Slowly We Die. Emelie Schepp

why she’d left the office so hastily today, and she had no desire to explain it to him. Her mother’s death was a private affair. She had all she could handle just thinking about having to make the funeral arrangements.

      She tossed the phone on the bed, stripped down to her underwear and wrapped herself in her bathrobe. She had intended to heat up some tomato soup for dinner, but now she didn’t have any appetite. Instead, she took out a bottle of white Bordeaux from the refrigerator and poured herself a glass of wine.

      After two sips, she held the cold glass against her forehead. She wanted to cool herself down, repress the thoughts that had again begun running through her head. She was filled with rage, a rage that usually made her feel invincible and strong, but right now was making her feel weak—because her mother’s death made her think about the death of a different woman. The woman who had actually given birth to her.

      Jana took the glass from her forehead and gazed into it, at the concentric circles created on the surface by the vibration of her trembling hand. She took another sip of wine and tried to push her thoughts away, knowing that if she didn’t stop them, they would take her to the painful memory of her real mother.

      Her biological mom. The one who was murdered so many years ago.

      She didn’t want to think about her real mother. She hadn’t in many years. But now she couldn’t stop where her mind was racing.

      She raised the glass to her lips but hardly noticed as she swallowed. She had already been dragged down into her memories and found herself back in that tight, stuffy metal shipping container as it made its way across the Atlantic. She sat huddled up next to her mother, kept asking her over and over if they would be there soon. Her dad had told her to be quiet like everyone else packed into that airless space.

      They had been on their way to a new land, to Sweden, to the promise of a new and better life.

      She remembered how her heart had been pounding as the shipping container was eventually opened. Three men stood outside. With weapons in hand, they selected seven children. She was one of them. She could still feel the harsh grip on her arm as she was yanked out into the light, away from the mother and father she loved and who had protected her.

      That was the last time she saw her birth parents alive.

      The men pointed their weapons directly into that tight, stuffy space. She would never forget the deafening sound of shots being fired. But the worst part came when everything had fallen silent and the men took a step back to admire their work.

      Jana swallowed hard and rubbed the back of her neck. She drew her fingers over the welted letters that were carved there long ago, K-E-R.

      Maybe it had been a mistake to start digging up her past. Maybe it would have been better to just let it be once she escaped and was adopted by Karl and Margaretha. Once she was educated and had a safe new life—even if she had no clear memory of what had come before.

      But she was haunted by those carved letters K-E-R—and was determined to discover what they stood for. So she set out to collect information over the years, filling journal after journal, writing and drawing her memories from dreams and nightmares. And from all of these notes, a terrifying picture of her childhood had formed.

      She had been forced to train with the other trafficked orphans as a child soldier, a mercenary whose only purpose was to kill.

      Her adoptive mother, Margaretha, had never known any of this. But her adoptive father, Karl, knew everything. As it turns out, he had been a part of it. To protect himself, her father found out where she had hidden her boxes that contained all of her journals and notes, and he had stolen them from her, had put them in his own secret hiding place. But now he was incapacitated. She needed to find out where those boxes were stored. Was anyone guarding them? Making sure they didn’t fall into the wrong hands?

      Who? Jana thought, raising her glass to her mouth again.

      * * *

      Henrik Levin carefully closed the front door behind him. He left his shoes in the hallway, hung up his jacket, then stepped into the kitchen. He could hear his infant son, Vilgot, screaming and his wife, Emma, talking softly to him in the bedroom upstairs. She was shushing him gently, saying it was time to go to sleep.

      Henrik smiled to himself and walked up the stairs, peeking quietly into the bedroom and seeing Emma standing there with Vilgot in her arms. Her delicate face was pale, and her hair, which was almost always in a large topknot, hung loose. He nodded to her quietly, then continued silently to his son Felix’s room, stroked his hair and whispered good-night. Then he went to his daughter Vilma’s room, where he accidentally stepped squarely on a Lego.

      “Shit!” he said.

      “Daddy, you swore.”

      “Why aren’t you asleep?” he asked, leaning over the bed and meeting Vilma’s large, blinking eyes.

      “You said ‘shit,’” she said.

      “Don’t say that word.”

      “But you just did.”

      “We shouldn’t say ugly words.”

      “Why did you do it, then?”

      “Because I hurt my foot.”

      “Don’t we say ‘ow’ then?”

      “Yes, but sometimes we say ugly words when we hurt ourselves or when we’re angry or tired.”

      “Why?”

      “Because. Now, my curious little monkey, it’s time for you to sleep.”

      Henrik pulled the covers up to her chin and kissed her on the forehead. He closed the door quietly.

      Emma turned toward him as he returned to their bedroom.

      They hugged with Vilgot between them.

      “Hi,” Henrik said. “You look beautiful.”

      “Thanks,” Emma whispered.

      Henrik laid his hand gently on Vilgot’s little head.

      “Did you have a good day today?”

      “No. Vilgot’s not sleeping enough. I remember both Felix and Vilma could sleep a few hours in a row by this point. Vilgot hardly sleeps more than fifteen minutes at a time, it seems. I don’t get anything done during the day. I have no idea how I’m going to be able to plan this move.”

      “Don’t worry about it. The movers are coming a week from Friday, and the cleaners come the weekend after that. All we have to do is pack.”

      “It’s a little more than ‘all we have to do,’” she said, rocking the baby in her arms. “I feel so stressed. When I walk around the house, all I see is all the stuff that needs to be done. You don’t see it day in and day out.”

      “I know,” he said. “But I have a few other things to think about right now. A man accused of murder escaped from the hospital today.”

      “From the hospital?” Emma asked, looking at him. “Who?”

      “Do you remember Danilo Peña?”

      “Yes, of course. He escaped?”

      “Yes.”

      “Oh dear,” she said. “And you’re searching for him, I assume.”

      “Yes, everywhere.”

      “Around the clock?”

      Henrik met her gaze.

      “Yes.”

      “So I’m going to have to take care of the move myself,” she said.

      “Not necessarily.”

      Henrik let his eyes drift to the floor, seeing the scene before him again. The ambushed male nurse with the syringe stuck in his chest, the bloody fingerprints, the guard beaten and tied up in the closet. A violent criminal on the loose.