I do not like being in a place and not being able to get out, and while I was in the bathroom I thought I could hear Grendels so I made sure the bathroom closet and cupboards were open, and the shower curtain was pulled back. That way nothing could sneak up on me. I started counting the seconds, but the number got so high that I stopped being able to count, and it felt like I had been trapped forever. Also I had to go to the bathroom but didn’t want to sit on the toilet, in case Hendo came back, or the Grendels came out of their hiding place, and so I held it inside until the place below my stomach got sore.
Then I heard someone come in the front door, which was not far from the bathroom, and Gert said my name. I shouted, “HELP,” again and punched on the door so that he would hear me.
The doorknob jiggled.
“Zelda?” Gert said. He opened the door very slowly.
Then I pulled it open quickly and ran into him and put my face in his shirt, which smelled safe and like my brother who had saved me again.
“Okay,” he said, stepping back and pulling me off of him. “What’s going on? Why were you stuck in the bathroom?”
That was when Gert saw that the door to his room was open. And not just open. The door had been broken. Pieces of wood were on the carpet in front of his door.
“Fuck,” he said, letting go of me and going to his room. He told me to keep back.
“He’s gone,” I said. “He already left.”
He turned back to me.
“Who?”
I looked down, at my feet and the carpet, which was covered with shoe dirt. And then at the door, which was actually empty on the inside—you could see that where the wood had broken off. A little bit of wood covered the door and made it look like the door was all wood, when actually it was some wood and the rest, on the inside, was air.
Gert’s room had been turned upside down. The dresser beside his bed was turned over. His clothes were all over the floor.
Everything exploded inside my skull and I felt sick and pressed myself against the wall.
“Fuck me,” Gert said.
I did not go into his room and watched from far away. When Gert came out of the closet he sat down and put his head in his hands.
“Fuck,” he said.
He got up and held me tight by putting his hands on my arms by my shoulders and I couldn’t move. “You need to tell me, right now, what happened.”
“I don’t know,” I said, and he asked me who I was talking about before when I said someone had left.
I didn’t know if I should tell him who had come in and robbed us. He would get mad at me if he knew that I had let Hendo come into the apartment.
“You’re hurting me,” I said, because his hands were crushing my arms.
He let go and kicked a pile of his clothes. A T-shirt went into the air like a bird, hanging and then falling like it was dive-bombing to eat a mouse.
I sat down on his bed.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Do you remember anything at all about who it was? What they were wearing, how tall they were—anything?”
He stood over me and I looked at my hands. He bent down and said, “This is important, Zelda. Come on.”
I looked at my hands and felt myself being pulled in a million directions.
“Zelda,” Gert repeated.
I told him it was Hendo. “But he was not supposed to rob us.”
Gert got up and stormed out of the room, but not before stopping to say, “And what the hell was he supposed to be doing?”
He did not wait for me to answer.
As he walked out, he swore and pushed the door so it slammed against the wall.
Gert made a call on the balcony and I wanted to be with him, but he told me to stay in my room. I tried to tell him that I was sorry. He just pointed to my room and shut the glass door of the balcony. I went to my room and sat on my bed and felt like throwing up.
In my room I looked at myself in my mirror and how my makeup was all over my face, from crying and from rubbing my eyes.
Gert came into the room and told me that AK47 was on her way.
“I told her there was a break-in and she’s going to stay with you until I get back.”
“You’re going?” I asked.
Instead of answering, he turned to leave the room.
“You need to stay,” I said, getting up off the bed and going after him. I grabbed his arm from behind. “Okay?”
He did not look at me. “AK47 will be here in twenty minutes.”
“Can’t you stay twenty minutes?”
He didn’t answer my question. “Just stay in your room and lock the front door after I go. Put the chain up.”
“Please,” I said. “Don’t leave.”
He turned and put his hands on my shoulders and looked me in the eyes.
“Do not open that fucking door for anyone besides AK47,” he said, and stepped out the door. “And when I come back, we’re going to talk about what the fuck you’ve been doing hanging out with that scumbag.”
When he was gone I took my Viking sword from under my bed. I promised myself that if anyone got into that door, I would become a hero again, instead of a victim. I put the phone on the coffee table.
I watched it and waited for the phone to buzz.
He had left so fast that I did not have time to ask why he was leaving, or where he was going. I got on my knees on my bed, by the window in my room. I watched and Gert came out of the building. There was a nice car waiting out front, a red one that I knew I had seen before. Toucan was standing outside of it, smoking.
He had two other people with him. One opened the door for Gert and got in beside him. The other person went around and got in the driver’s seat. It was the Fat Man.
Then the car turned and drove away.
Protecting the home is the most important thing a Viking could do, even more important than conquering lands with villains in them, so I sat by the door, holding my Viking sword, and went from there to the window to watch if the car came back. I had failed to protect the home once already, and I wouldn’t do it again.
I also watched for AK47’s car. It was red, but a lighter color and older and a Dodge Spirit, which is not a fancy car like Toucan’s.
