Page 8 of The Savage

Find answers once and for all. Even if those answers kill me.

* * *

A mechanical beep drags me closer to the surface. Somewhere near my right ear, Rafa’s voice grates through the fog.

‘All this fucking about playing dead just to get out of my anniversary party?’

If I could move, I’d clock him one. Hell, I’d at least flip him the finger.

‘Rafa,’ Sofiya’s voice cuts in, softer than usual, but still carrying steel. ‘He doesn’t need that shit right now. It’s just a party. No big deal.’

‘Fuck that. He’s always been a little—’ He breaks off with a huff. ‘I’m not pussyfooting around him just because he’s being a little shit.’

Typical Rafa. All bark, more bite than sense. But there’s something off in his tone – raw, tight. Beneath the bravado, he’s scared. I’d laugh if it didn’t feel like my chest was full of broken glass.

A spark of pain flares sharper than a blade to the shoulder I received as part of my initiation when I was sixteen. My pulse spikes and my insides go into free fall.

The monitors start to shriek.

Someone swears. Another voice joins in… Bibiana’s.

Cool, efficient, no tremor in her tone. ‘Calm down. It’s just his heart rate rising. He’s waking up.’

How the hell does she know all of that?

‘Renzo, can you hear me? Blink if you can hear me.’

I try. God, I would if I could, even if it’s to stop the caterwauling. But my eyelids feel glued shut. My fingers twitch instead. The faintest scrape against the sheets, but it’s enough.

‘Jesus Christ, he moved,’ Rafa blurts.

Sofiya again, firm. ‘Then stop yelling in his bloody ear, you idiot.’

A low laugh follows.

Cesare’s this time. Tired, relieved, the sound of a man who’s been holding his breath for too long. ‘About time, brother.’

‘It’s cool. He’s going to be okay. It’s cool.’

The sound of my twin brother’s reassurance calms me more than most. And yeah, I know it because he feels what I feel… most of the time. Even though right now he’s panicking harder than a priest caught with his trousers down in a Palermo brothel.

Then, chaos. Footsteps. Someone calling for a doctor. Hands gripping mine.

Pain swells up from the pit of my chest, exploding behind my ribs.

I gasp, or think I do. For a second, the world tilts, brightens, clears. I catch a flash of movement – Cesare’s outline against the harsh hospital lights, Rafa pacing at the window, Sofiya’s arms crossed tight over her chest, her eyes dark and gleaming with something that might almost be tears.

‘Renzo? Renzo, stay with us!’ Bibiana’s voice now. Always the calmest. Always the one who doesn’t break despite the shovels of shit life has thrown at her.

For half a heartbeat, I think I’ve made it.

That I’m back.

But the light sharpens, then fractures again. Pain hits like a freight train, and everything fades.

* * *

Silence.