(AGE 19)
“You really think that’s gonna work?”
My sister rolls her eyes at me. “It’s a dance club. It’s not like I’m trying to get into the CIA.”
“Why not just go to an eighteen-plus place?” She turned eighteen last month, a few days after graduating, so she could get into those with her actual ID.
“Because those places are fucking lame. You’d know that if you ever came out with me.”
“No thanks.”
I don’t have time for partying. I’m too busy taking summer classes so I can graduate earlier than the rest of my classmates and get started on the life I want.
“Nerd,” she sighs, but I know she doesn’t mean it.
“It doesn’t even look like you.” I hold up the driver’s license.
Freya twirls, her short silver dress flaring out, her blond hair shiny around her shoulders. “They aren’t gonna look that close.”
“Mom and Dad will kill you if they find out.” I state the obvious.
“Which is why I’m going to tell them I’m staying at Kay’s house tonight.” She snatches the ID out of my hand and tucks it into her handbag. “And I am.” She sets the bag on her dresser, then snags a pair of sweatpants off the floor and pulls them on, the baggy material covering the skirt of her dress. “We’re just going out first.” She tugs her favorite T-shirt on next, the tie-dye pattern forming a flower across her chest.
I shake my head. “Good luck.”
Not wanting to be a witness to Freya lying her way past our parents, I head to my room.
I don’t bother mentioning that getting in trouble with the law could mess up her plans to attend veterinary school at the University of Minnesota. Knowing her, even if she got kicked out of college, she’d still move up north. She’s talked about nothing else since she heard about all the lakes they have, saying she’s sick of living in the desert.
I shut my bedroom door and sigh.
It’s a little weird being back here after getting used to living on campus. But we don’t have classes on Monday, so I decided to spend the weekend at home.
Free food and free laundry are hard to turn down.
Plus, I have to admit, it’s kinda nice to be around my family again.
I eye my bed.
I’m a little tempted to blow off studying so I can lie in bed and watch some crappy TV. But I don’t.
Dropping into the desk chair in the corner of the room, I flip my Health Law and Policy book open.
I’ve always wanted to be a lawyer. Probably watched too many movies growing up. But righting wrongs, being the good guy, eventually being my own boss… What more could a man want?
I rub my eyes and look at the clock on my nightstand. Just after six, and I didn’t go to bed until after two.
I start to roll over, intending to go back to sleep, but my mom’s voice, pitched higher than usual, filters into my room through my closed door.
My parents are early risers, but not on Sundays. And Mom never raises her voice.
A pit builds in my stomach as I toss my blankets off.
In my pajamas, I head out of my room.
When I reach the top of the stairs, Dad’s voice speaks over Mom’s.
“Tell her we’ll call her back. We need to call the police.”
The pit turns into dread, and I hurry down the stairs, my bare feet quiet on the carpet.
“You heard him. Yes. Okay.”
I turn the corner into the kitchen in time to see my mom hang up the phone.
“Give it here.” Dad holds his hand out, and Mom gives him the handset.
He dials three numbers, then puts the phone to his ear, his free hand settling on my mom’s shoulder.
They haven’t seen me yet, so I stay where I am, listening.
“Yes. I need to report—” Dad’s voice hitches, and Mom presses her hands over her mouth. “I need to report a missing person.”
A missing person.
“… Eklund… My daughter…”
My sister.
“She was last seen…”
Freya is missing.
I take a step back.
“Comet, yes, the club.” Mom’s shoulders are shaking, and Dad’s knuckles whiten around the phone. “We didn’t know she was going…”
I did.
I knew.
“Her friend just got home ten minutes ago. Her parents thought the girls were in bed.” Dad’s head sags forward. “Kay thinks they were drugged. She doesn’t remember how she ended up at another friend’s house. But—But Freya, my girl, she wasn’t with her.”
Freya got separated.
“I know it hasn’t been twenty-four hours.” Dad’s tone changes. “I will call the mayor—”
I should have stopped her.
Mom turns away from Dad with a whimper and spots me.
I don’t hear the rest of what my dad says because Mom rushes toward me and throws her arms around me, hugging me tighter than she’s ever hugged me before.
The cop gives us one last look before he steps out the door, shutting it behind him.
The only reason he’s even here is because Dad has money.
The cop asked questions and wrote down our answers, but I don’t think he really believes she’s missing and not just partying.
There’s no news.
No signs of Freya.
She’s been missing since yesterday morning.
