Silver Tears(48)

Faye ended up standing on the quayside. One way or another she was going to deal with the conflict, but not now. It was just as well David handled this stuff himself. She found an empty bench and sat down. She still hadn’t told David that Johanna had tried to get hold of her. She didn’t quite know why she was hesitating. When they were together, she mostly wanted to pretend Johanna didn’t exist. She didn’t want to talk about her. If David wanted to talk about her then she didn’t stop him. But she preferred it if Johanna didn’t force her way into their bubble.

She still had her mobile phone in her hand, and now it rang. It was Ylva.

“Hi, Ylva, recovered from the weekend yet?”

Faye could hear right away that something was up. Ylva was gulping as she spoke, sobbing.

“He’s been here. Jack has been here.”





FJ?LLBACKA—THEN

Tomas and Roger tried to carry me to the bed, but I kicked, screamed, and bit so much that they dropped me on the floor. Instead, they grabbed hold of my feet and dragged me along behind them. My gaze roamed over Sebastian’s relentless face as they dragged me. For some reason, it made me go quiet—at least for a bit. There were three of them. I didn’t stand a chance. I realized that. They laid me on the bed, then tore off my trousers and underwear.

“No,” I pleaded. “I don’t want to.”

But I didn’t struggle. That would only make it worse. It was as if my whole body had gone numb and would no longer obey me.

Their eyes were dark, and they showed no emotion when I begged them to stop. Roger held my arms tightly. Tomas pulled out his cock and parted my legs forcefully. There was still a sparkle in his eyes. But it was a gleam of a different kind.

He penetrated me.

It stung. It hurt so much.

He thrust. Faster and faster. I gritted my teeth. Closed my eyes. His body smelled of beer and smoky fat. It took only a minute or so before I felt the convulsions in Tomas’s body and the hot stickiness as he spurted his seed into me.

Then it was Roger’s turn.

He smelled of cigarette smoke. He was more violent. I noticed that he liked seeing my fear as he violently pushed into me. I gasped. He didn’t drop his gaze from my face. Constantly staring at me, wanting to see how I reacted. I felt helpless. Powerless. I turned my head so at least they couldn’t see my face. That retained a shred of my self-esteem—or so I imagined.



Sebastian lit a cigarette and leaned against the wall, watching. I hated him. But most of all I hated myself for being a sappy teenager who’d been happy when my big brother had asked me if I wanted to come with them. When Sebastian spotted me watching him, he turned around and looked out of the window. Then and there, I realized how similar he was to Dad. I’d never seen that before.

I remembered when I was five years old. I hadn’t noticed that Mom and Dad fought. I hadn’t heard the cries. In the middle of a dream, I’d woken up, picked up my teddy, and, half awake, half asleep, I’d wandered into Mom and Dad’s bedroom. I did that sometimes—curled up on Mom’s side while she put her arms around me protectively, her back turned to Dad.

I was already at the foot of their bed when I realized they weren’t asleep. At first it looked like they were wrestling. Dad was holding Mom’s arms. Mom was naked. I’d never seen Mom naked before. I didn’t understand what was happening. But I did see that Mom was crying.

Now, as I saw Sebastian standing at the window, he had that same expression on his face that Dad had had then.





The neighbors’ agitated voices and a TV show were audible through the walls of the gray block of apartments in a suburb somewhere on the outskirts of Stockholm. Ylva was sitting on a chair in the kitchen, with her head buried in her hands.

Her body was shaking. She was crying silently. Faye stroked her back, trying to comfort her.

The police had left a little earlier. They had apologized for what had happened, created a police report, and promised to do everything in their power to find Jack. Jack had given Ylva the number for his mobile and said that she would know when it was time to get in touch. He had added that it was a burner and that he switched the phone on only occasionally each day. So there’s no point in the police trying to trace me, he’d said before leaving Ylva.

“But he didn’t do anything,” Ylva said, brushing away her tears. “He just gave me the mobile number and then beat it. He didn’t even want to see Nora. I think he…he just did this to bring you out into the open.”

Faye shuddered.

She heard a child’s cry from the bedroom. Amazingly enough, Nora had slept through both Jack forcing the front door and the visit from the police. But now she had woken up.

“I’ll take her,” Faye said softly.

Ylva didn’t reply.

Faye got up. Next to a neatly made single bed there was a small extendable bed. She approached Nora carefully. She had seen her before only on TV and in the papers. Jack’s daughter.



Faye would have loved to have more kids with him, but when she had gotten pregnant again Jack had said he didn’t want any more children after Julienne. In hindsight, Faye realized it was because he had already met Ylva.

Jack had forced Faye into an abortion. She remembered the hours of nausea at the hospital with Chris at her side, since Jack hadn’t even bothered to show up. Had he been with Ylva or someone else that time?