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“Why are you like this? Mom, Noa is your nephew! Your brother’s child!” Somewhere I’m still hoping I will reach their humanity. Then she says something that changes my entire perspective on them: they are beyond redemption.

“Your nephew is garbage, and I wish we had killed him when he was still a child. Now,” she nudges me to get up, and I do. “Go out there and put on the performance of a lifetime.”

This is what Lana did to me. She made me relive the horrors of my parents. This woman might be afraid of what Noa will do to her, but there is more behind this. She is in pain; I am in pain. I need to figure out what’s driving her to do this.

I am lagging behind her from my exhaustion and she’s fast as fuck, so I can’t run beside her.

“Why are you so hellbent on finding Dario?” This is probably the worst time to ask this. Lana ignores my question, or she literally can’t hear me. Our ears are still ringing loudly from the blast. The sounds of the forest—snapping twigs, heavy breathing, and our voices—sound like they are underwater. As we sprint, I feel my lungs are burning; we’re inhaling smoke particles mixed with the cold air. Our intense focus on the path ahead is making our vision blurry—escaping this forest is the only important thing.

We see the university again, but we don’t go there. Lana leads me to her car behind the university and pushes me inside. For the first couple of minutes, we don’t say anything as she drives. The adrenaline is subsiding, and reality is setting in.

I break the ice. “So, where are you taking me?”

“I’m taking you to Noa’s penthouse.” Another uncomfortable silence.

“Why?”

“Why what?” she asks as I fumble with the straps of my bag.

“Why did you save me?” That question makes Lana park her car immediately on the busy road, not giving a fuck if anybody is honking.

Then she turns to me with a stern face. “Because, if I left you, I would have failed as a woman. You would have been alone in a dark forest with probably multiple men surrounding you.”

“But–” she cuts me off.

“No fucking but. I don’t trust men in general, especially not in a forest.”

“So, the bear over the man?”

She starts driving again. “Hana, I was the biggest bear in there.” The temperature drops in an instant, and I guess I am grateful to her for saving me?

We arrive at Noa’s penthouse in downtown Sarajevo, and she parks near the entrance of the underground parking lot.

“I hate what you did to me,” I say to her.

“I had to do that.” The coldness in her voice makes me shiver. She is serious and doesn’t feel any remorse for what she did. “I had to draw Noa out of his hiding place.”

“Why not go to his villa instead? You know where it is.”

“I’m not stupid. That place is fortified, and I know you wouldn’t let anyone in.”

“That’s true. I have to admit I am still wondering why you need to find Dario if you are so adamant about Noa killing your father.”

“When Noa came to my home to kill my father, I saw everything. I saw how he killed him. He killed a sick–”

“Wait, sick? Your dad was sick?” Lana’s eyes widened from her slip-up. Her reaction tells me that was information she didn’t want to share with anyone.

“Noa killed him as I lay there on the floor surrounded by smoke, unable to move,” she disregards her own slip-up. “After he killed him, he stood up and said M was here.”

Yeah, that’s Noa’s call-off sign, alright. But something still bothers me, and I have to find out what it is. This is dangerous territory, and if my cousin were here, he would berate me. He did always tell me that my loyalty to him and the need to figure things out would be the death of me. But how can I not be loyal to him? He saved me from my parents.

I shake my head. “On which date was that?”

“August 27th, 2020.” Now I know why that date sounded familiar before; that was the day the music died for Noa. His mama lost her battle to cancer that day. And none of us knew where he was. But I know one thing for sure: he wasn’t in Sarajevo. He took his car and left, and even I couldn’t trace him. He took the tracker from his car and left it at the villa. We got notice that his mama died a day after she passed away, and he was inconsolable. I didn’t ask him any questions; I just let him grieve.

I don’t share that information with Lana as it’s not mine to share. And it’s none of her fucking business.

“What now?” Lana steps out of the car and opens my door. I step out.