The Fighter

by Elin Peer

  “I would never cheat!”

  “But then what happened? Were you already pregnant when you married Marcus?”

  Erika’s hands flew to her chest. “I can’t believe they let you into the police school. You can’t even do simple math.”

  I blinked my eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “Dina was a year older than Khan, so if I’d been pregnant when I married Marcus it would have been Dina who had a different dad, wouldn’t it?”

  Feeling stupid, I moved in my seat. “Did she?”

  “Nooo!” The way Erika’s voice rose spoke of her indignation. “I never cheated on my husband.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “It’s not what you think and it’s not something I wish to talk about.” Her brown eyes were guarded and her lips were forming a thin line.

  “Ah, I see.”

  “I don’t know what you think you see, but this conversation is making me very uncomfortable.” Erika’s tone was blameful.

  “It would be logical to conclude that if you didn’t cheat, you slept with another man with Marcus’s blessing. That’s unusual for Nmen, isn’t it? Was Marcus unable to satisfy you? Is that why he allowed another man to sleep with you?”

  Erika looked like she’d sucked on a lemon. “You’re out of your mind. This is the Northlands, Raven, not some twisted sex club in the Motherlands. We don’t jump from one bed partner to the other.” She was speaking fast and with anger. “To think that Marcus would have ever allowed that man to touch me is to taint his memory, and I won’t allow it.” Moving forward in her soft chair, Erika spoke with her lips quivering. “Raven.”

  “Yes.”

  She stared deep into my eyes. “What I’m about to tell you can never leave this room, do you understand?”

  I said nothing, not wanting to explain to her how police work couldn’t be limited like that, but Erika took my silence as acceptance and began telling anyway.

  “I was fifteen when I married Marcus, and five weeks before I turned sixteen we had Dina. The country celebrated the birth of a baby girl and when she was two months old Lord Wolf came to see her for himself.”

  “Nikolai Wolf – you mean the ruler who Marcus killed?”

  “Yes, but this was years before that and Marcus was still an artist. Lord Wolf was the one who had performed our wedding ceremony the previous year and he congratulated Marcus on his amazing fighting skills. We were honored to have such a fine guest and invited him and the two generals he had brought with him to stay for dinner.” Erika wet her lips and fiddled with the large collar of her sweater, her eyes became unfocused as if memories were playing in her mind. “I cooked for them while seeing to Dina, and the men stayed and drank wine and whiskey after dinner. Before they left Lord Wolf asked to see Dina one more time so I brought her in and held her in my arms for him to admire her.” She trailed off, her shoulders sagging and her face sad.

  “And then what happened?” I asked to get her to continue.

  Imitating a man’s voice, Erika spoke in a deep tone. “‘This baby girl will make a fine bride in fifteen years,’ When Wolf said that we smiled with pride. We even laughed when he told Marcus, ‘Make sure to get Erika pregnant again right away. We need more girls.’” In a soft movement, Erika shook her head and even though she was looking down, I saw her eyes filling with tears. “I can still remember the smirk on his face before he took another gulp of whiskey and said, ‘Maybe I can be of help.’ At first, I gasped and jerked back when his hand slid up my back leg to my behind. Nothing like that had ever happened to me and I wasn’t sure how to react. Marcus read the fear on my face and got up right away.”

  My heart sank as I closed my eyes with a bad feeling where this story might go.

  “The two generals held Marcus while Wolf pushed me down over the table.”

  “But what about baby Dina?” I protested.

  With her eyes still glazed over from haunting memories, Erika lifted her arms showing how she had held Dina. “I kept her safe in my arms, but I couldn’t protect myself from… from… him.” The moment she said it, the tears flooded, and her breathing became shallow as Erika’s face twisted in mental pain. “There was nothing either of us could do. Marcus screamed ‘No!’ over and over, but Wolf just laughed and raised up my skirts while telling us that he was doing us an honor and that we should be thanking him. I tried to hold in my tears for Dina’s sake because my baby wouldn’t stop crying. But it hurt so bad, like he was ripping me in two.”

