Page 53 of The Savage

The doctor coughs into his hand, scribbling something on his clipboard. She stares at me like she’s trying to decide whether I’m insane or dangerous.

Probably both.

And for the first time since I woke up, I feel ruthlessly alive.

* * *

Sister Benedetta

The room keeps shifting under my feet, even though I’m seated. It’s the strangest sensation, like the floor has turned to water and I’m sitting in a boat the sea isn’t in the mood to stabilise.

Three sisters. One brother. Alive. Somewhere out there, walking under the same sun that finds its way through these shutters.

And two of those sisters… married to his brothers. Men who look like him, probably command a room like him? I push that thought away, concentrate on the important ones.

‘My siblings. Tell me their names again.’

He repeats them slowly.

Maddelena. Sofiya. Jacinta. Narciso.

The names fit oddly in my mouth, like shoes that aren’t mine but have worn my shape in secret. I mouth them anyway, under my breath.

Maddelena. Sofiya. Jacinta. Narciso.

I try to imagine their faces, their voices. Sofiya sounds sharp and bright; Maddelena sounds softer, heavier with thought. Perhaps I’m inventing them. Perhaps I’m right.

‘Breathe,’ the doctor murmurs from somewhere to my left, like he’s reminding himself too.

And from the man in the bed, the last thing I want to hear. ‘As much as it gives me no joy to say it, all your Madre needed to do was point you to an internet search engine. Your family and mine, we don’t seek the limelight but it finds us anyway. She knew exactly who you were. And she kept it from you by giving you a bullshit name so you’d never learn the truth.’

The words land like cracking thunder.

So this is what it feels like when faith shakes and splinters. It’s not a clean break. It’s lightning in the far distance, a hairline crack you can’t see until you put weight on it, and then it races across the surface and the cup you’ve treasured for years lies in your hands as dust.

Divine design… or damnation?

I search for the part of me that would know the difference, and find only salt and tide filling my throat.

Renzo watches me the way storms watch ships. Patient. Certain. Ready to decide whether to spare or swallow. I hate that he looks beautiful while he does it, that the line of his mouth invites hunger even as it promises ruin.

‘Tell me something true,’ he says softly, like we’ve been trading untruths as a game and he’s tired of winning.

‘What would you like to know?’ I manage.

‘Anything you can’t pray yourself out of. What are you feeling right now?’

That earns him a look. His mouth quirks, and I look away first.

I force my hands to unclench. ‘I’m… afraid,’ I say at last. The confession comes raw. ‘Not for my soul; for my mind. If all this is true… if I’ve built a life on this emptiness and I fill it too quickly, I’m afraid of what will break.’

He nods once, as if he truly understands. ‘That’s why I asked for the doctor’s advice, not your Madre’s.’

The word Madre strikes something sore. ‘Don’t speak of her like⁠—’

‘Like a woman who kept a lost girl pliant with obedience?’ His voice stays level, but I feel the iron under it. ‘I will. Until I know why.’

Because I had nothing else, I want to say. Because when your head is all white noise and your heart is all black water, you cling to the first hand that offers you a rope. Even if it burns.