Even though Fabian knew that the words were nothing other than banal platitudes coming out of a whisky glass, they’d stuck with him. The thought that he and Sonja were something to get over with as quickly as possible made him short of breath and caused him to get up and drive home, despite Anders’ protests.
He stopped by the bathroom to grab a couple of Alka-Seltzers, before going into the bedroom. He didn’t turn on any lights, but could tell from the glow of the streetlight that seeped in through the drawn curtains that Niva was sleeping in his bed. She was lying on top of the covers and was still wearing the bathrobe that had slipped up and showed just enough…
Why hadn’t she gone home? Had she really been working that late? He wondered whether he should let her sleep or if he should put her in a taxi, but he was unable to make up his mind. And right then he understood what Anders had been talking about earlier: the hesitation he’d been feeling finally started to dissipate. In that moment, he just knew the flame was still alive, and could even see the little blue flame with his bare eyes. It shone faintly and was just about to go out, but it was still burning.
Strengthened by this revelation, he lay down fully clothed as carefully as he could on his side of the bed so that he didn’t waken Niva. It didn’t take long before her slow breathing made him relax, and with every breath he sank down deeper into sleep. And just before he was completely swallowed up by the world of dreams, he had an idea of what they could do to rescue the flame from going out completely; how he and Sonja could find their way back and be in the same room without wanting out.
As soon as this was all over, he would tell her. The idea was drastic and would involve a lot of work and a major adjustment for the whole family, not least for Matilda and Theodor, who would almost certainly protest. They would not only have to change schools, but make new friends. But what did that matter? If that was what they needed to stay together, the decision wasn’t hard, Fabian thought, falling asleep with the conviction that there was positive change in their future after all.
100
SHE PULLED OFF HER panties, straddled an open bidet and started washing herself carefully everywhere, exactly like each new delivery was always ordered to do. Neither the burly guy nor the other two who were standing along one wall seemed to recognize her or notice that there was a new addition.
As usual, there was someone who had to be problematic. This time it was the bleached-blonde Pole right behind her who broke down and refused to wash herself. She couldn’t have been over twenty, and evidently hadn’t understood that this was serious.
‘I want you to leave before I do anything,’ she said audaciously through tears to the guards.
‘You just want one thing,’ one of them said in her face. ‘Do you know what that is?’ The woman responded with a defiant look. ‘To do as you’re fucking told!’ He gave her a hard slap with the back of his hand. ‘Understood?’ When he didn’t get a response he repeated the blow, but with clenched fist and full force.
The punch hit so hard that it looked as if her head was about to twist off her slender neck. She collapsed unconscious in a heap on the floor.
The guard clapped his hands until he had everyone’s attention. Then he unzipped his fly and emptied his bladder on the woman. ‘I want everyone to look really carefully. This is what happens when you don’t do as you’re told.’
They all stared at the unconscious woman whose hair was getting wetter and wetter.
‘Okay, let’s get a move on!’ He zipped up his trousers and washed his hands.
Everyone except the lifeless Polish woman left the washroom and went through the corridor back out to the room filled with all the couches. Pulsing music sounded out of concealed speakers and they were ordered to line up in a row facing the stage. As if on cue, a struggle arose over who could stand as far back in line as possible.
She, however, wanted to be up in the very front.
‘You there. Up on the stage. Yes, I’m talking to you, bitch,’ said one of the guards, nodding at her to move along.
She did as she was told and stood in the middle of the stage, her eyes blinded by the strong spotlights in the ceiling.
‘Turn around,’ a voice said from somewhere in the blinding light. She obeyed the command.
‘Stop.’
She stopped with her back turned towards the voice.
‘Bend over – slowly.’
She lowered her upper body and made sure to stick her bottom out and keep both legs and back as straight as possible. His footsteps came towards the stage, then walked up the stairs, before they stopped right behind her.
None of the other girls had said a word the whole time. The silence was so dense that she was unsure whether they were even breathing. Then she felt his hand on the back of one thigh, and it continued up along the inside of her leg towards her vagina.
‘Mmm, you shaved. I like that.’ He let his finger slide into her. She moaned and pretended to be excited.
‘So you like it?’
‘Mmm, yes,’ she said, rotating her bottom slowly.
‘Want some more?’
‘Oh, yes, please.’
‘Take off your clothes.’
She stood up, let the dress fall to the floor, and stepped out of it, while Diego Arcas walked around her, studying her thoroughly while sniffing his fingers. Suddenly he stopped, held out one hand and felt her breasts.
‘Are they real?’
She nodded.
‘How old are you?’
‘Never ask a woman her age.’
The reaction came lightning fast in the form of a hard slap that burned for several minutes afterwards. ‘You’re not a woman. You’re property – my property! Never forget that.’
She nodded and let the pain in her cheek serve as a reminder not to get too comfortable and presume her victory in advance. After all, she wasn’t done yet.
