Present day
Third person's POV
Laurus stood frozen in the hallway long after she had vanished around the corner.
'Welcome back.'
The words were an obscenity. A null value returned by a corrupted program. They contained no data, no subtext, no fight.
For eight years, his internal model of Ásta Njall had been perfect,polished tension. An equation of mutual provocation. That equation had just resolved into zero. Into Nothing.
His mind, intolerant of voids, of unexplained phenomena, seized on the nearest variable: Örn Geir.
'The companion. The proximity. He will have the cause.'
He didn't walk to Örn's office. He was drawn there by a need for correction, for data to fill the silence she had left in his world.
The door opened on a scene of offensive normalcy.
The air inside was warm and thick with the saccharine scent of licorice root, cloying like a cheap attempt at sophistication. Örn was leaning back in his chair, sharing a laugh with a junior producer. They looked at ease. Relaxed. As if the foundation of the company hadn't just been revealed as a pillar of salt.
"Can I help you, Mr. Daníelson?" Örn's smile vanished, replaced by a wary, polished politeness.
The junior producer's own smile died. He looked from Laurus' empty expression to Örn's stiffening posture and fled without a word, the door clicked softly shut behind him.
Silence.
Laurus' glare settled on Örn, who adjusted his tie, a pantomime of composure.
"Is there a problem?"
"Why is she like that? " The question came out bare, stripped of any pretense of small talk.
Örn's eyes flickered. He leaned back, a calculated display of ease.
"I'd prefer my..." He caught himself,a micro correction "...our personal life, not be discussed with outsiders."
The stumble was telling than the whole sentence. My. Our. Possessive then performance.
A cold, clarifying anger settled in Laurus' chest. It burned away the last of his confusion.
"'Outsider.'" Laurus straightened, the word a trigger. His expression crytallized into something harder, more dangerous. He stepped closer. The licorice smell was stronger here, almost nauseating. He picked up the delicate porcelain cup. It was tepid, half full. He swirled the dark liquid. "An outsider who can bury the career you built by clinging onto your betters." he said, his voice low and vibrating with a new, focused intensity. "An outsider who knows that without your pathetic family name, you'd be a glorified desk clerk. A career with so many cracks in its foundation..."
He held Örn's gaze, the fury in his eyes a silent promise.
He opened his hand. The cup was released, a deliberate,contemptuous gesture. It shattered on the floor. Tea splashed across their shoes and seeped into the expensive carpet.
"...that it shatters at the slightest pressure."
Örn shot to his feet, trembling.
"A.. Are you threatening me? "
"No." Laurus closed the distance and placed a heavy hand on Örn's shoulder, his grip like iron. "I'm describing the reality." His dark eyes held Örn's, pinning him.
"Now tell me."
Örn looked down, the internal wall visible. The topic felt... Sacred. A line he wouldn't cross.
"I.. It's not my place to say"
The refusal hung in the air. Laurus studied him, the genuine, stubborn refusal admist the panic. For a second, he saw not a sycophant but a gatekeeper. A useless sentimental one.
He gave Örn's shoulder a final, crushing squeeze and released him. The clinical menace returned, colder than anger.
"You have one week." Laurus said,his voice dropping to a deadly calm. He turned and walked to the door.
"Get her functional. Get her writing. If not, after that, I stop being an 'outsider' and start being your only problem. And I assure you," He paused, hand on the knob, not looking back, "your current problems will seem like a blessing in comparison."
He left, pulling the door shut with a soft, definitive click.
Örn stood alone in the middle of his office, the sweet stench of licorice now mixed with the bitter smell of spilled tea and his own cold sweat. He wasn't asked to betray a secret. He was being ordered to perform a miracle.
'Just perfect' Örn seethed internally, grabbing his coat and keys. 'As if placating the board wasn't enough. Now I have to manage a temperamental artist for a man who views me as office decor.'
Too irritated for the elevator, he took the stairs, firing off a text to Ásta.
