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After Freya’s family murdered mineis the part left unsaid. But I don’t look at her and see that now. That was her father andhisviolence and hatred.
Nother.
“My grandfather Kasper took me in. He was afiendof a man.”
I run a hand through my hair, staring into the fire as the horrendous memories start flooding back.
“Kasper was brutal, a Nazi. I mean a literal Nazi. He’d been a teenager when the Germans marched into Norway, and hehappilyswallowed their poison. Sixty years later, he was still waiting for a fucking Fourth Reich to rise up. He was a bastard, and he was obsessed with molding us into something that fit with his warped vision of the world.”
She doesn’t say anything, but I can feel her watching me, her eyes boring into the side of my face.
“Us?” she finally says softly, her voice shaking.
“There were two other boys there with me—two other orphans that he’d taken in,” I say quietly. “Jonas and Filip. We were all just kids, but Kasper wanted to turn us into something else. Something dark.”
I take a deep breath, the weight of those days pressing down on me.
“All three of us took it differently. I just tried to survive. But Jonas… He became a true believer, just like Kasper. He was the favorite because he was as twisted and hateful as my grandfatherwas. Maybe he was just the best at pretending to be, so he’d be spared. But I doubt that was it. I think he had the same hate as Kasper.”
I pick up a piece of driftwood and feed it to the flames.
“Filip... He was too good. Too innocent. He couldn’t handle it, and my grandfather fucking knew it. Heenjoyedthat Filip broke so easily, and took pleasure in going the hardest on him. Beatings, psychological manipulation, torturing him…”
I look away.
“Touching him.”
A choked sob rips from Freya’s throat. I just stare into the crackling flames, feeling my blood slow like thick oil.
“One day, Kasper took things too far. Filip had committed the heinous crime of spilling some coffee on the kitchen floor while bringing it to my grandfather. So my grandfather dragged him out to the barn, hung him naked by the wrists from the rafters with his feet off the ground, and beat him with a bullwhip.”
My jaw clenches as the memory claws and rips at me.
“I canstillhear the wet sounds of bloodied leather on torn skin.”
Freya sobs, crying into her hands as she stares at me in horror.
“He killed him,” I say quietly. “He just kept going and going, making Jonas and I watch until…” I look away. “It was over.”
Freya’s breath catches, and her eyes widen slightly, but she still doesn’t interrupt.
“I snapped, after that,” I say, my voice rougher, my fists clenched at my sides now. “Filip was the only friend I had, and when Isaw that monster kill him fornothing, just because he could, I fucking broke. I grabbed a hay fork, and I ran that motherfucker through, four times.”
There’s a long silence after I finish speaking, the only sound the crackling of the fire and the distant crash of the waves. I glance over at Freya, expecting her to look at me differently now. But if anything, her expression is even softer, more understanding.
“Mal...”
With a choked sob, she falls into me, wrapping her arms around me and squeezing me half to death as she cries into my neck.
“I’m so fucking sorry…” she whispers hoarsely, her breath coming in huge, gulping sobs.
We sit like that for a while, just holding each other as the fire crackles and the waves crash. I feel her fingers playing across my skin and her throat bobbing against my shoulder.
I know her tells. She’s trying to figure out how to say something.
“Whatever it is,” I say quietly, “I want to hear it.”
She freezes.
