Flavio felt as if reality had lost its substance, as everything around him faded, diluted by the acridity of despair. Tears blurred his vision, the echoes of gunshots still tormented his hearing, the exhaustion from running with the weight of Flavia had numbed his body, and the aseptic odor of the hospital dulled his sense of smell. In his mouth, the saltiness and bitterness of misfortune accentuated a nausea that had quickly unsettled his stomach.

After cleaning the blood off his arm, he had called Cristina and Giuseppe to tell them of Flavia's condition. He had wanted them to come to the hospital. He wanted them there more for himself than for her. As for Fabrizio, he had let the hospital staff notify him.

He felt that remorse and cowardice had gotten the better of him. As much as he realized that it made no sense, he had the feeling of being responsible for Flavia's fate.

Two carabinieri entered the reception hall, and to Flavio, they seemed as unreal as ghosts. They took his statements, asked him a few questions about the professor, with a tired and resigned demeanor. He understood that the body of the assassin had already clarified almost everything for them.

He knew that for them too it remained a mystery why the bullet had stopped before passing all the way through Flavia's skull. An exit wound and the expulsion of brain matter would have been the rule. Something miraculous had limited the disintegration of Flavia's brain. But the explanation of such a miracle was, even for law enforcement, of secondary importance at that moment.

Fabrizio arrived, and without even noticing Flavio, he headed straight for the hospital staff and the carabinieri. Flavio didn't have the courage to turn around and see his growing despair, which loomed larger as he listened to what Flavio himself had witnessed. He lowered his head and covered his ears with his hands.

Suddenly the door burst open and the anxiety of a confused group of visitors spilled into the reception area. Cristina, Michela, Gianluca, and Giuseppe approached Flavio with pale faces, eyes wide and cemented with worry.

«Flavio...» they murmured. Their greeting was a cacophony that didn't have the courage to make itself heard. None of them managed to say another word, but their faces all screamed the same question: "what happened."

Besieged by remorse, he recounted having called her to the university, their argument, and the professor who had joined them. His voice struggled to emerge as he remembered the gun appearing from the darkness, and then his own paralysis, as, gripped by terror, he witnessed the absurdity of the words exchanged between the two women and the reckless behavior of both, which had ended with the gunshots.

Cristina shook her head, brought a hand to her mouth in an effort to resist nausea, and walked away to join Fabrizio. With his eyes lowered, Flavio paid her no mind and continued to recount his dash to the hospital and how they had taken Flavia into surgery.

«Do we know anything?» Giuseppe asked. Beside him, Michela and Gianluca were speechless.

«If all goes well, they should finish in a few hours.»

«Do they think it could take longer?»

Flavio bit his lip and, without saying anything, shook his head.

A hole in the skull, a bullet in the brain, hemorrhaging, and bone shards scattered within her head—Flavio knew enough medical statistics to feel resigned already. The most likely outcome was that the procedure would be interrupted at any moment, long before it was complete.

I have to make it, he thought obsessively. For the second time in his life, he was facing the abyss that death threatened to place between him and Flavia. He gritted his teeth, overwhelmed by anger at himself and regret for wasting so many chances to get closer to her.

He knew that even if she survived, she would not be the same. She would be lucky to be able to speak again or even just to eat on her own. And yet, in some way, Flavio felt a determination to go on. He owed it to her, if nothing else. In the cruelest way, Flavia had managed to convince him to stay at IUPITER.

The first hour passed without any news coming from the operating room. Cristina had stayed with Fabrizio, whom Flavio didn't have the courage to approach. Michela, Giuseppe, and Gianluca shuttled between him and their friend closest to Claudia's father.

Uncomfortable greetings, awkward silences, some offers of formal courtesy: "Do you want to rest in the car? Are you hungry? Can I get you something to drink?"

However, nothing they could say would be audible beyond the anguish each one felt inside.

More hours passed, with Fabrizio and Cristina sitting near the admissions desk, just as Flavio was on the other side, with his friends pacing nervously from time to time before quickly returning to him.

Finally, the phone rang, and one of the night-shift nurses answered. He looked up and found himself immediately the center of attention. He strained to shape a smile that was at once professional, solemn, and reassuring, then spoke to Fabrizio.

«The surgeons are finished; your daughter is stable. The doctor is coming to explain.»

Everyone heaved a sigh of relief, some even smiled. Everyone except Flavio, who didn't bat an eye. He was the only one who had seen the wound and still felt the sensation of Flavia's blood on his own skin—the blood that had gushed from the head wound, escaping her body and running down his forearm, dripping off his elbow.

The doctor said the neurological damage was severe. Flavia's state of consciousness was compromised. He explained that a more detailed evaluation could be made once she had fully emerged from anesthesia.

After passing through and damaging the frontal lobe, the bullet had lodged itself in the cortex of the temporal lobe. When Flavia had arrived at the hospital, an edema near the hippocampus was worsening the damage second by second and had made surgery urgent.

«Even if she were to regain consciousness, understand that your daughter will have to do without many abilities, even elementary ones. At the moment, the electrical activity in her brain shows a...» he paused, wanting to communicate everything that was too unpleasant to report to a father «...significant flattening.»

Flavia's physical and mental faculties were in tatters, Flavio conceded.

If not blinded, then at the very least dazzled by unreasonable hope, Giuseppe, Michela, and Gianluca left the hospital. Flavio and Cristina declined the offer for a ride home and stayed behind. Cristina was waiting for a chance to see Flavia, Flavio waiting for the new day to drag him away from the horrors of that night.

At dawn, Fabrizio was allowed to visit his daughter. A nurse guided him to building 10 of the clinic, home to the Department of Neurological Sciences and Neurosurgery. Cristina accompanied him to the room's door. Just behind, Flavio had followed them. Through the glass, the nurse let Fabrizio in, and the other two saw him succumb to sobs.

Flavia's face was covered by the mask of artificial ventilation, a bandage wrapped her head and clung so tightly it was clear she no longer had her hair. A drainage tube snaked down from under the bandages, exposing the reddish serum that flowed through it. At the foot of the bed, the urine bag received its contents through a catheter that snaked under the sheet, while an array of wires sent signals of brain and cardiovascular activity from an unconscious, inert body to the monitors.

«She's gone...» Cristina murmured.

These were the first words Flavio had heard from her since she had arrived at the hospital. He turned to look at her pale face. Her puffy, dark-circled eyes were fixed on the bed. Her uniform was crumpled, her hair beginning to rebel, tired of being gathered at the nape of her neck.

Cristina also turned, and looked at Flavio from under a furrowed brow and twisted eyebrows. «You had all the time...» she hissed sharply, «and you did nothing.»

She averted her gaze and returned to observing the bed, the tubes, the bandages.

Flavio felt a blade pierce his chest. He effortlessly perceived the turmoil boiling in Cristina's heart. It was no different from what he was trying to contain within himself. He sought a reason that could bring some peace to both of them.

«I was scared,» he murmured.

«So you just stood there and watched, didn't you?» she pressed. Her eyes had ignited with rage.

«I... didn't know what to do.»

«It was Flavia! If you're alive, it's thanks to her. She risked her life for you, and you should have done the same!» she vented in a whisper that had the timbre of thunder. «Instead, you didn't lift a finger. I...»

Cristina's voice broke, then came out again in a moan wet with tears. «I loved her!»

Flavio looked at the sunny and stalwart officer he knew and saw she had become an exhausted, weak, drained girl.

«I don't want to see you,» she told him before walking away, too tired to infuse any emotion into her words. «Ever again.»