'Where are you? ' it was read instantly. No reply. The disregard a fresh pinprick.
He was in his car when her answer finally came.
'By Rós Cafe.'
'Get a table. We need to talk.' He threw the phone onto the passenger seat as if it were the cause of all his problems.
At the café, he paused at the entrance. He offered the hostess a smile that was all practiced, crinkled-eyes charm. His voice was warm and confiding. "I'm here to meet someone. It's a bit of a crisis meeting, unfortunately." He rolled his eyes playfully, inviting her to share in the mild burden of his 'important, dramatic life.'
"Hopefully, she's in a back booth. We'll need privacy"
The hostess's smile widened at his charm.
"Of course. Right this way."
She led him past the front tables. And there she was. Not in a private booth,but at a small, exposed table near the window. Ásta. A pen held upside down in her hand, its tip hovering uselessly over a blank notepad.
The hostess gestured. Örn's charming smile tightened.
'How does he expect me to fix this.. Wreck?'
"Ásta... " He began, sliding into the seat opposite her, his voice tight with effort of sounding concerned, not furious.
"I know," She murmured without looking up. "I'm working on it."
"Look, that's not what I want to talk about, ok?" That made her look up. It was strange; even as her boyfriend, he hardly ever started a conversation that wasn't about work, about her work.
"What?"
He leaned forward, modulating his voice into the gentle, reasonable baritone he used in board meetings when delivering bad news he wanted to frame as his own difficult sacrifice.
"Ásta, you know I care about you, right?" He reached for her hand. She didn't pull away, but her eyes drifted over his shoulder, focusing on nothing.
"And I dont like seeing you like this."
"Örn, I'm fine." She retracted her hand, a cold, smooth motion that felt like a dismissal of his entire performance.
The mask slipped
"This is what I'm talking about!" His whisper was sharp, edged with disgust. "You are clearly not fine. You aren't taking care of yourself. You aren't working like you should." He clicked his tongue, the sound a punctuation of his disapproval. She looked down at the notepad, her silence not thoughtful but absent.
"Dont you have anything to say? "
He leaned forward, his presence and attempt to physically demand the attention she was withholding.
She remained like a statue. A vessel of perfect insulting silence.
"Ásta, come on." The words escaped him not as a shout but as a strained, almost pleading exhale. He was trying to manage the situation back under control. "I love you, but I can't be seen like this. We can't be seen like this." He gestured at her disheveled state, his hand trembling slightly with effort of containment.
She looked down at the notepad. Then, with a cold,smooth motion, she began scribbling with the wrong end of the pen. The dry, useless scratch on the paper was her only answer.
The last thread of his patience snapped.
He snatched the pen from her hand.
"Ásta for God's sake, what the hell is wrong with you!? "
His voice was too loud. Stares from nearby tables prickled against his skin. He flinched internally, immediately leaning in further, his voice dropping to a harsh,contained whisper,furious but careful. An audience was watching.
"You have to pull yourself together, or we are over, you hear me? I didn't sign up to be with this..." He gestured at her, "...this ghost. "
There was a long, suspended pause. The café's hum seemed to swell, waiting.
Then, Ásta rose. Her eyes looked straight through him, empty. Her words when they came out flat, hollow and utterly final.
"Ok."
She started walking away
For a second, he was frozen, the script in his head obliterated. Then he was on his feet, tossing a bill onto the table without counting it, and followed her onto the street.
He caught up,not shouting, but hissing his words beside her ear, a furious, intimate venom.
" Ok!? What the hell do you mean, 'ok'?! You'd choose this miserable shit-hole you've built over me? After everything? It's been nearly 3 years, Ásta!"
She didn't stop. She didn't turn. She was a wall walking away.
He finally stopped on the curb, chest heaving not from exertion but from the sheer, unbearable insult of being ignored. As she reached her car, the last of his control evaporated. The whisper became a snarl, pitched to carry across the street, a public declaration of her failure.
"Fine! Fuck off! Your career is over anyway! You've lost your relevance Ásta!"
