pulse of electricity zip through my system.

Because I have a feeling that status won’t remain that way for very long.

3

SISTER BENEDETTA

Three Days Later

The convent settles into its nightly silence like a great stone heart slowing after poignant and meaningful prayer.

The dinner bell has long since faded, leaving the scent of lentil stew and baked bread lingering faintly in the air. We eat in silence, as always, the scrape of spoons against bowls the only conversation allowed.

Afterwards, we wash the dishes in the communal scullery, Sister Alba humming beneath her breath and Sister Teresa chiding her for it, then file one by one through the dim cloister, heads bowed, the soft and reassuring slap of sandals echoing between the arches.

I pause before the statue of the Virgin at the end of the corridor, the one that survived the fire. Her marble skin is still blackened at the hem where the flames licked her robes, a relic of the other convent. The one we lost after hastily abandoning it to an unquenchable blaze. I carry the memory of smoke in my lungs even now, though I hardly remember that night.

Only heat and confusion, the sound of shouting, and hands pulling me through darkness.

We were told it was a miracle that any of us survived.

The fire began in the laundry, spreading faster than any of us could react. They moved the remaining sisters here, to Santa Maria delle Nevi, a little over a year ago. Everything that burned was declared lost, including the precious archives.

I tell myself that maybe it’s for the best. That all that matters is that we all made it out alive.

But in my quieter moments, I can’t help but wonder, even while I chastise myself for it, if it was far too convenient.

Or if the Lord, in His infinite wisdom, means to keep anyone from telling me where I came from.

How I ended up in a convent for the last six years.

After Compline, I retreat to my cell, a narrow room with whitewashed walls and a simple crucifix above the bed.

It’s colder here than at the old convent; the wind seeps through the shutters in an insistent whisper. I light a stub of candle, kneel by the little table that serves as my desk, and begin my nightly ritual.

Brush hair. Fold veil. Check the hem of my habit for loose threads. Say a prayer for humility. Another for forgiveness. And one more – for memory.