#ee entry

It was all so wrong.

You weren't supposed to return to your hometown. You were supposed to have broken out into the big, wide world. It had so much more to offer you beyond this stupid city.

You worked to the bone in high school to keep up in academics. You were never good at socializing. After a while, you stopped trying. You kept your head bent over your textbooks. You allowed connections to wither in favor of academic achievement. You were successful for the most part. You managed to move to another town for university on a scholarship. For a few blissful years, you were free, untethered. Life is laid out before you in an enticing banquet of opportunity.

It wasn't always perfect. You struggled with your own mental, emotional, and financial setbacks. Getting older only made you worse at interacting with others. The complex, head-scratching art of forming genuine relationships got more remote. Interactions with others made you feel alien. You constantly overthought every movement. So you stopped going out. You hated and regretted instantly whatever fell from your mouth. So you stopped talking.

The effort exhausted you. You kept ignoring calls and texts until your phone fell silent. You kept yourself wrapped in aching memories of your childhood as an excuse. You pushed everyone at an arm's length. You kept going until you didn't know how to be near anyone.

Despite everything, you made it work. For a little while. You were like an old cartoon. You kept running off the cliff; you could keep going, going, going, and you wouldn't fall as long as you didn't look down.

Then your Grandmother got ill.

Your parents were part of your life for a bit. But that was a long, painful story. Your early childhood remained a bottomless black pool at the edge of your mind. You tried to steer clear of it, for your sanity's sake.

Since you were thirteen, you and your grandmother were thick as thieves. She raised you. She was your best friend and knew everything about you. She was keen to know how bad you wanted to leave your hometown. So she didn't send for you at first. She let you fool around and live your stupid young life until she was barely clinging to this earth.

It was as if the engine that kept you existing as a regular human sputtered and died. You dropped everything for her. You quit your job in your new city. Then you moved home to take care of her, only for her to pass a few months later. Despite everything, you didn't regret for a moment being there with her as death collected her in her sleep.

After it was over, you did not leave your childhood bedroom for days. Hours of sleeping and staring at the ceiling. You sat listless under the pelting water of a shower. The water turned lava hot until it was icy cold. Mundane gray spools of unwinding time.

The world had been unkind to you and would continue to be unkind. The war had ended. Then the economy stagnated. A classic symptom of the good old complex short-circuiting without its purpose. You had nothing. No job, just a bit of money, and your old Grandmother's house. Nothing to sell, the house filled with things of nostalgic value only to you. Leaving was too hard, but staying was driving you insane.

Months blended into one another. Mundane gray spools of unwinding time. In the cruel summer, you could not bear to leave the house. As the year slouched towards winter, you could not stand to be home. You spent long days out in the library, lurking in stores. You bought nothing, read everything. You charged your phone in cafes, dozed on park benches. You lingered at a diner at all hours.

The forest just outside of town, you had stumbled upon by accident. You didn't stray from the popular, easiest trails. You never stayed longer than when the sun had begun to dip from its highest point. To give yourself more time as the days shortened, you began to slip out there in the mornings.

One day, something dark and soft had fluttered onto the trail you took. At first, in the distance, you thought it might be some injured animal. You walked closer to discover it was cloth. Hand-sewn seams with cut-out red streaked eyeholes. You didn't have time to be chilled by the ominous thing. You caught a glimpse of that hulking figure on the ridge. It was pure luck. He was barely visible. A dark outline perched on the ridge sloping along one side of the path.

Just that once, you stepped off the trail.

It had been a week or two since then. You never saw that man before or since. He was literally a giant: It would have been easy to spot him anywhere. Maybe he worked on the base and lived there too? It made sense; he wasn't local, or at least his accent implied so. The military base was large and attracted international attention. People worldwide flocked to it. But they usually remained on the sprawling army base that civilians could not enter.

Admittedly, the clear distinction between him — his height, especially — and the population of your hometown snagged you, drew you in. You let your mind wander about where he might have come from, what he was doing here. As you mentally reexamined the encounter, questions had begun to crop up: what exactly was he doing up there, holding that gun so tightly? Was it even hunting season this time of year? You didn't care to know about such things. You abhorred violence, and guns made you nervous. Your thoughts inevitably trailed out into darker things, possibilities that sent shivers through you…

The cold slates of his eyes as he donned the mask (try as you might, you couldn't remember any features other than the flaming auburn hair and his blue eyes). The memory suggested something deep inside you - an animal instinct. A little pinprick of alertness, of danger. He smiled - at least you think he did. His voice was soft as cotton, with a hoarseness implying his usual tone was much rougher.

Ja, Danke.

I was looking for this. I thought it was lost.

It's nice, right?

And, oh, those scars on his big, big hands, the columns of fingers gently picking up the cloth from your own hand…

A bell jingled, disrupting your fantasy. It was the sound of the diner's employee shutting the door. She turned to click off the humming 'Best Coffee in Town' neon light perched in the window. Then she flipped the sign so the Closed side faced outward. The waitress then glanced at you pointedly. Another server behind her was sweeping and putting up chairs.

Embarrassed, you stood up with a scrape of the chair behind you. Stupid, inconsiderate you. A leech on these people's time and patience. You had lost yourself in your daydreams again and sighed softly.

You were buoyed by how oddly pleasant that interaction was, with that giant in the woods, if a little strange. You preferred letting your thoughts slip to him and his mystery rather than the plethora of problems screaming for attention in your life.

"Goodnight," You said softly in passing to the waitress, who grunted and opened the door, closed and locked it behind you with a soft click.

The parking lot was almost deserted, save the cars you figured were the employees, and your grandmother's - yours, now - old gray hatchback, fallen leaves skirting over the roof, fogged yellow headlights.

You pressed the button on your key fob, but nothing clicked in the door. You had to take the key and physically turn it in the lock to open the driver's door. When you did, no interior dash lights came on.

God damn it.

You must have been stupid and left a light on. You slid into the driver's seat, the door still open, one of your feet still on the pavement. Your phone informed you that the emergency mechanic shops had closed, and a tow would overdraft your bank account so severely you wouldn't be eating for a few days.

There was no one to call, either.

You could beg one of the diners' employees for a ride home, but they could be going the opposite direction. But how could you? You dreaded the thought of them hating you since you went there so often and had previously kept them from going home with your loitering. The walk home would at least be an hour, and the only light left in the sky was a blood orange streak on the horizon.

You sighed shakily and placed your head on the wheel. This small inconvenience fell upon your shoulders like a ton of bricks, bringing with it an avalanche of repressed emotion you'd stored in yourself for months prior. It was just too much, the cold reality. It seared your chest, hot and painful.

You swallowed thickly, willing yourself, urging yourself fervently not to cry, but the tears came anyway, warm and salty as they slid onto your trembling lips and dimpled chin.

You were alone, and that loneliness had finally come to collect - a gunpowder gray wave, washing over you, swallowing you up.

You wanted to — huh?

You felt a prickle at the back of your neck. Something instinctual and innate, muted but distinct. Presence.

Something was watching you.

You lifted your head and blinked through tears, and for a moment you thought for sure you were going insane.

The giant from the woods stood there in the parking lot.

You blinked rapidly, and he remained, looking over at you from the side of a humongous, darkly covered truck that matched his size.

He was wearing his mask—was he cold?—his dark clothes blending into the night. But he was real, solid.

"It's you?" you said stupidly, not having the mind capacity to say much else with how stunned you were.

He blinked, tilting his head as if he had just recognized you, though just a tad delayed. "Well, well, we meet again." The giant said airily. His eyes wandered about you as you sat in a rumpled mess in the driver's seat. He blinked slowly.

You tucked your head down and scrubbed your eyes rapidly with the loose sleeve of your jacket. White hot with embarrassment. But somehow seeing him made the faucets behind your eyes ease up; the floodgates had opened, and it was too late, big tears falling faster than you could wipe them away. "Uh-" You breathed in sharply. Your face crumpled as you eked out a choked sob.

For being so large, he was bizarrely quick and quiet on his feet. In what seemed like seconds, he had crossed the lot and was  inches from you. The giant radiated warmth from his body - you could feel it even from where you sat. He tutted at your tears.

"Easy, easy," The giant said. He was silent for a moment before adding quietly, "Did I frighten you?"

You shook your head no and heard him release a breath of pity, or perhaps relief.

"Du armes," The giant sighed. "Please don't cry, Engelchen."

Still, you hiccuped into your hand, and your shoulders shook with sobs.

His eyes narrowed with piteous concern. One of his thick arms held the car door open, the other leaning against the roof on the other side of the opening. You planted both your feet on the pavement, facing him. His huge body caged you there, close enough to smell him - plain body soap, unremarkable detergent.

"Take a deep breath." He instructed in a low voice.

You haltingly obeyed, letting in a shuddering breath smothered behind your wet fingertips, looking at him through wet clumped eyelashes.

He was staring right back. Expectant.

After a minute or two more of pathetic weeping, you were finally able to choke it down, sniffling into your wet hand. You kept it clasped to your face, deeply horrified that the man before you might see the disgusting visage of tears and mucus that smeared your nose and lips.

Clarity from your calm nerves led you to realize that you had just broken down in front of a stranger. Of all strangers, too, it had to be him. You could've died of embarrassment.

"That's it," He encouraged, words in a soft tone that sent a trill up your spine.

"S-sorry," You whispered hoarsely into your hand, using your elbow to wipe the disgusting excess off your face. You looked down to hide your splotchy cheeks, tucking your chin to your neck.

He removed his arm from the car's roof and crouched, the heels of his massive black boots lifting slightly, the canvas of his pants stretched over the columns of his thighs.

"There is nothing to apologize for." He was so tall, he only had to tilt his head slightly, craning his neck to urge your eyes to meet his. "What is bothering you?"

"My — my car isn't starting." Airing the problem to him immediately made it sound childish and stupid. "And, and—" What could you say? That you were unemployed, stuck in a house you dreaded in a town you hated? That you were crying like a little child over your dead grandparent?

How terribly lonely you were.

You sniffled. Your throat was too constricted to speak, anyway. So you just faced the giant miserably. You looked anywhere but his face. His throat was obscured by the black cloth of the mask that draped down to his shoulders. Even beneath autumn layers, his body was stunningly built, his jacket clearly stretched over muscle. The skin on his hands, which you did see, was rough as the pavement, calloused, and scarred. What was a broken-down car compared to anything he'd been through?

You shrugged. "It's — I can't—"

He shushed you, his fingers ever so slightly nudging your calf. You instinctively tucked your knee up and away from the sensation - making yourself smaller to give him more room, not because you didn't like it. Truthfully, it sent a zing up your leg that embarrassed you. His hand retracted again immediately, giving you the space without question.

He turned his masked head to look at the front of your car, then up and around the door you were framed in, then back to you.

"May I look?" He asked softly.

You blinked, nodded once. There weren't many other options.

You traded places with him. Your car comically shrunk, his great form having to adjust your seat all the way back and down even to slide halfway in, his cloth-wrapped head ducking down, pressing this and that. He turned to you and held his hand out.

Stupidly, you almost put your own hand in his, your fingers hovering above his palm, but — you hesitated, confused. Is that what he wanted?

"Keys," He said patiently.

"Oh," You wanted to kick yourself hard. Why were you jumping to touch him, you weirdo? "Sorry." You scrambled to put your keys into his hands, then tucked your arms to your chest. It was getting cold. The dusk layered the world with gloom.