  I felt awful for having brought back these dark memories to Erika and wanted to tell her that she didn’t have to say anymore, but it was like she didn’t see me in the room anymore, so consumed was she with reliving her nightmare all those decades ago.

  “I’ll never forget his deep panting behind me and the sound of his flesh meeting mine. It felt like endless hours of being sawed in two, and the smell of whiskey hanging in the air… I still can’t stand the smell of it. I couldn’t look at Marcus, couldn’t see his pride as a man being torn from him as Wolf kept grunting that Marcus needed to shut up and be grateful.” Again she imitated the dictator in a deep distorted voice: “‘Can’t you see that she’s enjoying it?’” Erika’s eyes lifted to mine and blinked a few times. “I wasn’t.”

  “No, of course not. I’m so sorry, Erika. I thought Nmen were respectful of other men’s wives. How could he do this to you and walk away from it?”

  Erika dried her eyes with the backs of her hands. “When Wolf was done, he stayed inside me telling me that he didn’t go through all that work to have me press out his semen. He just stood there, holding on to me, drinking more of his beer and talking about how no one tells the ruler no. It was sickening and there was no one to complain to. No justice for what had been done to me. That’s why that night as Marcus held me in his arms, he promised me that he would find a way to kill Wolf and make him regret touching me.”

  “Did he ever come back?”

  “Yes.” Erika used the sleeves of her sweater to dry her eyes. “He came back five months later while Marcus was at work, telling me that he came to see if his seed had taken root. When he saw my bulging belly he was satisfied and left again.”

  “But it could have been Marcus’s child.”

  “That was what we were hoping for, but when Khan came out with olive skin and black hair we both knew whose son he was.”

  “And Magni is definitely Marcus’s, right?”

  “Yes. But it took many years for us to get back to having sex. That’s why there’s almost six years between the boys.”

  “You and Marcus didn’t have sex?”

  “No, Raven, I was traumatized, and Marcus had lost his self-respect. There’s no greater shame for a husband than not being able to protect his woman. I think that’s what drove him to obsessively strategize and plan the attack for years, and when it finally happened…” Erika sighed and closed her eyes. “That wonderful night in 2406 when Marcus finally killed Wolf, everything changed and nine months later Magni was born.”

  For a minute we sat in silence, digesting the horror and triumph of her story.

  “Do you think Dina ever told anyone about what she knew?”

  Erika shook her head. “No one knows, and it has to stay that way. If the word came out, the peace in this country would break down and there would be chaos. Khan and Magni can’t know either.”

  “But they must suspect it.”

  Her tone became firm and close to a hiss. “No, they don’t suspect anything, so you’ll keep your mouth shut, Raven, do you hear me?”

  “Yes. I hear you.”

  “Good.” Erika rolled her shoulders back and lifted her chin. “This world isn’t as nice a place as some people would have you believe. Maybe my story will make you reconsider the path you’ve chosen. We women are fragile, after all.”

  I understood her pain and trauma, but I wouldn’t let it stop me from achieving my dreams. “I don’t feel fragile and I guarantee you that if anything like that ever h
appens to me, I don’t need to wait six years for a man to avenge me. I would have killed Wolf on the spot or at least castrated him.”

  “Well, I never learned how to fight and even if I had, it would have been hard with a baby in my arms.”

  “I’m not blaming you, Erika. It wasn’t your fault. I’m just saying that I won’t allow it to happen to me or anyone else. That’s why it’s important that I join the police force. What better way to fight injustice?”

  Erika didn’t look convinced. “Just promise me that you’ll stay safe, Raven. It’s a dangerous world out there. And now you’ll have to excuse me. I think I need to go and lie down a little.”

  “Of course.” I walked Erika to the door and hugged her, once again telling her how sorry I was for the pain she had suffered.

