The Circle (Hammer) - By Elfgren, Sara B.,Strandberg, Mats Page 0,1

hair colour has grown out by a centimetre. Adriana Lopez stares at it in fascination and Elias gets the crazy feeling that she’s going to put it into her mouth and chew it.

She notices how he’s looking at her and drops the hair into the wastepaper basket. ‘Excuse me, I’m a bit pernickety,’ she says.

Elias smiles noncommittally – he’s not really sure how to respond.

‘Well, I think we’ve finished for today,’ the principal says.

Elias stands up and leaves. The door doesn’t quite shut behind him. He turns to close it and glimpses the principal in her office.

She’s bent over the wastepaper basket, fishing something out with her long, thin fingers. She drops it into a little envelope and seals it.

Elias remains standing there, uncertain of what he just saw. After the last few days he can no longer trust his senses. If it hadn’t seemed so odd, he might have thought it was the strand of hair she’d just removed from his shirt.

The principal looks up. Her expression hardens. Before she manages a forced smile.

‘Was there something else?’ she asks.

‘No,’ Elias mumbles and shoves the door shut.

When it clicks securely behind him, he feels a disproportionate level of relief, as if he had just escaped with his life.

The school is empty and desolate. Only half an hour ago, when he went to the principal’s office, it was bustling with students. It feels unnatural.

Elias dials Linnéa’s number as his boots pound down the spiral staircase. She answers as he reaches the foot of the stairs and throws open the door to the ground-floor corridor.

‘Linnéa.’

‘It’s me,’ he says. He’s aching with anxiety.

‘Yes, it is,’ she answers at last, as she always does.

Elias relaxes slightly. ‘I feel so fucking bad about yesterday,’ he says quickly. ‘I’m sorry.’

He’d wanted to say it this morning as soon as he saw her, but he’d never had a chance. Linnéa had kept out of sight all day. And she had disappeared before the last lesson.

‘I see,’ is her only response.

Her voice doesn’t sound angry. Not even sad. It’s empty and resigned – as if she’d given up – and that frightens Elias more than anything else. ‘It’s not … I haven’t gone back to it. I’m not going to start again. It was just one joint.’

‘You said that yesterday.’

‘You didn’t seem to believe me.’

Elias walks along the rows of lockers, past the deserted group of hard wooden benches screwed to the floor, past the bulletin board, and still Linnéa hasn’t said anything. Suddenly he becomes aware of another sound. Footsteps that aren’t his.

He turns around. There’s nobody there.

‘You promised you’d quit,’ Linnéa’s voice says.

‘I know. I’m sorry. I let you down—’

‘No,’ Linnéa interrupts. ‘You’re fucking letting yourself down! You can’t be doing this for my sake. Then you’d never—’

‘I know, I know,’ he says. ‘I know all that.’ Elias reaches his locker and opens it, stuffs a few books into his black cloth bag and slams the thin metal door. He hears the other footsteps again before they go silent. He turns. Nothing there. Nobody at all. And yet he feels watched.

‘Why did you do it?’

She’d asked the same question yesterday, repeated it several times. But he hadn’t told her the truth. It was too scary. Too crazy. Even for a head case like him.

‘I told you. I was freaking out,’ he says, trying to keep his voice free of irritation, so as not to set things off again.

‘I know there’s something else.’

Elias hesitates. ‘Okay,’ he says softly. ‘I’ll tell you. Can I see you tonight?’

‘Okay.’

‘I’ll sneak out as soon as my mum and dad have gone to sleep. Linnéa?’

‘Yes?’

‘Do you hate me?’

‘I hate the fact that you’re asking such a stupid question,’ she hisses.

Finally. That’s the Linnéa he knows. Elias hangs up. He smiles as he stands there in the corridor. There’s hope. As long as she doesn’t hate him there’s hope. He has to tell Linnéa. She’s his sister in all but blood. He doesn’t have to go through this alone.

And at that moment the lights go out. Elias stiffens. A dim light filters its way through the windows at one end of the corridor. Somewhere close by a door shuts. Then silence settles in.

There’s nothing to be afraid of, he tries to assure himself.

He starts walking towards the exit. Forces himself to keep to a slow, steady pace. Not to give way to the panic rising inside him. He rounds the row of lockers on the corner.

Someone is standing there.

The caretaker. Elias has only