He pulled his hand to him, and you saw him take a moment to bemusedly thumb through the little charms you decorated your keys with. He put them in the ignition, and the engine did nothing despite his turning the key. Completely dead. He removed himself from the seat and popped the hood of your car with ease, his long torso leaning a bit as he inspected the innards of your vehicle.

He grunted, poking here and there, his eyebrows creased into the eyeholes as they knit together in his concentration. You frowned, coming closer. You looked, too, around the muscle of his arm. Cars weren't your thing. You had no idea what you were looking at. He harrumphed. That didn't sound good.

"I'm fucked, aren't I?" you blurted out.

His large arms rested at the lip of the open hood, his eyes searching. "Not yet. I think I can fix it. But I will need to go home. Get tools," He explained.

You huffed, biting down on your lip, tears threatening to return. He seemed to sense you were working yourself up again and snapped the hood of your car shut. "Now, now." He dared to put a massive hand on your shoulder. "I can take care of it for you, Engel, no problem. "

"But why?" You cried, hesitating suspiciously at his warmth. You stiffened beneath the massive paw of his, swallowing up your shoulder.

How long had it been since anyone touched you?

You really just couldn't believe in the kindness, after the earth seemed determined to kick you down for months now.

The man shrugged, his hand falling back to his side. "You helped me."

"…I guess,"As much as exhaustion tugged at you and you wanted nothing more than to throw this issue into someone else's hands…something still pinched at you. A sensation in the back of your head you couldn't quite identify, ringing bells going off. "But… I don't… even know you."

"Easy fix," The big man answered evenly. "I'm König."

"König." You echoed, and König nodded his head, delighted at your correct pronunciation.

You relaxed some, smiled faintly. You still felt cortisol hot and blooming in your chest, but König's presence, although intimidating, was making you feel just a bit better. Especially now that you know his name.

By then, any light in the sky had snuffed itself out completely. The streetlights had flickered on, casting pools of yellow light onto the pavement.

Before you could think of something to say, König spoke first. "I have something to do early in the morning tomorrow. I can bring my tools and come fix it after. But now, I will take you home. Come."

Your shoulders dropped. You were officially without a car for at least the next day. It didn't sound as if he'd take no for an answer, either, and you relented. "If it's not too much trouble…" You muttered to his broad back. In that moment, you were too distracted by your misfortune to think further about getting in a car with a man you barely knew.

At this point, he was the one you knew best in this fucked up town. Pathetic.

You struggled to convey your gratefulness. Again, it wasn't like you had much of a choice.

With one last sidelong glance, you left your car and followed him to his truck. It was black and waxed and actually looked big enough for him. He went ahead and politely opened the door for you. The truck was lifted, and you had to take his hand to hoist yourself into the passenger seat.

Quite suddenly, a trill of a phone rang into the air. Both of you turned your heads to the sound. It rang once, twice. König was frozen, still holding your hand. His attention and hands left you. He closed the door before you could ask anything. You saw him reach into his jacket and take out the offending cellphone. He answered it in another language. German, maybe? He walked around to the back of the car, his voice low and gruff, practically growling into the phone. Even in another language, you could hear he was annoyed.

So you were right - he did soften his voice when speaking to you. You turned back, looking around. His car smelled new, or clean, at the very least. It was exceptionally tidy. You would be surprised if he wasn't in the military at this point; he was so neat. It was empty, also…except for the shotgun. It rested in its leather holster, laid across the backseat. Now, you stared and caught another detail - a worn box, tucked beneath the seat. Bullets. It made something surface in your mind, a soft revelation from dark churning waters.

He opened the door, and you snapped back forward. At the last minute, something kept him from opening it further, but you could hear it with a bit more clarity. Definitely German.

"Morgen Mittag. Ja. Ich werde da sein," he barked into the phone and hung up.

Konig opened the car door wider. He settled into the driver's seat before he put his keys into the ignition. The engine turned over. As he closed the door, the overhead lights dimmed. Something clunked loudly as the doors automatically locked, sealing you in there with him in the dark of his car.

He did not excuse himself or mention anything about the call. But... it appeared the call had genuinely taken him off guard. He stared ahead, holding onto the wheel with one flexing arm, the phone on the flat of his broad thigh. Thinking. Like he'd forgotten you were there. The air about him changed; it tightened, perceptibly tense as he turned something over in his mind. Who was on the other side of that call, working him up like this?

"König," you said his name slowly. At first, you weren't sure how to say it, but then, "Why are…why did you come here, to this diner?"

König said nothing at first. "I like the coffee here." He replied flatly.

Then his great torso turned, his broad chest faced you. Anything you might have replied or asked further died in your throat. He abruptly leaned closer, one of his hands reaching to your face, closer — closer—

Past your shoulders. He grabbed the seat belt strap behind you and pulled it over your body, clicking it into place. He tugged it until it was flush against you, eliciting a soft, confused noise that slipped involuntarily past your lips. He grunted in satisfaction, then turned and did the same for himself. In smooth motions, he shifted into reverse.

His other long arm draped over your headrest. He took care to look as he pulled out of the parking spot.

"I like their food, too. I was craving it. Bad luck, but good luck also," He took this moment to tilt his head to you, his eyes smiling. He straightened his body before changing the gears again. "Good luck, to be able to see you again."

König lifted the phone from his lap. Without another word, he swiped for a second with his thumb, then handed it to you - an open new contact screen. The sections for phone number, address, and first and last name were all empty, waiting to be filled in.

An instinctive no pressed against the back of your lips, but it stalled out. Not because of König. Were you really ready to face those gloomy hallways, that cold bed? You took the phone from his big hands.

Your thumbs hovered over the keyboard. You tamped down the nagging caution coiling at the edges of your thoughts.

He was being kind. He was helping you. He was returning a favor.

Although it seemed a bit disproportionate to the one you did for him. Perhaps your meltdown embarrassed him. He probably thought you needed help.

Was he wrong?

When you filled it out, König took it back without locking the phone. You watched him read over it, studying your address and, to your surprise, clicked where you'd put your name and swiped through deliberately with his pointer finger. He added an angel emoji and a smiling yellow emoticon with the halo.

Engel.

You mulled over this as König pulled onto the street. You both were off into the night, strapped in place, locked in König's truck.

----

translations:

Engel / Engelchen: Angel / Little Angel

He did not call. He didn't text.

Nothing. For weeks.

It was as if König had never existed. The only proof you weren't hallucinating the giant from the woods was his number saved in your phone and the strong, clean smell of your car — he must have used some heavy-duty stuff — but even then, after a few days, your nose adjusted.

Your phone stayed silent, except for debt collectors. For some reason, you couldn't pluck up the courage to reach out. You were a grown-up with thumbs and a mouth too. It would have been easy to text or call, but … the way he'd left you there in the diner stopped you. He seemed disturbed by whatever was on the other end of the phone, and it had to be important for him to leave so… abruptly.

That’s what you told yourself, at least.

He was a busy man, with his 'special consulting,' as he called it. Or maybe it was something else. He didn't tell you much about his life, after all. Besides, he'd let you know when he was free, right? Then again, you barely knew him. You argued with yourself in circles until you exhausted yourself.

It wouldn't have been so significant if he hadn't gotten so close to you so quickly, with such stunning ease. If he hadn't stirred you up with sweet words, his addictive attention, his unusual selfless behavior, and his generosity. You fixated on him and replayed his light touches, both distressing and alluring. Had you not been so lonely and touch-starved, none of this would have affected you so deeply. The brief moment you two shared struck with unexpected force, haunting the following days and echoing in every solitary moment.

The bathroom mirror offered no answers as to what König saw that made his eyes light up like that. You weren't sure. Pity, maybe—you were a dreadful sight.

Grief hadn't been kind to your skin, your neglected hair, or the wounded-looking flesh beneath your eyes.

Whenever you saw him again, it couldn't be like this.

In increments, you returned to the habit of washing your face in the morning and at night, as before your grandmother had gotten sick. Instead of just sitting in the shower dissociating, you picked up the washcloth and scrubbed your body, shampooed your hair, and worked through the painful snarls until you tamed it into something bordering decent.

It made you feel somewhat better, but it didn't cure everything. A constant weight still hung in your chest. Fantasies and daydreams of König couldn't keep reality from crushing in. You spent long hours paralyzed beneath the blankets—when you could bear to be in the creaky house at all. Outside, you kept searching the treeline for him.

Odd things started happening, especially when you left the house. The news reported a couple of recent break-ins in the area. The neighborhood, like so many others, was deteriorating as the military base continued to sponge up the community’s resources.

Just like in the parking lot, you got that same prickling on your neck. You'd glance up, childishly half-dreaming it was König staring with his baby blue eyes, leaning on his truck. It wasn't.

It was quiet on the street, but that feeling of being watched returned. You turned your head and glanced across the street, up to the corner. Nothing. Just cars and trash cans, or the occasional jogger or dog walker.

You attributed it to your foggy brain. What reason would anyone have to watch you, anyway?

One evening at the diner, you sat with your chin resting in your hand, tearing apart a napkin in the same booth. Your favorite booth. The one you shared with König. You remembered what he'd said clear as a bell.

Endure together.

Let someone in to be with you.

To be near you is—

The same waitress poured your coffee and left the sugar and cream in a bowl beside you.

I like you sweet.

You needed to do something. Something, anything. A distraction.

"Um, excuse me," you said to the waitress, who glanced at you. "I have, uh, maybe a silly question."

⋆˙⟡ ⋆.˚ ⊹₊⟡ ⋆

You left the diner just as the sky faded warm and peachy around a blazing sunset. Winter was approaching, freezing the air and prematurely dimming the light.

In your passenger seat sat a blank job application from the diner. You decided to expel the mysterious giant from your mind and focus on the job prospect. You remembered a dark sweater that would match the uniform perfectly, though you couldn't find it at first. You parked and unlatched your trunk. He'd put all the garments you'd thrown everywhere in the car there, folded neatly.

How sweet.

How embarrassing.

Strangely, though, the sweater you'd been thinking about was missing. Fingering through the cloth, you then lifted the bundle entirely — and paused.

Beneath the folded clothes was a dried splotch of … something. Dark brown. Not too big, but definitely there. Scrubbed to the barest visibility, but… had it always been there? Your car had been a disaster, sure. But you couldn't recall spilling anything in the trunk before.

Well, whatever. It wouldn't be unusual for you to do so, some leaking groceries or a forgotten coffee cup. Maybe it had been your grandmother. You pressed the bundle of clothes to you and the paper application between your fingers, and closed the trunk. When you looked up, you got that eerie prickling feeling.

You glanced around. A house up, a car idled at the curb. It was notably more expensive than anything else on the street, with dark windows that reflected the streetlights that flickered on. The engine purred, and the exhaust curled white clouds.

Weird.

Hesitating a moment longer, you headed up the walkway and made sure to lock the door behind you.

The evening went on, and you spent a little while doomscrolling, switching between apps. Back in bed, with nothing but the quiet house, König crept into your thoughts again. You switched over to his contact. You'd never messaged him before.

Fuck it.

Trying not to overthink, you swiped up your keyboard. In the corner, the battery indicated you were low. Less than five percent. Time for quick thinking, before the urge passed you.

Hi. <3 Been thinking about u since—

backspace.

