If he didn’t count the people sitting in the big black car. The people who parked on the other side of the street and then didn’t do anything else, didn’t get out. If they did, his count would be higher. Two more, it looked like anyway, unless someone was sitting in the back seat.

“What are you up to?”

Mom. He hadn’t even noticed her. She was also good at sneaking. And it was so nice when she ran her hand through his hair.

“Nothing. Looking outside.”

“Time to sleep, Hugo.”

“Why? We’re not doing anything tomorrow.”

“Because . . . people need routines. We need them. So things can feel at least a little normal.”

He lingered on the kitchen table. If they got out of the car, at least for a little while. Then that would be eleven people. A record.

“Some people are sitting out there, Mom. You see them? In the black BMW.”

“Where?”

“There.”

He pointed. And she saw them.

“I think, they look like . . . like your dad. Security guys. Sometimes Dad makes sure we’re guarded. Because he wants to know we’re okay.”

She caressed his cheek, Mom had kind hands.

“Five more minutes, Hugo. Then you brush your teeth, okay?”

“Okay.”

Over there. At the tree, where the road turned.

What luck.

A new dog, that wasn’t here yesterday. That meant three dogs. And a tenth person, the old lady holding the leash, who looked kind of like how he remembered his grandma.

It was completely still again. Not so much as a bird or a cat to count. Then he noticed something strange. The two men Mom thought Dad had sent. They were putting something on. Stocking caps, now? In the middle of summer? And finally they climbed out of the car, making his count twelve, another new record, he thought, just as the men pulled their stocking caps over their faces. Black masks. They were heading straight toward their front door, their apartment.

Toward him.

Chapter 46

Mom. Mom!”

Hugo screamed as loudly as he dared. But Mom was slow, she didn’t understand.

“Mom! Hurry!”

Then she came. And he didn’t need to say more. She saw what he saw, realized what he realized. The two men in black masks were on their way here. They weren’t guards—they were the danger.

“Away from the window!”

Mom grabbed him so hard it would probably leave a bruise on his arm, she never did that. But it didn’t matter, he understood why. He ran after her, in to Rasmus who was lying in bed playing a football game with the hand control on his stomach, and Luiza who was sleeping next to him and whimpering anxiously, as if she knew what was about to happen.

“The extra security door!”

“Hugo—there’s no time.”

“We have to close it, Mom!”

“Stay here, I said! With me, with us. And be completely silent.”