Ten

Ana

W hen I wake up, just for a second, everything feels normal. And then I remember – the gunshots. The screaming. Mama dropping to the floor. Mama’s dead…

I push the covers off and look down. I’m dressed in a black T-shirt and denim shorts that aren’t mine. I’m in a bed that isn’t mine, in a place I wish I’d never come to, and I close my eyes, screwing them tight shut as the nightmare starts up in my head, replaying over and over. It’s my fault, that mama’s dead. My fault. She came looking for me …

I sit up and draw my knees to my chest, dropping my head, squeezing my eyes shut even tighter to try and block out the memories. Stem the tears. There’s a pain inside me I can’t cope with. Can’t deal with.

“Hey.”

I hear it, the voice coming from the doorway, but I don’t look up. Don’t lift my head. I just want to stay like this, eyes closed, curled up, as I attempt to block out the nightmare.

“You hungry?”

“Leave her, Joel. She barely slept last night, she’s too tired for this.”

I recognize the female voice. Elise. Wife of one of the older bikers, I can’t remember his name. She’s one of the many women who’ve been here, in this room, throughout the night. All of them are kind, all of them make me grateful I’m not alone, but I don’t want to be here. I want to be at home. Do I even have a home anymore? Now Mama’s gone…?

I slowly raise my head and look at Elise, ignoring the man standing in the open doorway. “Where’s my phone?”

“Your phone is safe, sweetheart. Don’t worry about that.”

“I need to call Lars and Lea. I need to speak to my friends. They need to know about Mama.”

“The police have been in touch with them–”

“I want to see my friends.”

Lars and Lea are the only people I have left now. I have no grandparents. No siblings, no other family, just Lars and Lea.

“You need to stay here. You need to rest.”

“I want to go home.”

I turn my head to look out of the window, and I hear them talking, Elise and this man, their voices hushed, but the man’s – his voice is slightly agitated, I can tell that much. I don’t care. They can’t keep me prisoner here.

“What about the funeral?” I turn my head back to face them. “Mama’s funeral.”

Elise sits down on the edge of the bed, a woman who, I’m assuming, must be in her late forties or early fifties, there are small signs of age on her face. Faint lines around her eyes. She’s exceptionally pretty, her dark-brown hair piled up on top of her head, her kind eyes staring deep into mine.

“Your mama’s funeral is being taken care of, Ana.”

“By who?”

“You ask too many questions–” The man in the doorway starts speaking, until Elise throws him a look that silences him immediately.

“She has every right to ask about her mama’s funeral, Joel.”

I glance quickly at the man… his face… I recognize his face, did I talk to him? Last night? Before the gunfire started? Before my mama died in front of me…?

I turn away from them both: lie back down. I pull my knees to my chest and curl up into a tight ball, I don’t want to talk about Mama’s funeral anymore. I want to close my eyes and pretend she’s still here: that she’s going to wake me up any second now with coffee and freshly-baked Rundstykker with blueberry jam. Our favourite breakfast. I want to pretend. I don’t want to know what’s really happening.

I want to pretend…

Joel

“How is she?” Skip asks as I close the office door behind me.

“Fucked up. I think it’s best we keep her out of it, let her zone out for a bit.” I sit down on the couch opposite Skip’s desk and lean forward, clasping my hands between my knees.

“Keep her drugged up to the eyeballs, huh?”

“She keeps asking questions. She wants to see her friends, wants to go home. She wants to know about Sofia’s funeral.”

“We’re dealing with all of that.”

“You can’t keep her prisoner here, you know that, right?”

“We can’t let her go, Joel. She knows too much, she’s seen too much. It isn’t safe for her out there right now.”

I sit back, dragging my hands through my hair. “The Blackhawks.”

“She caused two of their men to die, and yeah, that’s messed-up reasoning, but that’s how they’ll see it. We killed two of their brothers–”

“They killed an innocent woman. They were about to rape her daughter.”

“And you know that means shit in their handbook. It means shit in ours, Joel.”

I close my eyes briefly and sigh heavily. He’s right.

“I owe it to Sofia to keep Ana safe. She needs looking after. She needs to be protected, and I am going to do my utmost to make sure we do that.”

I sit forward and light up a cigarette, keeping my eyes on Skip as he paces back and forth in front of the window.

“You got some kind of plan?”

He stops pacing and leans back against the window-ledge. “She needs to become one of us now. She needs to stay here, her life’s changed. She can’t go back to her old one.”

“She keeps talking about these friends…”

“Lars and Lea Janssen. Rik’s dealing with that.”

I drag deep on my cigarette, bowing my head for a beat or two.

“I need you to protect her.”

I leave it another couple of beats before I raise my gaze. “What are we talking about here, Skip? What kind of protection?”

“She needs to feel safe.”

“You knew her mother for a few months, what the hell is this? Did you even sleep with her? How close did you really fucking get, huh? And now, what? We’re left babysitting her kid?”

I watch as Skip’s expression darkens. He turns away, starts pacing again, raking a hand through his hair. He’s agitated, I mean, really fucking agitated, and that worries me.

“What’s wrong, Skip?”

Because something is. I know this man, and I know there’s something going on.

He stops pacing, keeps his hand in his hair, pulling at it as he speaks, his face a mask of anger. “She was pregnant.”

I frown, because for a second I have no clue who he’s talking about.

“Sofia. She was pregnant. When she died. Those fucking assholes not only killed her, they killed my kid, too. They fucking murdered my child–”

“Woah, hang on… Sofia was pregnant?”

He finally drops his hand, sinks down onto the couch, turning his head away to look out of the window. “We’d been sleeping together, for a while. I was fucking falling for her, Joel.” He looks at me, and I see pain in his eyes. Real pain, and Skip Larsen, he doesn’t do pain. He doesn’t do emotion all that often, so this woman, man, she must’ve been some kind of special. “I don’t know how she felt about me, I think she was confused, y’know? This place, it’s not exactly her comfort zone. But it could’ve been. In time. She was having my baby, we could’ve been a family.”

I watch as he drops his head, rubs the back of his neck, and I know what he’s doing now. He’s pushing all that emotion away, and he’s letting the anger surge forward.

“Those assholes killed my girl. They killed my kid. And then they tried to take Ana, and I’m not letting them get away with that, Joel. That isn’t happening. I’m not prepared to put Ana in danger by letting her leave here, I’m not letting her put our plan in danger, by leaving here. She stays, and we protect her, I owe that to Sofia. We’re bringing those Blackhawk bastards down, you hear me? Because this war – it just got fucking personal.”