Page 98 of Misery

"I figured it out recently. After the black roses. The way they were arranged. The specific type—he always had a thing for symbolism."

"And didn't tell anyone?"

"I thought I could handle it. Thought I could protect her and find him without involving everyone."

"Clearly fucking not," Dag mutters, still rubbing his throat.

"Enough," Runes cuts in. "What's done is done. Question is, how do we find him now?"

"He'll reach out," I say again. "He needs an audience. Always has. Needs people to see how clever he is. When we were kids, he'd set up elaborate pranks just so people would know he did it. This is the same, just deadlier."

As if on cue, Vanir's laptop pings. "Email. Unknown sender."

He opens it. A video file. We crowd around the screen.

Ivar appears on screen.

Tied to a chair. Blood dried on his face from a cut above his eye.

His lips are split, one eye swollen shut. But alive. Conscious. Breathing.

"Tell them," someone off-camera says. Thiago's voice. Still smooth. Still controlled.

"He wants..." Ivar coughs, spits blood that lands on his shirt. "He wants to meet. Tomorrow night. Midnight. The old church on Cemetery Road."

"Who does he want to meet?" Thiago prompts.

"Her. Elfe. Alone."

"And if she doesn't come?"

Ivar looks directly at the camera.

His one good eye filled with pain and resignation. "He says I'll die badly. Says he'll send pieces. Starting with fingers."

The video cuts out.

Everyone starts talking at once.

Plans and counterplans. Arguments about tactics.

But I barely hear them, I'm thinking about that church.

Another place from our childhood. Where we used to go to smoke cigarettes and talk about what we'd become. Where we planned our escapes from this life.

Now we're both killers. Both obsessed with the same woman. Both willing to die for her.

The difference is, I'm willing to die to save her.

Thiago's willing to kill everything she loves to have her.

"We're not sending her," I say, cutting through the arguments. "Not alone. Not at all."

"Then Ivar dies," Tor points out.

"Not if we get him first."

"How? We don't know where he is."