I bunch my shoulders together tightly.
“Now take your hands down like you're doing a judo chop.” I smirk then do as he says, arresting my momentum at the waist.
“Good,” Tallinn says thoughtfully. “Now, on the third time, instead of stopping your downward stroke, swing outward, hard. Like you're one of those swan divers.”
Tallinn jerks his thumb toward the perfect view I have of the cliff.
My eyes take in the lithe form of a diver as he prepares to plunge. His arms swing out like slashing knives in opposing directions. They meet in a perfect diamond of precision to slice the ocean's surface below.
I turn back to Tallinn, lifting my bound wrists like a hammer above my head. My shoulder muscles contract with the awkwardness of the constrained movement.
One.
I raise them again.
Two.
The air of my bound limbs brushes past my face. I bring my arms down in a fast downward movement.
Chop. Three.
I snap my wrists apart, and the zip tie peels away, lashing my flesh as it does.
I hiss, rubbing my tender wrists and looking at my instructor.
He lifts his palms inoffensively. “Get Away from the Bad Dudes 101.”
I scowl at him, my anger dissipating when I see the severed plastic lying at my feet.
One side of my lips twist.
“A plus, Paco.” Tallinn winks.
I do what he taught me, casting a furtive glance at the sleeping man.
I only need my hands free to kill him.
I'm not saddened by that knowledge that I’ll have to take a life. The awakened part of me is invigorated by his imminent demise.
I lift my arms, swinging sharply upward.
Back. Forth.
The third time has the plastic tie streaking off like a sprung rubber band. I tense at how loud the plastic is in the quiet of a room where the only sounds are waves lapping and the soft snoring of the muy flajo guard.
I stare silently at the strip of shredded milk-white binding sitting between us.
I flip over on the mattress.
The material is covered in rust-colored stains and other bodily fluid filth. It appears as though this place has been used for prior engagements.
I stand.
Pins and needles of returning blood circulation drives slivers of pain into already abused muscles and joints. My opponents were quite thorough, though I killed two of my assailants before they took me down.
A smile I didn't think was possible covers my face. I won't be fighting to defend. I will be fighting to incapacitate.
I take in my still-bound ankles and search my weaponless body for a means to free myself.
Hopping off the mattress, I swing wildly with my arms to regain my balance. I steady, my eyes flicking to the sleeper.
Low snoring continues. I look at the man, so peaceful in his unconscious world. My eyes lovingly trace each thing I can use to kill him. Finally, I spy a tightly bound ponytail at his nape—the handle of his destruction.
I bounce over to him, using my arms like a circus tightrope performer. When I'm a half meter away, his eyes spring open.
His hand is clearing the jacket where his gun lies as my left palm flattens against the side of his jaw in a move that looks as though I'm pushing his face away.
I shove hard to his left as my opposite hand grabs the ponytail and jerks in the opposite direction, swinging his head hard.
A new noise fills the echoing space: a definitive crack, but his weapon landing on the floor with an unmistakable clatter has me warming my hands in his pockets, in search of a knife.
My fingertips brush metal. I jerk the knife out of his pocket. He slumps forward.
I bend over, flicking the blade as I do, and cutting the tie between my ankles.
The door slams open behind me, and I pivot like a dancer, diving the two meters onto the mattress, using it as a springboard, and hitting the assailant as a bullet misses me by inches.
I slap the arm holding the gun sideways, knocking it away.
He plays into my strike by trying to hold onto the gun. I crush his instep with the foot that still wears a shoe. He howls, reflexively bringing the butt of the gun down on my head.
Ducking, I stab his throat with my knuckles, and as he rears back, I lift my elbow like I'm getting ready to fly, smashing into his nose.
Blood sprays, and I dip as his gun hand begins to fall. Chopping the wrist, I take the gun from his loosened grip and bring the butt down on the back of his neck.
He falls, and I whirl to face the welcome of a darkened corridor, lifting the barrel like an extension of my arm.
Agonized screaming plows through me.
My intellect is in denial, but my heart knows who is making those crazed sounds.
Greta.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Greta
“No!” I scream as the first of the men flood into my prison.
“She is as I remember her,” one says with barely contained excitement.
They don't wear masks this time. That's how I know I'm not meant to live.
Lisbeth smiles down at me in a dreamy way, and I scream louder.
Her happiness dissolves into irritation. “Shut her up.”
“With pleasure,” the second man says, coming to the side of the mattress.
Pale eyes like the fjords of my homeland measure my fear, feeding off it.
I remember it all. Every fingerprint. Every uninvited penetration, pinch, and tweak. Every fist.
Tor grins, slowly sucking his index finger into his mouth and removing it. He presses the wet tip to Lisbeth's forehead as though marking her. “All will be well, my bride.”
Lisbeth's face tightens with the ugliness that lives inside her. “I want to kill her. Please, fall short of all that you plan, so I may deliver the killing blow.”
“Patience,” Tor whispers in placation, his eyes sliding to me.
My bladder seizes and I squeeze my thighs together.
I can't believe there are human beings who would plan this. Hate fills Lisbeth's expression, and jealousy burns in her gaze.
