𝑪𝑨𝑴𝑷 𝑵𝑰𝑹𝑽𝑨𝑵𝑨 ─✞涅

𝐂𝐚𝐦𝐩 𝐍𝐢𝐫𝐯𝐚𝐧𝐚 - 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝟖

涅

I was lucky my dad was able to clear our names in just a month, or I would have been stuck in Jiangxi with no money to afford boarding since I'd given it all to Shen.

My dad met me at the Kiruna airport when I got off my flight from China. When I finally spotted him in the crowd, he let out tears he'd been holding in for hours.

I ran to him and we hugged for a few minutes without speaking, both of us opening our mouths to talk, not knowing where to start and just gripping the other tighter instead.

When I pulled away, my dad smiled at me as if he had lost me at birth and was now seeing me for the first time in seventeen years.

"I'm never letting you out of my sight again," he whispered.

"Dad, going to Jiangxi was your idea!"

"I know, but I felt like I didn't have a choice. I'm just..." he struggled to get the words out. "I'm wondering if I made the right decision. Were you worried about me? Did they bully you for being different? No one found out about where you grew up, right?"

I swallowed and prepared myself to lie to the person I trusted most. "No, of course not."

"That's a relief."

He paused.

"Cajsa, I'm so sorry you had to grow up in that awful place. You should have had a better childhood. You should still have five fingers on your hand. I was just so lost after your mother died; you were only a baby and I was unemployed and I didn't really know what I was getting into, and then a friend of a friend introduced me to Priest Svartträ-" He rambled, stopping after mentioning his name, and even though they were just excuses I'd heard before, I listened without interrupting.

"I regret it more than anything. And I will make it my life's mission to make sure you never go back there again. You'll go to a real high school and have your own room, and not have to earn special privileges or participate in –"

He couldn't say the word ritual. It had become foreign to him in the short time we'd been on our own together.

"Can you forgive me?" he asked, holding my hands, his eyes wide, and it occurred to me that my dad had never let himself look so vulnerable before. His hands were cold from the airport's air conditioning, but his half-smile appeared warm.

I nodded, tears spilling down my cheeks and absorbing into the fur hood of his winter coat. We both stood there, mourning the lives we could have had, huddled together and crying; no doubt blocking the other passengers from making their way through the busy crowd at arrivals.

He showed me our new passports, documents that stated he was my legal guardian once again, and keys to an apartment in a city I had never heard of before called Burlington. My dad told me it was in the United States, and I wondered if it was near Cincinnati or if I would ever see Johnny again.

"I'm afraid we're going to have hardly any money for a while, älskling – flights aren't cheap. But we have to go off the grid, as they say in America. Somewhere Priest Svartträ will never find us, and where nobody will recognise our faces from the news." He said, kissing the top of my head.

"Cajsa?" A new voice said. I jumped. It took me a second to register Ingemar's voice because I never thought I would hear it again.

"You're alive?" I said, barely a whisper. And then, "Dad!'" through gritted teeth. "How could you bring him here without telling me?"

My dad leaned down to my ear and spoke quietly. "I'm not the only one who wanted to apologise."

涅

My dad left me and him to talk things over on a cold, metal bench whilst he went to check the gate for our connecting flight to Vermont. I didn't look my ex-boyfriend in the eye much, but I saw that his right arm hung limp against his chest in a blue sling, and he had maroon bur scars on most of his exposed skin. It was especially noticeable on his shoulders and neck. I winced when I saw how the skin was peeling away like paper-thin layers of pastry.