People of Mars by Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli Page B

him like that.
    But he ignored her
question. “Hassan is your fucking obsession. I don’t wanna be
caught in your crossfire. Enough. I’m outta here.” He moved his
arms as a sign of surrender.
    “Tell me, what
happened?” She got closer to him, taking his face in her hands. It
was soaked and cold.
    He didn’t stop her,
but remained rigid. He appeared to be out of his senses. “He tried
to kill me out there,” he shouted, pointing to an undefined spot on
his right. He almost whined.
    “Rob, Rob,” Anna
called him, forcing him to look her in the eye. “You’re safe now.
Breathe. Tell me everything.”
    “He sabotaged my
equipment.” He was panting.
    “Think, why would he
do that? It’s absurd.”
    Robert appeared to
calm down. He watched her in silence for a moment. “You tell me
why.” His voice’s tone was quiet now, sharp.
    Anna held her breath.
What was he talking about? How could he know?
    “Do you think I’m
completely blind? Or just stupid?”
    “You’re fucking
paranoid, Green,” Hassan started off, while he entered the room.
Unlike Robert, he wasn’t wearing his suit anymore.
    The latter pushed back
Anna’s hands brutally and hurled himself at him. But Hassan blocked
his arms.
    “ If I wanted to kill you …” he hissed. “We wouldn’t
be having this conversation, because you’d already be dead.”
    Robert tried to free
himself, pointlessly.
    “And anyway I do know
more creative and reliable ways to succeed, without having to rely
upon your ineptitude.”
    Unable to utter a
word, she watched them terrified. She had never seen so much hatred
and verbal violence since the beginning of the mission. She was
afraid that, whatever she did, she might make the situation
worse.
    Then Hassan let him
go.
    “Fuck you,” Robert
inveighed against him and, without losing eye contact with the
other man, backed off with an awkward pace towards the door. And he
went out as quickly as he had entered.
    “You are a bastard.”
Anna regretted the words the very moment Hassan turned to her,
fixing his furious gaze on her.
    “ If I’m a bastard, what are you ?”
    She felt as if she had
been stabbed by that unexpected statement, by the maliciousness
with which it had been expressed; she was unable to answer back
even when he walked on and stopped in front of her. Then, as if to
react to an imminent threat, she raised her hand to slap him.
    But he blocked it mid air. “Let me understand.
I’ve really become the subject of all your outbursts , haven’t I?”
    Caught by surprise,
she didn’t dare reply.
    “This entire situation
is your fault, you know?”
    What the hell was he
talking about?
    “You play the bosom
buddy with him, for years. All that cuddling and massaging … but
you won’t put out. And then he loses his head.” He grinned,
sarcastic. He seemed pleased by the sound of his own voice.
    “ Who says you’re the only subject of my outbursts?”
Why the hell didn’t she shut up? She was alone with him, he was blocking her, holding her arm,
and she continued to provoke him. She was really asking for
it.
    Hassan appeared to
consider her statement for some long seconds, maybe undecided on
the best way to punish her. Then all of a sudden he started
laughing out loud.
    All useless. He hadn’t
believed her.
    “ You and brother Rob?” And he laughed again, but without releasing his grip
on her. “Sometimes you can be really witty, little
Anna.”
    She tried to take
advantage of his hilarity to free herself, but with no result.
    “You’re hurting
me.”
    Hassan stopped
laughing and resumed studying her with his dark, inscrutable eyes.
His fingers relaxed so that she wouldn’t feel any pain, but not
enough to let her go.
    “There’s one thing you
should know well. Among all of you there’s only one person I would
never intentionally hurt … you.”
    Anna stopped
struggling and decided to look at him again. Every part of him
expressed a sense of menace. But not his eyes. They