Page 99 of The Square

“What do you mean?” Danny asks. He’s still hugging me. Which I appreciate more than he’ll ever know.

“The perimeter alarm went off this morning. And while I admit the alarm goes off on occasion because of squirrels and the odd overzealous crow pecking at motion sensors, it was three AM and there’s no reality in which rodents and birds are responsible for this one.”

“Explain,” Alec says.

“I saw a shadow lurking in the back garden.”

“What kind of shadow?’

“The usual creepy, lurking shadow,” Eliza says, almost out of patience. “I don’t know exactly. But we did break into, and extract you, from a heavily guarded mansion yesterday. And all my brothers seem to think that we have a problem.”

“We do have a problem,” Russell says, butting in. “I don’t like this one bit. Eliza and Andra have been safe for more than two years. No thanks to you, van den Berg. And then you come back into their lives and suddenly we have alarms going off at three in the AM and no way to account for it.”

Alec, Danny, and I trade looks.

“In other words,” Russell continues, “there are loose ends that need to be tied up. And you need to tie ‘em.”

Well. There you have it. Russell Watson is calling to cash in his favor.

Didn’t take him long, did it?

“What do you propose we do?” Alec asks.

“We all saw your brother,” Charlie says.

“And we weren’t there to extract him,” Brenden adds.

“So what’s the fucking deal, Alec, mate?” Theo asks. “What the hell is going on?”

Apparently, the whole family is gathered round for this conversation.

Alec looks at me because I am the only one who can answer this question. Except I don’t really remember and that’s a lame excuse the Watson crew won’t accept the way Danny and Alec did.

Danny comes to my rescue. “We have a problem with Lars.”

“What kind of problem?” Russell asks.

“He tried to kill me,” Alec says. “Actually, he destroyed my house several months back. Came in with a tactical assault and then things got messy—”

“Then things got messy?” Russell says.

“—and we wound up tumbling over a waterfall. Then… I don’t know. I woke up some time later—maybe weeks later, maybe months, I’m not really sure—and I was at the estate. Being held… not quite prisoner, but unable to leave, either. So, that’s a bit of what’s that. If it helps, I was already planning to handle it. We were planning to.”

Silence from all eight of us. We make an octagon now, I realize. Then, like she planned it this way just to remind me that the shape of us has changed, Eliza says, “Andra, dear. Please stop jumping around. Mummy is having an important conversation.”

“But I want to talk to that man Danny…”

I think someone physically removes her from the room because her voice fades away.

I glance at Alec and find that same, pained expression on his face. It’s not simply feelings.

It’s love.

We so far away from the triangle right now, I might be sick.

We aren’t even a square.

We are… whatever the fuck it is you call a shape with nine sides. I have no idea, I just know… it’s complicated.