Godless (The Ferrymen #2)

Chapter 21

The hunting cabin was somewhere in the Catskills, hours from where Constantine's convoy had nearly run us down at dawn. Diego had keys. I didn't ask how or why. At this point, his network of safe houses and contacts had stopped surprising me.

The adrenaline had worn off a while ago, and now Lorenzo was paying for it. His blood had soaked through Diego's field bandages. The eagle's talons had sliced deep.

We hit the doorframe, and Lorenzo's dislocated shoulder caught the edge. The sound he made wasn't quite a scream but close enough that my hands started shaking.

"Sorry." I adjusted my grip, trying not to jostle the shoulder that sat wrong in its socket. "I've got you."

His hand came up to grip my shirt, fingers cold against my ribs even through the fabric. Too cold.

"Rafael." His eyes opened halfway, struggling to focus on my face. "Your face is..."

Then his eyes rolled back, and his full weight hit me all at once.

I frantically searched for a pulse. There. Faint but there. Still alive, still breathing, still mine to save if I didn't fuck this up.

I got him to the bed before my legs gave out. The bandages on his back were completely soaked now, blood seeping through his torn shirt and pooling on the mattress.

"How bad?" Diego crouched beside me, already pulling supplies from the medical bag.

"His shoulder's been out since the crash. There are puncture wounds in the shoulder too from the first eagle strike. They might be infected already."

Diego's jaw tightened. "Jasper needs stitches too. Head wound won't stop bleeding."

Jasper stood in the doorway, one hand pressed to his temple, blood seeping between his fingers. "I'm fine," Jasper said, his accent thicker than usual.

"You're bleeding on my floor." Diego's voice came out sharp. "Sit down before you pass out."

Diego looked at Jasper, then back at me. "I'll handle Jasper. You work on Lorenzo. There's antibiotic powder in the kit. Use it on those puncture wounds."

I stared at him. "You know how to do this?"

"My grandfather smuggled people out during Franco. You don't take bullet wounds to hospitals when hospitals mean arrest." Diego pulled out a suture kit. "My mother taught me. Said the skills might matter someday."

The medical kit sat on the floor beside the bed. I pulled out supplies with shaky hands. Antiseptic, gauze, surgical thread, antibiotic powder, and a leather belt Diego had thought to pack.

“Here.” Diego grabbed an ancient-looking ceramic carafe from a nook in the wall and held it out to me. “Drink. Keeps the hands steady.”

The liquid hit like a match struck inside my lungs.

I doubled over, coughed once, and swallowed hard, eyes watering as the burn clawed its way down. It wasn’t a drink so much as a purification—grape ghosts and fire, meant to cauterize something unseen. My hands stopped shaking, though whether from shock or the liquor, I couldn’t tell.

Diego took the carafe back without comment, tilted it to his mouth, and winced. “It helps,” he said, voice thin.

“Does it?” I wiped my lips with the back of my hand. The heat was still spreading, chasing the cold out of my blood. I could almost pretend it was grace.

Lorenzo's shoulder was still out. Before I could clean the wounds, I had to hurt him worse than the eagles had.

I touched his cheek. "Lorenzo. I need you awake."

His eyes opened slowly, struggling to focus.

"Your shoulder. I have to reset it."

His jaw tightened, and he nodded once, already bracing himself, and that trust was a weight I didn't know how to carry.

I picked up the belt. "You'll want this."

He took it from me and put it between his teeth. His good hand came up to grip the mattress edge, and his knuckles went white.

I positioned myself beside him, one hand flat against his shoulder blade, the other gripping his forearm. The joint sat wrong under my palm.

If I didn't do it at all, the swelling would cut off circulation.

Some choices weren't really choices at all.

"On three," I said, meeting his eyes. "One."

I pulled and rotated on one, and bone slid against bone, everything snapping back into place. The crack echoed off the cabin walls.

Lorenzo's scream tore through the leather belt, high and raw and animal. His entire body went rigid, back arching off the mattress.

I dropped his arm immediately, and my palms cupped his jaw, fingers sliding into his hair. "I'm sorry. Christ, I'm sorry. It's done. It's over."

He couldn't hear me. His eyes were squeezed shut, and he was gasping around the belt, his whole body shaking.

"Breathe." My thumbs stroked steady lines along his cheekbones. "You have to breathe. Focus on my voice. Come back to me."

Something in my tone must have reached him. His shaking eased slightly.

