Page 100 of Shatter

Afternoon sun pours through the big windows, gold and dusty.

A man stands inside the door, blinking at the glass case of pastries like he's never seen one before.

Tall and lean in a navy quarter-zip and khakis.

Blond hair, the color mine used to be before the box.

My father's jaw.

My mother's eyes, pale green and tired, with dark smudges underneath like he hasn't slept in a week.

The piping bag slides out of my hand and hits the floor with a wet smack.

He looks up.

His face crumples, hopeful and scared at once.

"Hey, Anni." His voice cracks down the middle.

Pierce.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Hakon

The door to kirkja stays shut for fifty minutes.

I stand in the hall outside it with my back against the wall, the way prospects do, and listen to the murmur of voices through the wood.

Tor's low rumble, and Aren's flat, slow answers.

Ulf leans on the wall across from me, picking at a hangnail, pretending not to listen.

"Laurent." Ulf keeps it under his breath.

"Laurent." I don't look at him.

"The suit." Ulf shakes his head. "Walking into a fish plant at two in the morning like he owns it."

"Maybe he does." I keep my eyes on the kirkja door.

Ulf looks up from his thumb.

Neither of us says anything else.

My phone's in my back pocket, and every few minutes my hand drifts to it and stops.

She's fine.

Aziza's got her at Zizi's with two hundred cupcakes, and I checked the alley myself.

She's fine.

The kirkja door opens.

Aesir comes out first, his phone already at his ear, his face creased with a frown.

"Slow down, honey." He stops in the middle of the hall. "Say it again."