Hi :) Thank you so much again for helping me out that time. I want to repay y—

backspace, backspace.

Hey, thanks again for helping me out that time. Hope ur doing okay, since I haven't heard from you. I'm hoping that we can see each other-

Damn it. backspace.

Hey, K, hope that you're well. You should let me know if you're free sometime. Want to pay you back for the breakfast.

You hit send and threw your phone across the room. It’s fine; let it die. You didn't want to know if he responded. No one else would be calling you, anyway. With dinner and a hot shower, you'd forget all about it. You scampered to your fridge and opened it.

A carton of cream for your tea and expired eggs stared back at you.

Okay. Maybe only a shower and some tea.

You'd go shopping tomorrow, you promised yourself.

You closed your eyes and let the water wash over you, daydreaming of taking orders at the diner, when you heard a noise above the hissing shower head.

Another one. A thump. Louder. So loud you jumped. You lunged to turn the water off and listened.

Thump. There it was again.

Footsteps.

The floor creaked beneath them, distinct. You'd know; you hadn't heard another pair of feet walking around the house in months.

Your stomach dropped to your ankles.

Moving as silently as possible, you pushed the shower curtain back. Fear tightened its grip, slowing each step to a crawl. Every noise made you freeze, waiting for a heartbeat before you moved again. Your heart stuttered in your chest. Of course, your phone was in your bedroom—and dead, besides. From the counter, you snatched your towel and pressed it to your body like a feeble shield.

Desperately, you whipped your eyes around the bathroom. Nothing, except your grandmother's ancient hair dryer. You reached for it, snatched it up, and held it in trembling hands. The steam and your rapid breath, which you struggled to control, made you lightheaded and dizzy, with an animal awareness of what lurked behind the door. The steps came closer, heavy on the complaining wood, dampening on the rugs.

You remembered too late that you had locked your front door. You lived alone and were used to coming and going about the house as you pleased.

So the bathroom door was unlocked.

Slowly, the metal knob turned. Clicked. Blood roared in your ears. The door opened.

You did not recognize the man before you. Cold black eyes. A red wound of a mouth on sickly yellowed skin. As foul as he looked, he also could have been someone you passed by on the street and never noticed. Maybe you did, right past his sleek car with tinted windows.

With a shriek, you threw the heavy hair dryer with all your might. This momentarily distracted the man enough for you to shove past him.

But he was quicker.

The intruder snatched you by your hair, pulled you, and threw you into the wall. Pictures fell, and glass shattered. Still wet from your shower, you slipped to the ground with the wind knocked out of you. Even worse, one of the largest glass shards had dragged along your skin as you stumbled, slicing deep into your forearm.

You howled in pain.

Red hot flames shot up your shoulder, down your fingers. The nerves screamed. Blood, dark and hot, streaked down your elbow to splattering droplets onto the floor. Adrenaline had reared fiercely, and you kept struggling to get away. He approached slowly, and you kicked yourself back feebly. Your towel fell around your waist, forgotten as you clutched your ravaged arm.

The intruder crouched before you. Cold, froggish eyes. "Bist du seine hure?" He sneered, his voice stringy like wire. When you didn't respond but with hiccuping sobs, he continued coldly, "Wann kommt er nach hause?"

Your lip trembled as you stared at him. Your vision was spinning. He slammed your head against the wall, and the breath rushed from you again. He repeated himself.

"I-I dunno—" you sniffled, stuttering and trembling. "I—I don't understand—"

Your throat tightened as he produced a mean-looking knife that clicked open from a blade. "Stupid bitch."

That you did understand.

You hoped he'd kill you quickly, or you bled out before he decided to do anything else to you. The blade neared your face, and you closed your eyes, resigning yourself to seeing your grandmother again soon.

Nothing came. You opened your eyes, and the intruder had perked up, his eyes turning to the side.

Too late.

All your attacker could do was let out a choked noise as two massive gloved hands snatched him into the dark. There was a bit of struggle, but the intruder's body slammed onto the floor. He heaved, stunned. The hands yanked him by the scruff of his neck and slammed him again, hard enough to knock his head on the floor.

The last moments before you passed out happened in snapshots. A great knee, donned in canvas, kneeling on the intruder's back so hard he cried out. Then a pillow - embroidered and from your grandmother's couch - smashed over his head.

Your attacker didn't struggle long before a pistol with a silencer was aimed and shot a hole right through the pillow.

The intruder went limp. All was still.

The towel around your waist was warmed with your own blood. Your arm dropped to your lap. Your head went slack against your shoulder.

Exhaustion crashed over you. The adrenaline that had run through you snuffed out, leaving you trembling and hazy. You struggled to keep your eyes open.

Heavy boots approached you. Frightened, you struggled feebly and whimpered. With the last of your strength, you turned and pressed yourself flat against the wall. Long legs in canvas pants knelt before you. Above your head, someone let out a string of curses.

Three thick fingers took hold of your face and gruffly turned your heavy head to face forward.  You were met with wide blue eyes in blackout and a familiar mask. Cloth, red streaks.

You felt pressure on your numb arm. The towel was snatched from your body and wound around the stinging wounds. Rumbling in your ears. He was talking. His breath warmed your face. But you couldn’t hear what he was saying.

"K…K.." you choked.

A singular finger pressed to your lips and silenced you. Your consciousness was dwindling, but you saw blue begin to dapple the inside of the house through the blinds, sirens blaring, though they sounded far away, underwater.

The large man lifted himself, stiff with waiting. He — a great black smudge in your teary, half-conscious vision —stepped over you. You watched him peer through the blinds.

Beneath the pillow, blood was beginning to pool, slowly inching towards your cut-up feet. The sirens came and went. You were plunged in such dark that it did not make a difference when you closed your eyes.

---

This town you were raised in, with its advantageous location and ports, felt manufactured specifically for the purpose of holding a military. The civilian community had just grown around it. Eventually, like a plant competing for attention, it withered and was left behind. The military base ruled, a dominating, imposing, and hungry institution. It exhausted the community around it, sucking it dry of resources - shuttered buildings, boarded-up houses, food deserts. Empty strip malls where houseless folk - a lot of them veterans, actually - roamed around, crushing needles beneath their shoes.

It had gotten more dangerous since you'd gone and returned.

You leaned your head against the cool glass, watching the wretched night scenery flit by. The radio was off, and König didn't move to touch it. The only sound was the engine's growl, which was fine with you. It was a comfortable silence, which was something you didn't experience often. He seemed relaxed now, the phone call seemingly forgotten.

It was nice.

He drove carefully. He flipped on the turn signals, slowed down smoothly at red lights and stop signs. Offhandedly, you wondered if he was being considerate of you — big men like him, with their big trucks, did not normally behave this way on the road. Especially the military idiots.

You pushed the thought away. König was no idiot. It was stupid to think you were anything special to him, anyway. The little angel emojis he'd added next to your name were nothing. He was probably just being quirky or doing that to be funny. Someone as burly and masculine as him, who would tell him he couldn't?

Certainly not you.

The truck turned into your neighborhood and eventually came to a stop. You turned to look through the front window and blinked rapidly, as if out of a daze. Just like that, you were home.

You were overcome with abrupt self-consciousness. You glanced sideways at the dingy house, with its slouching frame and fogged windows. The yard was unkempt, the gutter clogged with leaves. You didn't want him to see the way you lived.

Maybe you could be quick and scuttle to your house and close the door before he could do anything.

"Well, thanks a lot," You chirped. "I'll get going now."

Before he could reach for your seatbelt again, you hurriedly pressed it open. Only then did you notice the side door did not give when you pulled the handle. A little animal streak of panic spiked. Was there some kind of child lock on it or something?

Or was he keeping you there?

König strolled around to your side and opened your door. He let you use his hand and arm to get out of the truck, sweetly and gentlemanly. You rubbed our fingers together when they fell back to your side. It did not shake off the sensation of how hard his arm muscles felt.

König walked you all the way to your door. The night sounds of crickets chirping lifted up into the cool air. If you didn't know better, you'd think he was walking you back from a date. Inexplicably, you felt your ears warm at this thought.

You both ascended the stairs in tandem. The porch light was not on. Your street was pretty poorly lit, so you both were drenched in darkness. You felt your pocket, then the other. Wait.

Where were your keys?

A tinkling jingle, and you looked up. König held them up between his huge fingers. They glittered in what sparse moonlight clung to the shadowy awning of the porch. He reached and took the hand, searching your pockets by the wrist, and pressed them into your palm.

You retracted your arm back to you. The calloused pads of his fingers relented against the soft skin of your wrist, lingering just a second longer. Because it was dark, he had to be careful when handing them to you. Right, of course. A few fumbling moments later, you managed to stick your key in the hole. You opened the door, and the black hallway yawned before you.

You didn't want to go inside, to the lonely bed, the creaking wood floor, and shifting walls. So you lingered, trying to think of something to say.

He beat you to it. "I will call you when I am done with my appointment." König folded his arms to his chest, drumming his fingers on his elbow and shifting his weight between his feet. "Then we will go together and repair your car."

You nodded, mustering enthusiasm. "I'll be ready." You promised. "Thank you, König. For— for everything."

His eyes were barely visible. The surrounding whites just barely indicated their presence in the dark mask. He blinked, his voice soft as feathers. You had to lean a bit to hear him. "Süßer Engelchen. You are welcome."

The syrupy sweetness of his voice and his beaming gaze made you fidgety. You absently scraped at the inside of your hand with the other hand's nails. You felt rushed with the urge to invite him inside. To take his hand and have him sit with you in the living room for a while.

"Well, goodnight!" You squeaked and sidestepped into the threshold. It was getting to be too much to even look at him.

"Goodnight," You heard the rumble of his voice just before the front door sealed with a click.

For a breathless moment or two, you leaned against the door. You listened. There came the clunk of the car door closing. The engine roared to life. It went, fading off down the street. Only then did you flick the light on. The room before you glared with overhead fan bulbs.

What a strange evening. With an exhausted sigh, you tossed your keys into the ceramic bowl you kept at the side of your door. But they didn't make the heavy clash they normally did. Confused, you turned to look. Everything looked normal at first, but then you noticed.

Your car key was missing.

Your consciousness came together piece by piece. When you fully woke, it was in total darkness.

Belatedly, you comprehended that your eyes were sealed shut; the eyelashes clumped together, sticky. It was too much effort to flex your face to pull them apart, so you didn't. Another immediate sensation was cold condensation on a solid rim, pressed to your cracked lips. Your tongue was swollen, and your throat was a desert, so your chapped lips parted easily.

Water. Cold all the way down your esophagus and pooling in your stomach. You leaned in and took as big a gulp as you could muster. When it pulled away, you coughed, and water dribbled down your chin.

As you shifted your body to adjust yourself, your nerves in turn shot back pinpricks of pain that stabbed you to the hilt. Stinging zings all about your legs and especially your arms, one of which was bound tightly. You groaned, keened with clenched teeth.

In your state, you couldn't do much. Strength was not there, and you went limp in seconds. So you listened, allowed your senses to take control while your body stilled. A clock tick, tick, ticking. Whirring overhead fan. The smell, distinct in your memory, of your grandmother's house. Ah, that's it. You must have had a nightmare. Or you'd been biking and hurt yourself again. Your arm, from what it felt like. Likely, it was as you pedaled from school on the rough terrain of back alleys as a shortcut — your grandmother warned you countless times about that. You'd fallen and cut your arm, knocked your head against something. You dreamed of giants in the woods with red eyes and scary monsters shattering glass in the house.

