Prologue
When I open my eyes, everything looks blurry. All sounds seem distorted and muffled as if I’m swimming underwater. I try to stand up, but before I can even straighten my back, I discover that this is a bad idea. There’s something wrong with my legs, they feel numb, I have no control over them. My head spins and I feel dizzy as if I’m about to faint. I sink back to the ground. My left hand lands in something warm and sticky. I take a look at it.
Red drops slowly run down my fingers.
Somewhere in the back of the room where I am, I hear a man talking.
“I need an ambulance here.”
The man is quiet for a second. “Police might be a good idea as well.”
There’s the silence again. Someone is probably asking him a question.
“She shot someone down. I... I think I stabilized the victim, but please hurry!”
What is he talking about?
I hear someone scream. It’s incessant and it wrecks my nerves. I want it to stop and in desperation, I put my hands on my ears.
Suddenly the face of the man appears in front of me. Through the fog of my confusion, a sliver of hope appears. I know this man, I remember him.
Dan. His name is Dan. He is my boyfriend.
Correction: he was my boyfriend. What is he doing here? He should be far away. Far away and safe from this terrible mess.
“Will you please stop that?” he says.
It was me. It was me all along. I stop screaming.
“Thank you, Elise. Can you now please tell me what happened here?”
I open my mouth, but I choke on my words. How on earth did it come to this?
