“Kai.” It’s Diana’s voice, and it’s quiet. “Are you okay?”
I breathe. It’s jagged.
“What’s his name?”
She tilts her head.
“His name.” My voice doesn’t sound like mine. It sounds like a man with a mouth full of blood that isn’t his. “What’s his name?”
“Why?”
“Diana.”
“He’s dead, Kai.”
“I know he’s dead.” My jaw is locked so hard that the words come out through my teeth. “I want the name. I want to know who his people were. If he had a brother. A friend. I want to know if your mother is still alive. I want to know if there is anyone walking around right now who knew about it but didn’t do anything.”
She doesn’t answer.
“Did anyone know?”
“Kai—”
“Did anyone know, Diana?”
“I think my mother suspected. At the end.”
The roar in my ears magnifies.
“She’s dead now, too,” she adds, gently.
There is a wounded animal inside me, and it wants to howl in pain. A murderous soldier who wants to rip that attic apart with his bare hands. He wants a grenade. Pin between his teeth, blow the whole damn apartment to splinters. He wants to stand in thedoorway with a machine gun and empty every round into every face and keep firing until there is nothing left of them but holes.
“I would have killed him.”
“Kai.”
“If he were alive. If I had gotten to you earlier, I would have walked into that apartment, and I would have killed him with my bare hands.” My voice has gravel and glass in it. “I would have done it slow. I would have cut his fucking dick off and nailed it to the attic wall for everyone to see. I want him alive and bleeding, staring at pieces of himself while he begs for your forgiveness. While he begs for mercy I will never give.”
She stares at me.
“And it kills me.” I’m shaking harder now. Not just my hands, but my whole body, from the size of what’s inside me. “It-kills me-that I c-can’t do-anything.”
Tears are running down my face because where is the door? Where is the fucking door to kick down? There is no man to bury. I have a body full of training for a war that’s already over, and I am full of violence with nowhere to put it. Nowhere.
“I promise-you, no one is ever going to hurt you-again. Not a word. Not a look. No-one. As long as I am breathing, no one. Do you understand me?”
She opens her mouth.
“Do you understand me, Diana?”
She nods.
11
Kai
“THANK YOU.”