  “You’ve always been too curious for your own good, Raven.” Erika caressed my hair. “But now that you know, I hope you can let it rest in the past where it belongs.”

  When she was gone, I sat down and made more notes. This investigation was confusing and I felt like I was finding more questions than answers. If only I had all my other research that Leo had confiscated. I wondered if there was a way to convince him to give it back to me.

  Would he have hidden the research at work? My gut told me no. There were too many people at the station. It would be more logical for him to bring it home with him, not least because he was probably curious to look it over himself.

  The thought made me frustrated. What if Leo decided to solve the murder case and take all my glory?

  This was my case!

  My friend Willow called me up half an hour later when I was in my room coming up with arguments on how to convince Leo to let me have my research back.

  “Hey, my bird, what are you doing tonight?”

  “Not much. Some work, what about you?”

  “I’m alone with the puppies and I finally got Nora to sleep.”

  “Ah, okay, is Solo on a mission tonight?”

  “No, he went out with the guys.”

  I smiled. “Really? I thought you two were glued together. Have you even been apart after your wedding?”

  Willow laughed. “It was an emergency. Zasquash, Leo, and Solo went out for beers. Apparently one of them had a really shitty day.”

  “Who did?”

  “I think it was Leo, but it might have been Zas.”

  “Wait a minute, did you say that the three of them went out to a bar?”

  “Yes. Solo is so sweet. He’s been checking in on me every half hour and he just sent me a video of the three of them singing. They are pretty drunk.”

  “Huh…” Maybe I didn’t need strong arguments to convince Leo. Maybe I just needed to know his address and go get what belonged to me while he was distracted.

  CHAPTER 11

  The Break-In

  Raven

  Leo lived in an old house about ten minutes outside the city. What surprised me the most when I saw his house was the state of his garden. It was September and from the length of his grass he hadn’t cut it since early August. Leo worked a lot, but for someone so focused on details at work, it surprised me to see that he didn’t take much pride in the outside of his house.

  The good thing about the location of his house was how isolated it was. There wouldn’t be any neighbors asking me questions about why I was out on my own without protection. The guards at the manor had offered to escort me when I left tonight, but I’d told them I was flying home to my parents’ house and that there was no need.

  There was no light coming from Leo’s house and his drone wasn’t here either. With what Willow had told me less than thirty minutes ago, I felt confident that Leo was still at a bar with Solo and Zasquash. Just to be sure, I knocked on the door and as expected, no one answered.

  Taking a step back, I looked around, searching for cameras or signs of alarm systems, but I saw nothing.

  Pressing down on the handle of the door, I groaned low when I found it was locked. At least it was a one-story house and not a tall apartment building, and it didn’t sound like he had a large dog guarding his house either.

  To go around the house, I had to climb a tall fence and as I swung my leg over, my pants got stuck and I lost my balance, sending me to the ground ass first, with the sound of my pants tearing open from the knee to my pocket. Getting up fast, I brushed myself off and looked around to make sure no one saw me looking like a complete amateur.

  “All right, get yourself together,” I muttered low and tiptoed to the nearest window to look inside. There was no movement, so I tested to see if the window was unlocked. It wasn’t.

  Still searching for an opening, I continued to every window on the back side of the house and when I got to the fourth window, it slid up as I lifted it. “Yes!”

  Leo had taken something precious from me, and from all the great crime movies I’d seen, I knew that sometimes great police officers had to work around the law to find the murderer. I needed that research and he wouldn’t even know that I’d been in his house because I would leave everything where I found it and continue my work with only the photos of my research that I would take tonight.

  After crawling through the window of his house, I turned on a lamp and looked around in his living room. It wasn’t fancy but cozier than I would have expected. I walked over to study a picture on his wall, tilting my head from one side to the other. It was abstract in nature and I couldn’t figure out what it was supposed to be.

  Who would have thought that Leo was into art?

