In seconds, we are rolling through Waterford’s quiet, dark streets and up into Eagle Pass.
Inside Aksel’s house, I can’t see straight. My head is fuzzy. I feel delirious.
Moonlight streaks through the wall of windows facing the deck. The night sky is so clear I can see across the meadow to the steep granite mountains, backlit by the moon.
Aksel lights some kindling, then disappears. By the time he returns from the ground floor, a fire roars in the hearth. He has his bolt-action Remington rifle in his hand. Unholstering his SIG from his belt, he puts it on the table. “For you.”
I shake my head. No.
I can’t shoot. Won’t shoot. Because shooting means accepting this is actually happening.
Things are different here.
“I turned on the security system,” Aksel states. “The entire property is fenced—the alarm is synched with my phone. We’ll stay here until you reach your parents.”
Your parents. He doesn’t say it accusingly, but almost irritably—as if he sees them as the problem, not the solution.
His movements are methodical. Calm. Trained.
Aksel was right. I should have told my father everything—told him I was scared, told him I still wake up sweating, thinking it isn’t over. I could have prevented this. Now I’ve put Aksel in danger. I’ve put everyone around me in danger. Because if he’s been watching me, has he been watching Emma and Charlotte too? I feel violated. Guilty.
Aksel watches me from his perch, standing beside the window like a sentinel between me and the world beyond the glass.
Except for the fiery glow, the room is dark.
“Aksel …,” I exhale, “I need to tell you something.” My voice strengthens with each word. “And I understand if you don’t want to see me anymore or—”
“What are you talking about?” Aksel sounds perplexed. Exasperated. Angry. “Nothing you say could make me not want to spend every moment with you—”
“It’s not that simple—”
“Sure, it is!” In several long strides, he crosses the room. He sets the rifle onto the table and stops in front of me. He reaches toward me, firmly resting his palms on the back of my neck, interlocking his fingers above my collar.
Concern, devotion, anger, and confusion are etched across his face in a twisted map of emotion. “Sophia, I care about you more than I care about anyone. It doesn’t matter what you tell me or what happens from now on, because nothing can change how I feel about you. I will fight for you—”
“Don’t say that.” I shake my head.
On the verge of hyperventilating, I pull away from Aksel’s determined face and walk toward the fireplace. Staring into the embers, I push my tongue against my front teeth to stop my tears.
“Sophia,” he pleads, “nothing you say will change how I feel about you.”
Let the memories come, my mother says.
Aksel hasn’t moved; his body remains tense, watching me. Like I really do scare him.
“Aksel, I need to tell you why I was in Berlin.”
CHAPTER 34
I sit down on the couch—my dress spreads out over the seat, draping onto the carpet. I avert my eyes from the shimmering brown fabric.
Aksel looks unsure of where to be. He compromises by propping his Remington on the side of the sofa and sitting beside me, not touching, but close.
“We arrived in Istanbul two years ago,” I start. My heart thumps like a drum inside the depths of my body. “One afternoon, as I was leaving school, I couldn’t find my driver. He was a kind man who spoke no English, so we spoke in Turkish. He was from outside Ankara, and had come to Istanbul for a job. He was so impressed that I could understand him. Sinekkuşu, he called me—‘hummingbird’ in Turkish—because he said my limbs never stopped moving. He said he had a granddaughter my age …
“Our apartment was only a few blocks from Lycée Français Saint Benoît, my international school in Istanbul; I figured he’d forgotten so it would be faster for me to walk home than to wait.
“I wasn’t supposed to walk alone, but I knew the way and I loved Istanbul. A few blocks south of school, I turned onto a side road to avoid the congested route we usually drove. Two women wearing expensive Chanel kaftans stepped in front of me. Excuse me? one asked me in Turkish. Do you live here? I nodded. I can’t find this café, and I’m late. Can you help me? I answered, Sure. She smiled gratefully, stepping closer to me. I think it’s this way. As she