My fist pounds against the locked back door.
Comet is closed, doesn’t open for a few more hours, but cars are parked in the employee lot. And if the cops won’t get us any fucking answers, I will.
I pound my fist again.
Finally, it opens.
“Forget your key?” the man asks before he realizes I’m not a fellow employee.
Before he can slam the door in my face, I stick my foot out, keeping it open. “I need to talk to someone.”
“Look, kid, if you lost something, you gotta wait till we’re open. Then you can check the lost and found.”
The darkness that’s been bubbling inside me since I first heard my mom’s worried voice expands. Filling more of my soul.
I shove the guy back.
Surprise is the only reason I get him to move. He’s got fifty pounds and twenty years on me, but he still stumbles.
Then he rights himself and pushes me in the chest. “I’ll fucking end you, you little shit. Get the fuck out.”
I shove his hands away. “I’m not leaving until I talk to someone.”
The man steps into my space. “You rich pricks think you can do whatever the fuck you want.” This time when he pushes me, he pushes me hard, and I clip my shoulder on the edge of the shelving unit next to the doorway.
He probably saw my car parked outside the door. Saw the luxury model and figured I’m here because I’m just another spoiled shit trying to get his way.
“My sister was taken!”
I shout it.
I shout it with all the rage and worry and anguish inside me.
“Someone here saw it!” Heat fills my eyes.
But I don’t care. I don’t care if he sees me cry. I don’t care if he punches me. If he breaks all my bones. Nothing will stop me from finding Freya.
The man freezes, his eyes widening, before they flicker away and back.
He knows something.
“Who?” I hiss, stepping into his space. “Who has her?”
His head is shaking before I finish asking. “I don’t know anything about any girl.”
He’s lying.
I grab for his shirt, but he swats my hands away.
“Tell me!” My voice breaks. “She’s only eighteen.”
“Just like I told the cops, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” He raises his voice, and something about it is off. Like he’s doing it for someone else, not me. “You need to go.”
My breaths are coming heavier now.
“Who?” I whisper.
“Out. Now.” He’s still talking loudly, pushing me backward toward the door. Then his voice drops to a whisper, just like mine. “Marcoux.”
I step out into the daylight, and the door slams shut in front of me.
“Dad?” I keep my voice quiet, not sure if he’s awake.
None of us have gotten any sleep since…
His head lifts from where it rested against his desk.
It takes his eyes a moment to focus. “Hans? Come in.”
I step through the threshold. “I… I have a name.”
It’s a different officer this time, and the sympathy on his face looks as fake as his hair.
“So…” He glances down at his notepad, like he can’t remember what I said twenty seconds ago. “You went to Comet, without telling anyone you were going, and then bullied some employee into giving you this name.” He says name like the one I gave him is alien, not French.
“I didn’t bully him,” I snap. “And I’m nineteen. I don’t need to tell people where I’m going.”
“You do when it interferes with a police investigation.”
“What investigation?” I throw my hands up. “You haven’t done anything!”
Dad settles his hand on my leg. I don’t know if it’s for comfort or to keep me from attacking the cop.
“I understand this is a trying time.” The fucking prick isn’t even trying to sound like he cares anymore. “But you need to let us do our jobs. And chasing after rumors”—he holds up his notepad where he supposedly wrote the name down—“doesn’t help.”
I keep my jaw clenched as he rises from the other couch.
“We’ll be in touch.” He dips his head to Mom, who’s been sitting on my other side, then he sees himself out.
Mom doesn’t acknowledge him. She doesn’t do anything.
The cop called the name a rumor. But Dad had heard the name Marcoux before.
It’s not a fucking rumor.
Fifteen years ago, when I was just four and Freya was three, we moved here from Sweden. Dad had an investment opportunity that utilized his mining experience, so he sold his company, and we came to the US. And in a bid to familiarize himself with Arizona, he took to reading the local paper, cover to cover, every day. He never stopped.
Which is how he knew about the uptick in gang activity in the Phoenix area in the past year. And he remembers Marcoux. He especially remembers it because the very next day, the newspaper published an article recanting the Marcoux name. He remembered it because it screamed of corruption.
It didn’t take Dad long to find the article, saved in a stack in his office.
He found it and read it to us.
The statement claimed that the previous story was an editorial error and that the name wasn’t associated with the recent violence, drug use… or human trafficking.
It was that last part, those last two words, that broke Mom.