The words shattered against her car's windshield.
Örn huffed away. Ásta sat in the driver's seat, watching his figure shrink in her rearview mirror until it was a speck, then nothing.
She waited, engine off. The silence was complete.
A part of her, a distant, almost formal part expected... something. A return. A slammed hand on the hood. A frantic tap on the glass. The predictable second act of a fight.
A signal. Proof that the scene had weight, that she existed heavily enough in his world to required a proper exit.
Nothing came.
Just the empty street . The echo of his last pathetic shout. The same hollow silence that followed every crash.
She started the car. The road blurred into a grey smear, a tunnel with no end.
'He broke up with you.' The voice was a weather event inside her skull. 'Too bad he waited so long'
She tapped her finger on the wheel in silent, profound agreement.
She got home, her body a lead weight. Tiredness was a different substance now. The kind of exhaustion sleep couldn't fix.
'A cup of chamomile will do.' She put the kettle on, leaning against the counter as it hissed. The sound was aggressive in the quiet.
The steam began to plume.
A different thought emerged. Not a voice. A deep muscular want.
'You could pour that on your hand.'
It was a solution rather than a suggestion to a problem she hadn't named. The problem was static. The numbness. The unbearable void where feeling should be.
'The sensation would be... clarifying '
She blinked. Yes. It would be a feeling. A sharp, clean line through static. A confirmation of a nerve pathway.
The kettle dinged.
The sharp, metallic sound jolted her out of the thought cycle. She shook her head
'That's not part of the routine.'
And reached not for the chamomile but for a forgotten tin of hibiscus tea at the back of the cabinet. The flowers were a dusty, dark crimson.
The ritual was a cage, but it was a one she knew. Leaves in the cup. Pour the water. The steam rose, and the water instantly began leaching a deep, blood red color from the petals.
A drop splashed onto her wrist. The tiny sting felt like a prick of light in the fog. A precious, miniscule signal.
She went to the sink. Stared at her hand. The drop of water glistened.
Her other hand lifted the kettle. She observed this from a great calm distance, as if watching a chemical reaction from a distance.
'Just a little.'
The whisper had turned into a leaning. A gravitational pull from the center of her being.
She tilted it.
A smooth, deliberate stream of scalding water fell onto the back of her hand.
A gasp ripped from her throat.
Her body jerked, a violent, animal spasm. The kettle clattered into the sink. Her burnt hand flew up, fingers splayed and trembling violently. She bit down on her tongue, hard, to cage the scream behind her teeth. The copper taste of blood mixed with the shock.
It wasn't pleasant. It was agony. Her nerves shrieked their existence. A bright, white hot brand. But within the agony was a terrible, sought after truth: You are here. This is real.
Tears sprang to her eyes, a purely physiology response. She hated them. Her eyes squeezed shut until they stopped.
She turned, her beeath coming in shallow, controlled hits. With her shaking blistered hand, she picked up the cup of dark crimson tea.
The heat of the ceramic against the fresh burn was a catastrophe of sensation. Her hand spasmed.
The cup fell.
It shattered on the floor.
The blood red liquid splashed across the white tiles. Spreading in a violent bloom.
She stared, and the world dissolved. The red wasn't tea. It was thick, sticky red pooling under Ari on the stage. The liquids were the same. The evidence of damage.
She stepped on the broken ceramic. The crunch was a satisfying, final punctuation. She walked to the bathroom, and in the deep, silent theater of her mind, a trail of blood followed her, step for step.
In the bathroom, the dissociation finally cracked. As she fumbled with the first aid kit, her fingers running over the hand painted cross on the lid, lopsided, the red paint bleeding into white. A childhood artifact.
'You said it was so ugly.'
The voice was so close, so familiar. A memory breathed directly into her ear. Ari's voice, softened by time and death into something intimate and cruel.
'I made it for ouchies. Not for this.'
The reality of blisters, the throbbing, the loss of control she had just courted, crashed into her. This wasn't data. This was damage. She'd let the whisper steer, and it had driven her to the wall. And now it was critiquing her first aid.
