Page 235 of These Tears

‘You don’t know what to put over the one you have.’

‘Hence why I want to wait.’

‘We’re not waiting.’

With a quick snap forward, he grabs me and hoists me over his shoulder.

‘Hey, put me down! Have you gone mad?’ I squeal.

‘I prefer the word motivated,’ he says, adjusting me over his shoulder like I’m a sack of flour with opinions.

‘This is kidnapping,’ I rumble from where I now dangle over his shoulder.

‘Technically, this is transportation.’

‘Technically, I’m going to kick you in the face.’

‘Technically, you already did that. Try to pace yourself.’

As my mouth opens again, he lifts one hand to an elderly man outside the barber’s. ‘Afternoon, Lars.’

Lars takes me in – draped over Elias’ broad back, wearing an expression of cultivated misery – then raises two fingers in a perplexed salute and bursts into laughter, entirely unbothered by the spectacle.

‘How’s the knee?’ Elias adds.

‘Still shit,’ he responds in Norwegian, then switches to English. ‘Afternoon.’ Lars nods at me and laughs some more.

‘Shame,’ Elias says pleasantly, continuing down the road. ‘Give my best to Astrid.’

‘Will do.’

My face crumples in disbelief when he doesn’t even attempt to intervene after seeing a woman clearly abducted.

What’s wrong with the people in this town?

‘Good afternoon.’ Then Elias greets a couple who start chuckling as we pass them.

I twist enough to glare at the back of Elias’ shoulder. ‘Does no one here care that you’re carrying me against my will?’

‘Maja! How are the twins?’ he asks a woman who slows down as she passes us and smiles up at him.

‘Teething.’ A chuckle escapes her as she waves a greeting at me.

‘Put me down!’ I wiggle uselessly.

He simply gives the back of my thigh a soft, possessive pat. ‘So is this one,’ he says, sending the woman into a fit of laughter.

‘Oh my God!’ I growl. ‘I’ll scream.’

‘I like when you scream.’

That shuts me up for one dangerous second as heat floods me in all the wrong ways.

He takes advantage of the silence by carrying me straight across the road and up to a narrow black door wedged between two shops selling wool and ominously priced china.

A small sign hangs above it in crooked white letters: NÁLLU INK.

Elias stops beneath it and finally lowers me to my feet, keeping one hand locked around my waist as if I might bolt into traffic, steal a snowmobile or throw myself into the half-frozen sea.