Vow

by Annelie Wendeberg

  They begin to move, and I can hear that I must have caused a lot of damage. Muffled cries of pain. Feet dragging heavily. Groans. And in the noise, a pair of boots steadily climbing toward me.

  I scoot back into a corner and prop both wrists on my knees, aiming through the bannister to where the head of the approaching guy will show up. My pulse jumps. Blood is thundering in my ears.

  When a man comes into view, I wilt. The hair along the top of his head is braided tightly against his skull. The side of his head is shorn, and a jagged pink scar cuts through the stubble. My view swims when his eyes lock on mine. He’s alive! He’s alive and…dressed all in black. No bow, no quiver. The pistol looks foreign on his hip. I barely find the energy to keep my head up and breathe.

  A wail slips through my teeth.

  As Katvar covers the short distance, my quivering hands press one muzzle against the soft flesh beneath my jaw and point the other at his heart. ‘I’m not going back to them. And you aren’t either!’

  Colour drains from his face. He sinks to his knees in front of me, and whispers in his cruelly damaged voice, ‘My love.’

  I can’t produce anything but a sob.

  Carefully, he peels the guns from my grip. I collapse against him. Claw his back and pull him close, never wanting to let go. I keen pain, shock, and relief against the skin of his throat. And then I pull back to shake him. ‘Why? Why the BSA? Did they take Alta? How did you… Are you hurt? Did I hurt you?’

  He shakes his head wildly. ‘And You? Are you hurt? Did the Sequencers treat you well?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  He catches the lie but says nothing, wraps his fingers around my wrists, and pulls my hand to his mouth to kiss my knuckles. ‘Your absence hurt,’ he signs with one hand, then places my palm above his heart.

  I clench my teeth. ‘Why are you with the fucking BSA?’

  Twenty-Six

  ‘We need to get a move on!’ someone shouts from below.

  Katvar sets his chin and nods toward the staircase. ‘I’ll explain on the way—’

  I grab the front of his shirt. ‘The hell you will! You tell me now what you and Kioshi are doing here, and why… Why the Bull Shit Army?’

  He pulls me to my feet, and signs, ‘They aren’t BSA. They are people from Alta. They pretend to be the BSA when they raid a Sequencer base, and pretend to be Sequencers when they rob the BSA.’

  My jaw goes slack. ‘They do that often?’

  He lifts a shoulder and nods. Like it’s totally normal to fuck with the two most powerful organisations in modern history.

  ‘And Kioshi? What’s he doing here?’

  ‘Later. I promise. First, we have to help move supplies.’

  I follow him to the level I just escaped. The stink of burnt fabric, hair and skin is overwhelming. We pass the bodies of two men. Their exposed skin is marbled black and scarlet. Ribbons of congealed blood trail from noses, ears, and mouth.

  Katvar’s lips compress at the sight, but he says nothing.

  We reach the entrance and my legs grow heavy. Crossing the threshold into the corridor takes all my courage. I’m drained.

  Katvar explains that this group is assigned to filch medical supplies, while another group is responsible for weapons and ammo. We search this level, with my room the obvious place to start, but all of the few available things are already being used on the men I injured. Among them, Kioshi. One side of his beard is singed, the skin above it, red. A missing eyebrow gives him a half-surprised, half-snarky look.

  He catches my petrified expression and grins. ‘My hat took the brunt of it. Poor thing, that.’ He points at a black puddle of fabric on the floor. A ribbon of smoke curls up from it.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, not sure if I should extend my apologies to everyone in the room. ‘I didn’t know.’

  A man on my bed grunts. He, too, has blood leaking from his ears and nose. His legs tremble as someone picks at the remnants of his sleeve to clean a horribly burnt arm. Without looking up, the man tending to the wound asks, ‘Is that a painkiller in the unlabelled bottle behind me?’

  ‘No. It’s the opposite.’

  He pauses. ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘They use it for torture.’

  Katvar stops breathing. I sense him taking in the room with fresh eyes: the shackles dangling from the bed frame; the drug; the lack of a window; the broken mirror.

  The man continues his work of picking burnt fabric from the other’s wound, peeling off dead skin glued to each piece of cloth. ‘We’ll need a stretcher for him.’ At the request, someone leaves.

