She didn’t feel the pain anymore.

A warm wave washed over her, and she realized she was about to lose consciousness.

He raised his fist, holding it near her face without striking her. It was as if he was hesitating. Meeting her gaze, panting, he said something unintelligible that echoed as if in a tunnel.

She heard a shout that seemed to be coming from far away.

“Hey!”

She didn’t recognize the voice.

She tried to move, but the pressure on her chest made it impossible. Fighting to keep her eyelids open, she looked straight into Danilo’s dark eyes.

He glared back at her. “I’m warning you. Follow me one more time and I’ll finish what I started here.”

He held her face a half inch from his.

“One more time and you’ll regret it forever. Understand?”

She did, but was unable to answer.

She felt the pressure on her chest release. The silence told her Danilo was gone.

She coughed violently and rolled to her side, closing her eyes for a long moment...until she thought she heard the unfamiliar voice again.

* * *

Anneli Lindgren laid a plate with two pieces of crispbread on the kitchen table and sat down across from her live-in partner, Gunnar Öhrn. Both worked for the county police, she as a forensic expert; he as a chief investigator.

Steam rose in wisps from their teacups.

“Do you want Earl Grey or this green tea?” she asked.

“Which are you having?”

“Green.”

“I’ll have that, too, then.”

“But you don’t like it.”

“No, but you’re always saying I should drink it.”

She smiled at him and as she opened the tea bags, music came drifting in from Adam’s room. She heard their son singing along.

“He seems to like it here,” she said.

“Do you?”

“Of course.”

She could sense Gunnar’s anxiety in the question, so she answered quickly and without hesitation. It was the only way to avoid any follow-up questions. He was always nervous about everything, overthinking, analyzing, obsessing about things he should have let go of long ago.

“Are you sure? You like it here now?”

“Yes!”

Anneli dropped her tea bag into her cup and let it swell with hot water as she listened to Adam’s voice, the music and lyrics he had memorized, and watched the color from the tea leaves seep into the water, counting the number of times she and Gunnar had lived apart but then together again. It was too many to remember. It might be the tenth time, maybe the twelfth. The only thing she could be sure of was that they had lived together off and on for twenty years.

But it was different now, she tried to convince herself. More comfortable, more relaxed. Gunnar was a good man. Kind, reliable. If he could only stop harping on every little thing.

He rested his hand on hers.