"That's it." My fingers tightened in his hair, anchoring him. "You're safe. I've got you."

I pressed my lips to his forehead and held them there, counting his pulse against my mouth, which was too fast and too erratic, but present and alive.

"With me, Lorenzo. Stay with me."

When his eyes finally opened and found mine, the look in them made something slot into place inside me.

"You could have warned me."

"You would have tensed up. It's better if you don't see it coming."

"Bastard." But there was no heat in it.

"Yeah." I pressed my forehead to his. "I'm sorry."

I reached for the antiseptic. "I need to clean your back now. And those puncture wounds in your shoulder."

He nodded and settled on his stomach with his face turned toward me.

I cut his shirt away easily, but the bandages were worse. They'd stuck to the wounds, and I had to peel them back slowly.

Lorenzo whimpered. "Fuck. Okay. That actually hurts."

"I know." My fingers worked at the edge of the bandage. "I'm sorry."

The last bandage peeled away, and the wounds were worse than I'd imagined, four parallel tears that ran from his right shoulder blade, deep enough that I could see muscle. The skin around them was hot, angry red spreading outward.

I could lose him to infection even after saving him from the eagles.

"God," I breathed.

"How bad?"

"It's bad. But I can fix it." I hope. "This is going to hurt. The shoulder wounds especially."

"I know." A pause. "Just do it."

I started with the puncture wounds, pouring antiseptic directly into each one. Lorenzo's entire body went rigid, his fingers digging into the mattress.

"I'm sorry." I packed each wound with antibiotic powder. "I know it burns."

"Don't apologize. You're keeping me from dying of infection."

I moved to the talon wounds on his back, pouring antiseptic onto gauze and pressing it to the first wound. I worked through each one methodically, cleaning out dirt and grass and fragments of glass.

"Almost done."

I threaded the surgical needle. The first stitch went in rough, but it held. Lorenzo made no sound, just gripped the mattress tighter. I worked my way along the deepest wound.

Seven stitches in the first wound. Five in the second. Three in the third.

When I finally tied off the last stitch and reached for the bandages, my hands were covered in his blood. Lorenzo had gone completely still beneath me.

Too still.

"Hey." I stroked my fingers through his hair. "You still with me?"

"Yeah, just tired."

I wrapped the bandages in silence. When I was done, I sat back on my heels, and my hand lingered on his ribs before I made myself pull away.

"Move over," I said quietly.

His eyes opened. "What?"

"Move over. Carefully. I'm not letting you sleep alone tonight."

He shifted slowly, wincing. The bed was small, barely big enough for one person, but I didn't care. I climbed in beside him and carefully pulled him against my chest.

His back pressed against me, the bandages rough under my palm, his body warm and solid and alive against mine.

We lay there in silence, his breathing gradually evening out. My hand rested on his stomach, feeling each inhale and exhale. Outside, wind moved through the trees.

Then the adrenaline crash hit me, and my hands started shaking. The tremors spread up my arms.

Constantine's voice echoed in my head, calm and cultured, saying, "It wasn't personal, Father Oliveira. You were simply... convenient."

Convenient. The word lodged in my chest like a shard of glass.

I wasn't special, wasn't chosen, and wasn't even worth hating. Just there, available, easy to manipulate.

"Rafael?" Lorenzo's hand reached out, fingers brushing my wrist. "What's wrong?"

I ran my hands through my hair. "Every choice I thought I was making, every path I thought I was following, what if it was all Constantine? What if none of it was real?"

"Does it matter?" he said softly. "Whether Constantine engineered it or not, you still made choices. You still chose to help people."

"But what if I was never really choosing?"

Lorenzo was quiet for a long time. Then: "I was seven when Dionysus bought me out of the cage. Every skill I have, he put it there. Shaped me into what he needed. So I get it, Rafael. I understand what it feels like to look at your life and wonder how much of you is actually you."

He shifted slightly, wincing. "But here's what I know.

Constantine engineered your recruitment.

Fine. He manipulated Azevedo. Fine. But Constantine didn't make you grab my hand in that field.

Didn't make you choose to stay when you could have walked away.

Those choices were yours. We're both weapons someone else made.

The question is what we do about it now. "

"What do we do?"

"We survive. We fight back. We prove we're more than what they tried to make us." He paused. "And we watch Constantine bleed for what he did."

The venom in his tone surprised me. "You're angry."

