Taking great big lungfuls of air I try to increase my pace, but the muscles of my calves give way and I pitch forward, and almost fall on my face. Thank God, I land on my palms. I push myself up and continue running. I can already see Zane’s blacked out Mercedes parked along the kerb on the opposite side of the street about twenty yards away from the house. Fear twists my insides. Something is very wrong. The car is always parked on the side the house is on.
To my horror I see the first car, usually with Anton in it, pull out into the road. I know the security drill. Anton always goes first, then the car carrying Zane, followed by the car with Noah.
That means the Mercedes will be pulling out next!
I’m only a few yards away, but I don’t shout because I know no one will hear me. I just increase my speed until it feels as if my feet hardly touch the ground. I reach the car and, grasping the handle with both hands, wrench it open. Gasping for breath, I look at the interior of the car blankly.
There is no one there.
For a second I feel relief then I hear my name being called. I turn and see Zane running towards me.
‘Run, Dahlia. Run,’ he is shouting.
For a second I freeze.
Great, he’s not in the car … oh fuck.
The adrenaline rush takes over, and I race away from the car towards him. I can see his face lit by the streetlamp. It is white with terror.
I can make it, I think.
I see the light first, flaring out behind me and reflecting as an orange hue on Zane’s face as he runs towards me, then I hear the noise – wow, deafening, and finally I feel the heat at my back.
The force of the explosion lifts me off the ground and I feel myself rushing upwards, the wind whooshing by my ears. Look, Olga, I’m flying. I see the horror on Zane’s face. I open my mouth and start screaming with fear. Then something slams into the back of my head. For an instant it feels as if my entire head is on fire, then it all goes black.
I don’t feel my body hit the ground, and I don’t see Zane hold my unconscious body in his arms, and bellow, ‘No, no, no, no, noooooooo.’ I don’t see him crane his neck backwards and, with his eyes squeezed shut, howl like a wild beast in terrible pain, the sound tearing from his throat and lifting into the night.
I loved her and she went away from me.
There is nothing more to say.
– Zane
Twenty-eight
Zane
I stand at the window looking down at the hospital’s drab car park. It is raining, an icy, mean, diagonally driving mix of sleet and freezing cold rain that pounds the asphalt and breaks up into chaotic splashes of water.
A woman opens her car door, pokes a pink umbrella out of the gap, and unfurls it before she gets out. I kept a woman once who used to do that. I can’t remember her name, and I’d have difficulty picking her out of a line-up, but I remember that odd detail. She had hair that would become curly if it got wet. I turn my eyes away from the woman in the car park and look at the sky. It is full of dark grey smudges.
Jesus, how come I don’t feel a fucking thing?
I feel like a block of ice. My hands are shaking though. I reach out and touch the glass. It is cold. Her blood is on my sleeves. I couldn’t protect her. All the guards, the twenty-four-hour surveillance, and I couldn’t keep her safe. There is not one damn thing I can do for her now. It is completely out of my hands. I’m like a leaf in the river.
Her phone rings and startles me. I take it out of my pocket and look at the screen.
Stella
I feel the name like an icepick to my heart. This is a part of her life, a part I never took any interest in. What have I done?
I accept the call.
‘Where the bloody hell are you? You bolted out of Eliot’s like a bat out of hell and just disappeared. I was worried. I’ve left like a hundred messages on your phone,’ a woman’s quarrelsome voice scolds.
‘This is Zane,’ I say quietly.
For a few seconds she goes completely silent. ‘Why are you answering Dahlia’s phone?’ she asks in a tone that gives me goose bumps.
‘Dahlia was in an accident and—’
‘Accident? What the fuck are you talking about?’ she demands aggressively.
‘There was bomb, a car bomb,’ I say. Even to my own ears it sounds incredible, implausible and fantastic.
‘What?’ Her voice is a screech of disbelief, a dagger shoved into my brain.