Page 116 of The Triangle

Lars pulls out another pistol from an ankle holster and hands it to me. I stare at it, uncertain. I don’t know why. Of all the things I still can’t remember, how to use a gun is not one of them. In fact, holding a gun in my hands feels like the only thing that makes sense right now. But I hesitate.

“Take it,” he says.

I reach my hand out slowly. Timidly. Lars shakes his head.

“Take the fokken gun, Christine,” he says, grabbing my wrist and forcing the gun into my grip.

I look at it. I look at him.

“Not ideal,” he says. “Not how I would’ve preferred this to go. But your fokken boyfriends are hard to kill, ain’t they?”

Boyfriends?

“So I guess it’s you and me now. Shame. All the fokken work we did. All the planning. All the effort we put in to make it look like it was a war between Brasil and my goddamn brother, and at the end of the day, we’s just gonna have to shoot everyone in their bleeding faces ourselves, I reckon.”

I’ve never experienced vertigo, but this must be what it feels like. Everything is swirling around in my head. I feel dizzy. I stumble back a step and the kid catches me.

“You OK, miss?” he asks.

“What’s your name?” I say in return, looking up at him from where he holds me in his arms.

“Solomon, ma’am. Solomon Bophela.”

“Thank you, Solomon.”

“Brilliant,” says Lars, snapping his head to look at us. “You’re Solomon, then?”

“Sir?” Solomon says.

“Alec asked me about you. Why?”

“Sir?” Solomon says again. Lars is walking toward him now. Stalking him.

“My brother, boy. Alec van den Berg. He asked me if I hired you. I didn’t. Where did you come from?”

“I… I…” Solomon stutters.

“Who fokken hired you, man? Where did you come from?”

“Sir, I was brought in by—”

But that’s as much as he gets out of his mouth. Ever again. Because Lars lifts his pistol to Solomon’s temple and splatters his brains out into the night sky.

I can feel my eyes go wide, and then I close them again. More images. Me and Alec, in bed. Making love. Me and Alec and Danny, earlier. Joined together as one. And then falling. Falling. The ground racing up to meet me. And something…

“Here,” Lars says, bringing my attention back to now. When I open my eyes, he’s handing me the rifle Solomon was holding. “This is better. Take this.”

“Why did you do that?” I ask him.

“What?”

“Kill him. Why did you have to do that?”

“I didn’t have to. But I chose to. I don’t know him. I don’t know why Alec was asking me about him. I don’t know whose side he’d be on. I can’t trust him.”

Bullshit. I think this guy Lars just wanted to kill someone.

“And you think you can trust me?” I ask him.