Slowly We Die. Emelie Schepp

things that could destroy you...”

      “You’re forgetting something. They contain information about you, too.”

      “But I’m the one who has them, and I don’t care about my reputation. If you don’t let me stay here, I’ll make sure to send the contents to everyone who might be interested in getting to know the real you.”

      “You can’t.”

      “Karl wouldn’t like the truth coming out, either. Think about what he’s done to you, to me, and all the other children who came here in those shipping containers. He has marked us as his own. Your adoptive father is evil personified. And you have been complicit in not turning him in to the police. Think about every one of his guilty cronies he has protected, all of the court cases he has manipulated, think about...”

      “You’re a part of all of that.”

      “And?”

      “Is that all you have to say?”

      “For me, there is no alternative,” Danilo said. “Once I was victimized, I didn’t have a wealthy family that adopted me, redeemed me, gave me an education, a job, a future. You’ve been handed everything on a silver platter, Ker.”

      “Don’t call me that name.”

      “All you have to do, if you don’t want anyone to find out about your complicit past, is let me stay here.”

      She took a step forward, trying to breathe more calmly, but the aggression held her in its iron grip.

      “If they do catch me,” Danilo said, “you can say goodbye to your job as prosecutor, goodbye to your luxury apartment, goodbye to your freedom...”

      She examined his face, searching for any clues that he was bluffing, but he looked perfectly calm.

      “You’re lying,” she said. “You don’t have the boxes. You don’t even know where they are!”

      “I do.”

      “My father has them! He took them.”

      “Wrong, Jana. Your father and I took them together.”

      “Why should I believe you? Out at Arkösund, when I asked you, you said you didn’t know anything.”

      “Oh, but I did.”

      Jana looked at him, breathing rapidly.

      “Now I understand why my father saw you as a risk,” she said, “why he wanted you gone.”

      “Maybe so, but now I’m the only one who knows where the boxes are and can get to them.”

      Jana’s eyes narrowed.

      “I still don’t believe you,” she said.

      “You don’t believe me?”

      “Prove it to me.”

      The smile disappeared from his lips.

      “Do you really think that I would bring them here, all wrapped up with a big bow on top? Think again.”

      “I want proof that you have them.”

      “You’re just trying to buy time.”

      “That, too.”

      Danilo stood silently for a moment before walking toward her.

      She stood completely still, unmoving, feeling her muscles tense as he approached. She let him come closer but was ready with the knife.

      He leaned forward, hissing in her face.

      “Is this proof enough for you?” he asked, pulling a torn piece of paper from his pocket.

      She grabbed the paper and stared at it. It was a page of her journal that contained her own words, she saw, written by her child’s hand many years ago.

      “I’m staying here,” he said, “and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

      She gripped the knife tightly in her hand, wanting desperately to use it, but she knew that she had to release both the knife and the urge to destroy him.

      Danilo was right. There wasn’t anything she could do.

      Not right now.

      August 22

      Dear Diary,

      It started by first break today.

      Martin and I hid in a corner of the schoolyard. Everyone else from class stared at me so strangely. They whispered and pointed and laughed.

      I told Martin that we should go back into class. But when we opened the door, the teacher said that we couldn’t be inside during recess. So we went back out and huddled in the corner.

      They kept it up during history lesson.

      While Holger wrote the names of the Swedish kings on the whiteboard with marker, others started whispering. It began in the far back of the room, with Camilla and Markus, then traveled through the room. The longer Holger stood at the board, the more the gossip spread. Everyone listened and giggled before whispering to the next student.

      When it was finally my turn to listen, Linus leaned toward me and said softly: “You are a disgusting freak.”

      I didn’t say anything. I knew they wanted me to react, but I didn’t. I just looked at Holger and tried to forget about everyone staring at me, about the mean words they said. But it was hard.

      In the afternoon, I went to the hospital with my mother. It was time for yet another of her physical exams. I thought it smelled good in there, but I didn’t tell anyone that.

      I didn’t say anything at all the whole time we were there. I just looked at the doctor, at his pale face. He tried to say he was sorry, that he understood that it could be confusing, that he knew that it wouldn’t help, that it was highly unusual for an operation like the one my mother recently had to go wrong.

      But how could I forgive him? He’d taken my whole world away from me.

      The doctor had no answers; he sat with his head down. He couldn’t say anything definite about the future. But he believed my mom would be okay.

      Mom didn’t think so. I could tell in her face, in her eyes. But she didn’t admit that to me.

      Don’t worry, she said as we left the hospital. She said it again just a minute ago, too, before she went to sleep.

      I’m also going to bed now, because tomorrow is a new day. A new shitty school day.

       CHAPTER

       FIVE

      Thursday

      AIDA NORBERG, HAVING recently graduated from school, was on the morning bus heading home after working her overnight shift at McDonald’s. Sitting beside her was her coworker Melvin Axelsson. Melvin was babbling on and on about how tired he was because he’d been running around for hours and hadn’t even had the chance to drink anything his whole shift.

      “Hello? We work in a total sauna. How the hell do you stand it?” he said to her.

      She didn’t respond. She let him continue complaining as she looked out the bus window. The glass was scratched and dirty, but she could make out the contours of people walking along the street.

      At Eneby Center, she said goodbye to Melvin and stepped off the bus. She could see her neighborhood more clearly now: children on scooters, businessmen in cars, students with backpacks.

      She pulled out her cell phone and began walking down the street. She opened the newest version of Instagram and scrolled through the new filters, thinking how it wasn’t very different from previous versions.

      She