The Girl Who Lived Twice (Millennium #6) - David Lagercrantz Page 0,123

fleeing?

It seemed inconceivable. But the engine noise really did grow fainter and eventually die away. Blomkvist felt as if a cold wind was sweeping through him.

He looked into the burning furnace and down at his horribly wounded legs, and felt that the knife in his hand was pathetic, like a wooden stick in a battle to the death, and he collapsed on the floor in excruciating pain.

Everything had come to a sudden stop. There was disbelief in the air, and heavy breathing and grunting, and the sound of his tormentor, Galinov, getting to his feet. His nose was bloodied and smashed, he had bloodstains and ash all over his white suit, and he was muttering that they ought to get out of there immediately. Camilla met his eyes and made an indeterminate movement with her head, which could have meant yes or no or nothing at all. She seemed as shocked as everyone else. She swore under her breath and kicked one of the men lying wounded on the floor. Further off a man was calling out something about Bogdanov.

At that precise moment Blomkvist heard a new sound, an engine racing, accelerating towards the building. It had to be Salander. What was she doing? She was heading towards them again, but not so fast this time, and she was not making for the hole she had smashed through the window. She was riding towards him and the furnace, and the thugs started shooting again, wildly and recklessly now. But the engine noise kept coming closer and now the motorcycle came thundering through the window straight ahead of him.

Once again, Salander made her entrance in a vast spray of broken glass, which cascaded over the floor and hit Galinov’s head and shoulders, and made him jump as if he’d seen a ghost. It was easy to understand why. Salander was deathly pale and looked completely crazed, and this time she was not holding on to the handlebars. Wielding the iron rod, she knocked a gun out of the hands of one of the men before ramming into the stretcher and falling over Blomkvist, straight into the wall. But she was back on her feet in a trice, and she grabbed the weapon which had slid along the floor and began to shoot.

There were flashes all around the building, and Blomkvist could no longer grasp what was going on. He heard only the shots and the yelling, the footsteps and breathing, the grunting and the falling bodies. When the noise finally died down, at least for a moment, he decided to act, to do something…anything.

He realized that he was still holding the knife and tried to get up. But the pain was extreme. He took a deep breath and tried again, and made it up onto his feet this time. Dazed, he looked around, and saw that now only three people remained standing: Salander, Galinov and Camilla.

Only Salander held a weapon. The situation had swung in her favour and it was time to wrap it all up. But she remained strangely still, as if her movements had frozen. Even her eyes were immobile, she hardly blinked. There was something wrong. Blomkvist felt it as a stab of fear in the chest, and now he saw it too: Salander’s hand was shaking.

She could not shoot, and Galinov and Camilla dared to move forward, each from a different direction, Galinov bleeding and stunned and Camilla shaking with fury. For a few seconds Camilla glared at Salander, her eyes full of hatred and something like madness. Then suddenly, as if wanting to be shot, she ran straight at her sister. But Salander did not fire at her—not this time either.

Instead she fell backwards and banged her head on the bricks close to the furnace. Galinov ran to her, took hold of her. A man lying further away lumbered to his feet. Once again, it looked to be the end for them.

CHAPTER 34

August 28

“I was growing more and more desperate at the time, and it wasn’t just fear,” Forsell said. “It was also the self-contempt. Lindberg was not only threatening me. He also managed to distort my whole perception of myself. The accusations he claimed to have against me seeped into my veins, and I started to feel like someone who doesn’t deserve to live. I mentioned all the hate in the media a little while ago. I never paid much attention to it. But after the exchange with Lindberg in his car, everything that