Chapter 37: S2E4: The Value of Mercy
**(5 DAYS UNTIL RAGNAK'S DECISION)**
The Gulbenkian Gardens breathed in slow, green silence. Sunlight filtered through the pines in scattered gold, casting long shadows across the manicured lawns. The air smelled of damp earth and eucalyptus, thick with the hum of bees hovering over lavender bushes. Camila sat on the stone bench, her fingers tracing the grooves of worn granite. The stolen washcloth was still tucked in her pocket, faintly scented with detergent and guilt.
Ragnak appeared without sound, his black coat stark against the verdant backdrop. He didn’t sit so much as *arrange* himself beside her, his posture precise, his hands resting on his knees like surgical instruments at rest.
For a moment, they watched a pair of swans glide across the pond, their reflections rippling in the still water.
Then, without preamble, Ragnak spoke.
"Would you like to be my little bitch?"
The question hung there, casual as a weather report.
Camila didn’t flinch. She exhaled through her nose, watching the swans. "You’re not the first man to ask me that."
"Not a man." His voice was cool, detached. "And not asking."
She turned her head just enough to meet his gaze. His eyes were dark, depthless—like looking into a well where no sound ever echoed back. "Testing, then."
A slight tilt of his head. Acknowledgement.
Camila plucked a blade of grass, rolling it between her fingers. "You want to see if I’ll say yes. If I’ll hesitate. If I’ll get angry."
"I want to see what happens."
She let the grass fall. "You won’t like the answer."
"Try me."
The swans drifted closer, their beaks dipping into the water, stirring up silt.
Camila leaned back, stretching her legs. "No."
Ragnak didn’t smile. Didn’t frown. Just watched her, analyzing. "Why?"
"Because I don’t belong to anyone." She rubbed her thumb over the edge of the bench, feeling the roughness of the stone. "Not even myself, some days. But definitely not you."
A breeze rustled the pines. A child laughed somewhere distant, the sound swallowed by the garden’s hush.
Ragnak’s fingers flexed slightly. "What if I made it worth your while?"
Camila snorted. "You’re not my type."
"Humor me."
She turned fully toward him now, studying his face—the sharp angles, the absence of lines, the way his expression never quite settled into anything human. "Alright. Let’s say you *could* make it worth my while. What would that look like?"
He didn’t hesitate. "Power. Safety. Freedom from consequence."
She arched a brow. "You’re describing a god."
"I’m describing *me*."
Camila shook her head. "You don’t get it. I don’t *want* freedom from consequence. Consequences are how we know we’re alive."
Ragnak’s gaze flicked to her pocket, where the stolen washcloth lay. "You stole today."
"Yeah."
"And?"
"And nothing. I did it. I feel shitty about it. That’s the point."
He cocked his head. "Guilt is inefficient."
"Guilt is *human*."
A pause. The swans paddled away, leaving ripples in their wake.
Ragnak leaned forward slightly, his voice lowering. "What if I asked you to do worse?"
Camila stilled. "How much worse?"
"Pick a line. Any line. Then cross it."
The bench felt suddenly colder beneath her. She thought of the hospital where Beatriz worked, the way triage decisions left invisible stains. Thought of João’s maps, the lives reduced to percentages.
"You’re not the first person to try this," she said quietly.
"Try what?"
"To see how far I’ll bend before I break."
Ragnak’s expression didn’t change. "And?"
"And I always break *them* first."
A flicker—something almost like amusement—passed through his eyes. "Interesting."
She didn’t blink. "Ask me something else."
He did.
"Would you sleep with someone to save a life?"
Camila exhaled sharply. "That’s not fair."
"Neither is death."
She rubbed her arms, suddenly aware of the chill in the air. "I don’t know."
"You hesitated."
"Because it’s not a yes or no question!"
"Everything is."
She glared at him. "Fine. Then no."
"Why?"
"Because if I say yes, then *you* own the next life I save. Not me."
Ragnak tilted his head again. "Clever."
Camila rolled her shoulders, trying to shake off the tension. "You’re not getting what you want from me."
"I’m getting exactly what I want."
She frowned. "Which is?"
"To see who you are when no one’s watching."