Finally I saw AK47’s car pull into the parking lot. She parked in the visitor spaces and was wearing her rock-and-roll hoodie with the hood up.
I ran to the door and waited for her special knock on the door and when the special knock came on the door I took off the chain that you can only open from the inside of the apartment.
“Easy, Zee, easy,” AK47 said, coming in. We hugged and she closed the door and then I went and put the chain on. She took down the hood of her sweatshirt and ran her hands through her messy hair, which looked like cartoons where a person gets shocked by electricity and their hair sticks out in every direction.
“You said he left on his own?” she said. “Like, nobody physically forced him to?”
“Nobody physically forced him,” I said. “But it was Toucan.”
AK47 rubbed her face in her hands. “Fuck me right in the face. That asshole.” She breathed out some air and flopped down on the couch.
I came and sat down next to her and put my head in her armpit, which smelled a little but not in a way that made me feel bad. I closed my eyes and pretended that I was hidden and could not be seen by the world.
“When this is all over,” AK47 whispered, “I am going to tear Gert a new asshole.”
I had fallen asleep on the couch and there was a blanket over me. I was in the middle of a dream about Grendels again, and in the dream they had taken Gert from the village we lived in and burned everything down, except for me. I hid and did not save Gert, because I am a coward, and the Grendels laughed at me and Gert screamed for me to help him but I could not do anything.
When I woke up from the dream I did not know where I was and thought that I was still in the village, still being a coward, and that the Grendels were still calling me names as they drove their boats into the sea.
AK47 touched my arm.
“Easy,” she said. “It’s me. It’s AK47.”
“Gert?” I said.
“He’s back.”
I sat up and rubbed my eyes and asked what time it was.
“Five.” He had been gone for many hours, but at least the Grendels were not eating him.
“I want to see him,” I said.
“He’s not in good shape. Okay? You need to stay calm. Can you do your counting to ten?”
I did not want to do my counting to ten. I wanted to see Gert. AK47 would not let me see him, so together we took our deep breaths and did the numbers.
“Okay? The heart has slowed down?” AK47 asked.
I gave her my wrist and she touched where the big vein is and smiled.
“Atta girl.”
We walked to Gert’s bedroom, where he was lying down on the bed with his back to us.
“Hi,” I said, very quietly so I did not hurt his head. I made a scared noise when I saw the way he looked. He had a black eye, which was actually purple, and his lip was fat.
“I’m fine,” Gert said. “Relax.”
“If by ‘fine’ you mean you look like a frigging pumpkin that’s been beaten with a baseball bat,” AK47 said.
Gert looked at me. “How are you doing?”
“How am I doing?”
AK47 put her hand on my shoulder. “Get me a towel from the bathroom, okay? Can you wet it a bit with warm water under the tap?”
I ran out of the room and did what she told me.
I brought it over and she used it on Gert’s face. He was turned away from me. AK47 pressed the towel against his face. When she took it away from it, there was blood on it.
AK47 told Gert to hold it to his face until she came back.
We went to the kitchen and she shut the door behind her.
“Is he going to be okay?” I asked.
“He’ll be fine. He might need some ice, but that’s it.” She opened the fridge and took out some frozen vegetables that we never eat. She put the bag on the kitchen counter and hit it with her elbow until it was flat and not clumpy.
I asked AK47 what we were going to do about the villains who did that to him. “We need revenge.”
Váli, the Viking god of Revenge, is one of the only people who will survive Ragnarok, or the end of the world. He is the son of Odin and a giant woman named Rindr.
Now I was angry. Not at Gert, but at Toucan and the villains who had hurt my brother, who was a warrior and did not deserve to look like a pumpkin.
“One thing at a time,” AK47 said, taking the vegetables to Gert’s room. I followed her and she stopped me in the door.
“Jesus,” she said, and handed me the vegetables. She ran into the bedroom and went to Gert.
He was on his hands and knees and was throwing up onto the carpet. The sound was loud and made me feel sick too.
When AK47 came out of the room she said that Gert needed to be alone, and that he needed to be in the dark for a while.
“I think he’s got a concussion,” she said. “So for now we need to keep him in the dark and away from noise and light.”
I went to my bedroom and took all my blankets and pillows and brought them outside Gert’s room, in the long hallway, so that if Toucan or any Grendels were going to come for Gert they would need to go through me first.
I would not be the coward in real life that I was in the dream.
AK47 said it was not going to be a good idea, sleeping in the hallway.
“You’re going to be in the way,” she said.
Without saying anything, I gave her THE LOOK to show her that I was going to stand guard. “Nobody is going to take Gert away again,” I said. “He is not going to get any more concussions.”
I was so mad with Toucan that all I could think about was killing him. I had never thought about actually killing people before. I thought of defeating monsters and villains, but actually the killing part was always not my favorite part of the Viking sagas.
I thought of Toucan dying in front of me. I cut off his head and held it up and showed the world what happens to people who fucked with Gert and my tribe.
I went to my list of THINGS LEGENDS NEED and crossed out all of the villains except Toucan.