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My attention snaps back to Uncle Lars.
“Repeat what I just told you!”
I swallow, my pulse racing.
“Jump in the pool, hold the drain at the bottom, breathe through the hose, exhale slowly. No bubbles.”
Lars’ lips curl into a dark, proud smile as he ruffles my hair. “Good boy,” he rumbles quietly. An explosion and more gunfire erupt from behind him, up the garden path near the house.
“I have to go now, Maleqqi.”
My eyes snap to his, going wide as the fear claws at me. I reach for him, trying to stop him. But my mother’s brother, who’s acted like a father to me for years, is so much bigger and stronger.
He stops me with a firm shake of his head.
“I need you to get in the pool?—”
“No!!”
“YES!” he roars at me, shaking me to my core. He never yells at me. He’s stern, and he can raise his voice at times. I’ve seen him yell at other people plenty of times. But never at me.
It makes me realize how serious this is.
“Please, Mal,” he hisses. “Do as I say, okay? I have to go, but Iwillbe back. I promise.”
I nod, swallowing thickly as smoke and ash drift down onto the surface of the pool behind me. More gunfire erupts back toward the house, followed by the sound of men screaming.
“Now, Maleqqi!!”
Uncle Lars hugs me tightly. Then, without any preamble, he lifts me up and shoves me backward.
I hit the water with a splash, the coldness of it making my lungs seize up for a moment. But then I remember what he taught me to do in the event of something just like this. I grab the hose, and my eyes lift to my uncle’s.
“Down!” he hisses. I nod, slipping under the surface as he turns, pulls out a gun from his jacket, and bolts back toward the house.
At the bottom of the pool, I do as I was told. I slip my small fingers into the drain grate at the bottom, holding myself down. I bring the hose to my mouth, sucking the first few inches of water out before the principles of a suction syphon kick in, bringing in air tinged with the scent of smoke from up top.
My chest is tight. Through the ripples in the water, I see flashes and explosions above, fire and death and screams. I heard the muffled sounds of thunder and staccato gunfire.
I don’t know how long I stay down there. Long enough for my fingers and toes to turn wrinkly. Long enough that my eyes sting horribly from the chlorine.
When I finally surface, gasping for air, the world is eerily silent.
Deathlystill.
My family is gone. Every last one of them.
Their bodies lie crumpled and lifeless, scattered like broken porcelain dolls in pools of blood around the burning, crumbling home I grew up in. My mother and sister are both naked and face down, their hands bound behind their backs.
It’ll be years before I realize just how horrific their last moments were.
All of our soldiers are dead. The housekeeper is also naked, tied like my mother and sister. The groundskeeper, beheaded. Arnold, our butler, along with the rest of the household staff—summarily shot against the side of the garage.
For a while, hope flickers in my chest that Uncle Lars made it out, because I can’t find his body anywhere.
Then I realize what the charred, shapeless thing hanging by a coil of wire from the fire-blackened flagpole is, and I understand how alone I really am.
They’re all gone.
