A Nordic King(4)

“Fuck is right,” I yell. “How long has this been going on? How long have you been betraying me? Betraying the family?”

“You’re full of shit,” she hisses. “I haven’t betrayed you. We both know you never loved me. You only married me because you had to.”

“I loved you!” I roar. I squeeze the steering wheel so tight I swear I could break it in half. “I loved you so much that I thought my world would end if our love ended. And our love did end and everything else kept on going. I learned it was all a lie.”

“Fuck you,” she says, sitting back. “As if I haven’t given you what you wanted, children, as if I haven’t been the perfect future queen. I’ve given you all you wished for.”

“You wanted that too! That throne, that crown, that’s the only thing that’s mattered to you from the start. And now you have it. Now you’re queen and I’m tossed aside for some fucking butler. A man who is supposed to shine your shoes, not fuck you out of them. But we both know your standards are pretty fucking low.”

“You fuck!” Nicklas says, lunging, trying to punch me again.

He’s hitting me and I’m ducking, and the road sweeps to the left in a tight curve and I hit the brakes, whipping the wheel around like the pro I used to be. But even though this sort of turn isn’t a concern to me, the wetness of the road, especially after weeks of drought, means that the rain hasn’t sunken into the asphalt.

It’s slick and the car starts to spin out.

In a moment I forget why we’re even fighting.

I forget about the betrayal.

I forget that I’ve never hated two people so much in my life.

All I know is that we’re sliding out.

All I know is that if I can’t correct this vehicle, we’ll all go over the edge of the road and down into the valley below.

So I tap the brakes and I correct and I do everything that racing has taught me and I keep my head level, like this is just another bend in the course.

But the SUV does not behave like a rally car.

And the road does not behave like a rally track.

And my passengers aren’t navigators.

Everyone screams as the SUV speeds forward, spinning out of control as it bursts over the side of the road that barely had a shoulder to begin with.

We’re airborne for a moment.

Then we crash.

We implode. It feels like thousands of pounds of steel are warping around me.

Then we flip.

Over and over.

Again.

Bam.

And again.

Bam.

And again.

I don’t know what’s up or down.

The seatbelt digs at my windpipe, carving into my waist, just as Helena’s figure moves past me.

I reach out for her, to grab her, and I graze the length of her leg, my fingers trying in vain to grasp her.

But it’s too late.

She’s going through the windshield.

Glass shatters like rain and then everything is black.

It’s a blackness I can sink into. A void. A place where my sins live, waiting for me in its depths.

Then, after eons, centuries, years, minutes…

There’s rain on my face.

My head wants to explode.

Everything comes back to me.

I gasp for air, feeling trapped like a wild animal.

I fumble for my seatbelt and unclick it. My body drops, freefalls, slams against the car’s ceiling that’s now the floor and nearly knocks me out again. The SUV landed upside down.

Helena.

That image of her moving past me, like a darkened ghost in the night, a spirit trying to flee the world I live in for another. That was no dream. This is no nightmare.

I raise my head, glancing up to see Nicklas unconscious and upside down.

I should check on him. I will check on him, even though I want to do anything but.

But first I have to find Helena.

Helena.

I crawl out of the SUV, the broken windows cutting my arms and legs.

We’ve landed on a slope, far beneath the road. My flashlight is swallowed by oak trees that surround us on either side, the car nestled in a patch of low foliage and rock.

“Helena?” I cry out, stumbling through the rocks, trying not to fall. It feels like my knees will give out at any second. “Helena!”

There is nothing. There is nothing here except the rain and soft warmth running down my arms and legs and head. Blood, maybe.

I hear a groan and try to run, nearly falling a few times. I see her, about twenty feet from the SUV. She’s lying on her stomach, pressed up against a rock. Her face is covered in blood, she wears it like a veil.

“Helena,” I cry out, dropping to my knees, ignoring the pain that rips through me. “I’m here.”

“Nicklas,” she manages to say, her eye fixed on me with such intensity that I know not to doubt what she’s saying. “Where is Nicklas?”

I swallow but it’s impossible. There are rocks in my throat. “I’m here,” I say again. “Aksel. I am here.”

But that is no comfort to her gaze. If anything, she shrinks from fear.

And then she shrinks from life.

I’m on my knees beside my wife, bleeding, maybe dying, and in the end just asking her to still see me for who I am, see me for me.

But she only sees him.