But of course, that was all the dream. Grandma would take care of you. Being with your grandmother again allowed some vulnerability you were only granted with her; the vulnerable, childlike, trusting kind. Your body instinctively began to loosen, emotions flowing, causing rivers to run down your crumbling defenses. Heat made your face pinch in crying; you were in pain. You needed attention. You wanted her to croon over you like she always did. Her warmth, the feeling of someone looking after you, to fall apart into it felt good. You wanted it, you needed it.

Oh, you missed her.

The weight of the world had crashed down and crushed your wings. You couldn't take it anymore.

You cried harder. Big fat tears slide down your cheeks, salty on your trembling lips and dripping off your nose.

"Shh," Someone hushed you. A hand delicately brushed the tears from your cheeks with a warm cloth and moistened your lips with it, providing more relief from the dryness. They, whoever they were, were close; they smelled of hard soap emanating from sweating skin. Your sobs quieted, but your tears still fell silently through your closed eyes. You felt the fabric of your duvet pull over your chest.

"Sleep," They whispered. Not your grandmother. It was accented, husky, and masculine.

You sniveled for a little while, but soon exhaustion came to collect once again.

You slept.

When you had reawakened, again it was to the cold press of water to your lips. You drunk deeply, consciousness strengthening enough to lift you from the fog of sleep. You lifted one arm - the one that you could - and rubbed at your eyes with the back of your hand.

Bleary-eyed, you blinked a couple of times. The walls of your childhood room materialized. The entirety of it was drenched in the blue of early morning or late evening. In front of you, both your arms were splayed - white square bandages spotted all over one, but the other was wrapped tightly in layers of gauze from the elbow to your wrist.

Everything came rushing back. The break-in. The glass shattered as pictures fell behind you. That sickly smile and those coal black eyes, smothered beneath a pillow and shot with a pistol. A huge dark smudge overwhelmed your vision.

And him.

You gasped and lurched forward. Your body answered with shooting pain that shocked you into crying out. Something heavy shifted near you, and you felt pressure on your shoulder, pushing you back to the pillows.

You screamed.

A bear paw clamped over the entire lower half of your face, and you thrashed feebly. You used your good hand to claw at it wildly. It didn't flinch—you were doing nothing to it with your fingernails even when you dug crescent moons into the flesh. Pain roared from your arms and legs. Your screaming and moans were muffled by—by—

Your heart raced, but it felt like it stopped as it registered who this was.

"Shh," unblinking blue eyes, glowing behind black cloth, lowered to your vision. "Easy,"

König held your face fast. With your mouth mashed shut, you blinked wildly, begging dozens of questions with your eyes.

König granted answers to only a few. "You are hurt, but you are fortunate. No arteries hit. You must be still, or the wounds will reopen. That will be bad, hm?" As he spoke, his eyes flared, glinting ice chips that gripped your gaze forcefully. König's tone was unlike any way he'd spoken to you before; it was quiet, but hard as slate. He was trying to be gentle, but he wasn't asking. "You will not scream. If you scream and someone hears you, we will have a bad problem. Do you understand?"

You whimpered into his palm.

His grip eased up just slightly, his expression gentled, no— something else. Something hungrier than that. His eyes flickered down. You realized in a panic that you were naked beneath the blanket; your chest caved in in a feeble attempt to hide your breasts, failing of course. His eyes then bore deep into your very being. "Will you be good for me?" König murmured.

Your breath hitched in your throat. Slowly, you gave a single nod.

König lifted his palm experimentally. When you didn't make any noise, he removed his hand from your jaw entirely. He used the pad of his thumb to brusquely wipe the falling tears on either side of your cheeks. You pressed your lips together. His hand trailed down your shoulder to your injured arm. "It must hurt, I know. But you are such a lucky one, Engelchen. You had supplies on hand. I discovered a little hospice in your cabinet."

Your grandmother's nurse had kept shelves of various medical supplies on hand before she was too far gone. She needed a lot of painkillers in the end. Gauze, too, her skin papery and fragile enough to break on a whim. That warmth, her presence you felt, it was a lie.

It was just König.

Disappointment curled in your chest. You swallowed hard and looked away. You retreated from his touch and pulled the blanket over your exposed chest, and leaned back into your pillows.

König blinked and seemed to realize a little too late. He turned his masked head and withdrew his hands from your body. He sat on the edge of your bed. The springs protested loudly beneath him as he shifted. His eyes turned down, the lashes long and caked with blackout, just like his visible cheeks in the eye holes. "This should not have happened." He said finally.

You wet your lips with your tongue. König kept speaking.

"He was… a bad man." König's voice was clipped. He bent until his elbows rested on his knees, and his head hung in front of him. König searched the floor with his eyes; he was choosing his words carefully. "He saw I was with you, perhaps that day." König turned his head fully away from you, the fabric of his mask shifting with him. "He wanted to hurt me. But he found you."

"Why…" Your voice cracked, hoarse with sleep and dehydration. "Why was a—a bad man—" You swallowed thickly. "—trying to hurt you?"

It replayed in your mind over and over—König's hands throwing down the pillow over his head and aiming the pistol. Pulling the trigger without a breath of hesitation. Nausea turned your stomach and thickened the saliva in your mouth. Was the corpse—it had to be a corpse, all that blood pooling sickeningly from behind the pillow—still out there in the hallway? You couldn't see with the door closed.

Rather than answer you, König stared at the floor in silence.

"W-we should call the police," You rasped. "And explain everything—"

König whipped his head back around. His eyes were icy daggers, wide and pinning you to the bed. "No," The ice in his voice matched his eyes and chilled to the bone.

"W-why not?" You cried.

König stood. His fist - spotted with red half moons you had dug into it in your struggle - clenched and loosened. Then he turned his back, pacing to the end of the bed. As if to wave a gnat off of him, he shook his head rapidly. In the back of his pants, the pistol was snug in the waistband beneath his rumpled shirt. "It will be nothing but trouble." He half grumbled to himself, half spoke aloud to you.

"What are you talking about? He broke in. H-he attacked me. If you tell them he'd been following you, then—"

"No police." König snapped. "Do not mention police again. You do not know what you're talking about."

"But, König—!" You were shrilled, hysterical, and overwhelmed with panic.

"Be quiet," he hissed. The threatening tone hit so harshly that you clamped your jaw shut. "Naïve little child. Do you want to die?" König spoke scathingly. He did not yell, he did not scream. He spoke levelly, but the threat oozed poisonous—it was unclear if he meant death by his hands or not.

Who was this man, who had replaced the sweet, gentle giant? Was that even real? The smiling, cut-up face that called you sweet, played with your fingers, and squeezed your shoulder. Where was he? Surely not hidden behind this monstrous mask?

You flinched at the force of his words. Your lip trembled, and tears stung your eyes. Hatefully, you envisioned how you must look; sniveling and weeping, proving him right. You didn't understand. Not anything. Who was that awful man, and why all this violence? Especially, you didn't know what this had to do with König, and now you. All you knew how to do was cry. Like a naïve little idiot.

König;s gaze seared you for a few more seconds before he took a deliberate moment to breathe in and regather his patience. When he looked at you again, his eyes were half lidded. He looked… tired. König's shoulders sagged. He retreated to the chair at your bedside — pulled from the dining room. Atop the side table sat several pill bottles — your grandmothers', that you'd been keeping in the pantry — and a glass of water. König fingered through them, inspecting the labels. He decided on one and set it to pop one bottle open and spilled out two pills onto his hand.

Leaning a bit, you tried to see exactly the medication he was giving you, but he put the bottle back down among the many. His big frame knelt before you, so you were once again at eye level. Baby blues behind thick lids, nurturing, tolerant. Like you were having an unreasonable tantrum, he had to wait out. "Little angel," he sighed, long and resigned. "You will rest now. Too much excitement is not good for recovery."

You opened your mouth to protest, and König plugged your mouth closed with two fingers, pushing the tablets hard onto your tongue. In one swoop, he'd pushed the cup to your lips as well, and you tilted your head back with the force. Liquid spilled on the corners of your mouth and splattered onto your chest. The surprise and the rush of water into your mouth forced you to drink. He needed only his thumb pressed down to keep your lips sealed long enough to swallow the pills hard. You spluttered and coughed, and Konig tutted, shushed you, and pushed you further down into the pillows, pulling the blanket over you, up to your chin.

"But that is why I am here." König tucked the excess blanket around you, cocooning — or maybe trapping — you inside the duvet. His hands lingered, pushing the fabric deep around your legs and your hips, and trailed over, down your thighs. "I will take care of everything."

Your eyelids sagged; the medication was strong, tugging you into sleep. "K…" you whispered, emotions and pain dampening, muffled by the drugs coursing through your veins. Still, you fought just a little, a little glimmer, a voice screaming and echoing, fading into a plunging tunnel. "König…how did you know…he was here…?"

If he heard you, he did the same thing he always did when he didn't want to answer. He simply ignored it and continued patting the blankets down. He placed his great hand on your thigh, sliding it up and down; his other hand rested on your skull, the thumb brushing along your hairline, tucking strays behind your ears.

"Feels better, doesn't it?" König purred, voice syrupy, echoing as your consciousness faded.

You wanted to fight. You wanted to run away and scream and yell into the sky at how wrong it all was.

But it felt so fucking good to be touched. To be cared for.

"Do you see how good you feel when you listen to me?"

Yes.

Dynamic scents filled your nose as you breathed into consciousness. Floral, soft, and honeyed, they mingled with rich, warm wafts of something sweet and roasted, all undercut by the citrus, hard-edged tang of cleaning products.

You opened your eyes to bursting color at your bedside. When you sat up slowly and rubbed sleep from your eyes, the vision cleared. Among the orange medicine bottles sat a mason jar, poorly scraped clean of its label — one of the old pasta sauce jars you used as a coffee cup — filled with bundles of little flowers, their petals snug around yellow-specked centers, ranging from pure white to shades of purple. You'd never seen such a flower before. It gave off a honey-sweet scent, softening the edges of your frizzed nerves.

It was all foggy, but you remembered the gist of what had happened before you fell asleep and before you passed out before that, with gut-wrenching clarity. Your body ached as an additional reminder. Looking around, your room had brightened; sunbeams formed rectangles on the wall where your blinds were parted.

You were also alone.

Upon inspecting your arm and bandages, you found the sting had eased somewhat, but the gauze was still tight around your other arm, clean and bleached white. You pulled the duvet off, exposing your shivering naked body to the air. Bandages were patched along your legs, up and around your thighs.

Heat surged in your chest at the realization he'd done this, and had therefore seen your naked body multiple times. He'd been the one to carry you to your bed and patch you up. Again, you felt a familiar emotion toward the giant: a conflict between gratitude and abject horror.

A sound disrupted the air, and you flinched; a faucet hissed briefly, then stopped. Your door was just slightly ajar, so you could hear quiet sounds of activity just beyond, in the hall, in the kitchen.

When you slid out of bed, you looked around for your clothes. But your floor was clean of its usual shirts, underwear, and socks thrown about; it was just your rug and the wood flooring. Your piles of dirty, not-quite-dirty, and somewhat clean clothes were gone from the floor and the various surfaces of your room, like the chairs and dressers.

