Two metres from where I stand.

I’ll spring to it and then I will flee.

No other option.

Tobias cries, ‘Help,’ and I see Julia’s face turn in my direction. She drops the syringe and it falls to the ground. I burst through the shower curtain and Julia picks up a handgun I never even noticed before from beside her laptop. I keep on running. I scream, even though I don’t want to. Too much fear and too much pain. Exhaustion. I’ve seen too much.

‘Stop!’ she yells.

I lunge for the door.

It’s locked.

‘Stop right now, Tuva, or I will shoot.’

Her voice is shaky.

I swallow hard and turn slowly to face her.

She moves toward the shower curtain, her gun trained on me the whole time. Her hands are quivering. She looks into the makeshift dental surgery and lets out a yelp.

I see something in her eyes. A blackening.

I push the bolts on the door and it slides open. I’m sorry, Emil.

There’s a loud click from behind me.

No bullet.

I glance back to see her trying to fix her gun. Take the safety off. Reload. I don’t know.

I jump down onto the weed-covered gravel by the tracks.

Darkness and freezing-cold forest air.

My Hilux is right there but I don’t have the key. It looks safe that way but I know it’s a death trap.

Fog everywhere. Thick fog like dry ice.

I run. Like a hunted deer, I flee into the mists, into the pines. I run five-trees deep. Ten-trees deep. Fifty-trees deep. My feet are soaked with bog water and my jaw feels like it’s dislocated. Eventually I stop and cower behind a broad beech tree, panting. I can’t see Julia. But I can see lights. In the distance, splintered through the trunks. Blue flashing lights. She’s either called an ambulance for her sick lover or else the police have found this hellhole.

There are shouts and commands and I can’t make out the words but I recognise a voice.

Noora’s voice.

The smell of pine needles, wet with moisture.

Without even thinking I find myself running back toward the train carriage. I should cower down and hide but I have to warn Noora. And Thord. Warn all of them. They could be walking into a trap in that abandoned carriage.

I crash through dead branches and get whipped in the face by wet branches.

Two police cars on the tracks, one either side of my Hilux. The glossy pine walls reflect the blue lights, and the cold fog drifts through the tree trunks on the wind.

‘Wait!’ I scream.

My hearing aids aren’t working properly. Too wet. One’s squealing.

Noora looks round toward me and I keep on running.

I see Thord approach the carriage with his gun drawn, the muzzle pointed down at the ground.