A leaf spiraled down from the trees, landing between them. Camila picked it up, turning it over in her palm. The veins were delicate, intricate—a map of something alive, now dead.
"You’re not the first," she repeated softly.
Ragnak stood, straightening his coat. "But I’m the last who’ll ask."
The wind picked up, scattering petals from the flower beds. Camila watched them dance across the grass, weightless, directionless.
Five days remained.
She stayed on the bench long after Ragnak left, until the shadows stretched and the swans vanished into the reeds. The washcloth in her pocket felt heavier now.
The gardens sighed around her, indifferent.
Somewhere beyond the trees, a clock struck the hour.
=====
The last chime hung in the air like a challenge. Camila's fingers twitched toward the washcloth again, feeling the cheap fabric's synthetic fibers. Four euros at most. Not even worth the weight in her chest.
A cyclist whizzed past, tires hissing against wet pavement from yesterday's rain. The scent of petrichor still clung to the garden paths, mixing with cigarette smoke from some unseen smoker behind the hedges.
"You're still here."
Ragnak's voice came from her left now, though she hadn't heard footsteps. He held two paper cups, steam curling from their rims in the cooling evening air.
Camila eyed the cups. "You drink tea?"
"I observe rituals." He extended one toward her. "Chamomile. For nerves."
Her laugh surprised them both—short, sharp, utterly humorless. "Pretty sure you're supposed to drug people *before* the interrogation."
The corner of his mouth moved. Not a smile. Just muscle memory. "Drink or don't."
She took the cup. The heat seeped into her palms, a small comfort against the gathering dusk. "What's next? Gonna ask if I'd kill someone for a million euros?"
Ragnak sipped his tea. The liquid left no ripple when he lowered the cup. "Would you?"
"Jesus." Camila blew across the steaming surface. "You're predictable."
"And you're deflecting."
A duck waddled past their bench, quacking at empty air. The absurdity of the moment—perverse questions in this pristine garden, this man who wasn't quite a man, this stolen washcloth burning a hole in her pocket—made her throat tight.
She took a scalding gulp. "No. I wouldn't kill for money."
"What would you kill for?"
The question landed differently. Camila watched the duck peck at invisible crumbs.
"I don't know."
A lie. She'd seen the footage from the hospital collapse last year. Knew what hands looked like when they clawed at rubble for three days straight.
Ragnak's silence pressed harder than any follow-up question.
The tea tasted like childhood—like her avó's kitchen, like being small and certain of right and wrong. Camila set the cup down with a click. "You're trying to find my price."
"I'm trying to find your shape."
"Meaning?"
He turned the cup in his hands. Steam ghosted over his chin. "Everyone has edges. Some are sharp. Some are soft. Yours..." His gaze flicked to her hands. "You let people cut themselves on you."
A shiver ran down her spine. The stolen washcloth suddenly felt filthy.
"Fuck this." She stood, tea abandoned on the bench. "I'm not one of your experiments."
"You're all my experiments."
The words should have sounded menacing. Instead, they just sounded tired.
Camila shoved her hands in her pockets, fingers finding the washcloth's frayed edge. "Tell me something real."
Ragnak studied her for three slow breaths. Then: "Minho had a sister."
The name meant nothing. The way he said it—like testing a bruise—meant everything.
Camila stilled. "Had?"
"Yuna. She drowned in the Han River." His voice didn't waver. "He watched from the bridge."
The confession hung between them, raw as an open wound.
Camila exhaled through her nose. The duck had wandered off. The garden lights flickered on, casting long shadows.
"Why tell me that?"
Ragnak stood, straightening his coat. The movement was flawless, practiced—a surgeon's precision. "Because you'll remember it when you decide whether to hate me."
She almost laughed. "I already hate you."
"No." His fingers brushed the teacup she'd abandoned. A surgeon's fingers, steady and cold. "You pity me."
The words landed like a slap.
Before she could react, he was walking away, his silhouette dissolving into the gathering dark. The bench held the ghost of his warmth, the half-finished tea cooling between them.
Camila stared at the cup. At the faint lipstick mark she'd left—chapped pink, imperfect. Human.
Five days remained.
She fished the washcloth from her pocket and laid it neatly on the bench. Let the night dew claim it.
