February 12, 2019
It’s not an easy walk. Agnes can hardly see for all the snow pelting into her eyes, can hardly hold her left leg up, away from the ice. Ása’s trying her best, but she’s been drugged, been held captive, has probably not eaten properly, if anything, for days. She can’t move in a steady line.
“He’ll kill me,” Ása says. Her lips are on their way to blue. “And you.”
“He won’t,” Agnes says. She digs her makeshift cane into the snow in front of her. Forces all her weight into that one point of contact with the earth. Hops forward on her right foot. Rinse. Repeat. “I won’t let him.”
It sounds like empty bravado, but Agnes is angry enough to tear Thor apart. He’s a monster. This woman beside her, trembling and broken, he’s ravaged her. He’s felt entitled to take everything from her, to hurt her, to terrorize her. If she could, Agnes would kill him. Now.
There’s nowhere else to go but back to his house. Just to grab the car keys, Agnes tells Ása. She’s repeating the phrase like a mantra. First the car keys, then the drive to Ingvar’s. She’s sorry to bring Ása back to Thor’s home, but it’ll only be for a moment. And Thor can’t be there still, can he? If he is there—Agnes can’t think about it. She’ll do what she can to protect Ása. To protect herself.
Maybe it’s just the desperation driving them both forward, but the house appears out of the haze quicker than Agnes had expected. The last steps across the driveway bring her to a new height of pain. Her left leg won’t bend—but that ability was lost so long ago now. It’s agony to lift it the few inches into the air that she must to get herself forward. It’s become a sandbag, dragging underneath her. She throws herself into the front door.
Agnes calls out, her voice hoarse, “Hello?”
There’s no answer.
She waits another beat. No other voices, no other footsteps. No other heartbeats in this house but her own. Nothing except the roar of the wind outside. Lights—left on by Thor—flicker with every new gust. At a particularly strong one, the house turns into an underground club, the strobe light thumping to the beat of some unheard house mix.
Agnes beckons Ása inside. “It’s okay,” she says. “We’re safe.”
Ása hesitates at the threshold. She takes in the dark hallway with wide, rolling eyes. “Why did you bring me here?”
“Just to get the car keys,” Agnes assures her again. “I need your help grabbing them. Then we’re leaving.”
Stepping inside, Ása visibly reins in her fear. She manages to close the door behind her with her bound hands.
“Thank you,” Agnes says, and she means it.
Limping, she leads them into the kitchen. When she reaches the counter, she drops her cane and leans her body weight against the cool marble. Her hands are like claws, frozen in a white-knuckle grip. She digs through the drawers, grabbing for the scissors. Ása comes up behind her, questioning. Agnes doesn’t answer, just hacks at the woman’s bonds. When the rope comes loose, dropping to the floor with a pathetic clatter, Ása lets out a cry. Of pain, of joy, it’s all the same thing now. Her first act of freedom is to drop her head into the sink, sucking at the running water.
Agnes reaches for the bottle of pills, unopened, on the counter. She’s at the end of her sanity. She needs a couple, so she can manage through the next few hours of her life, so she can think. When the cap finally releases, though, the bottle falls from her hands and the pills scatter everywhere but on the counter.
She lets out a hoarse curse.
The faucet turns off with a squeak. Ása, flinching away from her.
“I’m sorry,” Agnes says, her face contorting from the effort not to cry. She can’t bend over again. Not like this. She can’t reach. “It’s just—I’m in so much pain—”
She cuts herself off. Ása bends over for her. Unsteady, but making it look easy. Her fingers, still swollen and stiff, covered in blood, swipe at the pills, pushing them around rather than picking them up. Finally, though, she gathers a few in her hands. She drops them onto the counter, the color drained from her face.
Agnes swallows them all immediately. “Thanks.”
The pills stick to the back of her throat. She muscles them down. Will they be able to muffle some of this pain? Make Agnes forget, even for a moment, the sight of Ása, tied up in the complete darkness of a cellar?
“Who are you?” Ása asks. “Why are you here?”
“I’m Agnes,” she says. “It’s a long story. But we’re getting out.” They’re going to get in the car and drive themselves to Ingvar’s home. “The car keys are in the bedroom there.” She directs Ása to the right one. “Can you get them for me?”
Watching Ása hurry down the hall, the adrenaline that has propelled Agnes so far drains out of her system. She deflates against the counter. She knows this isn’t over. But she’s warm, and the opioid bleeds into her limbs in a trail of heat so pleasant it’s almost sexual. It can’t cover the throbbing from her leg, but it can soften everything else.
“There are no keys,” Ása tells her. When had she come back?
“On the bedside table,” Agnes hears herself say. “In the second bedroom?”
“There are no keys,” Ása insists. “I checked.”
Agnes straightens against the counter, reaching for the cane. It’s possible that she’d put the car key somewhere else. She asks Ása to check her bag in her room. Then she forces herself to follow the woman down the hallway.
When Agnes stops moving, a long slow wave of nausea courses over her, setting her in a swing like a carousel. She waits for the vomit to force its way out, but nothing happens. She scans the room. There are no keys on the bedside table, as Ása had said. The quilt on her bed is still knotted how she left it. She wouldn’t put her key there. She leans her weight on the mattress, one hand free to dig through the bedside table’s drawers.
No key.
She asks Ása if she found it.
The lights snap off. For a long moment, Agnes can only see the ghost image of the woman’s silhouette, crouched in the corner of the room, searching her backpack. Then, with an effort, the lights flick back on. It’s the storm, gaining strength. Disrupting their power.
