Page 83 of Safe Word

I called my uncle right after, told him what happened. He assured me he’d call his friends to find out if Travis had entered the country. After a short push-and-pull of insisting I come to live with his family, he relented. I couldn’t live under constant scrutiny or pity.

I was still young. I needed to get my life in order before I completely lost the last semblance of sanity.

The taste of her still clung to my tongue hours later.

Obsidian was supposed to drain me, cauterise the rot before it spread.

But I’d walked out of that place with her embedded in me like a fever – something wild and unspent. Along with the hunger that was beginning to border on desperation.

Now here I was, in daylight – back to reality. No mask, no shadows, just bleach, plastic trays, and the stench of Ezio’s boiled vegetables.

The hunger didn’t belong here. But it followed me anyway, soaked into my skin like sweat.

I sat in the armchair across from his bed, watching as he struggled with his lunch. His gnarled fingers trembled slightly, lifting the spoon to his mouth with a precision that looked practised but painfully slow – like a child who had just learnt to eat.

The skeletal frame before me was foreign. His sunken cheeks, hollow eyes, the gaunt stretch of his skin over brittle bones – none of it was right. This wasn’t the man I remembered. The Ezio I’d known had been towering and broad, a man who’d dominated every room he entered. His fists had been like iron and I’d felt their weight too many times to forget. He’d been a titan, a tyrant, and yet here he was now, shrunken and feeble. It should have felt like justice, but it didn’t. It felt… off.

‘It’s not like you to be quiet, boy,’ Ezio rasped, his voice thin but steady. He didn’t look up, his focus fixed on the plate of meat and vegetables on the wheeled table.

I eased back, the chair protesting beneath my weight, and I crossed my arms. ‘What’s there to say?’

Ezio chuckled, a dry, rattling sound that grated at my nerves. ‘Plenty, I’d think. I hear it’s been a while.’

His words were casual, but there was something in his tone that raised alarm bells. I studied him carefully, looking for signs of the man I’d known – the man who had been able to cut me down with a single glare. But all I saw was a frail old man, his hand shaky as he set the cutlery back onto the plate.

‘Cut the bullshit, Ezio,’ I snarled. ‘You’re not fooling anyone.’

He frowned, wiping his hands against a tissue. ‘The doctors say my memory’s patchy – like a broken mirror.’ He cast a glance through the window, eyes distant. ‘Some pieces are clear, others… not so much.’ One hand gestured vaguely through the air.

I watched him closely – the way his jaw tightened after the pause. The particular ambiguity. It was too neat.

Maybe it was all true. Or maybe he’d been rehearsing this bedside act before I’d come here.

‘Is that so?’ I asked, my tone jagged.

He nodded with a flat expression. ‘It’s strange. I remember bits and pieces, but they don’t always make sense. I know I was a hard man – too hard, maybe – but the details are gone. All I remember is feeling…’ He paused, pushing the wheeled table away. ‘Sorrow. I feel guilt. Towards you, for the most part.’

The words should have meant something. Should have mattered. But they didn’t. They felt hollow, like an echo in an empty room.

Once, I would have bartered my soul just to hear those words. Now, only the ghost of that soul kept me rooted while watching him spin yet another silken web of pretence. Thread by thread.

The doctor said he was frail. Emotional. That anything could trigger a heart attack.

As his victim, I saw through all of it. As his son, I felt… nothing. Not grief, nor pity.

He’d forged the worst parts of me like steel on an anvil, raised me inside a furnace and then wondered why I’d come out molten.

I wasn’t grateful for it. Not even close.

‘I don’t need apologies,’ I said, keeping my voice steady. ‘We’re way past them.’

Slowly, he inclined his head, his eyes narrowing as he studied me. ‘No, I suppose you don’t.’

For a moment, there was only silence between us, the faint whirr of the hospice’s air conditioning filling the space. Then he spoke again, his voice softer.

‘You know, Cain, you’re the only family I have left. The only one who has stayed with me, after your mother died.’

I stiffened. My mother hadn’t died. At least there had been no evidence of that. Unless he knew something I didn’t.