Prologue

 

 

 

“PLEASE! We don’t have much time.” My words are a plea that I hope won’t fall on deaf ears. I extend my hand. Actually, ‘not much time’ is an understatement: the floor shakes under my feet with the thunder of stomping boots. Hundreds of men are marching our way.

She hesitates. I can see it in her eyes, by the crease growing between her light eyebrows. Surely she can’t have any doubts after all that’s happened. Why is she still debating with herself? I’ve never been surer of anything in my whole life. That arrogant bastard I used to be, that haughty guy overflowing with pluck and bravado? He’s gone. All of this has changed me – has turned my soul inside out. It must have had an effect on her too, for sure? I swallow down my doubt.

Shouting.

Only a few more moments and they’ll be here. Only a few more seconds before it’s really too late…

My fingers are trembling. They’re callused and tanned and so different from hers, slim and soft, fingers that once trailed down my skin like raindrops falling on dry earth to invigorate it once more. We touch each other, almost. The distance separating us is less than an inch.

“Justa, please.” I’m not one to beg. I don’t use the word ‘please’ lightly, but now it tumbles from my lips again. Not knowing how to convince her, I say nothing after that. There’s nothing left to say. I’m speechless, probably for the first time in my life.

The first soldier rounds the corner. Everything seems to decelerate to slow motion. The first shot is fired, air whooshing past me when it misses me by a hair. Another voice joining the first shout directed at me. “Freeze!”

The second bullet hits me in the shoulder. It’s just a superficial wound, the metal grazing my skin instead of penetrating my flesh. It leaves me feeling merely uncomfortable. After all, it’s nothing compared to the pain I’ve had to endure in the past few days. My body is a collection of red, blue, and purple bruises, welts, and potential scars. Blood wells up from the bullet wound, strikingly red against the gray of my clothes.

It is this that shakes her out of her stupor. She makes a sound, a kind of soft squeak, as though a bit of air is forcibly squeezed from her lungs.

A third soldier runs toward us. Then a fourth, a tenth, a fortieth. I can’t even count how many have been sent out to stop us. To stop her. Panic bubbles up like soda from a shaken bottle uncapped by a clumsy hand.

Time’s up. It’s over.