"Breathe Liv. Breathe and then you can tell me."
Thomas put every effort into not betraying how eager he was to know what was wrong, what had happened, why she looked at him like everyone she had ever loved had just been brutally murdered right in front of her.
"Can we g-go? Please can we go now? I have to go."
He shook his head slowly, confused but then she grimaced, her expression twisting into one of even more devastation and the pieces started to fall into place. The ripped open dress and the red marks on her arms and neck and down her chest and all heat left his body. Somebody had tried... tried to touch her, touch and...
"Who?"
He posed the question as curtly as possible to make it easier for her to answer and for him to deduce who's murder to start plotting. Liv just shook her head quickly and he let her breathe some more. Still she pressed herself against him, hiding her face in the cavity between his shoulder and chin. He shrugged off his jacket without letting go of her and put it over her shoulders. More people were gathering around them, worried and curious. Slowly, she tilted her face upwards. She mouthed the name.
"Lars."
Wilma was running up to them and he attempted to transfer Liv over to her arms instead but Liv refused, clung onto him, speaking urgently.
"No. No, please. What are you going to do?"
"I'm not sure."
Thomas perceived his own voice as distant.
"No. Stay here. Please, don't go anywhere", she pleaded.
The sensation of wringing eels of anger inside him faded just slightly as he felt her clutch him tighter and perceived the raw panic in her voice.
"Alright, I won't."
Alice was there now too, giving him a questioning, troubled look. Liv must have caught sight of her as well because she folded again and scrunched up her face in anxiety. She looked as if though she might faint.
"You need to rest, Liv. Everything else can wait. Just tell me what I need to know and then you can rest."
She shook her head again.
"I'm going to ruin everything", she whispered.
"He's already ruined it and you know that", he whispered back through his teeth.
"Thomas, what is going on?"
Alice's mother walked up to them and he felt Liv tense up yet again. The tall, authoritative woman had never looked so casually threatening. Thomas suddenly realised how odd this must look to everyone around, him and Liv embracing and whispering to each other like little kids. Liv was deathly pale and looked impossibly weak but still she stood on her own now, just his arm around her for support.
"Where's your husband, Mikaela?", he heard himself ask the woman in front of him, with an unfamiliar edge to his voice.
She seemed surprised.
"He's around. Do you need his help with anything? Liv, honey?"
Liv was facing away from her, eyes closed, shaking her head slowly.