She hasn’t spoken since.
Lightning crackles across the night sky, and the responding thunder covers the sound of my car door slamming shut.
I thought I’d be scared. Thought my hands would shake. But that void inside me has grown since Freya disappeared a week ago.
Seven days.
Seven awful days.
Mom has been catatonic.
Dad isn’t eating.
No one is sleeping.
I haven’t been back to my dorm. Haven’t been to my classes.
Finding Freya is all that matters.
And the men inside this bar know where she is.
They have to.
I tuck the keys of my Porsche into my pocket and walk across the cracked blacktop toward the front of the bar.
There’s no bouncer. No one checking IDs. It’s a shitty bar in a shitty part of town filled with shitty people. A person would have to be crazy to go in if they didn’t belong.
Crazy. Or desperate.
The front door is propped open, and I step through into the low-ceiling space filled with cigarette smoke and the scent of stale beer.
I dressed in a plain T-shirt, a dirty pair of hiking boots, and my oldest jeans, hoping to blend in, but I still feel eyes on me.
Ignoring the instinct to turn and run, I keep my head up and move toward the bar.
It’s definitely a rough crowd, but it doesn’t look like a straight gang hangout. There’s too much variety in the patrons to have them all be part of the Corsican mafia. Maybe the intel I picked up wasn’t as good as I thought. Or maybe it is. I’ll find out soon enough.
With each step I take, the tension builds in the air.
There are pool tables on my left, low tables on the right, groups of people standing where there’s space, and more standing at the bar.
A few people bump my shoulders, but I don’t react to them. I just keep moving.
I don’t know how to fight. And I don’t know what sort of weapons these guys might have. All I have is a switchblade in my pocket that I bought at a truck stop.
But I won’t let that stop me.
When I reach the bar, the bartender is already staring at me.
I stop in front of the scarred top across from where he stands.
“You lost, kid?” the old man asks.
“Not lost. Just need information.”
He huffs. “Information isn’t free.”
I take my wallet out of my pocket, fatter than usual, pull a hundred out, and set it on the bar top. “I need to know who likes to take girls from Comet.”
The bartender lifts a brow as he slides the hundred across the bar and shoves it into his apron.
“Well?” I prompt.
He lifts a shoulder. “Never heard of Comet.”
I grind my teeth. “The nightclub.”
His expression doesn’t change. “Not really my thing.”
“How about Marcoux? You heard that name before?” I keep my volume conversational, but I know I’ve hit my mark when I hear several chairs scrape against the floor at once.
That void inside me spreads as I turn, putting my back to the bar, facing off with the four men moving to stand before me.
“You got one chance to get the fuck out of here.” The man in the front of the group tips his head back so he can look down his nose at me.
I passed six feet last summer. Gained a couple more inches since. So these guys don’t have height on me. But they have muscle. I’m just a skinny nerd who spends too much time studying to work out or eat correctly.
But things are different now.
Now, I have nothing to lose.
And I’m fucking hungry.
I square my shoulders. “You got one chance to tell me who steals girls from Comet.”
The three men in back snicker, but the one who spoke first doesn’t. “You think you’re tough?”
I shake my head. “No. But I need to find my sister.”
The snickers stop.
“If your sister is gone, accept it and get gone yourself.”
I swallow.
This man isn’t going to tell me anything.
My wallet is still in my left hand. I raise it slowly, so I don’t startle anyone, and pull out the nineteen hundred dollar bills I have left.
Bribery won’t work. But I need a distraction so I can get at least one good hit in before these guys kick my ass.
“Free money!” I shout, then toss the bills into the air.
The people closest to me, who’d been watching the interaction, lunge toward the valuable pieces of paper, getting between me and some of the bad guys. But no one is blocking the leader, and he lunges for me.
I jump to the side, dodging his first swing.
Before he can strike again, I kick out as hard as I can.
As the underdog, I’ll use any advantage. Including fighting dirty.
My kick doesn’t hit his knee like I’d hoped, but the steel toe of my heavy boot connects with his shin.
I don’t give him a second to catch his balance. This time, I’m the one to lunge.
Shouts break through the buzz of adrenaline in my ears, so I think another fight might have broken out, but it’s not enough.
I duck down so my shoulder connects with the asshole’s stomach and use all my weight and momentum to push him backward.
Right into a big, tattooed dude in a leather vest, who was about to take a shot in his game of pool.
