“No,” Benji replies.
He doesn’t play stupid, he understands the question, and Ana falls in love with him for that. She clarifies: “I don’t mean, do you hate her for being raped. I mean . . . do you hate her for existing? If she hadn’t been there that night . . . you’d still have everything, your best friend, your team . . . your life was perfect. You had everything. And now—”
Benji replies in a neutral tone of voice, “I ought to hate Kevin if I was going to hate anyone.”
“So do you?”
“No.”
“Who do you hate, then?” Ana asks, but she knows.
Benji hates his own reflection. So does Ana. Because they should have been there. They should have stopped it. Things shouldn’t have gone completely to hell for their friends. It should always have been Ana and Benji. Because they aren’t the kind of people who get happy endings.
* * *
It’s hard to blame Ana, precisely for that reason. Everyone has moments when her skin’s longing for someone else’s touch becomes unbearable.
* * *
They’re at her home. Benji has just laid her dad on his bed and has helped her empty the kitchen of bottles, and it’s impossible to get angry with a sixteen-year-old girl for the fact that her feelings get too much for her brain to be able to deal with.
Benji touches her shoulder, very briefly, and says, almost inaudibly, “We mustn’t end up like our dads.”
He walks toward the door, and Ana runs after him, grabs his arms, and presses her body against his. Her tongue touches his lips, she takes his hand and leads it under her shirt. She doesn’t know what she’ll hate him for most afterward: the fact that he didn’t want her or that he was so gentle when he let her know.
Benji doesn’t push her away; he could have thrown a grown man across the kitchen, but he barely touches her as he slips away. The look in his eyes isn’t angry, it’s sympathetic, and, oh, how she’s going to hate him for that. That he didn’t even let her feel that she was being rejected, only that he felt sorry for her.
“Sorry. But you don’t want . . . this isn’t what you want, Ana . . . ,” Benji whispers.
He closes the front door silently behind him when he leaves. Ana sits on the floor, racked with tears. She calls Maya. Her friend answers on the tenth ring.
“Aaaaana? What the hell? Go to hell your stupid wine is finished just so you know! You didn’t come! You said you were coming to the island, and you didn’t come!”
Ana drops everything when she realizes that Maya is drunk. She ends the call and rushes out of the house.
* * *
It’s incredibly hard to blame her for what is about to happen. But also very, very easy.
* * *
Politics is difficult to understand. Perhaps no one does, not completely. We rarely know why a society’s bureaucracy works the way it does, because it’s impossible to charge anyone with corruption when everything could just as easily be blamed on incompetence. A telephone call is made to a police station, a police officer and a woman from an official body go into another room. Kira is furious and up for a fight, but when the police officer comes back, she is informed that Leo is free to go home. “Considering the boy’s age.” Kira yells that that’s precisely what she’s been shouting for more than an hour, but then she realizes that that’s exactly what they want. They’re going to make out that it was her, the lawyer, who managed to persuade them. But she can hear that it isn’t true. Someone made a phone call.
When Kira, Peter, and Leo leave the police station, Peter sees a car he recognizes. He tells Kira to go on ahead of him with Leo. Kira tries to understand what that means but plays dumb. Peter waits until his wife and son are out of sight before he walks over to the black car. He taps on the window, and the man dressed in a black suit opens the door.
“Hello, Peter. What a surprise to bump into you,” the politician says.
Peter is taken aback that someone could lie so naturally. “My son has been questioned by the police about a load of hooligans fighting, but suddenly they ran out of questions. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, I suppose?” Peter snaps.
He can’t hide his feelings, not the anger or the worry or his shortcomings as a parent. Richard Theo silently despises him for that. “Of course not,” he says amiably.
“Let me guess: you’ve got a lot of friends?” Peter demands angrily.
Richard Theo wipes his saliva from the sleeve of his jacket. “You’ve got friends, too, Peter. You’ll soon be told the time and location of the press conference at which the factory’s new owner will be presented. There’ll be politicians there, representatives of the local business community, important people from around the district. As your friend, I’d appreciate it if you were there, too.”
“And that’s where I have to speak out against the Pack?”
Richard Theo pretends to be horrified. “You’re going to speak out against violence, Peter. Violence that your own son seems to be getting dragged into!”
Peter feels as though he’s suffocating. “Why are you so keen to take on the Pack?”
Theo replies, “Because
they rule with the help of violence. A democracy can’t allow that. Anyone who becomes powerful because they’ve physically fought their way to the top needs to be opposed. You can always be absolutely certain of one thing when it comes to power, Peter: no one who gets their hands on it ever lets go of it voluntarily.”
Peter hates the sound of his own voice when he asks, “And what do I gain from that?”
“You? You get control of the club. You get to spend the sponsor’s money how you like. They’ll even let you handpick a board member!”
“A board member?”
“Whoever you like.”
Peter glances down at his shoes. Then after a while he whispers, “Okay.”
He will soon be standing there at that press conference. Saying everything that needs to be said. No way back. It’s him against the Pack now.
* * *
Richard Theo drives away without feeling evil, merely pragmatic. A man like Teemu Rinnius can affect the way people vote in elections. Theo needs to give him something in exchange. The only thing Teemu cares about is his standing area in the rink. Richard Theo can’t give that back to him unless it’s been taken away from him first.
* * *
Ana doesn’t set out through the door with the intention of hurting anyone, she just can’t bear to stay in the house. She doesn’t even mean to follow Benji through the forest, she just happens to catch sight of his white top ahead of her through the trees; he’s walking slowly, as if his feet hadn’t quite reached agreement with the rest of his body. Ana is good at tracking animals, it’s an instinct, so she follows him. Perhaps she just wants to know where Benji’s going, if he’s on his way to see a girlfriend. She manages to tell herself that it might feel easier then, if she sees him with someone ten divisions more attractive than her. The forest soon becomes dark, but she follows the red glow of his cigarette and the sweet smoke he leaves behind him.
Halfway between Beartown and Hed he turns off and follows a track down to the campsite. He stops at one of the cabins, knocks on the door. Ana recognizes the man who opens it. He’s a teacher at school. Afterward Ana won’t remember what she thought or felt when she watches Benji wrap his body around the man’s and kiss him.
* * *
It’s easy to blame Ana for everything she does now. She’s in pain, but perhaps everyone is. She’s never felt more alone, and loneliness drives everyone to make bad decisions, but perhaps none more than sixteen-year-olds. She pulls out her phone and takes pictures of Benji and the teacher. Then she posts the photographs online.
* * *
And all hell breaks loose.
31
Darkness
BANG!
* * *