The walk home tasted like chamomile and unshed tears. Lisbon glittered below, indifferent to the small thefts that shaped a soul.
Somewhere beyond the trees, another clock struck.
No one listened.
=====
The night smelled of salt and diesel fuel, the Tagus River swallowing the last traces of daylight as Beatriz walked along the empty docks. The stolen keychain weighed heavy in her pocket—a cheap plastic soccer ball with a broken chain that had cut her finger when she'd snatched it.
She stopped beneath a flickering streetlamp, watching moths throw themselves against the glass. The light buzzed like a dying heartbeat.
"You hesitated today."
Ragnak's voice came from the shadows between shipping containers, smooth as a scalpel sliding through flesh.
Beatriz didn't turn. "I didn't."
"You counted to three before taking it."
She flexed her hand, feeling the scab where the keychain's jagged edge had bitten into her skin. "I was calculating risk."
The clink of dress shoes on pavement. Slow. Precise. "Liar."
Ragnak stepped into the sulfur-yellow light, his coat swallowing the glow. Up close, he smelled faintly of antiseptic and bergamot—clinical, expensive. Nothing like the cheap soap and sweat of the hospital corridors she knew.
Beatriz met his gaze. "What do you want?"
He tilted his head, studying her like a specimen under glass. "Would you like to be my little bitch?"
The question landed between them with the weight of a dropped scalpel.
Somewhere in the harbor, a ship's horn bellowed.
Beatriz let out a slow breath. "That's your opener? Really?"
"Answer."
She rubbed her thumb over the cut on her finger. "No."
"Why?"
"Because I already have a job."
Ragnak's lips twitched—not a smile, just muscle testing a reflex. "You administer a hospital. You don't heal."
"I direct traffic between life and death." She stepped closer, close enough to see the flecks of silver in his irises. "Just like you."
A pause. The streetlamp flickered again, casting their shadows long and jagged across the concrete.
Ragnak reached into his coat. "Pick a hand."
Beatriz didn't move. "Why?"
"Humor me."
She tapped his left sleeve. His fingers unfolded like a surgical instrument, revealing a single morphine vial.
"Steal this," he said.
Beatriz stared at the vial. The liquid inside caught the light, swirling like trapped mercury. "That's not a test. That's cruelty."
"Is it?" His voice never changed. Barely louder than the lapping waves. "You've signed off on worse."
The words struck bone. She remembered last winter's triage lists, the red lines through names when generators failed. The way the ink had smudged under her sweating fingers.
"That was different."
"How?"
Beatriz swallowed. The keychain cut deeper into her palm. "Necessity."
Ragnak turned the vial between his fingers. "And if I told you this was necessary?"
"For who?"
"For you."
A container ship groaned against its moorings, metal screaming.
Beatriz reached out. Stopped. Her fingers hovered an inch from the vial. "What happens if I take it?"
Ragnak's breath fogged in the cooling air. "You tell me."
Her hand trembled. Just slightly. Enough that she saw it. Knew he saw it.
She withdrew. "No."
"Why?"
"Because I'd use it." The admission tasted bitter. "Not on patients. On myself."
Ragnak pocketed the vial. His expression didn't change, but something in his posture shifted—minute, measurable. Like a surgeon noting a tumor's exact dimensions.
"Interesting."
Beatriz barked a laugh. "Fuck you."
He stepped closer. The streetlamp cast his shadow over her, long and consuming. "Would you sleep with me to save a life?"
The question hit like a defibrillator jolt.
Beatriz's pulse jumped in her throat. "What kind of game—"
"Answer."
She thought of the teenage girl in Ward 3 last month, the one whose parents refused transfusion consent. The way she'd gripped Beatriz's wrist with skeletal fingers.
"Maybe," she whispered.
Ragnak's eyelashes flickered. A blink slower than normal. "Why maybe?"
"Because I don't know which life." She bared her teeth. "Mine or theirs."
The harbor sounds faded—just their breathing now, the electric hum of the failing bulb above them.
Ragnak reached out, gloved fingers brushing her collarbone. Not a caress. A diagnostic. "You're afraid."
"Of course I'm afraid."
