by JA Huss
“This wasn’t the plan,” I finally manage, making it up as I go.
But Lars—who is so much like Alec it hurts to look at him—turns back to me and says, “It’s fine,” he says again. And he smiles at me. Alec smiles at me. That’s Lars. That’s Lars. That’s Lars. What the fuck is wrong with me? “You’re fine. You did what you had to do. I understand. We’ll sort it out.”
I try to decide if he’s fucking with me. Because I don’t remember this plan. I don’t even really remember him. I just know who he is.
“What are we doing?” I ask, unable to hold in the questions. “Why are we doing this? Lars!” I yell, because he’s not looking at me now. He’s looking behind us. And around in circles. Like we’re lost.
“Mr. van den Berg?” the young guy who’s still holding me asks.
And this is my chance. Suddenly, they’re both focused on being terrible at their jobs. I can grab a gun, mow both of these motherfuckers down, and go find Alec and Danny. Because I don’t know who Lars is supposed to be to me, but I’m absolutely certain who completes the triangle.
Except… More flashes of memory now. Me. Lars. Dancing. I’m laughing. Lars. Giving me flowers. Flowers? What the fuck?
Who am I?
What did I do?
Why did I do it?
And then… Christine. Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing, trying to convince myself. Because I love them. I love them. And there’s no way I’d betray us. Our triangle is sacred. In no alternate reality is there an incarnation of traitor Christine.
“Gaan fok ’n bok!” Lars says. “This way.”
And suddenly, for all the things I don’t know, I know one thing. I know this direction we’re headed. Because I was just there with Alec.
It’s not the way out of the forest. If I let us get dragged in this direction, we’ll be pinned against nothing for miles, and only one way back. The way that will eventually bring us crashing into Danny and Alec. And then someone else is going to die. No question. I can feel it.
That’s when I realize it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if I was somehow involved with Lars. It doesn’t matter what I did. Or if I remember it or not. Or if I was just playing some secret double agent game.
Out here in the middle of nowhere…
Natural selection is about to sort everything out.
CHAPTER FIFTY - ALEC
“This way,” Danny says, looking at the green Christine dot on the phone.
I keep waiting for another black-clad fokker to jump out from behind a tree, or for a sniper’s bullet to rip through my chest. If I were Lars and had gone through all the effort he’s gone through to this point, I’d make sure that the job got done. But he’s not me. And I’m sure that’s part of the problem. So far, no sniper, no new ambush, nothing.
“What would you like to do when we catch them?” I ask Danny.
“What?”
“What would you like to do? What’s the plan? What’s the endgame? What are we fighting for, man?”
Our jog slows slightly, but we keep moving forward.
“Fuck are you talking about?”
“Why didn’t he shoot her?”
“Dude,” Danny says with exasperation, “I don’t fucking know.”
“And you’re not curious?”
“No, it’s Christine.”
“You don’t even know her anymore.”
“I know her well enough.”
God… I hate that I want to kill Danny right now. Because I love him so. That there is quintessentially Danny Fortnight. Black and white. Good and bad. Calls it as he sees it, loyal to a fault, and all that kak.
Yes, maybe he knew her. Once upon a time. He knew a little girl called Christine. But she stopped being a little girl so long ago. And he stopped understanding her when that change happened. So did I.
If either of us ever knew her at all. I’m not sure we even know ourselves anymore.
“He was never going to kill her,” I observe.
“I know,” he growls back. “Obviously. I mean, he’s Lars. He’s had a crush on her since he was fourteen.”
“Yes. And that’s sweet. But I don’t know how much water their history carries. He’s also my brother and he tried to kill me, bru. And you.”
He says nothing. I don’t take my eyes off him as I continue. “So what would you like to do? I’m giving you the reins, my china. This is your mission now. Following your lead and all that. What? Would you like? To do? When we find them? How do we handle this situation, Danny?”
