“I . . . was trying to write something . . . ,” he says apologetically, gesturing clumsily toward the pen and blank sheet of paper on the table.

Benji says nothing. The cabin is cold, but the teacher is wearing a thin white linen shirt. It’s hanging loose outside his trousers, crumpled like Sunday-morning hair; he smells of warm skin and fresh coffee. Benji opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. He looks around the cabin; all the clothes are gone, all personal belongings removed. Perhaps the teacher detects a note of criticism in Benji’s gaze, because he mumbles embarrassedly, “I’m not as brave as you, Benjamin. I’m not the sort of person who stays and fights.”

There’s still a deep mark in the front door made by the knife. Benji reaches out his hand, touches his skin one last time. Whispers, “I know.”

The teacher holds his hand to his cheek, very briefly, closes his eyes, and says, “Call if you ever want . . . ever want to be somewhere else. Maybe things could have been different for us . . . somewhere else.”

Benji nods. Perhaps they could have been, somewhere else. Something more.

* * *

When the teacher gets into his car, he finds himself thinking of a quote by some philosopher: “Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.” He tries to remember who wrote it. Albert Camus, perhaps? He occupies his mind with this as he drives through Beartown, along the road, and out of the forest, because if he concentrates hard enough on those words, all the other feelings can’t overwhelm him and stop him from seeing the road ahead of him.

* * *

Far behind the car Benjamin Ovich gets onto his bicycle and sets off in a different direction. Perhaps he’ll be free one day. But not today.

* * *

Just as Hed Hockey makes it 4–0 toward the end of the second period, four boys from Hed sneak across the stand. They’re just schoolkids, that’s why they were given the job, because no one would suspect them. They’re not even wearing red jerseys, so they don’t attract attention. They’re carrying garbage bags, specially smuggled in during a practice of the boys’ team late yesterday evening. They’re going to throw the contents of the bags at the enemy. When the time is right, when the souls of the Beartown fans are at the breaking point, to push them over the edge.

A lot of people in the red part of the rink will say that this is just part of the game, purely symbolic, just hockey. Maybe even “just a joke.” Just the sort of thing you do to hurt your opponents and get under their skin. Conquer. Destroy. Annihilate.

The boys have managed to sneak along the side of the rink, far too close to the Beartown fans’ standing area, before someone finally notices them. But it’s too late by then. The boys pull dildos and other sex toys from the bags, one after the other, hundreds of them. Vibrators rain down on the men in black jackets, hitting their hunched forms like missiles. And from the red stand at the other end of the rink the chanting rings out again, more hateful, more threatening:

* * *

“QUEERS! SLUTS! RAPISTS! QUEERS! SLUTS! RAPISTS!”

* * *

We can say what we like about Teemu Rinnius, because he says whatever he likes about us. In his experience every discussion of violence reveals how hypocritical almost everyone is. If you were to ask him, he’d say that most men and women aren’t violent and that they believe this is because their “morals” stop them. Teemu has one word for them: “Liars.” Would they really not be violent if they could? When other drivers mess around with them? When people mess around with them at work? When people mess around with their wives in the pub or their kids at school or their parents in nursing homes? How many thousands of times does the average mortgage-paying Labrador owner dream of being the sort of person who really doesn’t give a damn? Teemu is convinced that ordinary people’s lack of violence has nothing to do with morals and that they would be only too happy to hurt people if they thought they could get away with it. The only reason they’re not violent is that violence isn’t an option for them.

They can’t fight, they don’t know anyone with the strength or the weight of numbers or the influence. If they did, they’d get out of their cars and lay into the idiot blowing his horn, beat up the dad at the parents’ meeting who insulted their family, push that cocky waiter up against the wall and force him to eat the bill. Teemu is sure of that.

When he and Vidar were young, the brothers learned to hate one phrase more than all the others. They got called plenty of things: “Skint bastards!” “Thieves!” But it was “Whore’s kids” that hit them hardest. And it showed, so all the kids at school used that one more than the others. Teemu and Vidar had the same mother but different fathers, and when one brother is blond and the other dark, it’s an open invitation in every schoolyard. They fought until everyone shut up, but some words never stop echoing inside. Whore’s kids. Whore’s kids. Whore’s kids. Whore. Whore. Whore.

* * *

Now Teemu and Vidar are standing in the rink next to Spider and Woody. Spider, who got whipped in the shower with wet towels and called a “queer” when he was little. Woody, who was prepared to get onto a plane as a teenager to fight anyone he could find in the country where his cousin had been raped, before Teemu dragged him back home.

They’re no saints, they haven’t got hearts of gold, and most of the worst things said about them are true. But when Woody went to Teemu back in the spring to say the Pack should stand up against Kevin Erdahl, the best player their cherished club has ever seen, Teemu agreed with him, because he knew what people were calling Maya Andersson at school.

* * *

And now the red fans at the other end of the rink are chanting “QUEERS! SLUTS! RAPISTS!”

* * *

The Hed fans don’t know any of this. They’re just trying to shout the worst insults they can think of, anything they think will hurt, that will get under the skin of anyone with a bear on his or her chest. They succeed. As soon as the shower of dildos starts to hit the men in black jackets, eight of them set off down the stands. They take their jackets off, and eight other men in white shirts pull the jackets on and take their places. The security guards never notice Teemu, Vidar, Spider, Woody, and four others disappearing into a corridor, through a door, down into the basement.

* * *

Violence isn’t an option for most people. But the Pack aren’t most people.

* * *

Leo Andersson is twelve years old, and he’ll never forget when he heard Teemu Rinnius turn to Spider and say, “Get the guys. Just the hard core.” And how Teemu gave an almost invisible signal with a short nod, and seven men immediately set off behind him. The hard core, the central unit within the Pack, the most dangerous of them all.

Leo saw other men put their black jackets on and block the guards’ view as the hard core left the stand and ran toward a door in a dark corridor beside the janitor’s storeroom. There is a basement beneath the rink in Hed, most people don’t even know it exists, but a couple of weeks ago there was trouble with the lights and a group of electricians was brought in. One of them had to go down into the basement because he said there was a circuit breaker down there. The janitor didn’t think for a moment that there was anything suspicious about that. The electrician was careful not to show his bear tattoo.

* * *

Leo Andersson will never forget how much he wished he could have gone into that basement with them. Some boys dream of becoming professional hockey players. They stand and watch and wish they could be out on the ice. But some boys have other dreams. Other idols.

* * *

They head through the corridor in the basement of the arena. Eight of them. The very toughest of them. Nothing should be able to stop them, but one man does. He’s standing on his own in the middle of their path. He has no friends with him, no weapons, and he’s jammed a broom through the handles of the doors behind him to stop anyone opening them from the other side. Benji has locked himself into a corridor with them of his own volition.

* * *

He didn’t want to come here. There was just nowhere else he’d rather be.

* * *

He cycled from the campsite to the rink in Hed, through the snow with the wind in his eyes. When he crept inside, the game had reached the final minutes of the second period, and all eyes were on the ice. Benji looked up at the scoreboard. 4–0 for Hed. He heard the chanting, saw the red sea of hate on one side and the black jackets on the other. He saw the shower of dildos. While everyone else looked on in shock, Benji just looked around for a way to get down through the stands. As soon as Teemu and Vidar and six others took their jackets off, Benji already knew where they were going.