Page 16 of The Darkest Half

She sits on the chair across from me, pulls her feet onto the seat, draws her knees, and wraps her arms around her legs, which hide her womanly parts behind them.

I look away. I’m not sure why. It just feels right.

Knowing I will get nowhere with my questions, I give in to only giving her what she wants.

6

Niklas

I gotta say, things sure do feel like they’re ending. It’s an odd fucking feeling, the end, and so new and foreign, a once-in-a-lifetime event. I imagine it’s how we all must feel when forced out of our mother’s womb and into this strange, hellish world for the first time. The end. The beginning. In essence, there really is no difference.

Though I’m not sure the end of what exactly—maybe everything—but I know something is coming, a drastic change that can be felt before it happens. And as I look across the small, dark room at Izzy sitting there just like me, two pigs waiting for the slaughter, for the first time since I…grew fond of her, there’s no sense of urgency in the need to protect her. Once that deep part of you knows that things are over, you kind of stop fighting against it. You accept it, and somehow with grace, you’re ready to roll along with it instead. Maybe I do know “the end of what,” after all.

“I guess you’re not as crafty as you thought,” I tell her in jest.

“I guess you aren’t either,” she comes back.

I shrug. “Guess not.”

With a heavy sigh, Izzy relaxes against the wall, drawing her knees upward and resting her wrists atop them. I get up and join her there, pressing the back of my head to the wall; it falls to the side, and I look at her shadowed face.

“They must’ve smartened up,” I say, “knowing if they have both of us in custody, my brother will come out of hiding with his hands in the air.”

Without looking at me: “No, they knew that all along; it just took them a while to pull this off.”

I nod and look ahead again; my wrists are propped on my knees, just like Izzy. I wish I had a cigarette. I don’t guess we’ll be granted any last requests. But that’s what I’d ask for. A fucking cigarette.

“So, do you think he’ll come?”

I pause, considering the possibility. “You want to know the truth?”

“Always.”

I shake my head. “I think we’re on our own this time.”

“You’re right,” she says, and it stings, “he won’t be coming. Not this time…”

I get the distinct feeling something happened between them, Victor and Izabel, but I’m not going to ask. A fight? No, it was something more…final. I sense that Izzy has changed, not necessarily because of it, but she isn’t the same Izzy I once knew. I want to say she’s broken, but…no, I think maybe she’s finally been put together. People often mistake consciousness for brokenness: a woman gets her heart ripped out, and the endless fucking tears must mean she’s broken? No—they mean she’s awake for probably the first time in that shitty relationship.

“When did you speak to Fredrik last?” She looks over at me.

“You know, I don’t even remember,” I say. “Weeks. Months. I don’t know.”

“It’s been a long time for me too.”

Moments later: “I’m sorry about Jackie,” she tells me.

My heart wrenches, but only a little.

“Yeah, well, I knew her fate the day I met her. The same fate any woman I’d ever cared for. Any woman I could ever care for later will face the same fate.” I laugh bitingly, realizing. “Not that I’ll ever care for another woman again.”

“Because you’re going to swear off emotions like Nora Kessler?” she asks, and that fucking stings too, though differently.

I scoff. “Hell no. Because I doubt I’ll be alive after today.”

From the corner of my eye, I see her nod gently, agreeing.

“Was that Jackie in Mexico?” Izzy asks. “Did you send her?”

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