I can’t see the table as I fall to the ground. But based on the way Vest Guy spins around, we fucked up his shot. Just as I’d hoped.
Vest Guy slams his giant fist into the face of the asshole I shoved into him.
And just like that, everyone is fighting.
Already on the ground, I roll under the pool table and crawl out the other side.
This is my best chance to leave. Sneak out without getting hurt. But I need a lead. I need something, someone, to chase next.
I climb to my feet and dodge bodies until I spot one of the other three guys who came over to intimidate me.
I cut the distance and slam into his back, circling my arm around his throat. “How do I find Marcoux?” I shout into his ear over the roar of the crowd.
He tries to headbutt me, but I’ve seen enough movies to tuck my head in by his neck, so he doesn’t have the range to hit me hard enough to dislodge me.
I tighten my hold on his neck. “Tell me.”
We crash into other bodies, tables, stumbling together.
“You can talk, or I can strangle you.” I squeeze harder, even as I grunt when one of his elbows gets me.
One of his hands taps against my forearm. Not trying to claw me off like before, but like he’s ready to speak.
I loosen my arm enough for him to suck in a breath but not enough to let him go.
“Where is he?”
“He—” The man coughs. “He’s the money. Ground guys would’ve grabbed her.”
I don’t know how much of what he says I can trust, but it makes sense.
“Where do I find them?” Acid rolls in my stomach. “Where do they keep the girls?”
He’s not denying that they’re human trafficking.
“Fuck you!” His outburst comes a heartbeat before a sharp pain in my side.
I jump back, releasing my arms from his neck, and see the knife held in his hand.
He turns toward me, his face still red from lack of oxygen. “You’re gonna pay for this.” He holds his knife up, the tip of it already red with my blood. “And you’ll never find your fucking sister.” He takes another step, and I bump into a table behind me. “If she’s not dead yet, she’ll wish she was.”
He pulls his arm back.
And I spring forward.
The switchblade in my hand sinks into the soft flesh of his stomach.
He was so focused on my face, waiting for pain to fill my features, that he forgot to watch my hands.
He drops his knife, his hands grabbing at the hilt over my own. But I keep walking forward, keep walking him back, until he hits the bar.
“My name is Hans. And I’m coming for Freya.”
Releasing my grip, I take a quick step back, then melt into the frenzy and find my way to the door.
I’ll find her.
I have to find her.
Another week.
Another dead end.
Another fight that ends with me needing stitches.
A third week.
I can see Mom wasting away as each hour passes.
Dad is trying to hold it together. He’s on the phone every day.
But no one has news.
I have a cracked rib from last night. And a black eye that my parents are too distant to notice.
My feet scuff along the sidewalk as I near the line for Comet.
I’ve been here every night when I haven’t been starting fights that I keep losing.
I know she isn’t going to be here, but what’s left of my soul just wants to be close to her. Close to her last known location.
The line moves forward, and I think about that night.
I think about what we said to each other.
She didn’t straight out ask me to go with her, but the invitation was there. And I didn’t go.
I could’ve gone.
If only I’d have gone.
But I didn’t.
I didn’t go with Freya, and the last words I ever said to her were good luck.
The bouncer sighs when he sees me, but we’ve done this routine. I hand him a couple hundred dollars, and he lets me in.
It’s not like I’ll be trying to get a drink at the bar. I’m going to do what I always do—stand against the wall, staring into the crowd, willing the darkness inside me to hold off just a little longer. Just long enough for me to find her.
My mother’s screams wake me up.
They’re unending.
They’re agony.
And I know.
I know they found my sister.
And I know she’s dead.
I scramble out of bed, but my legs don’t hold me.
I crash to the floor.
I can’t breathe.
My lungs won’t fill.
I can’t…
Pain and sorrow and the heaviest sense of failure collapse on top of me.
I didn’t get to her.
I didn’t save her.
Mom’s wails continue to curl through the house.
My face feels contorted.
My mouth is open but no sound comes out.
Freya.
My baby sister.
She’s gone.
She’s never coming home.
Today was my sister’s funeral. And it killed my parents.
It killed a part of me too.
Standing here, alone under the glow of the moon, next to Freya’s freshly filled grave, I know I’ll never be the same.
I’ll never be the man I planned to be.
I’m going to end up as someone else.
Someone darker.
Two months later, I stand in the same spot and stare down at my mother’s grave, buried next to her daughter.
Dad stands at my side, coughing between silent sobs.