He looks at me as if to say something, but then just glances down at the phone in his hand again and says, “This way.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE - CHRISTINE
We stumble into the clearing. The spot where Alec brought me earlier. It’s so different at night. The panoramic view is now replaced by what feels like an endless blanket of black. The only way to know where the edge is is by observing the moonlight shining off the rushing waterfall.
“Fok!” Lars yells again. Then he turns his attention to the young guy. “Boy!”
The kid holding my arm stiffens at being called ‘boy.’ But then he says, “Yes, sir?”
“Let her go.”
The kid does. He looks at me with eyes that just about scream, I’m sorry. Shit. Am I supposed to know who he is too?
Lars pulls out another pistol from an ankle holster and hands it to me. I stare at it, uncertain. I don’t know why. Of all the things I still can’t remember, how to use a gun is not one of them. In fact, holding a gun in my hands feels like the only thing that makes sense right now. But I hesitate.
“Take it,” he says.
I reach my hand out slowly. Timidly. Lars shakes his head.
“Take the fokken gun, Christine,” he says, grabbing my wrist and forcing the gun into my grip.
I look at it. I look at him.
“Not ideal,” he says. “Not how I would’ve preferred this to go. But your fokken boyfriends are hard to kill, ain’t they?”
Boyfriends?
“So I guess it’s you and me now. Shame. All the fokken work we did. All the planning. All the effort we put in to make it look like it was a war between Brasil and my goddamn brother, and at the end of the day, we’s just gonna have to shoot everyone in their bleeding faces ourselves, I reckon.”
I’ve never experienced vertigo, but this must be what it feels like. Everything is swirling around in my head. I feel dizzy. I stumble back a step and the kid catches me.
“You OK, miss?” he asks.
“What’s your name?” I say in return, looking up at him from where he holds me in his arms.
“Solomon, ma’am. Solomon Bophela.”
“Thank you, Solomon.”
“Brilliant,” says Lars, snapping his head to look at us. “You’re Solomon, then?”
“Sir?” Solomon says.
“Alec asked me about you. Why?”
“Sir?” Solomon says again. Lars is walking toward him now. Stalking him.
“My brother, boy. Alec van den Berg. He asked me if I hired you. I didn’t. Where did you come from?”
“I… I…” Solomon stutters.
“Who fokken hired you, man? Where did you come from?”
“Sir, I was brought in by—”
But that’s as much as he gets out of his mouth. Ever again. Because Lars lifts his pistol to Solomon’s temple and splatters his brains out into the night sky.
I can feel my eyes go wide, and then I close them again. More images. Me and Alec, in bed. Making love. Me and Alec and Danny, earlier. Joined together as one. And then falling. Falling. The ground racing up to meet me. And something…
“Here,” Lars says, bringing my attention back to now. When I open my eyes, he’s handing me the rifle Solomon was holding. “This is better. Take this.”
“Why did you do that?” I ask him.
“What?”
“Kill him. Why did you have to do that?”
“I didn’t have to. But I chose to. I
don’t know him. I don’t know why Alec was asking me about him. I don’t know whose side he’d be on. I can’t trust him.”
Bullshit. I think this guy Lars just wanted to kill someone.
“And you think you can trust me?” I ask him.
He darts over to me and gets right in my face. I can feel his warm breath. “Why, Christine? Why not? Why shouldn’t I? Is there a reason? You haven’t let your feelings for those two enter back into things, have you? Because I thought that was done now.”
My whole body is vibrating. I wonder if he can see it. “It is,” I manage.
“Izit?” he asks.
I nod. “Yeah,” I swallow. “It is.”
“I hope so, luv.” He strokes my cheek. “I hope so. I want to walk out of here together. I’ll need you, at any rate, to deal with the Brasil Lynch of it all. We’re not there yet, my sweet. Not yet.”
What the fuck have I gotten myself into?
What kind of deal do I have going with Alec’s brother? And why? God, why the fuck did I do this?
