Page 42 of The Savage

‘Your day,’ he repeats, as if we’re discussing weather in a café. ‘What time you wake. What you eat. What you do when you’re not doing… godly things.’

The bluntness unsettles me. ‘Why?’

‘Because I need to picture where you’ve been,’ he says simply. ‘To stop me picturing where you went the night everything fell apart.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

Silence stretches. ‘You will.’

I can feel the shape of his doubt in it. I clear my throat.

‘We rise at five. We take tea, sometimes bread. The bell rings for Lauds at five-thirty. Then work – kitchen, garden, laundry. Lectio after, then… it’s simple.’ I shrug, oddly defensive. ‘There’s peace in simple.’

‘And at night?’ His voice is quieter now, dark around the edges.

‘Compline. Lights out. Sleep.’

‘Alone?’

I shoot him a look. ‘Of course.’

He huffs something that wants to be a laugh and fails, because pain catches it before it gets free. His hand strays to his bandage, stops, falls back to the sheet.

‘You’ll have to forgive me,’ he says, and the words seem to surprise him. ‘I’ve forgotten what simple feels like.’

‘I don’t think you’ve ever known,’ I say before I can stop myself.

His eyebrows lift. The smallest flicker of a grin threatens. ‘Careful, Sister. Your claws are showing.’

‘I don’t have claws.’

‘You do. And you’ll rediscover them soon enough.’

I don’t have an answer for that so I look to the crucifix of polished steel on the far wall, the only soft thing in this hard place, and force my breath to slow. The chair’s edge bites my thighs. I can smell him now that the antiseptic has thinned – adrenaline, clean sweat, resin from the tape.

It’s disconcerting, the intimacy of scent.

‘Why do you call me “baby”?’ I ask, to distract myself.

His eyes half close, as if he’s remembering a room with different light. ‘Habit. One you loved once upon a time.’

I shake my head, unwilling to even fathom such a thing. Because… because… ‘Please don’t.’

He nods once. ‘All right.’ Then, after a beat, softer, ‘Not tonight.’

The concession lands warm and wrong at the same time. I look down at my hands. The rosary leaves little moons in my skin.

‘You said your family turn miracles into weapons,’ I say carefully. ‘What will they do… if they find me here?’

A muscle jumps in his jaw. ‘Depends who gets to you first.’

‘That isn’t comforting.’

‘It wasn’t meant to be.’ He studies me, weighing something. ‘I won’t let them hurt you.’

‘You don’t even know me,’ I say again, because I need to.

He shakes his head. ‘I thought I knew enough. Turns out there was way more.’