It feels as if you’re moving under water, with those tenacious strokes that you always hated because they hardly got you anywhere. Swimming is not your passion, it’s something for retirees with back pains, or people who like secretly peeing in the water. Yesterday you were a rocket, today a butterfly with a suitcase could overtake you. Even though it feels as if you aren’t getting anywhere, surprisingly you aren’t bringing up the rear, which certainly isn’t due to your fabulously long legs. Nessi pushes you onwards. Her hand is on the small of your back, but it isn’t getting you any closer to the hotel.

“Run, Schnappi! Shit, keep running!”

She pushes, you stumble and nearly fall, and then time takes pity on you and your legs are your legs again and everything goes incredibly quickly from then on. Stink disappears into the house, and when Taja tries to get through the rickety double door, you hear the first shot ring out. All of a sudden your back is hot and wet and you stop abruptly, you nearly fall headlong.

Then the second, then the third shot.

You turn around.

Nessi isn’t behind you now, there’s no one behind you. You look at the ground. And there lies Nessi, her left shoulder is nothing but shredded flesh, you see the shimmer of bone, the blood pumps and pumps and forms a pool around Nessi. You can’t take your eyes off that white shimmer, and feel the warmth on your back and something running down your arm. You don’t want to look, but you look and there’s a scrap of skin on your upper arm, right where the sleeve of your T-shirt stops.

You look up. Darian is still aiming the gun at you, and you know that’s it. The fucker’s going to blow my head off now, and I’m just standing there and there’s nothing I can do, and what sort of a stupid ending is that? Darian pulls the trigger, the shot crashes through your stomach with searing heat, and Nessi says, “Everything okay?”

You blink, you’re standing in the hotel lobby and it’s hazy, the air around you glitters with the dust particles that you’ve swirled up with your feet. You look down at her, a sunbeam has pierced your stomach and is warming it up. Stink shuts the other half of the double door with a bang, the sun is closed out, she comes over to you and wants to know if you’ve seen a ghost or what. You grab Nessi by the shoulders and turn her around.

“What’s up with you?” asks Nessi.

You hug her, press her to you.

“Honey, what’s up?”

“Stop chatting, you two,” says Stink. “The bastard almost got us. We can’t stand around here waiting for the next bus. Perhaps there’s a rear exit.”

“No.”

You turn round. Taja is sitting at the foot of a sweeping staircase that leads to the second floor and looks as if someone’s been working at it with a jackhammer. Taja has put her arms around herself as if it’s incredibly cold in here, she’s rocking gently back and forth.

“The house is built right on the cliff,” she says. “There’s no rear exit.”

You stare at her, your blank is forgotten, now you can just see Taja, pale and miserable, rocking back and forth, and for that moment even Darian and his father are forgotten. You want to ask her to stop rocking like that. It’s weird, as if Taja’s inner balance is broken. Nessi asks the question that’s troubling all of you.

“But why, Taja?”

And she doesn’t mean Taja’s father and what happened between you. You don’t care about that, if you’re honest; it’s Taja’s business.

“I thought we’d start over,” she replies. “I thought it would be okay.”

You could give her encouragement now, and say that everything is forgiven and you’ll be able to have a new start. You could, but you don’t, because it would be a lie. The wounds are too fresh. You feel the tension rising. Stink might tear into Taja again at any moment. Do something.

“We’ve got to hide,” you say quickly. “The hotel’s huge; if they come in search of us, we’ll definitely find a way of creeping past them.”

It’s not exactly a foolproof plan, but it’s better than nothing. You do the same thing as Taja did when she decided to run up the road to the cliff—you run ahead, your girls follow you, even Taja. Thank God, even Taja, you think and run down the corridor on the left, run through rooms full of rubbish and detritus. The fir trunk finally blocks your path, the wall around it has collapsed and you can’t get past the rubble.

You turn round and come back to the entrance hall. You don’t really know what you’re looking for. A door leading to the emergency exit? A cellar you could hide in? You know you’d never hide in a cellar.

I’d rather die.

There’s a room that must once have been the library. Warped shelves, stained books everywhere, a fireplace with a broken chair in it, the graffito of a huge pirate runs like a painting across one of the walls. The room overlooks the fjord. You step onto the terrace and stand by the railing. There’s a steep drop. Nope, not an emergency exit.

You run on.

A toilet, a tiny room, a ballroom, a big room, more rubble. Everything’s been cleared away. Cables hanging from the ceiling, tattered curtains, more graffiti. At the end of the corridor you see a locked door. The first one. All the other doors are missing, or else they hang into the room at an angle. You push the door open. It’s the back room, it doesn’t go any further. A huge kitchen opens up in front of you, and it’s completely intact. There are cracks in the ceiling, mildew has formed in one corner, and the windows are all broken, but otherwise the kitchen looks untouched—two stoves, a ceramic sink the size of a bathtub, lamps, pots and pans on the walls, and in the middle of the kitchen a massive table with twelve chairs. At the end of the table sits a man with his hands flat on the tabletop as if to keep the table from floating away. You’re not sure if this isn’t another of your blanks. Maybe your father’s about to come in and ask which of you wants some pizza.

“Just come in,” says the man.

He looks as if he’s been waiting for you. It’s weird. He doesn’t smile, he doesn’t do anything, he just watches you, hands flat on the tabletop, no tricks behind it. You feel you can’t breathe anymore. The man’s eyes look as if a light’s been turned off. Cold, you think, so damned cold. You all cram together in the doorway and stare and stare back. Then Stink says what you’re all thinking.

“Deselected?!”