What the fuck?

You had to pull open a few drawers to finally find clean underwear (that, unfortunately, wasn't unusual. Lately, you had very often procrastinated laundry until your very last pair, staring into space or depressed beneath your blankets). The only thing comfortable enough for your stinging, injured body was a button-down pajama set your grandmother had gotten you years ago when you were in college. It was faded blue with little dotted stars, left deliberately in an empty top drawer.

What the fuck.

You had no other choice. That or walk around naked, which-absolutely fucking not.

You pulled it on. You were a grown adult now, so you filled out the pants fully, snug as briefs at the widest part of your thighs, but not too tight. You buttoned yourself into the top, too embarrassed to look in the mirror at how your chest, soft sides, and front looked in the fabric you were hatefully very comfortable in.

You hesitated at the doorknob. Your memory flashed: the attacker with the pillow over his blown head, a pool of blood, right down the hallway, visible from your room. Right on the other side of the door.

But that sweet, dark smell had sharpened. You recognized it as coffee, brewing strong and making your mouth water.

So you took a deep breath and opened the door.

There was nothing.

No, there was really nothing; all those boxes, crates of clothes, and piles of your half-moved-in things and your grandmother's half-moved-out things were gone. There was no bloodied body at the end of the hallway. You inched closer. The glass had been swept away, and the intact frames were righted. Even the floor was immaculate, not even a stain or drop of blood—neither yours nor your attacker's. That tangy smell of the cleaning product wafted more prominently into your nose as you crept through the scrubbed down house.

You saw now that your mountains of clothes were in bins or tumbling in the washer and dryer—the clean clothes and sweaters you'd normally just toss in the dryer to let fray and shrink out of laziness hung up on your grandmother's wire clothes rack to air dry. Like she taught you to, and you never did.

You knew König was a bit of a neat freak, from his treatment of your car. But this was ridiculous.

Noises were coming from the kitchen. You tiptoed past the living room—tidy, but with one pillow on the couch glaringly missing—down the hall. You recognized the crackling, warbling sound of your grandmother's old radio. Your heart wrenched in your chest. It was even on the same station, her favorite, playing classical music.

How many mornings had you padded down this hall, yawning with sleep still in your eyes, following the wafting smells of breakfast waiting for you before you went to school? The house was as clean as when your grandmother had been well enough to keep it that way. You remember when you'd had the energy and will to help her with chores. Both of you would open the windows, vacuum, and wash the dishes, talking or sitting in comfortable silence, fixing up where you lived, making it just a bit more bearable to exist because your home was so immaculate. How you'd both sit on the couch after, with her knitting and your books, fingers dry and stripped from cleaning products, but nonetheless satisfied.

Everything like that had gone away when she passed; she took it with her. But now... it was coming back.

You stopped at the threshold, your eyes glassy with moisture, your lip crumpled.

König's shadow passed over you. He poured a dark stream of coffee from the percolator into a ceramic mug on the clothed table. The bills and junk you'd piled there were cleared away. Your molding, rotting dishes were presumably scraped clean and running in the thrumming dishwasher.

He lifted his head, masked still. But his clothes had been changed, and he was washed, smelling of the same hard soap and detergent. No cologne, always simple. Had he showered here or gone home? How long had you been sleeping?

He looked at you, and the questions quieted. Morning light trickled in, dust motes dancing off his broad shoulders. As always, his eyes roamed freely over you, long and unembarrassed, mentally stripping your clothes from you and putting them back on as he looked up and down. You folded your arms tightly to your chest, wanting to fold in and disappear in your little pajama set. His eyes crinkled at the corners warmly. "Good morning," König greeted you, his voice tender. "Sleep well?"

You did not return his warm stare so happily.

He seemed unperturbed, pulling out one of the two chairs—irritatingly, the one you always sat at, your grandmother always on the other side with her cushion. Of course, the bastard somehow knew—and invited you with a tilt of his head, his hands on the sides, prepared to push you in.

Like a suspicious little cat, you lingered at the threshold, your arm tucked to your chest, shoulder brushing the corner. You slunk forward and made a show of avoiding contact with him as you walked past, pulled out your grandmother's chair, and plopped into it, pulling yourself to the table.

Better you sit here in her spot than him.

Without missing a beat, he pushed the coffee mug to the side of the table where you sat. He turned around.

There the pistol was again, tucked into his waistband. You bit the inside of your cheek.

He had to crouch down to reach into the refrigerator—astonishingly full of food, cartons of eggs and milk, vegetables and fruit of all sorts—and pulled out the cream, the same one you always bought. From the counter, he plucked your grandmother's sugar bowl and spoon. He removed the lid to reveal it was freshly topped off with sparkling little white grains. On his hand, the little claw marks you'd made had faded to bruises.

"You're looking much better. I'm glad." He hummed. "Are you hungry?"

"No." Yes. You were starving. But you hated him a little bit for how wonderful this all was. It was over the top. It was obnoxious. You were thrilled. So you pouted, glaring down at your coffee.

He chuckled softly. Instead of sitting, however, he leaned his big body against the pristine sink, folding his arms across his chest. In short sleeves, his muscles rippled, stretching the fabric taut. The scratches and scars crossed across his skin, discolored roadmaps up and down each arm. He tapped his fingers in a staccato along his bicep. "What can I fix for you to eat? I am not much of a cook. But I will try for you."

You ignored him and the warmth on your cheeks as you eyed his body. He seemed aware of it as well, tilting his head. You looked away, turning your nose up and folding your arms on the table's edge.

"Coffee is no good cold," he said softly.

"Why? Did you drug it or something?" You grumbled. Grouchily, nonetheless, you poured in the sugar and cream to your liking and stirred. You held it up to your nose to sniff experimentally, as a show of suspicion. "Or put a body part in it?"

König huffed out a low laugh and rolled his eyes. Amused. Of all things. "Not this time." He replied lightly.

When you shot him a slack-jawed look, the washer beeped in the laundry room, and lifted himself and strolled down the hallway.

You hesitated a little longer. Finally, you sipped the coffee and cursed. It was fucking delicious. You took another sip. When he returned, he tossed something onto the other chair. He went back to leaning on the sink and watched you for a bit before taking a hanging washcloth and turning his back to you to wipe the counter absently. "You and your Oma," König offered as conversation. "Have a lovely home."

You set down your mug; your eye sockets stung. He didn't deserve to talk about her. At the same time, you wanted someone to acknowledge she existed. But when anyone did, the ache sprang anew, bleeding in your chest. "Why did you do all this?" You whispered.

He was quiet for a moment, his arm moving as he wiped circles into the counter, making it gleam. "A gift," he replied simply.

"You shouldn't have done it. You shouldn't have touched anything." You snapped, emotions running high, erratic. "I don't want any gifts from you."

"An apology, then." He answered.

"It's a little late for one of those." You shot back. "Someone's already…already d…" You couldn't finish it. The words snagged in your throat. Your tongue tasted of ash, and you swallowed hard. "Don't think I forgot."

"Forgot what?"

"My question. How did you know he was here?" You urged, testily glaring at him.

König turned around to face you again, holding the cloth tight, the fabric shrunken in his huge fist. "You texted me."

"H-huh?"

"You texted me. I called you back once, twice. You didn't reply. I got…a feeling. I drove over." König said this easily, evenly. "Your front door was open. I come in and…" He shrugged.

Your eyebrows furrowed. It made no sense, but it …kind of did?

Where was your phone, anyway?

König disrupted with an overly loud sigh, cutting into your confused spirals of thought. "Engel, you do not have to be nice to me. I do not deserve it." This admission gave you pause. "But, this I want you to know." His words grew somber, as did the expression you could read behind the mask. "I cannot explain everything right now. More harm will come than good. But I will, in time. All I ask is you listen, do what I say, and be patient."

König shifted the weight of his body onto his legs again. "Now, please, will you let me look at your hurt?"

You know he meant your wounds, but his little misspeaking of English turned a key inside you. You didn't want him to look at your hurt. It had been all around you, in the messes you'd allowed to pile up in the house, in the ignoring you did to your skin and hair and clothes. You were deeply ashamed of the neglect you'd given the house, given yourself. How quickly he'd brought it back to where your Grandmother would've wanted it. He saw your hurt and, instead of running away, he helped. He was fixing it. He was taking care of things you were too wrung out to find possible, even if he had added a plethora of problems.

And at least … this time … he was asking.

"Please?" He added softly.

At first, you didn't move. Then you shifted sideways in the chair, facing him. You put your arms out limply onto your lap, palms up. Making a pleased noise, König quickly retrieved the items sitting atop what he'd placed on the other chair — a bundle of first aid. He knelt before you. He was so tall that he met you easily at eye level as he knelt. This stirred the memory of him kneeling before you as you sat in your car and wept. It reignited something, one of the many funny little feelings König's attention had made you feel. He rolled up each pant pajama leg with care, all the way up to a little past your thigh. With deft fingers, he inspected each patch on your legs. Some lesser cuts had scabbed over and needed only to be wiped. Others were more tender, but the bandages could be smaller.

König's touch trailed all over your skin. His fingers dragged along your calf, massaging the muscle, careful not to disturb the bandages. You saw now that he had brought socks from the dryer, still warm. He lifted your ankles one at a time, the bone encircled over by his fist with ease, tugging them onto your bare feet with reverence that made your heart — and other places, lower than your belly — twinge. He traced his fingertips up your knees, goosebumps raising at his delicate touch.

He reached up to your less-afflicted arm, meticulously working through the same routine he used on your legs. You winced as he took your other arm and inspected the gauze. Nothing had bled through; it looked like he had just put the fresh bandages on, so he just assured it was secure with a tug. You yelped in pain, and he paused, then kept going, murmuring gentle encouragement as you bore through the stinging.

König looked… genuinely upset by your wounds.

König whispered, so quiet you almost didn't hear it. "Poor little thing.” He looked up, his gaze delicate as hydrangea petals. "Ich werde dafür sorgen, dass du nicht mehr traurig bist."

You didn't understand what he said. But the tenderness was convincing enough. You couldn't help it; you relaxed beneath his touch.

So your reaction was a little delayed as he began to unbutton your pajama shirt.

"Wh.." You flushed, wriggling. But not exactly… pulling away. "W-what are you doing?"

König hummed, going on until all the buttons were undone, the opening revealing your soft belly, your rapidly rising and falling chest. But he merely buttoned them again, from bottom to top. "You missed one," He replied quietly. König's expression was unreadable he locked eyes with you.

That morning, the sky was pale as milk, soft and muslin. Lazy, low clouds. A thick sheet of dead leaves crunched under each heavy step of his boots. There was no discernible path through the trees. However König had patrolled through here countless times; enough to know where he was going innately.

He'd go to the forest outside of town when he could no longer stand the suffocating walls of his home. Hot anxiousness tore his insides into magma. He talked to no one. These days, he would only interact with someone on the other side of a gun. Not only that, but he hadn't touched anyone for years, except to crush in skulls, squeeze around throats until the bone snapped.

Most nights, König wanted to do the same thing to the wretched creature in his mirror. He wanted to shatter the reflection into shards with his fist. He'd snatch up a piece and bring down the pointed end into one of those pitiful blue eyes.