My vision trembles, eyes skating around the room. All I see are the men who raped me two years ago and left me for other men to find.
Bleeding. Naked.
Desecrated.
I won't do this. I can't live through the suffering again.
I've never been with a man by choice. Paco's face fills my mind in brilliant clarity.
I would have been with him.
The first criminal touches my bare ankle, not with force. It’s the barest caress, like an inference of contact.
His touch is heavy on my skin as I yell in a hoarse shout. All my anguish fills the timbre of my voice, and Tor grimaces.
The hand tightens like a vise.
I close my eyes as I feel the coldness of a metal blade cut through the binding at my ankles.
My screams grow louder when the other man takes hold of my opposite ankle.
I kick when they spread me.
*
Paco
I am very disciplined.
And that is good, because when the woman's screams reach my ears, it takes all that I am to not rush headlong into the room where her obvious torture is taking place.
Instead, I install myself against the damp, cold stone wall.
A blistering scream of agony echoes, dying down into an echoing whimper.
Words come to me. The single syllable is the same in so many languages.
No, no, no… no.
Spoken with a soft and terrible urgency, that's all I hear. Her fervent denial rings in my ears, my hands slick against the warmed metal of the gun. I shove it in the waistband of my slacks.
Tallinn's words come to me.
Leave emotion at the table, Paco.
I could, but that was before—before my true self awakened. I feel fully in the present, for the first time.
It's exhilarating. Frighten
ing.
Utterly real.
I soundlessly approach the threshold, where I hear voices. Something about the quality of one speaker halts my progress. I remove the gun from my waistband.
Lisbeth.
She carries on a normal conversation while another woman is nearby, in misery and fear.
The cogs of my mind run smoothly. Many things clang into place. Some stop up, not fitting; the rest come together with uncluttered precision. Unheeded subconscious warnings swim to the surface: The sheer coincidence of Lisbeth's timely appearance. The tie to Greta's father. The family’s ties to Tor.
His tie to both women.
At a masculine chuckle, my head whips to the sound. My hands steady on the gun, I ease the barrel along the threshold of the doorjamb.
I will always be impressed with myself for the rest of my life because of how I react next.
I do not move the sight even a hairsbreadth when I take in a beaten Greta. Blond silk fans around her head. Angry welts and cuts are random accessories on the perfection of her face. One blue eye stares upward in numb horror as a man, naked from the waist down, prepares to impale himself inside her.
My breath stills as I count the men. One at each ankle. One in the center.
My eyes flick to the couple who watch.
A man who stands at nearly six and a half feet tall, with deep copper hair seems to languish at the sidelines with Lisbeth in audience—chin in palm, as though considering Greta's torture in casual regard. I pause for a fraction of a second at the sight of him. A trembling memory skirts the edges of my mind. I dismiss it.
No one hears me when I enter the room. The gun is my announcer as the shots reverberate in the enclosed space.
A hole blooms like a bloody flower in the center of the lead rapist's torso.
Greta's mouth parts, her lips quivering, as her arms helplessly jerk against the loosened bindings.
She turns her head as globs of flesh splatter around her like a brief squall of blood-soaked gore and his body falls beside hers.
The two at her ankles jerk their heads up in eerie unison.
I let the gun do its work, sighting them both and double tapping first one then the other. The tip of the gun smokes.
Lisbeth is suddenly there. A grin like an insane clown’s is fixed on her face.
I send the business end of the gun into her in a purely reactionary blow, and it takes her by surprise, as she did me. Lisbeth's nose is shattered, and I know from experience that blood is a hindrance in a fight. I worsen it by smashing the palm of my free hand into her face.
I don't intend to kill her. But she will be stopped.
The man with deep-red hair comes at me like my partner in a waltz.
A dance for my life.
The man inserts himself between us and flings my arms to the side in a counter so instinctive and fast, I don't have the time to be embarrassed I didn't anticipate it.
A soft whimper interrupts our silent battle.
There is more at stake than me and all that I've been to this point.
The man sneers, growling, “Give me everything you have, stupid Mexican.”
I know him, my mind whispers.
I bounce back, using footwork so rewarding to learn with Tallinn as my teacher.
I jab his square jaw in a hard punch. He grabs my forearm, twisting it. His strength is immense; his body leverage is superior and threatens to twist my arm off at the socket.
Instead, I move with him and lean into the move, spinning to give him my back at the last moment, my gaze awkwardly glued to him.
His eyes widen in surprise, and I ram my leg back, leaving my arm loose within his grasp as I take out the knee.
He falls, his knee collapsing. He tumbles silently, wrapping massive arms around me, and I land backward, palms slapping the cement floor.
A crack sounds to my left and Lisbeth appears above me, a broken piece of a wooden stool raised high in her hand.
I roll hard to the right to avoid the downward swing. It’s a rudimentary counter maneuver. It always works.
The man holds me.
A flash of naked flesh streaks by. Another bludgeoning tool hits Lisbeth in the side of her beautiful face.