“Christine,” Lars says. I turn my head to see him. Watch his lips move as he talks. But my mind is busy keeping track of what’s happening around me, so I miss it.
“What?”
“Are you with me?” I nod. I don’t know what else to do. “My girl,” he says. Being called ‘his’ sends a chill down my spine.
Again, he brushes his knuckles down my cheek and smiles.
Everything in my body wants to revolt against that touch.
Everything except the one thing that controls me. Has always controlled me. Always been my best asset.
Instinct.
So I don’t recoil. I smile back. Breathe out.
He grabs me by the back of the head and kisses me on the lips, hard. The kiss is surprising, but the pain from his fist brushing against my stitches is what grabs my attention.
“Ow,” I blurt out, involuntarily.
“Sorry,” he says on a laugh. “I forgot. You’re lucky that Reggie and Lex was down there to break your fall. Ain’t you?”
Reggie and Lex? Who—?
“Ain’t you?” he yells this time.
“Yeah. Yes. I guess,” I say.
From somewhere in the woods, we hear a sound. Two sets of feet. Running recklessly, without caution. The sound of two people fueled by emotion, not by reason.
Lars stands me up and presses the automatic rifle into my hands. He slaps a fresh clip into his pistol. He smiles.
“Here it comes. Go there. Behind that shrub.” He points. I start to go where he tells me to. He grabs my wrist and stops me. I turn back.
“You don’t remember a fokken thing, do you?” He squints.
I grimace. I don’t want to, but I can’t seem to stop it.
“That’s all right,” he says. “We’ll get it sorted when this is done. Trust me, yeah?”
Trust him. Trust anyone. That’s the stupidest request I’ve ever heard.
“Of course,” I say with my most convincing smile.
“Because, luv, I’m trusting you.” He nods at the rifle. And then he lets me go and takes his own place behind a tree on the other side of the clearing.
I duck down behind the shrub and close my eyes again, trying to remember anything. Anything that can help me understand any part of what’s going on. Anything that can help me know what the right thing to do is. But all I see is me, Danny, and Alec again. But not from earlier today this time. From years earlier. From lifetimes ago. It’s the only thing I can be certain of.
Or can I?
Fuck! I have no idea.
The sound of a gunshot causes me to open my eyes suddenly.
Oh, shit.
Oh, shit.
Oh, shit.
I fucking remember.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO - DANNY
“Stop.”
Alec does.
“What?” he asks.
Looking down at the GPS, it looks like we’re almost at the end of the world right now. It seems like there’s no more terrain. Just… nothing ahead of us. And Christine is floating there on the edge.
“What’s that way? Do you know?” I ask him.
“Yeah, man. Looks like fokken Christine, don’t it?”
“No. That,” I say, pointing at what looks like nothingness.
“Hear that sound?” he asks.
I listen. “Yeah. What is that?”
“Waterfall.”
“How far down is it? Can they keep going?”
“Their bodies can. Their souls, however, will be ferried off to heaven or where-the-fok-ever if they try to keep moving that way.”
I stare at the map. That’s what that nothingness is. It’s nothingness.
“I’m going to ask again, man… What’s our plan?”
“Jesus, dude. We’re gonna get Christine—”
“Are we? Are we, now? Christine who it very likely seems has been playing us completely? Christine who’s been playing the fokken damsel in distress, oh, woe is me, my poor memory is gone?”
“What are you—?”
“There ain’t gonna be no happily ever after, man. Whatever happens next don’t conclude with you, me, and Christine sitting on a fokken beach somewhere sipping piña coladas, slapping each other on the ass and laughing. So my question is, why the fok are we bothering?”
His eyes bore into me. I breathe heavily, trying not to punch him. Not because he’s saying anything wrong. Because everything he’s saying is right. He’s telling the truth. Fucking Alec van den Berg is telling the truth. Jesus Christ.
Alec knows her better than I do, and Alec is worried. But maybe it’s because Lars knows him better than anyone. Including me. Including Christine.