"Not of me." His thumb pressed against her jugular, taking her pulse. "Of how far you'll go."
Beatriz didn't pull away. Let him feel the rabbit-quick thrum under her skin. "I know exactly how far."
"Do you?"
She remembered holding the keychain. That three-count hesitation. The vendor's face—not angry, just tired. Another theft in a city full of them.
Ragnak withdrew his hand. "You failed today."
Beatriz stiffened. "I took it."
"You took the wrong thing." He turned the vial between his fingers again. "You were supposed to steal your own limits."
The streetlamp died with a pop. Darkness swallowed them whole.
Five days remained.
Beatriz's laugh cut the silence. "You're full of shit."
Ragnak's teeth gleamed in the moonlight—brief, predatory. "And you're still here."
The keychain drew blood. She barely felt it.
Somewhere out on the water, a buoy clanged. A warning. A call.
Neither moved.
=====
Neither moved.
The harbor's night sounds rushed back in—waves slapping against rubber boat bumpers, the distant groan of a crane swinging cargo over black water. Salt crusted Beatriz's lashes when she blinked.
Ragnak's glove creaked as he flexed his fingers. The morphine vial had vanished back into his coat, but its ghost lingered between them like the ache of a freshly stitched wound.
Beatriz flicked her bleeding hand, scattering red droplets across the concrete. "You enjoy this."
"Enjoyment requires affect."
"Bullshit." She wiped her palm on her slacks, staining the linen. "You were human once. Some part of you remembers."
A container ship's spotlight swept across the docks, bleaching Ragnak's face bone-white for one stark moment. His pupils didn't contract.
"Let's try another way." His voice softened—not warmth, just a scalpel switching to a finer blade. "What would you want me to do, so you'd be my little bitch?"
Beatriz barked a laugh. The sound echoed off shipping containers, sharp as a gunshot. "Seriously?"
"Deadly."
She studied him—the perfect drape of his coat, the way his collar never rumpled. Even his flaws were calculated. "I'd want you to beg."
Silence.
Somewhere a rat scuttled through spilled grain.
Ragnak's head tilted three degrees to the left. "Elaborate."
"On your knees." Beatriz stepped closer, close enough to smell the bergamot clinging to his skin. "Hands shaking. Voice broken. I'd want you *ruined* before you even asked."
The harbor wind tangled in her hair, lashing strands across her mouth. She didn't brush them away.
Ragnak's glove touched her cheekbone, tucking the hair behind her ear with surgical precision. No tremble. No hesitation.
"Fascinating," he murmured.
Beatriz grabbed his wrist. Felt the steel cable tendons beneath the leather. "You can't do it, can you?"
"Of course I can." His pulse under her fingers was a metronome. "But it wouldn't be real."
"And that matters?"
"To you." His free hand produced the morphine vial again, rolling it across his knuckles like a magician's coin. "Shall we continue?"
The glass glinted under the sporadic dock lights. Beatriz's throat tightened. She thought of the stolen keychain, the vendor's tired eyes. Thought of João's spreadsheets reducing lives to percentages.
She released Ragnak's wrist. "What's the real test here?"
"Not a test." He pocketed the vial. "A revelation."
The wind shifted, carrying the stench of dead fish and gasoline. Beatriz's phone buzzed in her pocket—hospital alert. Another crisis. Always another crisis.
She didn't reach for it.
Ragnak watched the screen's glow bleed through fabric. "They'll call again in ninety-three seconds."
"Fuck you."
"Later." He turned toward the water, coat swirling. "Tell me about the first life you failed to save."
The question hit like a sucker punch. Beatriz's breath caught. Seventeen years old, clinical rotations, that codes had sounded like dinner bells—
Her phone rang.
Ragnak didn't glance back. "Seventy-six seconds early. Someone's panicking."
Beatriz silenced it. The screen showed seven missed calls. "Her name was Teresa."
The words tasted like copper. Like the blood she'd bitten through her lip that night.
Ragnak went still. Not surprised—just recalibrating. "Go on."
"Diabetic ketoacidosis. Sixteen years old." The numbers surfaced automatically, vitals burned into memory. "They didn't page me until her pH hit 6.8."
A wave smashed against the pier. Salt spray kissed Beatriz's cheeks. It almost felt like tears.
