The Fire Witness

124

The door to the reddish-brown building is propped open by a rolled-up newspaper. A white metal sign above it says LARSSON’S BOUTIQUE MEATS.

Vicky walks up to the black metal door, stumbling over the shoe grate, and goes inside. Blood drips from the wound on her hand onto the newspaper. She has to find Dante. That’s all she can think about. It’s her only plan.

She heads through the employee dressing room, past wooden benches lined up in front of bent red metal lockers. A poster of the soccer player Zlatan Ibrahimović is taped to one of the walls. In the niche by the windows, a few plastic coffee mugs are standing on a brochure from the Food Workers Union.

Vicky hears screaming on the other side of the wall. A man is calling for help.

She looks around the dressing room. She opens a cupboard and pulls out a few sand-colored plastic boxes. She opens the next cupboard and keeps going. She sees the garbage can and looks inside. Among the tobacco papers and candy wrappers, she spots an empty glass bottle.

The man is still screaming for help, but his voice is weaker.

“What the hell,” Vicky mutters, and she picks up the empty bottle. She holds it tightly in her good hand and rushes out the door at the far end of the room into a cool storage room with pallets and packing machines.

She runs as silently as she can toward a large garage door. As she passes a pallet of plastic-wrapped cardboard boxes, she sees movement from the corner of her eye and stops.

A shadow is moving behind a bright yellow forklift.

She sneaks forward to the forklift. She touches the vehicle and slowly moves around it and catches sight of a man leaning over a bundle on a blanket.

“I don’t feel good,” comes the voice of a small child.

“Can you stand up?” the man asks.

Vicky takes one step toward them. The man turns around. It’s Tobias.

“Hey, Vicky, what are you doing here?” Tobias smiles in surprise.

She comes closer, wondering what is going on.

“Dante? Is that you?” she asks.

The boy lifts his head from the blanket and peers at her as if he can’t make her out in the darkness.

“Vicky, can you help me out here? Can you take him to the van?” asks Tobias. “I’ll be right there.”

“But I am-”

“Just do what I say and everything will be fine,” he says.

“All right,” she replies tonelessly.

“Hurry up. Just get the kid to the van.”

The boy’s face is gray and he lies his head back down on the blanket and closes his eyes.

“You’re going to have to carry him.” Tobias sighs.

“Okay,” Vicky says as she walks up to Tobias and breaks the bottle on his head.

He looks surprised at first. He sways and lands on one knee. He touches his hairline and feels glass splinters and blood.

“What the fuck are you…”

She hits him as hard as she can with the rest of the bottle. It lands on the side of his neck and she twists it. His warm blood starts to run over her fingers. Her rage is so strong she feels drunk with it. Her anger burns like overheated insanity.

“You never should have touched this boy!” she screams.

She takes aim at his eyes. His hands are grabbing at air but he gets hold of her jacket and pulls her toward him. Then he hits her in the face with his fist. She falls back and it’s as if the light has gone out.

As she falls, she remembers the man who paid Tobias for her. Remembers waking up with pain in her vagina. Remembers the doctor saying that her ovaries were damaged.

She lands on her back but she’s tucked in her head to keep it from hitting the ground. She blinks and her sight is restored. She gets up unsteadily, but she keeps her balance. She feels blood running from her mouth.

Tobias has found a board with nails in it. He’s trying to get to his feet as he reaches for it.

Vicky’s left hand is throbbing from her broken thumb. She clutches the remnant of the broken bottle with her right hand and slams it into his outstretched hand. Her own blood sprays into her eyes. She hits wildly. She stabs his chest and his forehead and finally the remnant of the bottle breaks apart, slashing her hand. Still she keeps hitting him until he falls to the ground and doesn’t move.