  Reminding myself that I didn’t have time to study Leo’s décor, I began searching for my research. It wasn’t hidden in his couch or in any of the cabinets in his living room, so I continued into his kitchen. The moment I turned the corner I gave a small shriek at the sight of the figure standing still against the wall.

  Because of the darkness, I had mistaken the home-bot for a person. I gave a low chuckle in relief that it wasn’t Leo waiting to whack me on my head.

  “Geez, you scared me for a second,” I muttered to the robot, but it was in recharge mode and didn’t respond.

  My research wasn’t in the kitchen either. I crawled up on the counter to get high enough to check every cabinet, but it wasn’t there. I checked the fridge too but found only food and beer in there.

  The only two rooms left were his bathroom and his bedroom. I hesitated before walking into Leo’s bedroom because even in my eagerness to solve this murder mystery it felt like a major violation to snoop around in his bedroom.

  Taking a deep breath, I steeled myself and justified what I was about to do by telling myself that Leo had brought this on himself when he took my research.

  The door squeaked as I pushed it open. When I turned on the lights, I saw that his bed took up most of the room in here.

  Leo hadn’t made his bed which shouldn’t have surprised me after seeing the length of the grass in his garden. There was nothing special about this room except that my research might be here. Walking around the bed, I lifted the mattress and looked underneath it, but there was nothing. His nightstands on the right side of the bed had books, paper towels, and some cough medicine in it. When I opened the nightstand on the left side of the bed, I pulled out a shirt. It was my torn tank top.

  I held it up and stared at it. This was the one I’d thrown in the trash can after our fight. Why did Leo take it and bring it home with him? Even before I had finished that thought, I knew why.

  He had fantasized about me. It had to be the only explanation, and for some reason it made my whole body tingle with satisfaction. I lifted the tank top to my nose and inhaled the scent of my perfume mixed with my sweat, and then I smiled. From the first time I met Leo, he had annoyed me with all his talk about women not being fit for the work of a police officer. But sometimes when I read steamy books, I would imagine the male characters with a man bun and serious dark eyes.

  My hands spread over his bedsheets and I lifted his pillow to inhale the pleasant scent of Leo. A
dirty thought entered my mind, but it made me feel like a deranged person, and I wasn’t here to get sexual pleasure. So what if we had sexual fantasies about each other? Even if the thought was hot, I wouldn’t let the troublemaker inside me act on an embarrassing impulse to pleasure myself in my boss’s bed. Quickly, I put the tank top back where I’d found it and continued on to search his built-in closet. On the top shelf behind a pile of his clothes, I found my research.

  “I’m so badass,” I muttered feeling proud of myself for not letting anyone stop me. After spreading it out on his bed, I photographed everything. It would have been much quicker if I could have just taken it with me.

  When I was balancing on my toes to put the research back in place, a flash of light lit up the bedroom from the outside. A drone. Shit, that meant Leo was coming home. Would he notice my drone? I hadn’t parked it right outside but on the back side of the house. If I was lucky, he would be too drunk to notice.

  Closing the closet doors, I moved to my only escape route – the window – but the damn thing wouldn’t open. I had entered through the window in the living room and needed to get back there, but when I got to the bedroom door, I heard a voice shouting, “Hellooo.”

  Shit, shit, shit.

  It was Leo. I couldn’t let him find me in his bedroom. In a state of panic, I searched for a place to hide and fell to my knees thinking I could squeeze under his bed.

  “Raven, are you here?

  I froze. How did Leo know I was here? I hadn’t told anyone. Had he found my drone?

  “Raven, I know you’re here.” Heavy footsteps were coming this way and at the first sound of the bedroom door creaking, I moved up to sit on the bed, pushed my shirt over my shoulder, and faced the door with a fake smile plastered on my face.

  Leo stopped in the doorway and frowned, his balance a little off as he swayed.

  “Hey, Leo.”

  “Raven. My security system sent me an alert and I saw a picture of you walking around in my living room. Thought that was a bit strange.” I could tell from his speech that he was drunk but it wasn’t too slurred.