"Of course I'm angry. He used you. Used the fact that Azevedo cared about you, that the Church meant something to you, and he twisted it into a weapon.” There was a long pause before he said, "Can I ask you something?"

"Anything."

Silence stretched between us. Then: "Earlier. When you were taking care of me. Your hands were shaking."

My hand went still on his stomach. "I was trying not to hurt you."

"That's not why. You've done this before. Your hands don't shake from inexperience." He paused. "You were afraid."

"Yes."

"Of what?"

Of losing you. Of failing you. Of not being fast enough, good enough, strong enough to keep you alive.

"Of not being able to fix it," I said instead.

He was quiet for a long moment. Then, his fingers laced through mine.

"You did fix it."

"This time."

He squeezed my hand. "What are you so afraid of?"

Everything. Losing you. Becoming my father. Wanting you so badly it consumes me. "I'm afraid I'll become like him." My voice dropped lower. "My father."

Lorenzo went very still. "Why would you think that?"

"Because when I look at you, I want to mark you. Own you. Make sure everyone knows you're mine. And I don't know if that's just wanting you or if it's something darker. Something inherited."

"You think wanting me makes you like your father?"

"He took what he wanted without caring about the cost. Without thinking about the consequences or who got hurt. And I'm lying here trying to justify why this is different when maybe it's not."

"It's different."

"How do you know?"

"Because you're asking. You're questioning." He shifted slightly. "That's not him."

"What if caring isn't enough? What if the capacity for that cruelty is just there, waiting?

" I closed my eyes. “The Church teaches us about the concept of Original Sin, that all have fallen short of the glory of God. We are born sinners. But what if we’re born with more than just original sin? What if we inherit the sins of our fathers?”

Lorenzo was quiet for a long moment. The wind outside picked up.

“God’s a dick,” he said.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. "Lorenzo—"

"I don’t get it." His fingers tightened on mine. “The Church wants you to have this toxic relationship with your creator. Half your holy book is spent telling you what disgusting, wrong, and sinful creatures we are and so much energy is spent talking about how we’ll all go to Hell if we don’t repent and do everything exactly right…

But the whole fucking reason we’re going there in the first place is because God engineered the whole damn thing.

It’s a rigged game, Rafael. You play by the rules the Church sets out, you can’t fucking win.

God is love, but he hates you for being born sinful.

God is love as long as you’re white, and straight, and pay your fucking taxes and don’t eat shellfish or wear mixed fabrics or whatever else they’ve decided is a sin today. ”

He turned to look at me. “But you tell me. You spent years studying this shit in seminary, right? If we were all born to fail, then what the fuck’s the point of getting up to try every day? Why even bother if we’re just going to be judged for the sins of our forefathers?”

"Because grace exists." The words came out automatically. "At least, that's what they taught me. That we're born sinful but God's grace can redeem us. That we choose every day whether to follow that path or not."

"And you believe that?"

Did I? A week ago, I would have said yes without hesitation. Now, lying here with Lorenzo's blood drying on my hands, Constantine's manipulation unraveling everything I thought I knew about my vocation, I didn't know what I believed anymore.

"I believe we choose," I said finally. "Maybe not the circumstances we're born into. Not the sins our fathers committed or the damage they passed down. But we choose what we do with it."

"Then stop worrying about becoming him." Lorenzo sighed and settled against me. "You just spent hours putting me back together. Your hands were shaking because you were afraid of hurting me, not because you wanted to. That's not your father. That's you."

"But wanting to own you—"

"Is that what you want?" He turned more fully toward me, ignoring the pull on his stitches. "To own me? Like property?"

"No," I said immediately. "I want you to choose me. Every day. I want you to be mine because you want to be, not because I forced it."

"Then that's the difference." His hand came up to touch my jaw. "Your father took. You're asking. Even when you don't say it out loud, you're asking."

I pressed my forehead against his. "I don't know how to do this," I whispered.

"Me neither." His hand came up to touch my jaw, fingers tracing the line of it like he was memorizing the shape. His thumb caught on my bottom lip. “But maybe it’s like you said. We get up every day and we choose to try, and maybe that’s enough for broken former weapons like us.”

I caught his hand where it rested against my face. "I hope it is."

His forehead pressed against mine and we stayed like that, breathing the same air.

I held him, listening to his breathing even out into sleep, feeling his heartbeat steady and strong under my palm.