EPILOGUE

EPILOGUE

WASHINGTON DC

EVERYTHING WAS ABSOLUTE DARKNESS...

As much as Sandro Palmeira ran, there was little time to reach the light that was starting to disappear...

No... please... I need to reach her...

Sandro Palmeira desperately tried to scream, but no sound came from his lips, but suddenly, the whole universe around him echoed...

You are still not welcome here...

Not yet...

LIKE A FLASH, he heard the noise any policeman in the world could distinguish from a million other sounds.

The sound of a pistol firing.

He had promised not to shoot...

But he pulled the trigger to show the world the new Adam...

Promises are broken, Sandro, but the truth never...

You are the truth...

Then he awoke from eternal sleep...

SANDRO WAKE UP bathed in sweat, but the movement of having lifted his torso too fast brought excruciating pain that almost made him pass out again, he couldn't remember having felt pain like that in his entire life.

— Calm down, love — said Elisa also waking up from a nightmare — it's all right — she continued trying to calm him down.

Sandro looked around and took a few moments to discern everything that was happening, nothing made sense, but he knew that everything was fine now, everyone would be fine as long as he acted fast, his last thoughts were of wanting to save the American president, he listened the shot and then he felt something penetrating his skin and burning him from the inside.

I do not have much time...

It all made sense to him now.

' You were shot,' she said still calmly, 'almost died, Sandro... where was your head acting like that?

He didn't hear a single word she said, it was like he was in a bubble and time passed too slowly to understand or distinguish any sound.

The images in his mind were blurred, he acted on instinct, somehow Sandro knew that nothing would happen to him, someone had told him that everything would be fine, someone who looked like a snake spoke in his mind...

Now he understood the connection Maria Orsic had and the voices she heard, now he could hear them too.

Yeah... he was there... that damn thing was there...

HE SMILED GENTLY at his wife and said the last thing Elisa would ever imagine hearing in her entire life:

— Who are you?

WHO HAD BEEN SHOT in her soul at that moment was Elisa.

— What do you mean, Sandro? You are crazy?

— Sorry, but… who is Sandro?

Elisa smiled nervously, but what she really wanted was to punch that braggart that she chose to love and be her husband.

He can only be kidding me...

— I admit that the joke was funny, Sandro, but now it's time to stop this fifth-rate act, you don't have the slightest vocation for humor.

Sandro gave that unmistakable smile that made Elisa fall in love with him from the first moment she saw him.

— Is there a Corinthians game today? He snapped, completely changing the subject.

Elisa huffed in anger.

This is the last straw...

— You forgot me, you forgot your own name, but you didn't forget the damn Corinthians, until when will I have to share you with this team?

— You didn't answer my question,— he said dryly.

— No!!! — Elisa shouted nervously — no… will… have… the… crap … from… Corinthians…

Sandro nodded sadly.

— A pity, I wanted so much to see the Corinthians game.

A nurse entered the room, visibly happy to see the patient that the President of the United States himself had treated and said:

— Please, ma'am, you can't scream in here.—

— Forgive me, I...

— I see that our patient has already woken up, I will inform the doctor immediately.

And left.

— I don't think I have anything to do then.—

— Whoever loves can always do something.

— Yeah… unfortunately I chose an asshole to love.

Elisa sat in the armchair by the bed completely defeated and tried to calm down, something that was not her nature, she was always explosive, according to DISC theory by Doctor William Moulton Marston, she was clearly a dominant D self, but at that moment the D represented much more of a loser and that bothered her a lot.

— You're beautiful, you know?

Elisa made a face of few friends.

— Don't say…— he said in the most jocular way anyone could say.

— You said I got shot.

Elisa had her eyes closed and her head back, thinking about something.

— O! Pretty girl...

She looked back at him with an even less friendly face.

— Fuck girl... You said I got shot...—

She took a deep breath trying to hold back the swear word he'd promised not to say anymore.

— Yes, Sandro did... if you haven't noticed, there's a hole in your belly.

He opened his apron and there was no hole, his body showed no sign of injury.

'I think you've made a mistake… it doesn't have any marks.'

Elisa looked and was scared, she remembered in detail her husband running towards the president of the United States and being shot, she kept her hand over the wound to stop the blood, but looking now there was absolutely no mark.

— Why would anyone want to take my life?—

— They didn't want to take your life, they wanted to take the life of the American president and you threw yourself in front.

— So I'm kind of a hero.

— Medal and all...

Sandro smiled to himself as if he were dreaming.

— But why would the president give me a medal?—

— What am I going to know? God only knows where you were in your latest investigations... Germany, Paris... something weird in the Arctic... even in a flying saucer you appeared on television and billions of people watched you exit the aircraft with a blonde woman, the last thing I heard was that you were the most famous person in the world in the last week... the only thing I know is that you managed to arrest an international assassin who wanted to resurrect Nazism and they even killed Hitler for good... nothing more, nothing less.

— I'm a cop?

She nodded sullenly.

— One of the best of the world.

— I wanted to be a football player,— he said dreamily.

— Don't talk nonsense, you always wanted to be a policeman because of one, Hercule Poirot and Miss Murple, characters in the books of an English writer.

— Poirot? I don't even know how this is written.

— He's a fictional character from the Agatha Christie books.

— Sorry, but… never heard of it.

— How did you hear about Corinthians?

— My father was Corinthians.

Elisa started to laugh like it was the joke of the century.