  This whole scenario feels surreal. Katvar, Kioshi, and a bunch of strangers crowding the room where I was kept and tortured for weeks. Only minutes ago, I thought I’d rather die than come back in here.

  I clear my throat and turn to Kioshi. ‘How are Saida and Gnat? And the little ones?’

  His gaze empties. Katvar nudges me with his elbow, and signs, ‘The BSA retaliated.’

  ‘No!’ My fist presses into the hollow of my stomach. Although I knew better, a part of me had hoped the Lume were too small a tribe to be considered important by the BSA. It was Katvar’s clan that nursed me back to health and helped me cross five thousand kilometres of snow and ice to reach Svalbard and blow up all the satellites. They gave me so much, and paid with their lives.

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Too many,’ Kioshi answers. ‘There’s not a man, woman or child who hasn’t lost a family member.

  I reach out and place my hand on his shoulder. ‘I’m sorry.’

  He covers my hand with his own and gives a gentle squeeze. ‘You did well. Both of you. Birket would have been proud.’

  ‘Birket is dead?’ I whisper.

  Kioshi nods.

  ‘Did Sari make it?’

  ‘She did. Sari returned after the attack.’ He pushes himself up, and signs to Katvar and me, ‘I don’t trust these men. We’ve got you, Micka. We should leave now.’

  “Leave” is one of the first sign language words I memorised. Small when spoken, but fussy when signed: your flat palm is facing to the side, then up and down and forward until you close your fist. It takes as long as if you said, ‘Discombobulated.’

  ‘You go. I made a deal with them and I’ll stick to it,’ Katvar answers.

  ‘I’m not leaving you!’ My signing is fast and furious. How can he even think I would leave him now that we finally found each other again? ‘I thought you were dead.’

  He shuts his eyes and leans his forehead against mine.

  ‘Fuck, I knew this would happen,’ Kioshi blurts out with a groan.

  The guy tending to the injured man straightens up and wipes his hands on his shirt. ‘Whatever relationship issue you three are having has to wait. We’re ready to move.’

  Katvar and I stay shoulder to shoulder, unwilling to let the other out of sight for even a second. And I still can’t believe he’s here. I’ve pinched myself a couple of times to make sure I’m not dreaming. I keep scanning his face and clothes, the way he wears his hair like a warrior of ancient times, to make sure it’s really him. I’d love to hold him, but not now, not yet. We aren’t safe. I need to be ready to pull my guns fast and shoot us out if here of need be. Those men who pretend to be BSA? I don’t trust them.

  I don’t trust anyone.

  We exit my room, with the badly injured guy carried on a makeshift stretcher behind us. In the corridor, half a dozen men are working on one of the locked doors with a crowbar and a sledgehammer. It gives with a sharp groan of metal.

  Someone comes running up the hallway, carrying a first aid kit and a defibrillator. ‘Found this in one of the labs,’ he calls out and stumbles to a halt. The guys who broke down the door stare through its frame. I can’t see what they are seeing, but it can’t be good. They shut the door without another word.

  Heads swivel toward us.

  ‘You the bitch who killed my men?’

  Katvar moves his body in f
ront of mine as I say, ‘You the dicks who opened fire on me?’

  The guy and Katvar exchange a heavy gaze. I make a mental note to ask Katvar what he told these people about me. I hope he didn’t mention that “Bringer of Good Tidings” tale.

  The man clears his throat, but the coldness doesn’t leave his eyes. ‘We’ll talk about that later. You have any more explosives?’

  ‘No. And if I were you, I wouldn’t open any more of those doors. Ice Face… Colonel Johansson let slip something about bioweapons. I don’t know if he lied, but chances are that whatever is being kept in there is dangerous.’

  A man who seems to be the leader of this group give me a stiff nod. ‘Guess that explains it.’ Addressing his men, he says, ‘We’re done here. Move to the next level.’

  ‘Can I take a look?’ I ask.

  ‘Sure. As long as you don’t go in.’ He opens the door, and everyone who didn’t catch a glance the first time steps around the guy and peeks in.