The forest allowed him some calm; not many came through here. It promised a semblance of peace. He could spend hours here. He even walked around at night, a flashlight held low on his hip. He could map this place in his mind. König knew that in about 300 meters there would be a rise in the rock from the sloping ground. The mossy ridge provided nice shade. It was a useful vantage point for hunting game on its elevated crest. His shotgun was secure in its holster, the strap snug against his hard shoulder.

The trees thinned a bit, and there it was. With his undeniable size and strength, he scaled up in a few easy strides. The wind picked up a bit and pressed the dark cloth adorning his face to his jaw. It twisted left to right as he surveyed the treeline. Empty.

König lowered his great body onto the flat rock surface. He stretched his long legs in front of him and rolled the shotgun off his shoulder. He ensured he was alone with an extra sweep of his eyes. The thin, bare branches of the trees scratched upward around him. A morning bird trilled. A few hundred meters in front of him was a discernible man-made trail. It was popular with the hikers, he knew.

It would be close enough for someone to discover him. In a month or two, if he was lucky. Not that it would matter to him by then.

He reached into the neck hole of his shirt. From there, he pulled on the chain against his skin, revealing his dog tags. In the morning light, they glinted silver. He inspected them briefly, then decided to tuck them back.

The war was over. He was a 'civilian', had been for about a year. But he felt like an open wound, bare against a harsh wind. The way they dropped him into the real world was brutal. He dedicated his life to the military from a young age, and this was how he was repaid. It was like they'd confined an attack dog behind a fence as a house pet. They drove him to the edge. He was foaming at the mouth, bored and anxious. He tore about his enclosure. His great hands clawed at his pressured skull and marred body.

So he started doing jobs, bad jobs. Dirty jobs, jobs no one wanted to do, that he was trained to do. It paid very well. But it wasn't enough.

He needed a release.

He took the rifle from its holster and into his lap, fishing in his pocket. With deft fingers, he loaded a round into the chamber. The bolt clicked as the shell slotted into the magazine. He'd just need the one.

There was only one release he knew of.

It was an old friend. A well-oiled door, the final exit. He pushed countless others through. Many times, he almost slipped. König tugged his mask from his face. His unkempt auburn hair stuck up in all directions, and his face was shiny with scars. The exposed skin of his cheeks cooled against the rising breeze. König rubbed his fingers against the mask's material. His thumb poked through the red-streaked eyehole. Then he let it go.

The mask flew off, twirling in the wind over the cliff. He wanted them to see him. In his imagination, it would be some poor hiker or hunter. Some bastard unfortunate enough to stumble across his corpse. Not much would change, even with a splattered crater in his skull.

Still, he would have a face not even a mother could love.

The wind pulled up the light cloth further out of his vision, towards the trail. He removed the safety on the shotgun and reclined against the leaves. A crisp, damp sensation spread about his neck and back. It tickled the puckered scars along his jaw. König parted his chapped lips. He slotted the cool barrel to the roof of his mouth. Above him, a canopy of leafless branches shifted. Black cracks filtered the light, making his unfocused eyes water. More trilling birdsong, a soft scrape of shifting leaves.

Auf drei.

His finger trembled against the trigger.

Eins.

Zwei.

"Hello?"

Heaven.

That voice. It captivated König instantly. It held him in gentle arms. The angel of death, calling to him. For a moment, he forgot the gun, forgot himself, the cold edge of what he meant to do.

"Hello?" it called again, closer. It danced from below, up, over the wind into König's ears. He opened his eyes.

Still on earth.

Footsteps, leaves crunching underfoot. A soft boot or shoe, ascending. Not quiet or steady enough for an enemy.

König's arm rippled and flexed, and he pulled the barrel of the shotgun out of his mouth. He rose up. He examined the gun with wonder, like he'd woken up from a dream. A crunch of a twig, and he snapped his head in the direction of the sound. Ascending from the ridge was first a crown of beautiful, soft hair. Then, your face.

Seeing you for the first time quieted everything for just a moment. The stirring of the forest muted. His racing thoughts faded until it was just the sound of his heart beating.

"Oh, hello," You were visibly startled. König stared at you through long tresses of tangled hair. His intense eyes roamed your face; You broke eye contact first. Shy, your eyes cast downward before flickering back to König.

Innocent.

"I didn't —" You stammered. Your nerves were thrilled by his wide, wild eyes, brilliant blue against the red of his hair. Your gaze darted to the shining gun clutched in one of his huge barrel arms. The knuckles clenched and blanched white.

"Um— I found this." You lifted your hand, clutching the black cloth of König's mask. "It was kind of blowing in the wind; it looked like it might be important. It flew from over here." Your voice trailed, timid. "It's yours, right?"

König blinked, the wild burst in his eyes settling down to his mask in your hand. "Ja, danke," he answered mechanically. He knew English just fine. His brain was too busy coming down, down, forward, fixing itself upon you.

He stood. Your expression dropped in surprise as his body kept going, towering over you. In two strides of his long legs, you were a foot apart. You had to tilt your head to see his face. His features were obscured in the glare of the morning sun. He was like...a mountain. The gun hung forgotten by his side. You couldn't help but glance down at it.

You were so little compared to him, your expression wide-eyed. Like a fawn on unsteady limbs, trembling before a bear.

"You're welcome?" You tried, awkward but sincere.

Sweet. Stupid sweet. König thought his teeth might rot. He wanted to put you in his mouth, between his teeth.

He wanted to bite down.

He reached out and plucked the mask from your open hand. Your eye caught the etching of scars on his. They trailed all the way up into the dark sleeve of his jacket. He pulled the mask on and over his face. He adjusted it so the holes aligned with his eyes. As soon as they appeared, they were back to being trained by you.

Your hand dropped to your side. You withdrew just a bit. This caused König to step in and fill the space, keeping the gap between you close. The mask seemed to fit him perfectly, naturally even. You felt more inclined to return your eye contact steadily upon him.

"Thank you." König repeated in English, his voice lilting, accented. "I was looking for… this. I thought I lost it."

Your shoulders relaxed in relief - so he did speak English. He spoke it well. Any kind of underlying meaning of his statement flew right above your head. "Ah, like… like it's for hunting, or something? " You offered, feeling internally a childish plucked nerve that made you want to duck your head. You got unnerved speaking to anyone. But there was something about him that made you curl inward. You felt yourself shying away from his intense gaze. You weren't used to it.

But you didn't mind it.

König didn't reply with words, just a slow nod. It could have been, had you not known better, a once-over of your body. There wasn't much to see with your oversized coat on.

"Where did you come from?" König asked. "You are alone?"

It was your turn to hold back an immediate reply. "Just going for a walk," You tossed your towards the trail. "Your mask blew over there, right at me. Then I saw..." You saw the dark bulk of his form, just a bit too early. "I thought I saw someone up here."

König stayed silent for a beat. It prompted you to blurt out more. "I just moved back to town. And um, I like to come here to think, and stuff… and…" you trailed off. You signaled the ending of your statement with a noncommittal shrug.

"I see," König replied, tilting his head. "It's nice, right?" The skin at the corner of his eyes crinkled. "To walk and think here."

You smiled at him, at the kind warmth in his voice. The rounding of your cheeks and your upturned lips lifted him. Iron chords supported his weight, his burdened soul. The sun rose in him by the lifting of your mouth into a smile.

"Well, I'll get out of your hair. Sorry for interrupting your... hunting?" You murmured. You turned on one foot to retreat. Thinking twice, you looked back with a smaller, closed-mouth smile. It tattooed itself onto König's heart. "See you around," you called back with a wave. Then you turned away from him to glide down and back to the path.

König, rigid, watched your retreating figure until the woods swallowed you up. Once again, he was alone. The hissing of grass and twittering birdsong returned to his ears. A yawning opened in his chest. The little vignette of your meeting played back before sealing inside him. It thrummed with warmth, spreading over his arms, his torso, his groin. Infatuation had shot up into his brain, harder than any bullet. Rabid curiosity drove him to commit every detail to memory. With that, glimmering before König in the depths of his storming mind, a purpose.

Interrupting his hunt, you said. Sweet little thing. No need to apologize. Konig lifted his arms to flick the safety back on before he slid his shotgun back into the holster. How wrong you were, little angel.

His hunt had just begun.

König eventually coaxed you into eating breakfast. He set your favorite cereal in front of you. How did he know? Simple, he answered: several empty boxes around the house and next to your bed. The embarrassment petrified you, but you were too starved to hover for too long. It felt like you hadn't eaten for days, which was perhaps true, so you got seconds and thirds.

"Not healthy," König grunted. "But at least you're eating."

König did not sit with you; he gave you your space, floating elsewhere in the house. When you were finished, you put your dishes in the pristine sink. You found him as you tiptoed through the hallway on newly socked feet. He stood with his back to you, pulling one of your sweaters from the dryer. You watched him smooth it with his hand, fold it tenderly, and place it on the washer beside him.

You saw several bulging black trash bags right behind him, slumped in the corner near the back door. Anxiousness pooled in the back of your mind and down your neck, freezing you in place. Was that… just trash? Your imagination raced; hunks of your attacker's flesh chopped up in each one, among your trash and rotting food, dispersed so they would never be found and put together again.

König was cleaning up the crime scene.

The thought alone made you nervously edge away a bit from the doorway, but König had already seen you. He raised his eyebrows and reached for the sweater he’d just folded. He approached you and offered it. Warily, you took it. It was still warm. It folded around you as you pulled in on like a cozy hug.

"Why are you washing all my things, anyway?" You grumbled.

"So you have more options," König replied. He absently reached out and tugged your crooked pajama collar from the sweater's neck hole.

You tried not to overly think about the contact as if his fingertips had burned you, and didn't quite let what he said sink in. "What do you mean?"

"For when we leave."

That grabbed your attention fully. "Leave?" You repeated back loudly in genuine confusion.

König narrowed his eyes and looked away, pulling more of your clothes from the dryer. He had that same calculating look as when he'd been carefully choosing what to say to you while you were bedridden. "That man. The bad one," he clarified, as if you wouldn't know what he was talking about. "There are more of him. His… 'friends'."

Despite the sweater's warmth, your whole body chilled.

König rolled his neck to face you, his eyelids lowered, resigned. He let you read the rest on his masked face, in his eyes.

"Wait, so, you're saying— you're saying we're going to have to leave? Leave the house?" You spluttered. You were utterly flattened by the revelation, the laundry room spinning. "And go where?"

Now, König faced you with his body. He tilted his head, his shoulders jumping, so casually you were horrified. "Anywhere you want."

You choked. "But, but—"

"Engel," He raised his hand to you. "We will not leave tonight if you do not wish. They may not come tonight. Or tomorrow. Maybe not for a week or a month." His eyes darkened, and so did his voice. "But they will come."

"König," your exasperated tone faltered. "I don't understand."

Why, why did this have to happen? Why did it have to be you involved in all of this? They wanted Konig, and now you? "W-why do I have to leave?" you probed, shaking your head like a petulant child. "I have nothing to do with this. So why? Why me?"

König's eyes closed. For a heartbeat, then two, he was quiet. "Because you saved me." He said softly.

It hung in the air, but you didn't understand. You couldn't. "What?"

"Because you... Are connected to me. I will leave, but they will still kill you. They will kill you very slowly, to try to find me." When his eyes reopened, they were narrow slits. "Your life—it is too precious. Your soul is... clean. It is worth so much more than a sacrifice for mine. I will not allow it."