‘On your knees and open my pants.’
She got down on her knees, unbuttoned his trousers and lifted out his half-erect penis.
‘Do you like it?’
She nodded and forced a smile.
‘I said, do you like it?’
She took it in her mouth and felt the veins starting to fill with blood.
‘That’s better.’
She continued to work back and forth, taking it in as deeply as she could, while caressing his balls.
‘Every single one of you bitches watch and learn. This is how you give a good blow job.’ He took hold of her hair and pulled harder and deeper, almost making her gag.
The pulls got faster and faster, and she could feel his testicles pulling upward. To help him on the way she carefully stuck one index finger into his anus and started caressing his G-spot. Thirty seconds later it was time. The first load she took in her mouth, but she stood up for the second. Arcas’ eyes were closed and he was completely absorbed in his pleasure. It took him a few seconds before he opened his eyes and looked at her.
‘Who the fuck told you to stand up?’
‘No one,’ she said, performing the movement she had practised so many times in front of the mirror.
She hit the mark on the first try and felt her index and middle finger penetrate deep into the eye socket and bend around the back of the eye itself. As soon as she felt the optic nerve between her fingers she pulled with full force, put on her dress, and left the stage.
101
FABIAN HAD NO MEMORY of having taken off his clothes. Yet now he was lying naked on his back, staring at the tiny peacock that had just landed on his chest and woken him up. The feet stuck like little nails through his skin, and he wondered if he could shoo it away. But the fear of how it would react made him stay as still as possible as he watched it wander across his stomach and further down over his exposed member.
Niva was riding him so intently that her breasts bobbed in time, Sonja’s bathrobe tossed behind her. She must have been at it a while because she was close to climax. The peacock had jumped down on the floor and had
walked out the door. He was hoping that if he could just get out of there, like the bird, everything would be undone.
This wasn’t what he wanted. He’d made a plan. Yet he couldn’t help but enjoy her movements. And she was clearly enjoying having him inside of her. He saw the look of victory in her eyes. She’d finally got what she’d lusted after for so long.
The sweat was running down from her forehead, along her neck and across her breasts where it slid off and hit him. She pulled her hands through her hair and stretched backward as she increased the tempo.
She was close now, really close. He could tell.
He responded to her thrusts with greater force until she threw herself back and forth and whimpered with pleasure. He was on his way too. It was irrelevant that he didn’t really want this, just like the fact that he would regret it for the rest of his life. Nothing mattered any more and nothing could make him stop.
It was Niva who stopped and got off him without warning, and the frustration pounded so hard that it was painful. He expected her to get on all fours or lie on her back. Instead she straddled his face and started rubbing her pussy against him. He licked and sucked as much as he could, tasting her juices and playing with the tip of his tongue against anything he could reach.
He could hear her whimper again and did everything he could to help her. At the same time she pressed harder and harder against him, so hard that finally he couldn’t breathe. He tried to get loose – he needed air – but her legs were much too strong.
He held his head still while the rest of her body prepared itself to be swept away by yet another wave.
102
THEY WERE ALL SCREAMING at the same time, not just the girls, but the guards as well. She wasn’t concerned and had actually anticipated the chaos and panic. She knew some of the guards would be more quick-witted than others and come after her, but the only thing she hadn’t expected was Diego Arcas’ ear-splitting scream that cut through all the other sounds in the room. For some reason, she’d thought he would take it like a man.
She had managed to get several metres from the stage, and could hear two guards behind her. She fought the instinct to look over her shoulder. There was no time for hesitation. Instead she put all her energy into picking up speed. She’d practised a lot on the track and knew that velocity meant everything if she was going to get over the couches in the most efficient manner, and reduce the number of seconds to the surveillance room by more than half.
At first she’d thought it would be hard to get enough speed in high heels, but as long as the centre of gravity was in her toes she didn’t have a problem. She jumped over the first couch as if it was hardly even there, and did the same with the second. She could hear that the two guards were already close behind her. Four steps later and she was over the third couch and only had a ten-metre-long stretch before she was at the door.
Certain that the charge of adrenaline improved her personal best by at least three seconds, she tore open the door, hurried in and locked it behind her. Even though the guards would be there any second, she took a few deep breaths and looked at the bloody eye in her hands. It was the last piece of the puzzle to make her beloved whole again.
They started tugging on the door handle, which quickly transitioned to powerful kicks against the door. She could see on one of the surveillance cameras above the control board that there were now four of them. Before too long, they would get out the right key and try to put it in the lock, and when they realized it didn’t work they would take out their guns instead.
She took out the plastic tube from its hiding place behind the binders on the bookcase, unscrewed the lid and dropped the eye into the fluid. Then she closed it again and inserted it into her vagina. She cleaned her hands of blood with some wet wipes, pulled on the dress and took hold of the barely visible fishing line that was attached to a knotted rope.
