“Mon, what’s going on?” I asked gravely through the barrier of the wooden door between us.
“Nothing, just not a good time,” she said in a voice that belied her nervousness.
She was lying, and she knew I could tell. I tried the door. It wasn’t locked.
“I’m coming in anyway,” I announced and stepped inside.
Monika was in the little living room, styled in gleaming white like the rest of the house, with the baby in a bassinet beside her. As soon as I came in, she stood up abruptly from the plush sofa and went over to the window, looking out, her back to me.
“I’m not feeling good,” she said.
Her hand was near her face, and I could tell from her imperceptible movements that she was biting her nails.
“You should go so that you don’t catch it.”
I walked closer towards her, paying no heed to what she had said.
“You know I never get sick,” I pointed out, a mere few inches away from her. “What on earth is going on? Can you please look at me?”
When she didn’t, I grabbed her shoulders. Struggling with her awkwardly, I succeeded in forcing her to turn to face me, knowing what I would see in her face, but shocked nonetheless.
Her left cheek was the yellow and grey shade of a fading bruise. Or rather, several bruises.
She wore a long, baggy sweater, and I pulled the knitted beige sleeves up to find the same discolouration on her arms. So there it was, the true reason she stopped coming to communal mealstwo weeks prior. The last time that we archers, Albert included, were in town.
“Renny, please don’t make a big deal.”
Tears glistened in her eyes, but I had no attention to spare for them. I was too caught up in the fact that her left front tooth was broken and an empty gap loomed in place of its missing upper half.
I stormed outside, shaking with rage. My first instinct was to find Albert. I still carried my bow and quiver on my back, but I wouldn’t use those, oh no, I would choke him with my bare hands, I would scratch him and tear his hair out. After a few paces, I calmed down somewhat, though, and came to the obvious conclusion that such a course of action would not end well for anybody, least of all for me.
What to do then?
Just shooting the bastard point-blank was sadly out of question as long as there were witnesses around.
As I approached the station and saw Einar’s imposing figure loom by our grey Mazda, I thought about involving him, forcing him firmly into action. What if I gave him an ultimatum, refused him any physical comforts of my company unless he dealt with Albert? Surely, after all this time, he wouldn’t enforce our original deal and wouldn’t actually drive me and my friend out? But then again, who was I kidding?Icouldn’t bear being deprived of the physical comforts of Einar’s company. He would know I was unlikely to follow through with the threat.
I was so absorbed in my own furious thoughts that it took me a while to register that something was amiss. Most of the archers were unloading supplies from the cars and carrying them to storage. But the leader, his advisers, and a few others all stood still in a circle around a woman, whose back was turned to me. A wider circle of onlookers was beginning to form around them.
As I came closer, I finally recognised her. It was Lena, a Norwegian GR20 hiker from a settlement a day or so to the South of Vizzavona. The first settlement we had partnered with after resuming clearing in the spring. Lena was an unusual woman and all the more stunning for it. She was tall and lean, with broad shoulders and even broader hips, with competent hands and strong, muscular thighs. All this coupled with shiny blonde hair, cat-like eyes, and a waist thin like a wasp’s. The only blemish on her beauty was a distinct fury bite on her shoulder. Like Einar, she was immune. She must have gotten much unwarranted attention from men, but I judged that she was more than capable of deflecting it. She was an archer, and one of the best I had trained at that, but she never went on clearing expeditions and stayed with her settlement to protect it. The reason for this was her baby sister, Emma, only sixteen years old and very different from Lena. Emma was pale and diminutive, around my height, but lighter and more fragile. She was also very timid and only spoke infrequently, and in a quiet voice that stuttered occasionally. Lena would never leave her alone, so the fact that Lena was in Vizzavona and Emma wasn’t by her side was disconcerting.
“Hi, Lena!” I pushed my way through and joined the leaders’ circle.
“Hi,” she said to me, her expression worn and anxious, before returning to what she was saying without preamble: “I was on patrol. Nature called, and so I went further away to hidebetween the trees to relieve myself. When I was there, I heard bikes.”
Terror spread through me like freezing cold liquid drunk too fast.
“It all happened so quickly. I remember what you’d said about the bikers, and so I ... uhm, finished my business and rushed back to the cabins. But then I heard shouting and shots. I froze on the spot. I’m such a coward!”
“You’re not, Lena.” Einar patted her shoulder carefully. “There’s nothing you could have done.”
“I should have let them take me too,” she countered him, voice and expression steely enough to match his own in his most enraged moments. “They drove away with Celeste, Barbara, Agnes, and ... Emma.” Her voice broke a little. “I stayed hidden for an hour more to be sure they’d all gone. And then ... I went to look.” She shuddered, closing her eyes momentarily, but when she continued, her voice was steady. “They killedeveryone. Apart from the girls they took, they shot everybody else. They took all the food and medicines, everything. They took the bows too, Richard’s and Alexander’s. All within minutes.”
“Oh, Lena ...”
“What do you want to do now?” Einar asked, skipping any utterances of regret as he knew pragmatic Lena was not interested in them. “Would you like to stay here with us? Or did you have something else in mind?”
She breathed deeply through her nose, straightened herself up, and squared her shoulders.
