Page 107 of The Fighter
“I love you too.” Pressing down the door handle, we entered the suite and found Erika, Laura, Mila, Pearl, Solo, and Khan standing or sitting around Magni’s large bed.
“Come in. There’s some coffee and tea if you’d like.”
Pearl pointed to a table with refreshments. “We’re all excited to hear what you have to say.”
Leo put down the box and with shaking hands I walked over to stand in front of them all. “Magni, how are you doing?”
Magni sat in his bed, his hair unbraided and wild and long scars showing on his right temple, jaw, and neck. He looked pale and sick. “I’ve never been better.” His tone was sarcastic and there was no smile.
“Can we close the window now?” Mila folded her arms around herself. “I’m cold.”
Khan held up a hand to Solo, who’d got up to close the window. “Don’t! It’s better to be cold than pass out from the heavy air that was in this room when I walked in. A full day of Magni’s farts requires at least ten minutes of fresh air.”
Magni snorted. “I’m sorry, brother. I would love to be more respectful and go to the bathroom every time I have to pass gas, but I didn’t fucking invite you all to invade my space, and it’s a little hard to walk on legs that you don’t have any longer.” The long answer seemed to drain him and his head leaned back on his pillow.
“It’s okay, we’ll survive – and the women’s perfumes have freshened up the air.” Khan clapped his hands together. “Now let’s hear what Raven has to say. Leo told us she’s stuck and dropped the case, so we’re here to put the clues together and hopefully help find answers to what really happened to Dina.”
They all turned their attention on me except Mila, who crawled up in her dad’s bed. “I’m so cold, can I have some of your blanket?”
It pained me to see Magni not open his arms to her. He had always been a hard man but usually Mila had brought out the softness in him. To Mila’s credit, she didn’t let his cold attitude stop her. Instead, she sat next to him with her feet under his blanket. “All right, Raven, I’m ready.”
I took a deep breath and began. “As Lord Khan mentioned, I don’t have all the answers, but I can go over what I’ve found so far.” Pulling up the original case file I gave it to Khan, who was closest to me. “This is what I found in the basement of Station Seven. Until then I had never heard of Dina. It doesn’t say much except that she was married, the daughter of Marcus and Erika Aurelius, and that she died at only fifteen years old from a fall out of an attic window. The case was closed as it was ruled to be suicide, but I thought it was strange and wanted to investigate. That’s why I spoke to Mila, who agreed to help me ask questions of you, Erika.” I gave a quick glance to Erika, who sat leaning back on her chair with her legs crossed. It was evident that she didn’t appreciate what I was doing.
“Erika explained why there’s no trace of Dina at the Gray Manor and how Marcus removed all reminders of her to protect Erika from going into a deep depression again. Maybe he also did it to avoid thinking about it himself, but either way, Erika mentioned that Dina’s things were stored away in the basement and…”
“What do you mean by ‘again’?” Pearl looked from me to Erika. “Did you suffer from depression before Dina’s death?”
Erika hesitated before she nodded and gave a dismissive answer, “Yes, it lasted a few years around my pregnancy with Khan.”
When Pearl didn’t follow up with more questions, I continued. “So, Mila, Jonah, Magni, Khan, and I went down to the basement storage room and found a closed-off chamber with Dina’s things.”
“That was when I could still walk,” Magni commented from the bed.
“You’ll walk again.” Khan gestured for me to go on.
“We found some of Dina’s diaries and it was while going through those that I stumbled on something interesting.” My eyes went to Leo, who looked tense. We were getting closer to evidence that would cause pain, confusion, and potentially anger.
“What did you find?” Laura leaned in.
I wet my dry lips. “Ehm, well, first of all, I found Dina’s diary and learned that she had a secret crush on one of the guards at the manor about six months before she got married, and I thought that he might be a potential love interest that got jealous so I noted him down as a suspect.”
“I knew it was something like that.” Magni gestured from his bed. “There’s no way Dina would fall out a window by mistake or jump herself. She wasn’t suicidal. Did you get the name of this guard and did you talk to him?”
“I only had his first name but I searched in old logs and interviewed older guards, and the Scott that was around at that time was Scott Livingstone, soo….”
Magni wrinkled his nose. “Oh, I see. Strike him then.”
“Why?” Pearl asked.
Khan backed Magni up, “Because Scott Livingstone is a strong and fierce warrior but it seems unlikely that he would have followed Dina to her new home and killed her in a rage of jealousy since he’s never been attracted to women. Scott has been open about being gay for as long as I can remember.” Khan swung his hand through the air. “All right, moving on, what else did you find?”
I picked up the diary and turned to the marked page. “On March 18th, 2412, which was Dina’s twelfth birthday, she overheard a conversation between her parents and…” I looked up at them. “Maybe it’s better if I read it to you.”
Erika moved in her chair. She knew what was coming but she didn’t try to stop me.
This day turned out to be a birthday from hell. Dad was in a worse mood than ever. He snapped at Khan and Mom at dinner and said some awful things that made Mom tear up. I could tell Khan was hurt so I tried taking his hand under the table, but he pushed it away and just sat there all stiff and looking down.
Later when I wanted to check up on Mom in her room, I heard them fighting again and even though I know I shouldn’t have, I listened through the door.
