Reviving Izabel

I hear the chain sliding away and then the clicking of a deadbolt, lastly the sound of the knob turning carefully. When the door breaks apart from the frame, it does so only inches and a pretty face peeps through the crack with long blonde hair disheveled around her puffy eyes.

“Fredrik?” Amelia says in a low, harsh voice. “You shouldn’t be here.” I see her eyes darting around nervously, looking beyond us toward the street.

Victor steps up beside Fredrik and pushes the door open with the palm of his hand. The smell of ci

Victor pulls me inside the house with him and Fredrik follows, shutting and locking the door afterwards. And before anyone speaks, Victor and Fredrik rush through every room in the house, guns in their hands, making sure that no one is hiding in wait.

They come back into the den at the same time, sliding their guns back behind their pants.

“What happened to you?” Fredrik asks Amelia. “Why haven’t you been answering your phone?”

She’s shaking, her arms trembling inside her robe.

Victor looks at everything but her. He begins searching the room, while I know at the same time hanging onto every one of her words.

“I didn’t answer because I knew it was you,” she says to Fredrik. “And you didn’t leave any voicemails. You never leave voicemails. They tapped my phone, Fredrik. I couldn’t risk answering.”

Fredrik takes Amelia carefully by the elbow and walks with her into the den area. He sits down next to her on the sofa.

“Tell me what happened,” he persists.

I sit down on the edge of the recliner in the corner, my back arched, my hands folded together draped between my knees.

Amelia looks over at Victor as he’s ru

“They found all of that stuff,” she says to him. “When they came in here, three men ransacked my goddamn house, turned it upside-down, looking for whatever those devices were you hid everywhere.”

He goes back to searching the house, though staying in sight of us. In sight of me.

Amelia turns back to Fredrik. She sits with her hands pressed together between her knees, her right leg constantly moving, her foot bouncing nervously against the rust-colored carpet.

“They came here three days after you left,” she goes on. “Tied me to a kitchen chair. They beat me. They threatened me with my family—”

“What did you tell them?” Victor cuts in, standing in front of her now.

“I didn’t have anything to tell,” she says, fear rising up in her shaky voice. “They wanted to know where she was.” She glances over at me. I notice how yellow the skin around her eye is now that we’re in the room with the light from the television. “But I didn’t know. I couldn’t tell them what I didn’t know. Shit! They wanted to know where Dina was, too. I didn’t know that, either. They didn’t believe me so they beat me some more!” She takes a deep breath and tries to compose herself, maybe to keep from crying. She looks as though she could burst into tears at any moment.

“But you had to have told them something,” Fredrik says from beside her. His voice is urgent but not at all accusing. “Think, Amelia.”

Amelia looks down at her shaking hands and then brings them both up and pushes her messy blonde hair back away from her face.

“I-I couldn’t take it anymore,” she says shamefully, unable to look Fredrik in the eyes. She stares down at the carpet. “I thought they were going to kill me, to beat me to death. I-I only told them that Dina had called her Sarai and she talked to me about her sometimes.” She looks up at Fredrik now, worry all over her face, straining the corners of her reddened eyes. “But it wasn’t anything I thought they could actually use.”

“What did you tell them?” Victor asks sternly.

She looks up at him. “T-They asked about recent information, anything that Dina said to me about Sarai, or Izabel, or whatever her name is. They wanted something current. I thought really hard about the conversations that Dina and I had about her and the one that came to mind was when you guys were here. She talked about training. Maga or something like that.”

My eyelashes sweep my face and I shake my head solemnly. I remember telling Dina that I was learning Krav Maga.

I shoot up from the recliner.

“I can’t fucking do this!” I yell. “Victor, I’m sorry. I-I just screw everything up. You were right. This isn’t the life for me. I wanted it to be so badly, but I can’t do this. I’m going to get everybody killed!” I’ve momentarily forgotten that he apparently used me to test Fredrik’s loyalty. Maybe not forgotten, but I’ve pushed it aside for now because my idiot actions are more unforgivable that what Victor has done.

Victor takes my hand and guides me to sit back down.

“Did you tell Dina Gregory where you were training?” Victor asks in a calm voice.

“No,” I say, looking up at him. “I was careful not to give away detailed information. I didn’t even tell her where I was living. The three of us were just talking in the kitchen. Dina wanted to know what I had been doing. It was just casual conversation.”

Fredrik looks at Victor.

“Stephens has probably had men scoping out every Krav Maga studio from here to Florida since that day. It would explain why it took them nearly three weeks to find which one she was training in.”

“Wait—,” Amelia speaks up as if a horrible thought just came to mind. “Is Dina all right? Please tell me she’s OK. I wanted my house back, but I really liked that woman. She was kind to me.”

“Dina Gregory is fine,” Victor answers and Amelia and I are both relieved.

Amelia lets out a thankful breath, but then just as quickly her body locks up again and she’s looking at Fredrik with desperate eyes, craning her neck toward him. “B-But you can’t stay here. You have to leave.” She looks at us. “All of you.”

“That was my next question,” Victor says. “Why didn’t they kill you?”

“They expected you to come back,” she says. “Or to at least contact me by phone.” Her eyes dart to Fredrik again. “I couldn’t answer.”

Fredrik nods, accepting her explanation and her apology, letting her know that he understands.

She looks back to Victor.

“After a while, I pretended to hate all of you,” she goes on. “I complained about how I was pissed that Fredrik would dump that old bat on me like that. Then I talked shit about you,” she adds, looking back at Fredrik. “By the time I was done filling their heads full of bullshit, they thought I could be used to find you, to lure you here. I was just a woman scorned, who wanted to get back at Fredrik. That’s what I was shooting for, to gain their trust so they wouldn’t kill me. I was afraid, Fredrik. I think they would’ve killed me if I didn’t think to do that.”

Fredrik nods again. I feel like he’s about to place his hand on her knee to comfort her, but he can’t bring himself to do it, that the gesture makes him feel awkward. Instead, he offers her more assurance by way of words.

“You did the right thing,” he says kindly. “And you’re right, they would’ve killed you.”

He stands up and turns to Victor.

“The only unanswered question left,” Fredrik says, “is how did they know to look here.” He puts up both hands in a surrendering fashion. “I swear to you that it wasn’t me.”

My body stiffens. My eyes dart back and forth between them, trying to gauge their expressions. The tension in the room deepens, nearly drowning me in it, but I soon realize that the tension belongs only to me as I subconsciously prepare for some kind of showdown between them. But the more I watch, the more I feel that Fredrik is telling the truth and that Victor believes him.