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“Do you have a smoke for me?” I ask Noa without looking at him. The shuffling of his feet tells me that he is standing up and leaving the room—wanting me to follow him. I don’t smoke, but I need a fucking cigarette right now.

Once we are outside, I notice that the rain still hasn’t stopped. The darkness of the night combined with the clattering of the rain makes the perfect backdrop for the hollowness inside of me.

Noa and I walk towards a small open booth, designated for smokers, that’s a couple of meters away from the entrance of the hospital.

“Here.” He hands me a lit cigarette, and I take a drag. The smoke fills my lungs, and I don’t regret it. I stare ahead of me, and when silent moments like these occur, I plan. I plan on what to do and who is going to pay for this.

“Did you do this?” My question fills the awkward tension between us, as he is the last person in the world who should be standing with me right now.

“Are you serious?” He sounds like I wounded him. His question doesn’t come from a place of malice, but from hurt, like a whisper. I decide to look at him, and I wish I didn’t; his brows are knitted together, and the color has drained from his face.

“It did come from a sniper. Maybe you gave Adam the okay to do it.” I’m not sounding rational, and I don’t want to. I have to explore all options.

“You’re fucking crazy. First of all, if Adam wanted to kill him, he would have. Second of all”– he puts his cigarette out–“I just talked to him.”

I stop smoking and roll the cigarette between my fingers, with my mouth agape. I nod at him to continue.

“Adam told me that he apprehended the sniper who shot Emin. He wanted to ask him a couple of questions, but he never got the chance to do it.”

“Why?”

“Adam approached him, and not even five words in, the sniper took his knife and slit his own throat.” His words are controlled. Too controlled. Like someone carefully choosing which truth to tell.

“You know who… did this.” I nearly choke on the last two words.

Not a question.

A conclusion.

Noa and I were raised to interrogate people and to lie for a living.

His face is stoic, but I notice the small twitch in the corner of his left eyebrow. Years of training keep every obvious emotion locked away.

“Just say it,” I whisper to him.

His shoulders slump slightly, and he sighs. “Fine. We think it was Dario’s doing.”

“Fucking hell.” I step out of the booth and stare up to the sky—letting the rain fall on my face.

The water is soaking my clothes, yet I feel liberated.

Liberated from giving a fuck.

When you lose everything, you can do anything.

I push away the feeling of sadness, and that vengeful part of me takes over again. It’s making my heart beat faster, and I start laughing. There is nothing funny, but it feels like a release of a restraint I have been holding onto for far too long. I widen my eyes and, with the tears that are building up once again, my laugh grows louder.

The hell I am going to rain on that motherfucker is going to be remembered. I realize the consequences that may come with it, but I don’t care.

“What the fuck do you think you are doing?” Noa asks me. Would you look at that?

I flip around, and I march towards the man who set this shit in motion.

“You are to blame for this! Your fuck-ass father is probably following you. If you didn’t take Emin, none of this would have happened. And now you will pay.”

“Here we go.” I hear him say. He takes a fighting position by putting his fists in front of his face.

Here we fucking go.