Page 23 of Ordinary Girl

I turn away from them both: lie back down. I pull my knees to my chest and curl up into a tight ball, I don’t want to talkabout Mama’s funeral anymore. I want to close my eyes and pretend she’s still here: that she’s going to wake me up any second now with coffee and freshly-baked Rundstykker withblueberry jam. Our favourite breakfast. I want to pretend. I don’t want to know what’s really happening.

I want to pretend…

Joel

“How is she?” Skip asks as I close the office door behind me.

“Fucked up. I think it’s best we keep her out of it, let her zone out for a bit.” I sit down on the couch opposite Skip’s desk and lean forward, clasping my hands between my knees.

“Keep her drugged up to the eyeballs, huh?”

“She keeps asking questions. She wants to see her friends, wants to go home. She wants to know about Sofia’s funeral.”

“We’re dealing with all of that.”

“You can’t keep her prisoner here, you know that, right?”

“We can’t let her go, Joel. She knows too much, she’sseentoo much. It isn’t safe for her out there right now.”

I sit back, dragging my hands through my hair. “The Blackhawks.”

“She caused two of their men to die, and yeah, that’s messed-up reasoning, but that’s how they’ll see it. We killed two of their brothers–”

“They killed an innocent woman. They were about to rape her daughter.”

“And you know that means shit in their handbook. It means shit in ours, Joel.”

I close my eyes briefly and sigh heavily. He’s right.

“I owe it to Sofia to keep Ana safe. She needs looking after. She needs to be protected, and I am going to do my utmost to make sure we do that.”

I sit forward and light up a cigarette, keeping my eyes on Skip as he paces back and forth in front of the window.

“You got some kind of plan?”

He stops pacing and leans back against the window-ledge. “She needs to become one of us now. She needs to stay here, her life’s changed. She can’t go back to her old one.”

“She keeps talking about these friends…”

“Lars and Lea Janssen. Rik’s dealing with that.”

I drag deep on my cigarette, bowing my head for a beat or two.

“I needyouto protect her.”

I leave it another couple of beats before I raise my gaze. “What are we talking about here, Skip? Whatkindof protection?”

“She needs to feel safe.”

“You knew her mother for a few months, what the hellisthis? Did you even sleep with her? How close did you really fucking get, huh? And now, what? We’re left babysitting her kid?”

I watch as Skip’s expression darkens. He turns away, starts pacing again, raking a hand through his hair. He’s agitated, I mean, really fucking agitated, and that worries me.

“What’s wrong, Skip?”

Because something is. I know this man, and I know there’s something going on.

He stops pacing, keeps his hand in his hair, pulling at it as he speaks, his face a mask of anger. “She was pregnant.”

---