Conspiracies

9. Suspect.

The spotlights illuminated us with a victorious intensity. The applause died down, and Lasse began to deliver the opening speech. There was no other distraction other than my husband's voice. I stood behind him, smiling, hands clasped in front of me. Near the stage, I saw my sister with my son, smiling. The sound that went through the entire room was like lightning, so fast, loud and chaotic. 

The bullet went through my husband's chest, and he fell to the ground like a dead weight. His blood ended up on my face and part of my chest. Uncontrollable chaos ensued in the room. Screams, stampedes towards the exit, and shoves to put their lives to safety. I was paralyzed. I couldn't scream. I couldn't run. I just stayed there, with my husband's hot blood on my face. My lips began to tremble.

A second bullet streaked across the room and landed mere millimeters from my face. I rationed immediately. I fell to the ground next to my husband. Another shot rang out, and another. Screams filled the room again. I put my hand on Lasse's wound. At that moment, I regained control of my body and let out an almost choked cry. Tears started pouring out of my eyes in torrents. 

I tried to scream again, but I couldn't. Lasse's eyes were closed, and the ground began filling with his blood. I put both hands on the wound. I looked around for someone. But there was no one.

"Please, darling, don't die, please don't leave me," I said between tears, "Help! Please help! Somebody come, please! Help!"

I touched his face. He didn't answer me, nor did he open his eyes. Someone lifted me off the ground with an imposing force. They were the doctors. I was starting to get dizzy, the whole room was spinning. They stood me up and took me out of there. I observed how the room had turned out, two more people were lying on the floor, surrounded by doctors.I looked back as a burly man pulled me out of there. 

The doctors surrounded my husband, and I could not see him anymore. I tried to free myself from the man who was holding me to go with him, but it was impossible. I felt too weak to continue struggling, and he was stronger than me. I screamed until I felt my voice had disappeared.

We reached the exit, and the street was in chaos. People were running everywhere, crying, police surrounded the area, and deafening screams. I looked around for Agnes and Jens, but I couldn't see them. Only people crying, running away, and lying on the ground with the police.

I kept being pushed by the unknown man to God knows where. I felt the blood on my face start to cool. They put me in a car, in an indescribable uncertainty. I looked out the window and saw my husband being carried out on a stretcher and into an ambulance. I opened the car door and ran towards him. 

Night had already fallen, and the cold night enveloped me. I tried to reach him through tears and my legs shaking, but the man caught me again.

"Let go! Let go!" I yelled as I tried to wriggle out of his powerful arms to no avail. "Lasse! Lasse! Let me go. I have to go with my husband!" 

He didn't answer, he just got me back into the car. I tried to open the door again, but he had already locked it. The ambulance was gone in less than half a second, and I followed it with my eyes until it disappeared around the corner of the street. The car started to move.

"Who are you? Where are you taking me?" 

Although I tried to be authoritative, my voice gave me away because it broke with every word I spoke. He didn't answer, he just looked straight ahead. He was a bald man with a large body and whitish skin. He had a strange tattoo of some kind of snake on his head. 

"Your husband hired me to protect you, ma'am. Now we are going to the hospital where they will take him."

 He had a deep voice, serious and at the same time mysterious.