Her cheekbone splits. Lisbeth blinks. The bone of her face appears to glow in the strange light of the prison above the sea. Her eyes seem to float for a moment above the wound. Greta's fierce face is suddenly behind her twin. Two faces have never looked more alike—or so very different.
I don't tell her no—my eyes say yes.
Greta swings again as Lisbeth turns to defend her charge.
The ragged edge from the same broken stool leg catches her in the throat just right. Lisbeth grabs her own neck, blood spraying between her fingers like water from a faucet that won't stop leaking.
The man howls, trying to spring to his feet.
I note with fierce satisfaction that the knee I took out inhibits his mobility.
Greta does the rest, bashing him in the teeth with the weapon she used on Lisbeth. She slips on the blood-slicked floor then rights herself.
A tooth flies from the blow, landing on my chest. It looks very white on the black of my shirt.
“Die!” Greta shrieks in the man's face.
I stand as he reaches for Greta, his mouth a bloody grin of determination.
Wide blue eyes regard me over his shoulder, spilling numb terror down her face in tears she doesn't realize flow.
I give the most deliberate strike I've ever delivered in my life to the back of his neck.
He turns to face me. Something vital is obviously broken.
Using my entire body and mind, I strike again. He gurgles deep inside his ruined esophagus.
As he falls, Greta is revealed fully.
The piece of my missing soul—found.
His body lands with a thud between us. Blood soaks into my sock.
Greta stands before me, naked, battered—and so beautiful I could cry.
Alive.
When police move into the building, I don't notice.
I'm holding the woman I was born for.
*
“Mr. Castillo,” the Norwegian officer begins in perfect English. “Or do you prefer Español?” His dark eyebrows hike. It's a misconception that all people of the north are light complected. Some are very dark, and this officer of the law is a perfect example.
I sigh, my eyes gritty with exhaustion. I am tired of talking. I swipe a hand over my face, rough stubble rasping over my shredded hands, just beginning to scab over.
The only one I wish to speak with is Greta. Instead, I reply, “English is fine, officer.” My eyes flick to his badge. Fett.
He gives a sage nod. “You have been quite gracious in light of the ordeal you and Ms. Dahlem have been through.”
Quite. “I want to see Ms. Dahlem,” I repeat in a flat voice.
He glances down. His uniform is less crisp than it was ten hours ago when they stormed the seaside holding.
I close my eyes briefly at the memory of Lisbeth's extreme plan to kill her sister.
When I open them, Officer Fett is simply staring openly at me.
I palm my face again, bone weary. I feel dirty and unkempt.
I’m lucky, though.
I blink once.
He closes his notebook, tapping it once.
My eyes spring open.
His smile is genuine. “I think we have all that we need here.”
My surprise must show.
“You fell asleep after I asked my final question.”
I give a tired laugh. There is nothing funny, but somehow, that's what comes out when I'm extremely stressed.
“I said, Ms. Dahlem is under light sedation in the attached medical facility.”
I stand abruptly, and Officer Fett moves away warily.
Apparently, the police had been briefed on the savagery of my systematic killing of everyone.
Except Lisbeth.
Greta had done that. And though i
t is an awful summation of events, Lisbeth was deserving of the end that Greta gifted her.
“Has she? Was she?” I can't finish with the word violated.
Did I arrive before that? My mind supplies the beaten, bloody image of a naked Greta.
“No,” he gives in curt answer.
A breath of relief whistles from between my teeth. She deserves to be protected. No one will ever hurt her again.
His eyes meet mine. “She is not well, Mr. Castillo. Ms. Dahlem was taken and subjected to a horror—from what I understand—she has already been a survivor of.”
I can only nod. There is no answer for what Greta managed to move through emotionally.
“It was only her American friend, a Miss Gia—” He shakes his head, unable to remember her surname.
Township, I supply internally. “Go on,” I encourage impatiently.
“It is her friend who alerted us. Then we found your injured guard—”
“Is Tallinn out of ICU?”
His brow furrows for a moment then smoothes. “Yes. Robert Tallinn?”
I nod.
“Mr. Tallinn was very lucky,” he says gravely. He swings a palm at the door of their orderly, comfortable interrogation room.
“Let me take you to see your friend.”
It took believing that Tallinn was dead for me to realize he was more friend than guard.
I've been blind and now I see. So much.
I stay him with a hand. “My friend and my future wife.”
Fett's smile is tinged with sadness. “That is the hope for us all. Friendship and love.”
True.
But I've never been more sure of anything in my life. I know something that's even more definitive than Club Alpha or the intentions of the two criminals who planned an innocent woman's death.
Greta is meant for me.
It took destiny and submitting to who I really am for me to acknowledge love is possible, especially for me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Greta
Soft sobbing wakes me.
Like a boat coming to shore, sadness eases the edges of unnatural sleep like waves lapping at the hull of my fogged brain.
Slowly, my eyelids lift. Gia comes into focus, and if I wasn't so thick with whatever's floating in my system, I would jump out of bed and hug her. Instead, I just stare quietly, taking in the scene. My face and ribs ache. But otherwise, I feel okay.
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