Ragnak turned. His expression was unreadable in the shadows. "And?"
"And nothing." Beatriz's laugh scraped her throat raw. "I coded her for forty-three minutes. Then I filled out the paperwork."
The phone vibrated again. The screen cracked when she hurled it into the Tagus. The splash was smaller than she'd hoped.
Ragnak watched the ripples fade. "Why tell me this?"
"Because you already knew." She wiped her mouth. "Just like you knew about the keychain. Just like you *know* I'll follow you back to that goddamn library."
The streetlights flickered. Somewhere in the maze of containers, a dog barked—once, twice, then silence.
Ragnak extended his hand. Gloved palm up. A surgeon's hand. A killer's hand.
Beatriz stared at it.
Five days remained.
Her phone's dying glow still pulsed beneath the dark water, fading with every heartbeat.
She took his hand.
Lisbon didn't watch them leave. The city never did.
=====
The library's ancient oak door groaned like a wounded animal as Ragnak shouldered it open. Inside, the air smelled of dust and damp parchment, the kind of smell that clung to the back of your throat. Beatriz's stolen keychain left rusty smears on her thigh as she followed him past shelves of crumbling Portuguese histories, the same ones João had memorized during his first exile winter.
Ragnak stopped between two towering bookcases, his gloved fingers trailing along cracked leather spines. "You threw away your phone."
Beatriz touched the empty pocket. "It was ringing."
"You hated the ringtone."
She blinked. The hospital admin team had chosen that jaunty samba beat last April. She'd never complained. Not once.
Ragnak tilted his head, studying her the way pathologists study slides. "You mute televisions in waiting rooms. Fidget during birthday songs. Your left eyelid twitches when—"
"Get to the point."
Moonlight sliced through the high windows, cutting his face into angular shadows. The morphine vial reappeared in his hand, rolling across his knuckles with hypnotic precision.
Beatriz's mouth went dry. "You're not testing my resolve anymore."
"No." The vial stopped mid-roll. "I'm testing your restraint."
A moth battered itself against a lampshade, wings ticking like a failing heart monitor. Beatriz watched its desperate arcs. She'd seen similar patterns in ICU patients seizing under sedation.
Ragnak stepped closer. His coat brushed her knees. "Ask me why I chose you."
The keychain's cut stung when she flexed her hand. "Because I sign death certificates in pink highlighter?"
"Because you count." His breath smelled faintly of bitter almonds. "Three seconds before stealing. Five breaths before answering difficult questions. You measure hesitation like medication doses."
A drop of blood fell between them, dark on the oak floor.
Beatriz wiped her palm again. The linen stuck to the wound. "You want me to count this?"
"I want you to stop."
The moth hit the lamp again. One wing tore.
Beatriz laughed—a short, sharp sound. "You first."
Ragnak went still. The vial vanished. His gloves creaked as he flexed his fingers.
Then—
"So, if I beg, you'd be my little bitch," Ragnak says, then nods.
The world tilted.
Ragnak got on his knees. His hands shook. Actually shook. His voice cracked like a teenage boy's when he spoke again. "Please. Be my little bitch."
Beatriz's stomach dropped. The raw need in his tone didn't sound practiced. Didn't sound calculated. It sounded... human.
She reached out on instinct, fingers hovering over his hair. It looked soft. She'd never noticed before.
Ragnak caught her wrist before she could touch him. His breathing was all wrong—too fast, too shallow. A flaw in the machine.
"Interesting," he whispered.
Beatriz yanked her hand back. "You bastard."
The trembling stopped. The mask slid back into place. Ragnak stood in one fluid motion, straightening his coat with a jerk. "Now you know."
"Know what?"
"How easy it is to fake." He brushed invisible dust from his knees. "And how much you wanted it to be real."
The moth fell onto the desk, wings fluttering weakly.
Beatriz's pulse hammered in her throat. She remembered the vial. The keychain. The way his voice had broken.
She stepped back. "Fuck you."
Ragnak's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Later."
The library's old clock chimed once. Four days remained.
Somewhere in the stacks, a book fell with a thud. Neither turned to look.
Lisbon kept its secrets.
So would they.