  There’s a sealed glass door to an anteroom with four showers and four whole-body suits that trail long, flexible hoses up to the ceiling. A large glass wall with another sealed door connects to a lab behind the anteroom. No one’s hiding in there. That, and the sealed room with the suits are sure signs this place isn’t one we want to enter.

  ‘What is this?’ someone asks.

  Unsure if the question is directed at me, I turn. But the guy who opened the door says, ‘High-security lab. They are working with something deadly. From the look of it, viruses or bacteria. Definitely not radioactivity. See those shakers over there?’

  He gestures at several platforms the size of small tables. They swivel in lazy circles, turning liquids in dozens of miniature beakers standing on top of them.

  ‘Doc said something about virotherapy,’ I volunteer.

  The guy shrugs. ‘It’s not what we came for.’ He shuts the door and signals for his men to get going. We proceed to the next level, break through the entrance door and find storage rooms that get the pulse of even the hardest-looking man up a few notches.

  ‘We need more men,’ the leading guy says, and barks a few commands into his radio.

  We screen room after room. Shelves from floor to ceiling are stuffed with packages and bottles of medicine none of us have ever heard of. Someone hollers down the corridor that he’s found analysis kits for blood and urine samples. There are even portable laser scanning microscopes and laminar airflow cabinets, he says. I have no idea what he’s talking about, but he’s so giddy he’s about to hug everyone.

  Recovering all this will take a lot of time. ‘We need hostages. You have any?’ I say to the leading guy.

  ‘We took everyone to the mess hall.’

  ‘Even the soldiers and prison guards?’

  He lifts a greying eyebrow. ‘Prison guards?’

  ‘There’s a prison cell. In the basement, I think.’ I feel the gentle pressure of Katvar’s shoulder against mine.

  The leading guy clicks on his radio and talks. No one exchanges names or ranks. They must all know each other’s voices, even through the static crackle.

  ‘We found a basement and a single cell,’ grates through the radio.

  ‘Ask him what the cell looks like,’ I hear myself say.

  A grunt sounds from the other end. ‘Meathook in the ceiling, a drain in the floor. Blood and shit all over the fucking place. Looks like they butchered a pig in here.’

  I manage a nod. ‘That’s the prison. Did you run into guards or a man with a face that makes you think your balls will freeze off?’

  Cackling on the other end. ‘We caught him. He’s in the mess with the others.’

  My skin prickles, and my hands curl to fists. ‘That’s Johansson. That guy is dangerous. Isolate him. I’m coming down.’

  Katvar follows me like a shadow. Questions are burning in his fingers, but I can’t talk about that now. Or anytime soon.

  From behind us, I hear the radio spewing an angry, ‘And who the fuck are you?’

  Leader Guy answers, ‘Grant them access to the mess, and whatever prisoner she wants to interrogate. If she needs assistance, give her a few of our men.’ He flips off the radio and shouts along the corridor, ‘Ask Johansson what the high-security wing is for.’

  I give him a thumbs up, and ask Katvar, ‘Do you have a knife I can borrow?’

  I’ll need two blades for what I have planned.

  Twenty-Seven

  On the way down, I screech to a halt and grab Katvar. It surprises both of us, this urgent need to make sure we’re both alive and there’s not the whole world separating us. I bury my nose against his neck and breathe him in. He rakes his fingers through my hair, cradling my head and soaking up the short moment of privacy and togetherness — things we’ve both missed since…since…

  ‘How long?’ I whisper.

  ‘One hundred and ten days,’ he rasps.

  I grit my teeth. ‘Where are we?’

  He pulls back a little. ‘Finnish territory. Not far from Lake Päijänne.’ He signs the last word slowly, letter by letter.

  ‘No idea where that is.’

  ‘About a hundred fifty kilometres north of Helsinki.’

  ‘Huh. Not as far as I thought. For a three-day train ride… If I even was on a train for three days.’ I feel lost. Can’t trust my own senses.

  ‘You were. We followed you. The two Sequencers who took you left a clear trail in the snow.’

  ‘How? And…why? You were out cold.’ I touch my fingers to the thick scar on the side of his head, and my other hand to the other side, where a small pink dot is buried in his shorn hair. Had the small hole the physicians drilled into his skull healed shut completely? Or would the bone never fuse?

