“Where is she?” he roared.
“Stop!” I screamed as loud as I could. He didn’t. I grabbed his arm, pulled with everything I had, but he wouldn’t budge. My father was choking, his face turning purple and I was too weak, too small. I couldn’t save him.
Then my brother burst into the room.
He didn’t hesitate. He threw himself at Licia’s father, slamming into him with full force and knocking him back. Einar wasn’t much older than me, but in that moment, he seemed like he was.
“Enough!” he shouted, stepping between the two men with his arms outstretched, like he could stop them from tearing each other apart. Licia’s father stumbled, his rage suddenly unraveling into grief.
He sank to his knees, hands curled into fists, as if the fire that had kept him standing had just gone out. “No one knows where they went,” he cried. “They’re all lying.”
My mother’s voice cut through the room like a blade.
“Or maybe they’re telling the truth, Marko.”
She crossed to my father, placing a hand on his chest like she needed to feel him breathing. Then she turned, her eyes burning, and walked straight toward us. She reached for me and pulled me behind her, one arm outstretched, her hand firm against my side, like she could shield me from all of it.
“But you don’t get to come into my home, tear it apart and put your hands on my husband,” her voice cracked, but she didn’t stop. “You will leave. Now.”
“She took her,” Marko choked out. “She took my baby girl.”
I felt his grief coil around my ribs, like it had seeped into me too.
”It does not give you the right!” my mother snapped.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. He looked at me where I peeked out from behind her, his face streaked with tears. “I didn’t mean for this. I just want them back.”
My father stepped forward and laid a hand on his shoulder. His voice was steady, gentle in a way that made my chest ache. He never held a grudge. Maybe he saw the raw pain unfurling in Marko, or maybe he was just too quick to forgive.
“We’ll find her,” he said. “We’ll help you.”
And he meant it. Every word.
But it didn’t matter, because that was the last time we ever saw Marko.
----- ?⋅?⋅? -----
Will staredat me like he could tell I’d gone somewhere else.
“Fine. Wait out here.” Aran huffed as he pushed the door to the Blood House open and walked in.
Licia’s house.
What was left of it.
They called it the Blood House because of what the constables found in the bedroom: blood soaked into the wood. At first, everyone thought Licia and her mother had run. But over time, that changed, and people started saying that Licia’s father killed them both. And that he disappeared to avoid the noose. Why else would he leave and never come back? But I remembered the man I saw that night… The one crying on my bedroom floor. That man loved his daughter.
Maybe Licia’s mother killed Licia, and he then killed her for it. Maybe he didn’t do anything at all, and they both ran away for some unknown reason, and he knew he’d get the blame if he stayed.
I didn’t know. All I knew was that this house made me think of things I’d tried so hard to bury. And of course, it justhadto be our hangout spot. Of course this was the place we came to drink, to smoke, and to plot rebellion.
Just my luck.
Inside the house, it was stifling. The boarded-up windows trapped the heat and the smell of dust, sweat, and old, weathered wood. The only light came from a cracked lantern in the corner and the faint golden bleed around the edges of the planks nailed over the windows.
The house creaked with too many bodies shifting at once, thirty, maybe more. Some crouched on the warped floorboards, backs pressed to peeling walls. Others stood near the staircase or clustered bythe windows, whispering. I knew most of them. People from school. Their older siblings. Some younger than me, others older. But Einar wasn’t there. And neither was Miro.
I spotted red hair in the crowd, and apparently, so did Aran. He was already crossing the room toward Selma. People talked over each other, with no structure or order. Just raised voices, urgent, scared, messy.