— What's funny?

— Do you know your full name?—

— I don't remember,— he said in frustration.

— Sandro Palmeira.

— Who would put a ridiculous name like that on their own child?—

— Your father, the most fervent Palmeiras native in the world, if you said in front of him that he's a Corinthians fan, you can be sure he wouldn't live on because of the beautiful beating he would take from the old man.

— Sorry, but... what's your name?—

— Elisa.

— What a beautiful name.

— Just the name?

He looked like he didn't.

— Elisa with the beautiful name, if your husband finds out you're flirting with me I might get shot more, not that that would be a big deal, because it would be worth it.

— Are you my husband, you idiot, or do you think I'm from the Red Cross helping poor memoryless idiots in charity hospitals on another continent?—

— Another continent? Aren't we in Brazil?

— No... we are in the United States, more precisely in the capital Washington, you were going to receive a medal from the President when someone tried to kill you and you threw yourself in front to save him, remember I told you that a few minutes ago?

— What madness...

Sandro lay down again and took a deep breath.

— Did something happen, dear?—

— Yesterday I was at my mother's house enjoying a wonderful day and today I wake up with a shot in the belly that I don't know if I really took it and next to me the woman of my dreams saying she's my wife.

— I think it's worse than you think.

— Because?

— Your mother died more than fifteen years ago.

SANDRO PALMEIRA WAS taking a shower to see if he could relax a little after everything he had been through, his body was 100% healed as Josef Mengele had said, but his mind was in a turmoil, he knew he needed to act immediately before anything else it got even worse.

As he came out of the bathroom completely naked, the nurse gave a startled scream, waking Elisa up.

— Sandro, what is this? – Elisa asked.

Sandro was a little distracted, looked at his erect genital organ, clearly happy with life, and smiled.

— It's just Cesinha.

— What idiotic talk is this?— Put on some clothes right now, you idiot.

— But it's his name.

— For God's sake, Sandro,— Elisa said through gritted teeth, clearly annoyed, — cover it.—

Sandro calmly put on his clothes as if nothing had happened there and went back to his bed.

— It's better this way?

— Help me will...

ELISA Woke up in the middle of the night and the bed was empty.

Where the hell is he now?

ELISA'S HEART immediately went into despair, she pressed the button that called the nurse and soon after, a corpulent blonde entered that hardly a man in his right mind would face in the fight.

— Please, nurse, my husband has disappeared.

The woman huffed in dismay, and soon afterward the two heard a flushing noise and Sandro appeared at the bathroom door and said:

— Oh! After this piss I'll need to drink an ocean to recharge.

The nurse looked at Elisa disapprovingly and left.

Sandro looked at the woman who claimed to be his wife and she was possessed with rage.

— Has something happened that I'm not aware of?—

— I thought you were gone, you idiot. — She said in an embarrassed tone mixed with anger.

— But I only went to the bathroom.

— Yeah, I realized, but let me know next time.

— But I didn't go out, I just went to the bathroom to laugh, do I have to ask permission for that too?

Elisa felt like a complete idiot.

— Forget it, go...

SANDRO WAS RELEASED TWO DAYS LATER, none of the doctors were able to explain what exactly had happened to him.

— It's just a recovery we've never seen anything like, Senhor Palmeira.—

— I don't even know why I'm here yet.

— Because we needed to know a little more about it, but everything about you is complete madness.

— Why doctor?

— I don't even know how to say it, but we ran some tests on you, starting with your blood.—

— What's with his blood, doctor?—

The doctor took a deep breath.

— At the beginning of the 20th century, blood groups or blood types were discovered, when the Austrian scientist Karl Landsteiner dedicated himself to proving that there were differences in the blood of different individuals, separated into eight strands, O+, A+, B+, AB +, O -, A-, B— and AB -, these are the only blood types found in humans since studies began more than a hundred years ago.

— I still don't understand where you're going, doctor.

— That you have blood completely unlike anything we've ever encountered in humans.

Elisa still had an explicit question mark on her face.

— Explain better doctor.

— Your blood contains a compound called hemocyanin.

— AND?

— It's just that this is a trait found exclusively in reptilian blood and not human blood.

ENTERING THE ROOM of an apartment that the American government had temporarily granted them to rest, a six-year-old boy came running up to him shouting:

— Daddy...

Sandro hugged him.

— Hey there, big boy.

— The Timão game is playing, let's watch it.

— Oh !!! That's good news... Do you have popcorn?

— Mom will do it.

Elisa looked at them with an unfriendly face and huffed with anger at herself.

— What does this Corinthians have that I don't?

ELISA BROUGHT A BUCKET of popcorn and the two devoured it in a matter of minutes, even more so with the intensity of the game, as Corinthians was losing.

After the game ended, now a little less excited because of the tie, Elisa noticed something that hadn't happened for a long time.

He watched the game without saying a single curse...

She smiled pleased with herself.

He may have lost his memory, but he hasn't forgotten the threat...

SANDRO PUT his son to sleep, and lay beside him.

The boy almost asleep said:

— Did you forget about me, big daddy?—

Sandro didn't say anything, he just kissed the boy's forehead while he stroked his hair, lay down beside him and waited for him to fall asleep.

ELISA WAS LAYING on their bed and realized that her husband was taking a long time to go to bed with her, the television had been turned off and she went to check on how she was, but there was no one in the house besides her and her son sleeping in the room.