Page 21 of Enemy of the State

When he gets close enough, I reach out my shackled wristsand swiftly slide his tactical knife from its holster at his hip. It’s no surprise that he doesn’t feel me remove it in his revenge-filled haze.

He just keeps coming, and I pull my hands up at the same time he wraps a hand around my throat, but it’s too late. I’ve already buried the knife in his chest. Right into the soft, fist-sized organ that distributes his lifeblood. His eyes go wide as he stares into my face. I watch as the spark of life dims and extinguishes altogether. Then, I twist the knife before pulling it out of his chest.

What happens next is a blur. He falls to the ground, the knife wrenched from my beautifully scarlet-painted hands, and an onslaught of foreign hands are all over me. Digs’s masked face is the last thing I see before a needle pierces the muscle of my shoulder, sending me into black nothingness.

Louhi

When I come to, I’m strapped to a metal medical table. Out of my periphery, I can see Honey Eyes and Digs murmuring against the wall to my left. I hear the clanking sound of metal on metal, and I try to lift my head to see where it’s coming from and, more importantly,whois making the sound, but I can’t move. When I make another attempt, I’m met with the same inability. I can’t even wiggle my fingers. I’m paralyzed. Despite whatever drug is flowing through my blood, I can still feel straps digging into my skin, securing me to the table.Vittu. Fuck.

Suddenly, cool metal skitters across my shin and ascends higher and higher, gliding up toward my thigh. Cool air kisses my skin, and I realize with horror that my clothes are being removed. Curses in both English and Finnish—even some in Irish—spew from my lips. I try to buck and thrash, but my body won’t cooperate.

The scraps of my trousers are pulled from me and the metal scissors remove my top and bare me to the room. A second later, the doctor from earlier enters my periphery and places the bell of a stethoscope on my chest. I hope he canhearthe ire and barbaric rage being pumped out of my heart and into my veins. I hope he canhearthe sound of his impending death, because Iwillkill him.He’s a walking dead man.

I won’t deny it to myself anymore: I’m scared—bloody terrified. Being in the infirmary with this strange man’s hands on me, I’m flooded with the feeling. I’ve never liked hospitals, and I like doctors even less. I didn’t like them when they came out and told Mercer and I that our parents were dead. I didn’t care for them when they told me at seventeen that I’d never be able to have children, and I bloody well hated them when I underwent that surgery from hell.

Mercer, you’re getting the arse-kicking of the century when I see you.He’d have to swoop in on a white horseright nowto save me from this, and that’s not happening. I’m on my own, but I can do this. I can handle this. This will not destroy me.

Another curse leaps from my lips in a feeble attempt to revolt despite not being able to move as gloved hands roam over my exposed body, squeezing and kneading as he examines and scrutinizes me.

I will live through this. I am strong. I’ve survived worse.I don’t know how many times I repeat this mantra to myself, but the affirmations aren’t working the way they normally do. Something cold and hard prods at my entrance and horror surges through me as I identify the telltale feeling of a speculum sliding between my spread legs.

I’m not able to fixate on that, though, when there’s a sudden pinch at my cervix. My breaths are coming shorter and more forcefully now. I need to calm down.

Silencing my muttered curses, I mentally take myself somewhere I rarely go before the panic gripping me roots itself.

The heavenly scent of freshly baked bread permeates the kitchen of our cozy home. I flounce around the space, getting underfoot, as soft music plays.

My mother bends as she pulls the loaf from her opulent navy-blue and gold oven and wipes her hands on her apron before she reaches around and unties the bow at the small of her back. She folds the cotton apron and places it on the counter before turning in my direction. Her long dark blonde hair swishes around her face and she tosses it over ashoulder as he squats down to my seven-year-old level, the skirt of her brown and white dress pooling around her ankles.

“Can we dance, Äiti?”

She smiles, the gesture softening her already delicate features. She rights herself and turns up the music, the vintage love ballad now filling the space. Her smile is bright as she takes my hands and dances with me to the beat. I mirror her grin and giggle as she spins me out and back. I bounce on the balls of my small feet as we both laugh and belt out the words to Frank Sinatra’s “The Way You Look Tonight.”

Since my mother is a fan, I’ve grown up listening to all the Big Band classics. The Frank Sinatra dance parties we have are easily my favorite way I spend time with her. She beams down at me now, her brown eyes shining brightly.

“You look happy, Äiti.”

Her nose crinkles and the lines around her eyes become more prominent as her refulgent smile somehow glows more radiantly. Her English accent is thick as she replies, “I am, my love. You make me happy.”

She spins me again and my feet pitter across the wooden floor. When I whirl back into her lithe, slender body, I ask, “Does Mercer make you happy too?”

“Of course, he does.”

“What about Isä?”

“Daddy makes me very happy too, Louhi.”

We belt out the remainder of the song together, and when it’s over, she tells me, “Loving your dad feels like the sun shining on the coldest day of the year. This world is a cold, dark place, and he makes it warm and light for me.” She crouches down, the flecks of gold in her brown eyes glinting in the late afternoon sunlight that peeks through the window above the sink. Her gaze is intense, but full of affection as she continues. “Someday, I pray you find your own warmth in a man—or woman, whatever you prefer, my love—and I hope they love you the way I love your father.”

My brow furrows as concern ripples through me. “What if I don’t?”

She swipes a rogue strand of my black hair from my face and tucks it behind my ear as she responds, “You are strong, Louhi. Always find solace, power, and love within yourself. You need no one but yourself. You are a treasure. Recognize that within yourself and the world will see it too. You don’t need a man for any of that; he’s only a bonus. But if you find him, he’ll simply enhance your shine. The love he has for you should be so brilliant that when you see it reflected back, you’re nearly blinded by it. Every day should end brighter than it started with a man that loves you.”

She scoops me up then, setting me on the countertop, my bare feet dangling off the edge as she slices into the warm bread.

When I come out of the haze of the memory, my cheeks are wet from crying, and I’m sprawled out on the floor of my cell. I look down and see that I’m wearing a new black prison uniform, and it’s then that I notice that I’ve regained movement. I test things by making a fist. It’s weak, but the ability to move is there.Thank fuck.

I don’t immerse myself in that memory often since the feelings of sadness and grief are so powerful, they border on overwhelming. However, I needed it today. I needed to reach back and hold on to the joy and love I felt back then.

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