But Kristina doesn’t look at her or pause for a single moment. She flicks her fingernail against the syringe, dislodging air bubbles, Elisabeth can hear the tap tap tap. She picks Elisabeth’s arm off the bed where it lies flung, immobile. Elisabeth tries to retract it, but finds she can’t. Kristina looks for a vein, prodding her skin hard, angling the arm into the light from the hallway. When she doesn’t find one, she tries the other arm. Elisabeth writhes in pain, but the movement causes more vomit to flow into her mouth, making her splutter and choke.

The other arm is examined, twisted toward the light, hard, but there isn’t a single viable vein; they’ve all collapsed too many times, leaving the arm a strange overall shade of light blue, but with no discernible veins. Kristina swears under her breath. Elisabeth tries again to move and to speak, to fight, to do something, anything. But her limbs are dead and heavy, so heavy she can’t even move her toes. Still, she can feel it when Kristina pulls her left shoe off, then the sock, and when she finds what she’s looking for – that one, big, clear vein that travels straight from Elisabeth’s foot to her heart. She can feel it when the syringe goes in, when the heroin rushes hotly through her blood, so much of it she’s dead in less than a minute.

76

Kristina

My screams bounce across the clearing and return in echoes. I can’t move or get away or defend myself; all I can do is wait for a volley of bullets to hit me. I hear the crunch of the gunman’s shoes on the snow as he comes closer, but I’m face-down and can’t muster the strength I’d need to roll over and face him. Eirik is whimpering and muttering to himself somewhere nearby. I feel about me in an attempt to touch him and comfort him and reassure him that I meant every word I said, I wasn’t just saying it to save myself. Hang in there, I want to say, but no words will come.

I hear a crackling sound followed by several loud voices shouting. I try to turn my head to discern where they are coming from, but even the slightest movement brings another onslaught of terrible pain. Five oh one, says someone. Or am I imagining it? Could it be that I’ve already died, that these moments are just the remnants of a life already over? Crackle, crackle. Five oh one, Dragonfire has a visual. Copy. There is a kind of chopping noise, as though someone were drilling holes in the earth.