CHAPTER SEVEN
Some days, you just know something’s wrong before anyone says a word. The day that Licia didn’t show up to school was one of those days. I told myself she was sick. That it was nothing. But when Selma walked in, eyes wide, voice already gleaming with gossip, my heart sank.
“Licia’s gone,” she said, just loud enough for everyone in class to hear. “She and her mom vanished in the night.”
My thoughts scattered. I had just seen her. A few hours earlier, she’d been at my house, lying on the floor, sketching in her notebook while I stumbled through my reading homework, asking her for help every five minutes. It couldn’t be true.
Licia couldn’t be gone.
The teacher called roll and I didn’t even hear my name, I just stared at the empty desk beside mine, waiting for her to walk in. Maybe she was just late. Maybe she’d come running in, hair a mess, smiling like nothing had happened.
But she didn’t.
At lunch, I sat alone, the world moving around me like I was underwater. Distant laughter. Forks scraping plates. Someone talking about homework. It all sounded far away. Then Will dropped down beside me, brow furrowed.
“Why are you sitting alone? Where’s Licia?”
Aran dropped into the seat next to Will. “Did you two break up or something?”
“I... I don’t know,” I said.
“You don’t know if you broke up? I think you’d know.” Aran pushed the joke, grinning, but no one was laughing. Will nudged him with an elbow.
Then Nora’s voice cut in from the table across from mine.
“People are saying she and her mom just disappeared. Packed up and left in the middle of the night.”
“She’s probably just sick.” I said. But I didn’t even believe my own lie.
Selma strolled up, smirking.
“Sick? Sure. That’s why her father was in the street this morning, screaming like a lunatic.”
I stilled. Of course. Selma and Licia lived near each other. That’s how she knew so much. She must have seen the aftermath.
“I heard her mom had bruises,” Nora said. “Everyone knew something was off.”
”That’s why Licia never wanted to go home.” Selma added.
I couldn’t hear it. I wouldn’t hear it. Licia wasn’t sick. She wasn’t home. She was gone. My face burned. My fingers curled around the fork in my hand, like it could anchor me. I wanted to scream, to shut Selma up.
Will stood, like he’d heard my thoughts.
“Shut up, Selma.” he snapped. “You don’t know anything.”
That night, I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling.
I couldn’t stop seeing her face. Couldn’t stop waiting to hear her voice again.
But all I heard was silence. I wanted to go looking.
She had come for me when I needed her, that’s what friends did for each other.
But I didn’t have visions like she did, and I didn’t even know where to start.
Then came a knock. Loud. Sharp.
Another. Louder.
My heart jumped to my throat.
I heard my father rush down the stairs, then the front door slam open. Then voices. Frantic. Angry. Pounding footsteps thudded up toward me.
My door flew open.
Licia’s father stood in the doorway. Red-faced. Wild-eyed.
“Where is she?” he barked. “Where are you hiding her?!”
Hiding?
He didn’t wait. He tore through my room, ripping open drawers, yanking clothes from the wardrobe, almost flipping the bed looking under it.
My father charged in. “Stop this madness!” he shouted, grabbing his arm.
But Licia’s father shoved him aside. “She’s here! I know she is!”
He pinned my father to the wall with his arm across his throat, choking the air from his lungs.
“Where is she?” he roared.
“Stop!” I screamed as loud as I could. He didn’t. I grabbed his arm, pulled with everything I had, but he wouldn’t budge. My father was choking, his face turning purple and I was too weak, too small. I couldn’t save him.
Then my brother burst into the room.
He didn’t hesitate. He threw himself at Licia’s father, slamming into him with full force and knocking him back. Einar wasn’t much older than me, but in that moment, he seemed like he was.
“Enough!” he shouted, stepping between the two men with his arms outstretched, like he could stop them from tearing each other apart. Licia’s father stumbled, his rage suddenly unraveling into grief.
He sank to his knees, hands curled into fists, as if the fire that had kept him standing had just gone out. “No one knows where they went,” he cried. “They’re all lying.”
My mother’s voice cut through the room like a blade.
“Or maybe they’re telling the truth, Marko.”
She crossed to my father, placing a hand on his chest like she needed to feel him breathing. Then she turned, her eyes burning, and walked straight toward us. She reached for me and pulled me behind her, one arm outstretched, her hand firm against my side, like she could shield me from all of it.
