Page 57 of The Bodyguard

I’m aware that I’m starting to sound like a whiny child, so I stop myself, take a breath, and raise my gaze to the dark ceiling, focusing on the tiny gold and silver stars that pierce the midnight blue. Dad painted that ceiling – and those stars – himself, when I was four-years-old and had begged to have them. I’m really happy they’ve left them there.

“Okay,” I sigh, admitting defeat. I’m not even sure how I thought I could get away with this, I think I was just feeling rejected by Bodie and worn down with everything that’s going on. “I’m sorry. I’m just…” I sit down on the edge of my bed, and once more glance up at the stars above me. “I’m confused and scared and tired.” I look at my parents. Their expressions are verging on pity tinged with a deep concern. But what is it they’re concerned about, exactly? That’s why I’m scared. The secrets they’re keeping from me, that’s what’s making me uneasy. All I know, all anyone’s told me – Ollie, Bodie, even my father – is that I need protection. It’s necessary. But I still don’t know what I’m being protected from, I only have a vague idea. And that’s not good enough. That isn’t fair.

“Does somebody want me dead?” I say that out loud without even thinking, and I lower my head and look at my parents again. And again they exchange the kind of glance that tells me they have a shared secret. And I wasn’t sure how involved my mother was, to be honest, I’ve never really questioned it before. Because I never felt the need to. Never wanted to. But I think she’s more involved than I first thought she was. I think she knows exactly what’s happening. I really am the only one who doesn’t know the full story.

“Nobody wants you dead.”

My dad delivers those words with a steady voice, and I believe him. I believe him. I can see it in his eyes, he’s telling me the truth. Nobody wants me dead.

“But that doesn’t mean your life isn’t in danger.”

I frown. Now I’m just confused. And I think my father gets that.

“Once again, Lena, I am begging you to just do as we ask, for a little while longer.”

I nod. I don’t have any other choice. “What about Bodie?”

“What about him?”

“Do I still need him? Is he really necessary?”

Neither of them answer that, because of course he’s necessary. I don’t get to leave him behind just because I can’t deal with him being around me.

Because he doesn’t feel the same way about you?

What way would that be, exactly?

You know. You know…

“Unpack the case, Lena.” My mother issues the instruction before she and my father leave, and for a moment I just sit there, staring up at the ceiling and counting the stars, like I used to do when I was a child. I’d lie in bed and count the stars until I fell asleep.

“What’s wrong?”

Ollie’s voice yanks me back from thoughts of a more innocent time. Well, a time when I was less aware of the shit surrounding this family.

“Nothing’s wrong.”

Ollie rolls his eyes and sits down beside me, glancing back over his shoulder at my open suitcase.

“Making a run for it, huh?”

He makes it sound so stupid, what I was planning to do. I mean, what was I thinking? “Didn’t work.”

We look at each other, and smile. And in that moment I realise how much I love Ollie. I hero worshipped him when we were kids, he was my beautiful big brother, always there when I needed him. Until he started working with Dad. That’s when he changed, when he became one of our father’s soldiers. And I miss him. I miss us. I miss what we used to have.

“It really will be over soon, Lena. I promise.”

“Don’t make promises. They nearly always get broken.”

“Bit cynical that, isn’t it?”

“I’m sorry, have you met our family?” I get up and start unpacking my case.

“Look, when all of this is over why don’t we go to the villa? We haven’t been to Greece in ages, not together, anyway.”

“No. We haven’t.”

“A brother and sister holiday, what do you say?”

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