Chapter 12 #4
If her first thought had been for the telescope, her second thought erased it instantly.
She saw the unfamiliar horses and the house already ablaze, and then she was running as well, towards the two men struggling with their mother.
She heard Freya scream at them and saw one of them, the bigger one, turn and see them.
Then she saw her mother kick his legs out from under him and buck hard against the other one who was trying to hold her from behind.
Storm saw blood spray as her mother butted the back of her head into his face and burst his nose.
She saw her long pale hair fan out as she spun and kicked the attacker hard in the chest, sending him tumbling backwards through the flames that were already filling the doorway behind him.
His heels caught on something lying across the step, something Storm realised was the body of a third stranger, and he dropped straight backwards, rigid as a falling pole, his head hitting the stone floor inside the flame-filled room with a crack that she could hear over the roar of those flames and the screaming of her sister who was still running towards her mother, a crack she heard over her mother’s warning shout as she saw her girls running to the rescue, a crack so final that the legs sticking out of the flames in the door didn’t move a bit, a crack so loud that the only sound that could drown it was the thunderclap as the last stranger rolled over and pointed something that spat a smaller more vicious flame that punched something into their mother’s chest and blasted her off her feet, blowing her backwards into those same flames, backwards and out of their world for ever.
Freya didn’t break pace. Instead, she seemed to accelerate her already breakneck speed and made as if to run straight past the man as if he didn’t exist, shouting for her mother.
And she would have run into the flames to try and pull her out if the man hadn’t swung the gun sideways, chopping into her throat as she passed, stopping her as brutally as if she’d run into some old invisible fence wire.
Her feet kept going but left the ground as her head stopped dead and she made a strange brutal half cartwheel before slamming onto her back right at his feet, choking, shocked and winded.
Storm had not even realised she had her machete in her hand until the Russian – because of course it was the Russian – turned to look at her.
He didn’t look scared, she said. He didn’t look surprised to see me running at him with the blade. He just pointed his gun. So I just stopped. And dropped it. Like a coward, Freya says.
Because he had the gun pointed at you? I said.
Because he had it pointed at her, she said. She was just lying at his feet trying to breathe. He couldn’t have missed her. But I should have kept running at him. I shouldn’t have dropped the machete.
You saved your sister, I said.
Not from him, she said, looking about 100 years old as she did so. Not from him. I saved her for him, that’s what Freya says. And she’s not wrong.
Their mother had killed two of the Russians, one of whom was a woman. The one in the house he let burn along with their mother. They sat on the ground, cuffed together watching the house blaze until the roof fell in, in a shower of sparks while he dug a separate grave for the woman.
He took a ring from her finger before he started throwing the earth over her, and then he just sat on the mound of the grave staring at them in the red light of the burning house as the night fell, tossing the ring up and down in one hand like it was a coin he was using to make a choice.
Which he was, said Storm. Though we were a long way from there when he finally acted on it.
Freya’s hand was too small, her finger wasn’t big enough, so he put it on a string around her neck.
The ring. He put the ring on her then, you know.
He put his stink on her later. She says she still smells it on herself.
We sat together for a long while, looking up at the night. And then Storm cleared her throat and broke the silence.
I don’t remember if I ever thanked you for saving us, she said. You were brave. Both of you. And you’re kind feeding us and looking after us. I hope I thanked you. But I don’t remember—
I’m sure you did, I said.
In fact I was pretty sure she hadn’t, but it didn’t matter to me because she was doing it now. I understood that they were both shaken and traumatised at the time, and then things just got away from us all.
OK, she said.
OK, I said.
Another silence as she examined the sky some more. I was fine with that. It was a friendly silence.
I didn’t want to die, she said suddenly turning to look at me. That was her. She wasn’t thinking right.
I didn’t know what to say to that. Freya’s attempted suicide seemed like a very raw wound that I shouldn’t touch with words even though Storm had finally said it out loud. So I just left it there in the silence. She took a deep breath and seemed to shudder as she let it out.
She used to be the funny one. The sunny one. She could make us all laugh. When she giggled it was like she had extra light coming out of her eyes, she said.
Yeah? I said.
Now she’s got less, she said.
Again I didn’t feel I had anything to say that would make her feel better about that so I said nothing and let the silence just hang there, hoping she still found it companionable and not hostile.
Because of that Russian animal, she said. All this pain.
I know I should feel better about killing him, I said.
But you don’t? she said.
No, I said. I mean my thinking part knows I should. But feeling part? It’s like killing him put part of his stink on me too.
She looked at me. I couldn’t read her face in the dark. I think I expected her to tell me I was wrong. She just shrugged and looked away.
Maybe it did, she said. I don’t know. Maybe it did. I’m sorry if it has. But I’m glad you killed him. As glad as I am that you saved us.
She shivered and lifted her face to the moon again.
I wish we had that telescope now, she said.
That was all either of them told us about their lives before the Russian took them. I guess it was enough. Cat and I never went into much detail about our pasts either, now I come to think about it. Maybe we should have. Maybe it would have made them trust us a lot more.
Or if not more, enough.