  ‘How do you feel?’

  A grin spreads over his face. ‘Good,’ he croaks. And draws his flat hand from his chin toward me. Thank you.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For not giving up,’ he signs.

  I squeeze my eyes shut. I don’t even want to think of those horrible hours in the ice and snow when I thought I’d lost him.

  ‘The cell that man mentioned, was it—‘

  Gripping his hands, I cut him off. ‘Not now. Not…here.’

  He nods, and brushes a kiss to my brow. I stretch up and press my mouth to his, breathe him, taste him, and feel my heart and my eyes burn.

  As we make our way to the mess, Katvar explains the moves of Alta’s civil defence — these same guys who are now pretending to be the BSA. They radioed the Sequencers to pick us up right after our plane touched down in Alta. At that point, Alta believed what I’d told them: that we were Ben and Sandra, an injured Sequencer and his apprentice. Then the Sequencers showed up and arrested me. And this promised great spoils: Alta hoped the Sequencers would take me to one of their secret military compounds. They planned to track my movement to find the compound, and then raid it for guns, ammo, and medical supplies. Two of their men on skis followed Mike, Blondie, and me to the rail line, then sent word back via messenger pigeon. The two stayed to observe while they waited for further instructions or reinforcements.

  In the meantime, Alta kept looking after Katvar, intending to press information from him once he woke up, perhaps hoping to sell him later to either the Sequencers or the BSA.

  By the time the messenger pigeons arrived in Alta, Katvar had regained consciousness. He communicated in writing what he needed to say, and was able to strike a deal with Alta (I still have to dig the details of that out of him). Then he and a pilot followed the rail line with our solar plane until they spotted the moving train. They followed it to this base, and the target for this raiding party was fixed.

  Katvar’s hasty explanation leaves me with even more questions, like how Kioshi ended up here, and why it took more than three months to attack. But there’s no time to ask.

  A large door to the mess stands open, guarded by two men with assault rifles. ‘What took you so long?’ one of them asks and waves us in.

  ‘How
come the Sequencers didn’t ask for their plane back?’ I sign to Katvar.

  ‘Because it crashed and burned, and Alta almost lost a man during the rescue mission.’

  I snort. ‘And they believed that crap?’

  Katvar shrugs. I scan the people in the hall. Most are sitting with their backs propped against a wall, their hands tied behind their backs. Some are lying face down on the floor. Chairs and tables have been moved aside and dumped into piles of stiff legs and backrests.

  I turn to the guys by the door and whisper, ‘The BSA would blindfold the prisoners to disorient them. Do that. And separate the men from the women. Tell them the women are going to be raped, and the men shot. When you leave, pretend you’re having to do it in a hurry. You need an explanation for why rapes and executions didn’t happen here.’ I stop myself and narrow my eyes at them. ‘Or don’t you?’

  Scowling, he scans my reindeer cardigan. The grip on his rifle tightens as he mouths, Fuck off.

  I wink, put my gun to his face, and bark for everyone to hear, ‘Thanks for coming to my rescue guys, but I’m your commanding officer now, in case you didn’t notice. Vandemeer isn’t here to kick your asses, so it’s me kicking your asses, whether you like it or not.’ I pull my second gun and swivel it toward the bunch of “BSA” guys guarding the hostages. ‘Anyone got a problem with that?’

  No one says a word.

  ‘Good. Because no one gives a fuck about your feelings anyway, not even your mom. Now, get your pimply asses moving and blindfold these prisoners. Separate the women. And know this: I’ll drop a bullet into the ballsack of any man that so much as thinks rape.’ A wave of relieved sighs runs through the prisoners. The “BSA” guys don’t twitch a muscle. They really need to practice up on their look of utter disgust for a woman who barks at them and who’s done the unthinkable: forbidden them from raping anyone.

  Showing my incisors, I add, ‘You can do whatever you want with the bitches when we’re back at camp.’

  Whimpering makes the rounds. Still, none of the men in black makes to follow my commands. I fire a round at the ceiling. ‘Move! Now! And get me some fucking clothes!’ That finally gets them going.