“But you don’t get to come into my home, tear it apart and put your hands on my husband,” her voice cracked, but she didn’t stop. “You will leave. Now.”
“She took her,” Marko choked out. “She took my baby girl.”
I felt his grief coil around my ribs, like it had seeped into me too.
”It does not give you the right!” my mother snapped.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. He looked at me where I peeked out from behind her, his face streaked with tears. “I didn’t mean for this. I just want them back.”
My father stepped forward and laid a hand on his shoulder. His voice was steady, gentle in a way that made my chest ache. He never held a grudge. Maybe he saw the raw pain unfurling in Marko, or maybe he was just too quick to forgive.
“We’ll find her,” he said. “We’ll help you.”
And he meant it. Every word.
But it didn’t matter, because that was the last time we ever saw Marko.
───── ????? ─────
Will stared at me like he could tell I’d gone somewhere else.
“Fine. Wait out here.” Aran huffed as he pushed the door to the Blood House open and walked in.
Licia’s house.
What was left of it.
They called it the Blood House because of what the constables found in the bedroom: blood soaked into the wood.
At first, everyone thought Licia and her mother had run.
But over time, that changed, and people started saying that Licia’s father killed them both.
And that he disappeared to avoid the noose.
Why else would he leave and never come back?
But I remembered the man I saw that night…
The one crying on my bedroom floor. That man loved his daughter.
Maybe Licia’s mother killed Licia, and he then killed her for it. Maybe he didn’t do anything at all, and they both ran away for some unknown reason, and he knew he’d get the blame if he stayed.
I didn’t know. All I knew was that this house made me think of things I’d tried so hard to bury. And of course, it just had to be our hangout spot. Of course this was the place we came to drink, to smoke, and to plot rebellion.
Just my luck.
Inside the house, it was stifling. The boarded-up windows trapped the heat and the smell of dust, sweat, and old, weathered wood. The only light came from a cracked lantern in the corner and the faint golden bleed around the edges of the planks nailed over the windows.
The house creaked with too many bodies shifting at once, thirty, maybe more.
Some crouched on the warped floorboards, backs pressed to peeling walls.
Others stood near the staircase or clustered by the windows, whispering.
I knew most of them. People from school.
Their older siblings. Some younger than me, others older.
But Einar wasn’t there. And neither was Miro.
I spotted red hair in the crowd, and apparently, so did Aran. He was already crossing the room toward Selma. People talked over each other, with no structure or order. Just raised voices, urgent, scared, messy.
Idalie walked up to me. “Do you know anything?” she asked, furrowing her brow.
“No. I was just told to be here,” I said.
“Me too.”
“Everyone shut up!” Eryx’s voice cut across the room. “Jorek’s coming.”
The room fell still.
Jorek was taller than most of us, broad-shouldered with a thick neck and a scar cut across his jaw, pale against tanned skin. His dark blond hair was tied back in a rough knot, and his deep-set eyes scanned the room like he was already sorting us into useful or not.
Eryx’s brother. I think five years older. The kind of man who could snap your neck with one hand. His presence alone demanded respect, and he got it.
”You’re here because we trust you. Not just to fight, but to keep your mouth shut. That when it comes down to it, you’ll stand on the right side of this war,” Jorek said.
This war? What war?
”The Wardens need our help. They need men. I’ve met the man in charge myself. The Kraken. I’m sure you’ve heard of him by now. Well, they’ve got a plan that ends with those Vultures in the fucking ground,” he growled.
”Who are the Wardens?” Someone asked.
Jorek’s lip curled.
”They’re the ones still fighting. Men like us, who are not going to stand for these new laws, this regime. Who’s not gonna sit back and watch our sisters get dragged off in the middle of the night, or our brothers bleed out in the streets.”
Selma crossed her arms. “If you need men, why are we here? Do I look like a man to you?”
He glanced at her.
“You don’t need balls to fight,” he said.
“You need guts. A spine. And even if you’re not on the front lines, we need you.
The Wardens want to keep Vestance as it always were.
Free and safe. No man should rule in the name of some god.
And we’re not gonna stand by and let them tear this country apart. ”