She wrapped the bandage clumsily, her earlier clinical distance gone, replaced by a shaky, nauseous revulsion.
'What have you done?'
'You're doing it wrong. You have to blow on it first.'
The addendum was a perfect mimicry of his earnest, know it all seven year old advice. The horrifying, childlike innocence of the tone, applied to her self mutilation, made her stomach clench.
She laid on the cold floor, curling around her throbbing hand. The memory of heat still pulsing in her skin. It was an accusation, and Ari was the witness.
She stared at the wall until her eyes closed.
49 minutes ago
Laurus' POV
I slid into the car, scrubbing my hands with a disinfectant wipe, cleaning off the residue of the man's staggering inadequacy.
Páll waited in silence.
'At least he possesses the single brain cell required not to speak.'
"Follow that eyesore. Try not to lose it with what little you possess." I leaned back, the leather creaking. This was a pointless diversion. I had empires to build, not a broken rival to stalk.
We stopped a mile from a dingy café. My annoyance crystallized into a hot, sharp point in my chest.
'Who does she think she is, being this dramatic?'
I watched through the window. The Moron flapped his jaw. Ásta was a statue. A void. It was going terribly. How had the most infuriatingly brilliant mind I'd ever known debased itself with this... this nullity?
When she stood and walked away, a blank slate, I forced my hand from the door handle. Nothing was fixed. She was worse.
'Why is everyone so utterly incompetent?'
"To the house." My voice was unsteady. I didn't know why. I scoffed, a harsh sound in the silent car.
'Her collapse had nothing to do with me. The idea that I need to fix her is absurd.'
Páll opened my door. The Georgian façade of my townhouse stood as a silent predator among the other historic rows. I owned it all.
Stepping inside was crossing a boundary into my own mind.
I'd gutted the place. The air was heavy, still. The original, delicate moldings were replaced by stark, floor to ceiling bookshelves. The scent of old paper and polished concrete was the only welcome. It was a temple to a sovereign, curated to my taste alone. It was irritating tonight. Everything was.
I shrugged off my blazer and tossed it at the maid, I'd never bothered to learn her name and stormed up the staircase that cut through the historic shell like a surgical scar.
In my office, I sat. My leg bounced a frantic, restless rhythm. I had work. Important work.
My gaze locked on the dark screen of my monitor.
'What has she been up to? '
The thought was an unwelcomed intruder. My fingers hovered over the keyboard. For two years, i had deliberately starved myself of any news of her. It was a point of pride. She should be tracking my ascent.
I didn't realize I had typed her name until the search results loaded.
"This is ridiculous," I muttered to the empty room. My leg slowed as I scanned through the headlines. Awards. Premieres. The predictable trajectory of her success. Then it stopped completely. My entire body went still.
'Brother of Famous playwright, Ásta Njall killed in school shooting'
I clicked. Another article. Another. My mind, sharpened by years of dissecting scripts and contracts for flaws, hunted for inconsistencies. A lie. This had to be a lie. A grotesque, attention seeking ploy.
'Did she manufacture this? No... she couldn't have. Could she? Is her taste for relevance this pathological? '
'3 killed in high school shooting.'
'Shooter found dead at the scene. '
'Devastating loss for the Arts community as Ari Njall is mourned. '
The evidence was irrefutable.
The facts landed like a structural failure. The pristine, controlled architecture of my understanding of her, of our 8 year equation, shattered. A load-bearing wall gave way, and the whole mental edifice groaned into dust.
My breath hitched, a weak, foreign sound.
"This... but... how? "
My hands, usually so steady, trembled over the keyboard.
My resolve, my pride, my arrogant denial, broken.
I fell into a frenzy. A desperate, consuming need to know every detail of the past two years I'd ignored. I was no longer just searching for information.
I was building a case against the universe for what it had done to my only worthy adversary.
"Beneath every deep, a lower deep opens."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson