Not pleading.
Commanding.
You stand slowly.
“What happened?”
She holds out her palm.
In the center of it lies a tiny red ant.
Dead.
Your stomach tightens.
“Elvira.”
“There were three more on his sheet.”
You stare at the insect.
Then at her.
“Maybe from the garden.”
“No,” she says. “They were coming from the cast.”
The room goes cold.
For one second, Valeria’s voice rises in your mind.
Manipulation.
Paranoia.
Attention.
Then another voice comes.
Diego’s.
They’re getting in.
They’re biting me.
You move before you fully understand.
When you reach Diego’s room, he is half-conscious, skin damp, lips dry. The leather belt still holds his left wrist to the bed frame. His right arm lies across his chest inside the cast, swollen at the fingers, the skin near the edge red and raw.
The smell hits you now.
How did you miss it before?
Sweet.
Rotten.
Wrong.
Your knees almost buckle.
“Elvira,” you whisper.
She is already at the nightstand, pulling out scissors, towels, and the small emergency kit she keeps for everything from fevers to scraped knees.
“We need a doctor,” you say.
“We need the cast open first.”
“No. We can’t. If the bone—”
“If we wait,” Elvira says, eyes blazing, “there may not be a child to save.”
That shuts you up.
Diego stirs.
“Daddy?” he whispers.
You rush to him and unfasten the belt with trembling hands.
His left wrist is red where the leather pressed against it.
The sight destroys you.
“Diego, I’m here.”
He tries to pull away.
