Sitting at the edge of the bed, hunched over, she took another drag off her cigarette. She was completely naked but didn't mind since she had been that way all night. Mimi slept soundly in the bed, covering more than her half. But that wasn't the reason Salander was awake. No. She had another nightmare about Zala and Niedermann. She tried to dig herself out of her grave with her hands but they started bleeding and she was getting no where. She reached in her pocket for something to help her dig and came up empty handed. She tried to dig faster but it seemed like time slowed down as she slowly started hyperventilating. She would never make it to the top. It was the end. A tear ran down her face but she refused to give up. Refused to just die. She dug harder and finally broke the surface. Her lungs filled up with air as she gasped when she reached the surface. She pulled her body from the dirt and crawled under a tree to catch her breath. Now she had to get revenge. Now she had to kill Zala.
She used the tree to push her self to her feet and steady her. She wobbled a few times and the limped slowly towards the barn. It was agonizing, walking while her bullet wounds just throbbed and gushed out blood, but she would make it. She had to. She might not be able to kill Zala today but she could regroup and recuperate and come back with a better plan. She sat down near a wall in the barn and looked around for something to help her put pressure on her wounds. Instead what she saw was an axe laying against the wall, and that's when she heard it. Someone was coming towards the barn.
The person was very slow and sounded like they were scraping something against the ground. It had to be Zala with his cane. The sound was unmistakable. She tried to stand up only to fall. Finally she pushed herself up and wrapped her hands around the axe. She tried picking it up but it put too much pain on her bullet wounds and her arms felt to heavy. So she dragged it to the door and waited. When he came in she swung the axe, and missed. It wasn't Zala that had been walking up but Niedermann. He took a gun out of his pocket and shot her in the head again finally killing her. They decided to burn her body this time to make sure she stayed dead. When they threw her corpse into the fire she woke up in a cold sweat, looking around the room. No she wasn't back at the farm fighting for her life, but in bed with Mimi after one incredible night of sex. She couldn't figure out why she was still having these dreams. She had won hadn't she. She had beat Zala and he was dead now, he could no longer hurt her. So why did she still dream of him and her half brother?