Brothers are like that. Even ones who spent most of the last ten years apart.
There is no way for this to end well. No matter what version of it runs through my head, they all end with at least one of us dead. I can’t see a way around it.
I take a step away from Alec. Back in the direction from which we just came. We could just turn around now. Alec and I could march back, get in my Range Rover and drive the fuck out of here. We could leave Christine with Lars, assume that’s what they wanted all along, and he and I could go back into the world together. Maybe we could start our own thing. Our own, new business, or…
Or maybe we could split apart. Go our separate ways. And then what? Spend the rest of our lives looking over our shoulders? I mean, shit, I figure we’ll be doing that no matter what unless we kill everybody who threatens us. Or get killed ourselves.
He’s right. There is no happy ending.
But still…
I turn back to face Alec. He bows his head and looks at me with an almost devilish gaze. I put my face in his face. I put my hands on his bare shoulders. I turn him around. He lets me.
And when his back is to me, I let my hands slide down between his shoulder blades and with my fingers, I trace the lines of the triangle. He tenses. I keep tracing. His head falls back and he looks up at the sky. Just like he did the first time I ever touched it. Actually, I don’t know if his eyes are open or not, but his face is turned up and his shoulders drop.
I finish tracing the lines of the pattern on his back, let my hands drop from his skin, and stand there. Waiting. Waiting to see what happens next.
He doesn’t turn around, and after a moment his head lowers back down again, he grabs his rifle up, racks it, and says, “Right then.”
And before I know it, he’s marching straight into the direction the GPS is telling us Christine is waiting.
And he’s firing the rifle wildly as he goes.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE - ALEC
We get the word “berserk” from the Norse berserkers. Warriors who were purported to have fought in a trance-like state in which they would eschew mail armor. Wild men. Crazy people. Men possessed. An army of Hulks marching unflinchingly in the direction of battle.
Naaiers must have been a sight to see.
No value in pret
ending we’re not here. The whole point is to fokken make ourselves known. More than anything, what I want right now is answers. I want to know what the fok has been going on under my nose and how the hell I missed it. That’s what I want. And I plan to get what I want.
“Lars!” I shout, marching into the clearing, firing my weapon as I do. “Lars! Come out now, bru! It’s been fun, man, but playtime is over!”
I’m sweeping the rifle, making sure that if anyone tries to pop up and take a shot that there’s a fair chance they’ll get a belly-full of hot metal first.
And that’s when I look over and see the laaitie Solomon. Dead. Brains well more outside his body than they were the last time I saw him. Damn, man. God damn it, Lars. Was that really necessary? The kid was so nervous when we spoke on the flight over. So concerned he wasn’t doing right.
That’s all a lad like that ever wants. To do right. To please someone and feel like he’s loved and appreciated. That’s all most everyone ever wants. To feel a part of something.
I told him that he had a family now. Shit. But it wasn’t a lie. I just failed to consider that some families have a great lot more dysfunction than others.
“Lars!” I scream as I continue firing around in a circle. I fire and fire and fire, until…
There’s no fire left.
Throwing the empty rifle down on the ground, I plop down as well. Just sit square on my ass on the cold ground. And wait.
After a moment, Lars comes popping out from behind a tree that I’ve definitely marked up with my wanton shooting. He points a pistol at me.
“Hey, bru,” he says.
“Bru,” I say in return. “I get you?”
He glances quickly over his body and says, “Don’t think so, man. Good one, though. Nice try.”
I don’t see Christine. I know she must be here, but I can’t spot her. I have a fleeting panic that perhaps Lars threw her over the falls or something equally dramatic.
“Ask you something, bru?” I say.
Lars eyes me carefully and says, “Yeah. Go on.”
“How long has this been on your mind?”
“What? Killing you?” he says, still holding the pistol on me. “A while, I suppose. I mean, after Mom and Dad died because of you—”