After Freya’s body was found in Vegas, abused and discarded, her cause of death labeled as a drug overdose, Mom gave up.
The doctors said it was pneumonia, and maybe it was, but she’d lost her will to live.
The reality of what happened to Freya, how she suffered her last weeks, days, hours… it was too much.
My dad is sick too. I can hear him struggling to breathe at night when I’m walking through the empty halls of our house.
He’s not going to get treated. I don’t have to ask him to know that he won’t.
And standing here, again, looking down at the women who meant the world to both of us, I don’t blame him.
I don’t take it personally that I’m not enough to keep him here.
A rare raindrop lands on the dirt.
I’m not sure I want to stay in this world either.
“Hans.” Dad’s voice is brittle, but I hear it as I pass his room.
Pausing my steps, I press my hand to his door, and it swings open.
Dad is in his bed, face pale, cheeks sunken in as he fights his way through a coughing fit.
It’s been exactly one week since Mom’s last breath, and he looks ready for his.
He lifts his hand, a small movement gesturing me in.
We haven’t talked. Not to each other. There’s nothing to say.
The first few times someone came to our door, offering condolences, bringing food, I answered. I kept a passive look on my face. But then I couldn’t anymore.
I couldn’t hide the rage that filled me.
I couldn’t say thank you.
And then the people stopped knocking.
My feet are quiet on the thick rug covering the floor. It’s shades of red. Embroidered flowers of every shape and size. Mom picked it out. It was so her.
I stop at the foot of the bed.
If this is going to be our goodbye…
I swallow.
I’m not sure how much more I can handle.
I don’t know how much my heart can endure.
But as I look at my father, I realize he’s already gone.
I place my hand on the blanket over his foot. “It’s okay, Dad.”
His chin quivers, and his chest shakes with his inhales.
“Come here.” He raises an arm.
Slowly, I move to the side of the bed, then bend down and gently hug his shoulders.
A hand rests against my back.
This is it, then.
When I pull back, his eyes slide over to his nightstand.
I follow his gaze.
Sitting next to the framed photo of him and Mom on their wedding day is an ornately carved wooden box.
I recognize it. It was my grandfather’s, given to my father. And now to me.
I stand before it.
The latch doesn’t lock, and the hinge has been kept oiled, so it opens smoothly.
The overhead light is dimmed, but it still glints off the blades inside the box.
Dueling knives.
Antiques.
But sharp as hell.
I close the lid and reset the latch.
Lifting the box into my arms, I turn back to face my dad.
He holds my gaze, his eyes showing more life than I’ve seen since the morning everything changed.
His mouth opens. Closes. Opens again.
Then he gets out the final words I’ll ever hear him say.
“Make them pay, Hans.” His inhale is scratchy. “Make them suffer.”
I don’t have a funeral for my father, but I bury him next to his wife.
And when the paperwork is done and my bags are packed and in the trunk of my car, I walk back through the house one more time.
There’s nothing left here but misery and grief.
I stop in front of my sister’s bedroom, turning the handle and opening the door.
I don’t step into the room.
I don’t take any of her things.
That’s not who I am anymore.
But I do give her a silent promise.
I swear to her that I won’t stop until every one of the men responsible is dead.
Then I turn and head back down the hall. Back downstairs. Into the kitchen. I pull the stove out from the wall and finish loosening the gas line. With a final twist, I sever the line.
I don’t need the insurance money. As the sole survivor of the Eklund mining fortune, I don’t need another penny so long as I live. But I don’t need anyone coming after me for arson either. So I’m making it look as close to a faulty gas line as possible. People will be suspicious, but I’ll be long gone.
And if my sister isn’t coming home to her room, then no one will.
Next to the front door is the three-wick candle Freya picked out for our mom last Mother’s Day. Mom never lit it, claiming it was her favorite scent and wanting to have it forever.
I pull the book of matches I took from Comet out of my pocket.
As the flame crackles to life, I carefully light each wick.
The warm vanilla scent, Mom’s favorite, starts to fill the living room as I close the front door behind me.
That night, long after the flames are doused and the house is ruined, I kill a man for the first time.
Nineteen, with blood on my hands and my entire family gone, all I have left to live for is vengeance.
I flex my fingers around the hilt of the antique knife.
I’ve always heard the saying what doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger. But what if both things are true?
The real me died with my sister. But I’m still here. Still alive. Still breathing.
I’m just someone else now.
Someone who has the means to wage a war.
