FABIAN RISK SHUDDERED AND realized that his eyes were closed. He was alive. He tried to move his toes, but he didn’t know if he’d succeeded. He really ought to be happy and relieved, but all he felt was a big black hole of sorrow. He thought about the numbers again; numbers that refused to give him any peace.
He was shaking from the cold, even though he was tucked under a thick blanket. He tried to think of something else, but the numbers were stubborn; like an obsession, they came back and repeated themselves ad nauseam.
Lina, Cecilia, Annika, and Lena had saved him: four people had survived. There were five including him — five out of twenty-one. Sixteen of his former classmates had lost their lives, if you counted Ingela Ploghed — seventeen, if you counted their teacher. It was an unparalleled catastrophe. There were question marks next to the three people who were far from Skåne, but Fabian didn’t hold out much hope for them. For the most part, Torgny Sölmedal had succeeded in what he’d set out to do.
Fabian himself had failed in every imaginable way.
Twenty people were dead if you included the Danish police officer and the two guards.
And that wasn’t even counting Mette Louise Risgaard.
He opened his eyes and saw a ceiling with fluorescent lights and perforated tiles that were the same colour as a smoker’s teeth. It looked familiar. He had been here very recently. He turned his head as far as the pain would allow and saw Theodor in the bed next to his. He was awake; he looked back and made eye contact — neither of them said anything. It was as if silence were the most precious thing they had right now and it mustn’t be broken under any circumstance. There was so much yet to be said, but it would all come in good time. So many meaningless apologies. So many strained explanations. Promises that would never be fulfilled.
Theodor extended his hand; as Fabian took it in his own he felt the warmth spread through his arm and into his body.