She started heaving herself up the rope just as the first shots hit the lock. She was both light and agile and her arms had never been stronger, so she had no problem making her way up. But the most critical step was at the top. In order to close the inspection hatch behind her she would have to turn upside down and make her way into the ventilation conduit feet first.
She’d managed to do it without any major problems every time she’d practised, but she didn’t have sweaty hands then and wasn’t feeling the stress that the guards might force the door at any moment. At last she succeeded and could haul in the rope, put back the grate and start crawling backwards through the narrow conduit.
Less than a minute later she heard them break into the surveillance room, arguing about where she could have gone. Not long after they started shooting towards her.
The sound from the shots spread through the conduit, which acted like an amplifier. Even though she was a safe distance out of the corridor she was forced to cover her ears. In only a metre or two the conduit would branch off and then part again. It would become considerably more difficult for them to figure out exactly where she was. They would most likely have to split up and start randomly shooting into the conduits.
But she wasn’t worried. It wouldn’t be long before they had other concerns. At any moment they would be taken completely by surprise – again. But that was out of her control. If it had been up to her, she would have had exclusive rights to this particular night, which was the only time she could get close enough to Arcas.
The shots stopped, just as expected, and after a few seconds of silence she heard scattered shouts and screams. Uncontrolled panic broke out below her. She imagined this was what it sounded like when a tsunami struck. The corridor beneath her was filled with people, but now she was no longer the one they were after. Now the guards and women were the prey. She crawled out towards the main room and looked through the grate.
The police.
They were everywhere with their guns drawn, wearing bulletproof vests. A few were even on their way down from the hidden skylight in the ceiling. She could count at least ten who were trying to take control of the situation, ordering in English for everyone to get down on their stomachs with their arms and legs extended.
Some of the girls did as they were told. Others tried to flee, but were quickly apprehended and forced down on the floor one by one. Four of the guards were already on their stomachs with their hands cuffed behind their backs, and two of the police officers were on their way over to the stage where Diego Arcas was still lying in a pool of blood with both hands in front of his face.
She kept crawling through the narrow conduit as quietly as possible, making her way further away from the increasingly agitated voices of the police who were starting to realize what had happened.
As she worked her way through, she could feel the metal walls getting considerably colder. When the conduit suddenly turned upwards a metre or so before continuing straight she knew she didn’t have far to go. It was now several degrees below freezing and she increased her speed so that her damp hands wouldn’t get stuck to the freezing metal. The disadvantage was that she made more sound, but that couldn’t be helped. Hopefully the police officers were fully occupied with other things.
A few metres later her high-heeled shoes hit the grate. One well-aimed kick later she was out in the courtyard. There was not far to go now. Her plan had gone as she’d hoped.
She had counted on the motion-sensitive light going on as soon as she had put back the grate, which would illuminate the way to the garbage cans. But it didn’t.
It was already on.
She didn’t understand the gravity of the situation until it was too late.
‘Well, well, look what we have here,’ said a voice right behind her.
With her hands in the air she turned around and saw the smiling SWAT team member emerge from the darkness with a gun in one hand and handcuffs in the other.
103
FABIAN WASN’T SURE WHETHER he was asleep or awake. Were his memories only a sick distorted dream or had they really happened? The details were so clea
r that they couldn’t be anything other than true, except for a tiny peacock who’d been there and walked across his body. He didn’t know why, but it had recently started showing up more often in his dreams.
It simply couldn’t be true. He’d been quite sure he’d seen the flame and had a plan for how he and Sonja could get things back on track. So far he hadn’t dared open his eyes. He felt relief in sleep, even though he was now fully awake. He knew the cold, hard truth would be staring right back at him and tried to put it off for as long as possible. Eventually the ringing phone gave him no choice.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ It was Tomas Persson.
‘What do you mean? Has something happened?’ Fabian sat up in bed.
‘Happened? What planet have you been living on? Remember Diego Arcas?’
Of course, thought Fabian, noting that Niva was no longer there. Had she even been there in the first place? Yes, she definitely had. He was quite sure of it, just as sure as he was that he’d been naked, even though he’d gone to bed with his clothes on. But now he had them on again…
‘Höglund and Carlén are absolutely furious with you and have evidently filed a complaint,’ Tomas continued.
‘A complaint for what?’ Fabian felt a headache coming on and struggled to get out of bed.
‘For oversleeping? I don’t know. The thing is that evidently the worst of the chaos happened before the response team stormed in, because once they finally did it turns out that Arcas is lying there bleeding like crazy on the stage.’
Fabian tried to put together a steady stream of words into something with meaning on his way through the hall to the bathroom, while he looked around for Niva.
‘You’re supposed to ask why he was bleeding like crazy.’
The Ninth Grave Page 41
