Bad Blood (6Questions)

Day 28

"Marie Hallberg," I enter the hospital room, greeting. "Ready to go?"

"Go where?"

"Home," I close the door behind. "I've talked to the doctors, you're good to go now. And we have work to catch up on."

She gapes at me from her all-white bed like the most innocent unknowing angel. Fallen maybe. "You..."

I nod and she gets to getting up obediently, slowly collecting the few things she has here with her.

"You still wanna get them out?" Marianne asks anyway as if she couldn't believe it.

Yes, it's the first of April, but no, I'm certainly not joking.
"Yes, sweetheart, I wanna free our former colleagues," I pout. And tilt my head. "No, I'm not crazy, don't be disrespectful. And even if I am, it's none of your business. You promised to win the appeal court."

"No, I didn't," she freezes meaningfully. "I may try, but I can't promise anything. And, um, Dam, I hope you evaluated very carefully impacts of all such effort... No doubt you know John and Mark much longer than I, but you can't dispute that they won't forgive us this easily," her eyes urge me to meet them. "They will always want to kill us."

Well, it's no heaven out there, angel. I pick up her bag and open the door for her. "They wanna kill you," I say in her ear as she passes by, "that's something the prison clearly can't deter them from. And as for me, I make sure I survive."

Marianne makes a telling bitter face, that gets reflected by each of the lift's mirror walls, infinitely multiplied. I smirk. "And once I'm alive, I make sure I have my goddamn assistant, hey? Why do you still think so little of me?"

She waits for the door to ping open and steps out with a resigned sigh. "I'm just afraid your dad..."

Is pissed at me? Is about to pay me back hard? Is bloody standing right there across the street?

Marianne tenses the moment I do. Recovering a little bit faster, I shove her back behind the automatic exit door before it compresses us frozen in it. God dammit. No kidding it's the April Fool's Day. The darned conversation with my father, the great fool to walk around Vienna these days, seems inevitable - but I might as well do it alone.

"Salut, dad," I cross the street with fists clenched in my pockets. Hopefully, I won't have to use them for bloody fighting. "I admire your courage, showing up in this country after it all."

"I don't admire your courage for sure," he stabs me with his look, gradually slipping off me over my shoulder. "Or your assistant's hiding over there."

"Leave Marianne outta this, dad. I think you came for me."

"You sold us to the police, Damian," he starts his blame game harshly once again without being told twice. But his voice seems more equable than our last time on the phone. I can sense something of a deadly ironic smirk in his look. Enjoying the upper hand before it smacks me down, hm? "You know, that's the same thing your fuckin assistant did. What the hell makes you think you'll just get away with it without penalty?"

"I've told you before, I believe she shouldn't be punished either. But have a different opinion, I don't expect any special treatment."

"Well, I did, Damian. But you betrayed your father, your uncle, your colleagues, your friends...," he lets through his teeth, articulating lesser and lesser. I can barely understand the 'friends' at the end.

"I did what I had to do," I stand by my stance, not expecting the talk to get us anywhere, but unwilling to give it up either.

"We had a deal."