Your heart plunged, your lip quivered. Warmth spread across your cheeks, and your mouth dried. Genuinely, you were at a loss for words, the emotions in you whirling like scattered leaves.

What was more, you didn't believe him. You weren't worth more than anyone.

"You don't know anything about my fucking soul." You spat.

Without allowing another word from König, you retreated on fast feet back to your room. There, an open suitcase had been placed on your bed.

You grabbed it with both hands and threw it into the hallway, hearing the crash before you slammed your door. You tried to muffle your cries by jumping into bed and burying your face in a pillow. Your eyes stung from crying. You have been crying so much lately. You were afraid you might dissolve into tears.

You don't remember nodding off, but you did.

When you awoke, your pajamas had rolled up to your shins, and the sun outside had hazed the room in afternoon light. But you refused to leave your room, even with König's knocking and the delicious smells of dinner drawing you into the kitchen. You did what you did best—you froze. You burrowed beneath your blankets, willing the scents to become nauseating, trying to resist the reality of this nightmare.

You heard heavy steps approaching your room as the sun set. When a soft knock — three, as always — reverberated on the door, you said nothing. When the handle jostled, you pretended to be asleep, turning your head into the pillow. The shuffle of pills in bottles reached your ears as König placed a tray of dinner on your table. You felt his eyes on you and turned farther away. If he knew you were faking, he didn't say so; he simply retreated back out of your room, shutting the door quietly behind him.

Only when you heard him retreating did you sneak a glance. He had set out what looked to be some kind of casserole; you blinked hard, memory flashing like a beacon.

In the kitchen, your Grandmother had kept a stack of index cards in the cupboard, full of recipes for desserts, soups, everything she ever cooked. You recognized this one by the texture, the vegetables—all the ones you loved—and the way it crisped at the top. It was your Grandmother's recipe, followed to a T.

I cannot cook. But I will try for you.

As you ate in bed, you sniffed so as not to salt your meal with tears. You took slow bites, savoring the taste and memory. It was as if she'd cooked it herself.

You finished and, hesitatingly, brought your tray back to the kitchen. König sat with his back to you, his long legs spread, the chair pushed out to accommodate his huge frame. His hands were working on something, his shoulder and arm jumping.

Suspicion flaring, you inched a little closer.

He was cleaning his pistol. The magazine was on the table, as were other parts, while he wiped down the barrel, pieces spread out on a rag so they wouldn't stain the tablecloth.

"Thank you for dinner." You announced curtly. He did not stop what he was doing for even a beat.

"You're welcome." He replied simply. He didn't look your way. You watched his fingers maneuver the weapon dexterously, almost lovingly, his wrist turning it this way and that.

It made you itch.

You wanted to say something. You didn't want to apologize. You refused. But you needed to say something. You lingered awkwardly in your own kitchen on unsteady feet. This is when all those years of neglecting to interface with others bit you in the ass the most. Someone clever, someone good with talking and people, would know what to say. They would be able to sort the feelings storming and clashing like thunder in your body into a few lines, say what they are with confidence in a way that you never, ever did right. You wondered about the proper tone, how to use it; the complexity stretched before you like an impossible math problem with infinite variables.

"I'm sore." You decided flatly, with all the charm of a deflated balloon.

König placed the disassembled pistol down carefully. "Do you need my help taking your medicine again?"

His fingers in your mouth. Your tongue remembered the texture well. His thumb swiped across your lip as you choked down the pills.

Inexplicable heat streaked across your face. "No," you replied. "Tell me what you made me take, and I'll go to bed."

König stood and headed for your bedroom. You teetered behind. "I can do it myself," you insisted to his broad back doggedly. He ignored you, so you repeated yourself. Nothing.

Nonetheless, you seated yourself on the bed, waiting for him with your hands between your thighs. Your eyes wandered to the fragrant bouquet among the vials on the table, the little petals shrunken even more by his great form.

"What are the flowers called?" You asked.

He produced two bottles in his hand. You read the labels, and he let you; then he popped them open. "Sweet alyssum," he replied. "I saw them during a deployment overseas once. Killed only by great frost." König didn't look at you directly. His accent was thicker as he reminisced. The mask cast shadows over his face, but his eyes still glowed.

You fidgeted with the glass in your hand. "Do they have a meaning?"

"The sweetness of the soul," König replied gently.

Your soul is…clean.

I like you, sweet.

You don't know anything about my fucking soul.

You winced.

König took the water from your hands. "I will refill this and return. Then you will sleep." He walked out of your room, and you followed him with your eyes until he disappeared down the dark hallway.

The hallway, long and gloomy, stirred something in you. It unnerved you. You imagined those coal-black eyes again, shining in the dark as they watched you, the cut wound of a mouth flitting in the darkness. You jumped out of your skin when you saw something move — but it was just Konig returning with your water.

"Goodnight," König murmured and turned to leave.

"W-wait!" You called.

He looked back at you, and you opened your mouth, but no sound came out. You clamped your jaw closed, and you hesitated. You had to say it. You had to.

"Will you, um, stay with me?" You stumbled, then looked up to him, sincerely fearful. "In— In case they come." The vulnerability seared your stomach, so you quickly followed up with, "Until I go to sleep, then you can go." König's eyes crinkled at the corners. He nodded. "If that is what you want."

You burrowed into your blankets, and König settled in the chair at your bedside, his arms folded over his chest. He kept his eyes on you for so long that you had to look away out of embarrassment. You lie on your side, one eye closed against the pillow. König had turned the light off, but you could still see the dark outline. It was… really, really comforting. Your mind was easing into sleep already, the medicine kicking in and coursing through you.

“Goodnight, Engelchen.”

The next morning, König was gone from the room, coffee smells again wafting in the air.

Like off-white-to-dishwater curtains stirring in a breeze through the cracked window, the days blended into one another, and you lost count of how much time had passed. König folded all of your clothes neatly into your shelves and hung the rest in your closet. He'd wiped everything down twice, so the interior looked more like a model home than a place anybody lived in, much less the depressing rat's nest you had made it over the previous handful of months.

Also, you had found your phone — abandoned under your bed, dead since the night you'd been attacked. You'd charged it and turned it on, to no messages or calls, of course. You weren't surprised, but you were still somehow disappointed. Minutes later, König swiped it from your hands and shut it off. He explained that your location could be pinged that way, and you subsequently cursed him out, which he ignored, only infuriating you further. Helpless, you spent the evening giving him the evil eye and ignoring his bids for conversation.

He kept his mask on all the time now, until you went to bed, which you presumed was when he showered and ate; at least you thought so. Each morning, he was freshly bathed and changed. With the painkillers, you couldn't stay awake to sneak and see, so you were left to wonder.

At first, you would sulk in bed to avoid him and whatever he was doing — König was always busy: doing the dishes, changing your bandages, cleaning his rifle and pistol, taking inventory of ammo, making coffee, breakfast, dinner. It was definitely some habit picked up in the military; constantly keeping himself occupied, maybe so he wouldn't lose whatever was left of his mind.

You monitored König distrustfully from a distance, hovering in doorways or around corners or in the shadowed wall of the hallway, making sure he didn't destroy any of your grandmother's things with his awful big hands or knock something over with his tree-like limbs. He never did, acutely aware of his height after a lifetime of living in a world that was built too small for him, and you told yourself you hated him all the more.

Most of the time, he trustingly kept the broad expanse of his back to you, busying himself with whatever. He didn't mind being watched, unlike you. When you thought he was moving his head to glance over, you'd vanish behind the corner, an anxious little mouse keeping track of the terrifying bear roving in the kitchen and living room.

Until finally one evening, after a shower, you peeked from the kitchen doorway as König stirred dinner in its pot. He announced without looking over, "Will the little angel watching over my shoulder hand me salt?"

You pushed the shaker toward him with your hand and scampered away. You didn't follow him around as much after that. You tried not to. You kept your distance as much as you could, really. König didn't seem to mind the long stretches of silence, and, admittedly, neither did you: There was no pressure to make conversation on either end, which generated comfortable silence.

But it wasn’t always peaceful.

Other than the little inch you gave him by tucking your sweater into the suitcase, you refused to pack. You followed none of the instructions he gave you for preparation, blowing him off and making excuses. You convinced yourself didn't want to leave, and you didn't want to believe anything he'd told you might be real. To convince yourself, you resisted packing and tossed the bag into your room or onto the floor. The suitcase vacantly stared open-mouthed at you each morning, perched expectantly at the foot of your bed or on the chair. No matter where you tossed it, it returned in the morning.

It was clear his patience was wearing thin, but you needed this small thing to hold against him, spare ground you could stand stubbornly on. He had steamrolled over almost everything else.

Whenever he brought it up, your interactions would get a little tense.

Then you had an especially significant fight when you found the diner application crumpled up in the trash. It was insignificant, a faraway dream now, but still, you felt furious, despairing at your helplessness, and at König’s audacity to come into your life and wreck it so completely.

You were restless;  As much as you wanted to stay, you wanted to leave the house, go to the park, and drive through the town's potholed roads. The memories in the walls and the resulting distress were driving you crazy, but König's tight control was unrelenting. He disapproved of you even being too close to the windows. It was usually you who would snap at him. His way of losing his temper with you was being cold and clipped, freezing the blood in your veins with his looming body, the coolness of a steely, controlled temper in his voice, or his icy eyes. You'd yell some hurtful curse, and retreat to your room and slam your door like an enraged adolescent.

One morning, while he was distracted, you'd tried the windows to your bedroom. Only to discover, chillingly, they'd been nailed shut.

However vicious the day's fight was, you two had developed an unbroken routine at night. After dinner, you would go to your room, and he'd follow. He'd redress your wounds. You were hyper aware of his hands, but he didn't try anything like the first time (you felt mixed emotions about that). You'd take your painkillers — you needed a little less every day — and he'd sit on the chair, leaning back and as unobtrusive as he could possibly be with his great form, and kept watch until you fell asleep.

Confusingly, as guns unnerved you so, and you truly despised even the implication of violence, it made you all the more relaxed when you saw he'd kept his pistol on his knee, his hand wrapped around it as he watched over you.

You were aware of how well he used it. So you slept a little better.

But it would always return to the cycle of strife and unease in the morning.

A nondescript afternoon, one just like the last few. You had showered, and your hair was wet down your back, water droplets blooming on your oversized shirt. You mostly wore pajamas these days, since you were always inside. You spooned cereal into your mouth as the static visage of a woman filled the large-backed television. The volume was kept low, so you could monitor where König might be in the house; maybe make a quick getaway if you heard his heavy-booted steps approaching. With a manicured hand, the anchorwoman pointed to the green screen behind her, on which bloomed a large, coagulating purple-then-blue-then-aqua shape sprawled over a lined map of the state hour by hour. The text scrolling beneath the weather lady's shiny white smile and hay-colored waves included snow totals, which had been mounting with every commercial break since you'd turned the T.V. on.

In fresh bandages, you were tucked into the corner of your couch, sinking into the plush armrest where the pillow was missing. The lights were off — König had insisted that you stop using lamps and overhead lighting, especially at night, so no one could see from the street that anyone was home. But that day the sun shone through hard, goose feather gray morning clouds, bleaching it and casting cold illumination among the shadows of the spotless house.

You were looking for the remote to switch channels when the news cut to the male anchor. His mouth moved rapidly; next to his head floated two portraits, side by side, of rough-looking men who scowled at you. You flinched hard when your eyes met the second one, like you'd seen a ghost.

