“I challenge you,” said Kate as we looked at the beam. “Walk over to the other side without falling.”

“If you make it, I’ll write a song for you.” Fender removed any remaining doubt.

It was pitch dark on either side of the beam. You couldn’t even see the floor below.

“Don’t do it.” Lucas stopped me. “You’re really drunk. You’re going to fall.”

“I’ll do what I like.” The words came out in bumps and jolts, like I was going along a bumpy road. “So long.”

I put my right foot on the beam.

“She’s really going to do it!” Kate cheered me on.

When I was halfway across the beam, I glanced up for a moment. The starry sky was so glorious that it made me cry. Why was everything so incredibly broken?

“Isolde?”

I heard Fender’s voice and looked back.

Then.

That was when I said her name.

For the last time.

I lost my balance. That must have been it, because I was suddenly falling.

Why did I call her? What exactly was so very important right at that moment?

No matter how many hours I’ve spent worrying about that question, I still can’t remember.

I heard voices shouting all at once. Footsteps coming closer.

“An ambulance!” Kate shouted. “We need an ambulance. Lucas? Lucas!”

There was no answer.

“Hang in there!” said a voice. “Please, hang in there.”

It was Fender.

I looked and saw his sweet eyes, full of panic.

There was no need for him to be afraid. I was okay.

Maybe the stars would calm him down.

“Look,” I said to him, pointing up. “My star sign.”

But then the pain hit me like a tidal wave.

I flailed at my face.

“Take them away! Take these knives out of my face!”

Now I realize that it was glass.

Thousands of shards of glass.

I’d fallen on a sheet of glass, face down.

Like diving into a swimming pool off the high board.

A silence falls.

The end is approaching.

I can’t wait.

Finally they’re listening.

All of them.

Linnea

“Fender, the next one is for you.”

It doesn’t seem to worry Claus that Fender is having to listen to his girlfriend’s experience of that night of horror.

“Fender can’t…” Kate looks at Claus. “Let me read it.”

Claus shakes his head. “No, that’s against the rules.”

“Screw your rules!”

Kate stands up and throws her dome across the room. It bounces off the bathroom door and rolls under the four-poster bed.

“Sit down.” Claus raises his stun gun. Does Kate really want to make him mad? Could she be that dumb?

“What do you want from us?” Kate throws her arms in the air. “Money? Maybe we can arrange something with my father. He’s a lawyer. He makes loads of money. I’m sure I can get him to—”