“No.” There’s a tremor in Ása’s voice. A warning that she’s close to losing it. Agnes can’t blame her, but there’s no time. She asks the woman to look under the bed. Maybe Agnes knocked them to the floor, kicked them under without feeling it. Ása complies, bloody hands groping in the dark. She pulls back. “Nothing,” she says.
Now the panic climbs up Agnes’s spine. She hadn’t taken the keys out of this room. They’re not in her jacket pockets. She empties their contents on the bed to be sure. Two phones. A tube of lip balm. The flag-bearer figurine from her father’s room. No keys. She’s usually pretty good about keeping track of these things. She thinks she would have left the keys on her bedside table, as always. Easy to grab.
That’s when she remembers.
Thor. She’d seen him cross the hallway, into this room. Had he taken the keys?
To trap her?
Why?
Ása asks, accusation threading through every word, “Why do you have my phone?”
Agnes can hardly breathe, let alone answer. They’re stuck here. Stranded.
“What do you want from me?” Ása asks. “Are you helping him?”
Agnes’s phone isn’t out of battery. She takes it from the bed. Hustles out of the room, aware that Ása’s following, aware that she has to answer, but everything can wait until they call Ingvar. Her fingers fumble on the screen.
“You are,” Ása says, her voice rising to a hysterical pitch. “Oh my god, you’re helping him.”
She’s about to lose it. Lose it and not get it back.
“Lilja gave me your phone,” Agnes says, loud and firm. “She said Óskar found it. It’s all so convoluted, Ása, I can’t think right now. Please, just trust me. Lilja got it from Óskar and she gave it to me. She was worried the police would think that she hurt you. But she didn’t, right? You sent that text and you left the party. She and Óskar took you back to your place. And then something else happened.”
If Agnes’s knowledge of her life frightens her, Ása doesn’t show it. Perhaps she, too, has reached the limit of her own emotions.
“I was crying,” Ása says, “and I saw”—she shakes her head—“I saw the headlights outside. He was in his truck, waiting for me. I got so angry, I didn’t think. We’d been fighting. I ended it. But he was there. I went outside to tell him to leave me alone. He asked me to talk. He wanted to apologize and then he promised me he would leave me alone.” Ása watches Agnes carefully, waiting for the accusation. The inevitable You should have known better. But Agnes feels nothing but sadness. Anger, too, but it’s a distant roll of thunder on the horizon. “I agreed. He took me here and gave me some wine and it—I woke up in the dark. I don’t know for how long.”
“You’ve been gone for nine days,” Agnes says. The horror of it threatens to consume her.
Ása nods to herself, absorbing this information somewhere deep inside. Agnes wants to admire her for her strength, but she suspects most of her stoicism is due to shock. To whatever drugs lace her system. Later—if there is a later—she will have time to fall apart, when she lets everything that’s happened sink in. Hopefully she’ll be able to put herself back together.
“He brought me food and juice,” Ása says. “I knew it had something in it making me sleep. But I had to—I was so thirsty.”
All this time, she’s been fighting to survive. Agnes wants to tell her she’s safe now. But she can’t promise that, can she?
Ingvar.
Agnes unlocks her phone and dials Ingvar’s number. It rings through to voicemail.
She hangs up.
Dials again, furious with herself, with everyone. This time, she waits for the beep, and then she leaves a frantic message. “We need help. I found Ása. She’s here. We’re—Thor’s dangerous. We’re stuck. I’m hurt. I can’t drive. Please, come. Please.”
All the while, Ása’s staring at her.
“What?” Agnes asks, trying not to snap. She’s doing the best she can, and she’s aware that it’s not nearly enough.
“I kept waiting for him to kill me. But every time, I would wake up. Now I don’t think that’s happened. I think I’ve died.”
“Stop it,” Agnes says. “That’s not happening.” She crosses the last distance to one of the couches and descends with a jolt that sends a spear of hot metal through her body, like she’s been branded from the inside out. She leans back, resting her leg on the pillows. Already she can see the swelling against her jeans. She allows herself one whimper of helplessness. Then she digs the heels of her palms into her eyes, trying to clear her head.
The police.
She asks Ása for the emergency number. Dials 112 with a shaky finger. I’ve found Ása Gunnarsdóttir, she’ll say. She didn’t run away. She didn’t commit suicide. She was kidnapped by Thor Thorsson. And he’s still here. And my leg is shattered. Come quick.
The phone rings. She hears the pick-up, hears the sound of a woman’s voice on the other end, polite and urgent, and then everything goes black.
The lights have flickered out again. The phone beeps a small, pathetic rhythm to let Agnes know that the call has disconnected. She waits, holding her breath, begging the electricity to please, please come back on. But there’s nothing. Just the darkness. The scant illumination of the snow outside.
“We’ve lost power,” Agnes says, her voice coming from far away. “And my phone—” She glances down. No Wi-Fi. No bars. Ása’s phone is dead. Her charger is in her kidnapper’s other home. “Can you get to Ingvar?”
“What?”
Agnes tells her how to find the driveway across the road. The long incline to his house. Ása nods like she knows this already.
“You have to go,” Agnes says.
“What about you?”
“My leg,” she says. “I can’t.” It’s all she can say about it. “Go. The power is out. He might come here to check on me. You need to go. Get help.”
Ása hesitates.
“Go!” Agnes shouts.
Ása flinches, which breaks Agnes’s heart, but she can’t waste any more time. Ása makes for the front door, weaving and catching her balance against the walls. Agnes listens to the door slamming behind her and falls into the couch cushions.
She’s in the black. Wounded and waiting.