Turmont moves blindly, probably his vision is still blurred by pain, but he slashes Dante’s black, heavy pants and Dante winces, moving a step back and stumbling a little.

“You’re not prancing anymore, now, right Lieutenant?”, the French says with his breath still uneven. He dries his mouth with the back of his hand and gets up on his feet again. At the same time, I realize that Dante’s pants are soaked with blood. Turmont must have cut the muscle on his shank.

“You’re not loyal, but I’ll beat the shit out of you anyway”, Dante replies with a serious face, and then shows him the palms of his hands in an international gesture, “Come on”.

I close my eyes. I try to cut everything out. Flashes of memories hitting me hard. Carmen’s soft hand running over my forehead. Her voice whispering into my ear. She says that she loves me. She says that I’m everything to her, that I’m her sweet everything. Marshall’s smile, his fatherly hand on my shoulder. His massive body towering over mine. His hazel eyes. His kind, baritone voice. The image of his corpse though I didn’t see it. But somehow I did. It was all in Dante’s eyes. Desperate and dark and upset. Dante’s laughter, that smirk, that easy way he has to shrug like nothing – and at the same time everything – matters and suddenly I realize that I care about him a lot. I wish he was my brother, Carmen was right. Once she told me that.

Maybe she thinks that I need to be protected. Maybe she’s right. But I don’t want to see any of my friends dying to protect me. I can’t. I seriously can’t. I need to get out of here because I’m getting out of control. We need to get out of here. There are so many things that I want to do. I want Carmen to get pregnant again. I want a baby, let’s try again, Carm. I want a baby who looks like her, like you. I want to marry Carmen again, seeing that she doesn’t remember our wedding. I want to sleep right beside her, I want to make love with her, to her. I need it. I need all of these things. We need to get out of here. Obscurity is surrounding us but I can see the light somewhere. We just have to follow it. Are we gonna survive this?