Because you did.

Black coal eyes. A slit of a mouth. Clearly a mug shot, making the skin all the more sallow and sickly.

NOTORIOUS INTERNATIONAL GANG MEMBER BODY FOUND BENEATH MILITARY FORT DOCK; SECOND IN TWO MONTHS.

You searched more urgently for the remote; you couldn't hear much. Your eyes stayed glued to the screen as your breath quickened. "K-König?" you shouted over your shoulder. "König!"

DETAILS STILL UNCLEAR; SUSPECTS REPORTED TO BE AT LARGE. AUTHORITIES INVESTIGATING—

Grainy security cam footage: a gray hatchback crawling along the road, eerily similar to the one parked outside in front of your house.

The one König had cleaned so well, except for that dark stain in the trunk.

You dropped your bowl, and the spoon clattered with it.

Blackness swallowed the picture. In the screen, you saw your reflection: you perched on the couch, with a great figure behind you.

You whirled around. König placed the remote down carefully on the arm of the couch. His eyes were hard. There was no arguing. The force of his expression, combined with the fear that now constricted your throat, left no room for it. You had no room to process the fury of what you’d seen on the television, what he’d done with your car.

"Ten minutes." That is all König said.

You leaped from the couch and sprinted to your room.

You yanked open drawers, pulled out pants and underwear, and grabbed the first few shirts from the top of the second drawer. Your favorite book of all time, your worn journal. Quickly thinking, you pushed the drugs in there too; for some reason, you also put in the dried sweet alyssum, wilted but still beautiful in the jar, petals falling onto your clothes as you placed them on top and closed the lid securely.

You pulled the sweater you’d put in the case on, then the same oversized work jacket you always wore, and your boots over your lounge leggings; there was no time to change. The last thing you took was a photo of your grandmother and you from where you'd stuck it in the mirror, and shoved it into the inner pocket of your coat.

Breathless, you met König in the hallway. He was in a dark, heavy coat, his sharp jaw outlined by the fabric of his mask, which he had tucked into the collar. He took your bag, and you followed him out into the stinging cold air; you shivered hard, but the outdoors were refreshing after being cooped up for the last couple of days.

König had pulled his ginormous truck around back to hide it from the street. His work over the last few days was more apparent now; several cases of what you could only think were supplies, snug beneath a black tarp in the bed of his pickup. He put your suitcase in the roomy backseat, then opened the passenger door and extended his arm to help you into the seat.

You hesitated, your grandmother's house looming, a presence heavy behind you. "W-wait," you stammered, taking a step back. "I—I forgot something."

König's eyes were blue flames, both annoyed and almost furious. "Tell me what it is, I'll go back and—what are you doing?!" He barked sharply, but you had already turned to go back inside. You rushed through the garage, down the hall, into the kitchen, and opened the cabinet above the sink.

Your grandmother's recipes, all snug in a bundle of yellowed index cards. You pulled them down and held them to your chest. König had even made sure they were in the same order that your Grandmother had left them, after he referenced them for your dinners.

König caught up to you. His eyes betrayed his irritation, but it relented just a little when he saw what was in your hands.

"Okay," you breathed out, resigned. "I'm ready."

He nodded, but then his head whipped around, past you. His blue eyes widened. He'd heard it before you had; Knocking hard against the door. Crashing. The hinges are busting in from the force of a heavy kick. Then another.

König reacted faster than you did. He pulled out his pistol and put a finger to his mouth. He took you by your arm and yanked you to the side, further from the front door, into the first inlet — the bathroom. He pushed you into the tub, a heavy hand on your shoulder, until you crouched in the ceramic.

"Lay down. Stay quiet."

"K-K—"

"Don't move."

"P-Please, don't leave me—" you pleaded.

"Quiet!" He hissed, and pulled the shower curtain over the lip of the bath. You heard the door snap shut, swallowing up all the sound behind it.

Utterly alone, lying in your tub. Your nerves felt as if they poked three feet out of your skin. You listened, terror running you cold as the ceramic your body pressed against, your pulse in your ears.

.𖥔 ݁ ˖ ✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅

When you were a child, it was an overcast day like this one. A group of children huddled in the park, and you watched, a lonely little planet orbiting a cluster of bright, lively stars.

Back then, you still believed in the illusion. You wanted to be included, to try and be normal. You thought you could be. The children were a giggle fest, planning and shouting over each other excitedly about a game of hide-and-seek, deciding who would be it. The count would be to ten.

Can I play?

You thought you said it loud enough. You were sure. You repeated yourself, but no one looked your way. In your mind, this was acceptance; it had to be. No one was yelling at you to go away, which sometimes happened and was clear to understand. You understood repulsion and hard shoves. Ignoring was still a nuance you hadn’t figured out yet.

Someone began to count, and the children dispersed, darting in all directions.

Elated, thrilled, you ran too, speeding on your little legs into the treeline.

You found a good enough spot as the person covering their eyes shouted their count. It wasn’t perfect, but it was good — a tall tree, the roots bulging out, forming a perfect chair for you to tuck your body into. So you did, and you waited.

And waited.

You heard the shouts and giggles of children around you getting caught, and you pushed yourself further into the spot, elated, waiting for someone to pop out and shout your name.

Found you!

When you're caught, you’d be brave enough to volunteer to be it, to find everyone else. You promised yourself that.

You waited longer. The sun cast long shadows against the trees, blazing the sky with tangerines, purples, and pinks, and finally the blue of dusk.

You stopped keeping track of time.

No one came.

There you are!

In the dark, something shone on your face; a bright light that made you blink away at the glare. You heard your Grandmother’s voice, exasperated and relieved. She’d found you. You jumped up into her arms, and she put her laughing mouth to your hair as you embraced, her sweet powdery scent filling your senses, softening the cruel blow to your heart.

.𖥔 ݁ ˖ ✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅

It felt like hours. It could have been minutes. You had pushed all your senses outward, trying to hear what could possibly be going on through your shuddering breath. The sky darkened out the tiny window, and you were washed in dusky gloom. You dozed, faded. The bathroom was dyed blue in evening illumination. Your vision blurred out and refocused with an intermittent blink.

You recoiled as you heard the crash of the front door slamming ajar, shaking the foundations even from the bathroom; Footsteps. Heavy, but lighter than Konig's assured foot. You recognized his steps well at this point. Low murmurings. Men talking, another language. Two, you think, based on the pause between words being said.

They got closer, louder.

"This is the police," You heard someone call into the hall. "We know you're here. We aren't after you. We're after him."

You froze and listened.

"Come out quietly with your hands up from where you are. Your cooperation will be rewarded."

For a moment, you considered it. Maybe König had been lying; the police could be trying to help you after all. You could call out and go with your hands up, and you'd be safe from the terror of the huge man stalking through your house, who had killed someone in it. You could be done with this altogether.

But you didn't move.

Maybe it had been all this time you had spent with König, listening so carefully to the sparse words of conversation he sprinkled into each day. But barely, just barely, you recognized the slightest lilt in the muffled voice. It was trying to hide itself with a thick American pronunciation, but it was too theatrical, too warbled; just enough for you to catch it, on certain words.

An accent. Like König's. But not his voice.

You remained still. You waited for the sound of the doorknob turning, still as you possibly could keep yourself. They were right outside, talking urgently to one another.

Then it quieted.

You imagined them right outside the door of the bathroom; perhaps they'd heard you, your thoughtless mistake of making a noise like a cornered prey animal. waited for them to open the door, to yank open the curtain, and drag you by your hair to your execution.

You heard a pop, then another in swift succession, loud enough to make you jump and your boot to squeak against the tub.

Gunshots? Is that what those were? If so, where? Exchanged with whom? Konig? Was he still out there?

What if he got hurt?

The plunging feeling in your chest stabbed right into your stomach at the thought.

It was quiet for a long, long time, allowing your mind to run in circles with panicked questions. The blue had darkened to indigo, and soon enough you were shivering in the dark of your own thoughts.

König had left you behind.

He had wiped down the place to ensure his fingerprints were nowhere to be found, but yours were still there. It had only been you, perfect bait to dump into the circling throng of sharks.

No one was coming. Not your grandmother, not König.

No one.

Then the bathroom door creaked open.

Your blood froze, your heard pooling to your feet. So you prepared again, for the second time in a few days, for death.

König pulled back the curtain, breathing hard, his huge chest rising and falling as he huffed and puffed. He knelt on the bathroom tile, looking searchingly at your face, your body.

“There you are.” He rasped.

There you are!

The emotion that had pooled in you flooded, and ran over. You cried out in relief, throwing yourself forward, your arms around his neck. Tears jumped into the corners of your eyes. You buried your face into the cloth draped over his neck and squeezed.

König stiffened in surprise beneath your embrace, his back straightening up. You had thrown all your weight forward, but he caught you without moving so much as an inch. Gradually, he put his arm around you, the hand clutching your shoulder as you sobbed with relief into the crook of his neck.

“Are you hurt?” You heard him ask.

“Nuh uh.” You shook your head that you’d buried into his neck. "Are y-you hurt?" It smelled stronger of the scent you knew as his detergent and — now that you were close enough to smell him — grass, undercut with a lemony citrus.

"Nein, Süßer Engel. Du bist jetzt in Sicherheit." He breathed out a sigh. His voice was shaky, which filled you with a surge of emotion that made you pull yourself tighter to him, unthinking, just needing. König's hand slid down to your waist. With ease, he pulled you up, up, over the lip of the bathtub, and set you on the floor. "We must go now." He whispered, the cloth warm against the shell of your ear; he was stooped down as you still clung around his neck.

You nodded, unlatching yourself. He released you, too, his fingers dragging up your back. You clung to his arm as you walked down the hall, through the kitchen. There was no one there, at least it seemed so; the house was eerily quiet. König stopped so suddenly you nearly crashed into him. He turned to you, and you could see that as he looked at you, he was turning something over in his head.

"Do you have it?" He asked quietly.

At first you didn't remember, but then you did; you fished in your pocket, and pulled out your grandmother's recipe cards. Despite everything, you smiled up at him.

For a moment, his expression warmed, but sobered just as quickly. "You must stay close to me. Close your eyes. Do not open them until I tell you. Do you understand?"

"W-why?"

"Do you understand?" He repeated, harsher.

Instinct told you that wanted to argue back with him as you had been for the last few days. But second thoughts came; he'd come back for you. He was trying to protect you; that he had made clear enough, over and over.

So you nodded.

In a double measure anyway, König clamped his big hand over your eyes, guiding you through the yard beneath the crook of his arm. Immediately, the air outside that hit your nose carried an ozonic, metallic smell; razor sharp and warm against the cold, making it all the more distinct.

Blood?

"Don't look," König repeated gruffly under his breath, pulling you along. Remembering now, with clarity, the shots you heard. You clenched your teeth; you weren't sure you'd want to see what horrors could possibly be behind his hand at that point. So you obeyed.

You heard the car door open and felt him take you by your waist again. Only then did he remove his hand from your eyes, and he lifted you into the passenger seat of the truck.

"Don't look!" He ordered fiercely, and you screwed your eyes shut. He slammed the door, and you heard him come around into the driver's seat. "Keep your head down," He ordered. You didn't need him to command you to do that; you clamped your hands over your ears and tucked your head into your knees, trying not to hyperventilate.