IT WILL COME BACK / 𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝖙𝖍𝖗𝖊𝖊

(i was gonna use a joesph morgan gif for this chapter but... c'mon)

It wasn't often that Ella found a silence she couldn't stand.

For as long as she remembered, she'd been inclined to it: the kind of quiet that made people look back in conversation on a busy street, as if to check if they'd lost her in amongst the bumping shoulders. The kind of softness that came with someone content with their own solitude, company and a gentle morning.

She wasn't scared of a lull in conversation or the pause in between this and that –– Ella, in fact, welcomed it.

She'd grown used to preferring it. A lonely house in the middle of the woods was far more appealing to her than an apartment in a busy city. She'd spent a few years in civilization and it hadn't been right; none of it had ever been right. For Ella, this isolation was it.

But this? This silence?

It bled through her like a split vein.

It was moments like these that Ella remembered that living alone in the middle of nowhere had it's dangers –– and one of them was standing right there, staring back at her.

This realisation had all begun with the chilling fear that something had gone wrong.

That something in the morning peace had slipped and slid, breaking china in the process and leaving her table bare.

It'd continued with the thick discomfort of spit in her mouth, bile that she struggled to swallow and the itch of skin on the back of her neck as she felt the suspicion of being watched––

And then there was the knowing.

The turn to notice the intruder and the feeling that came with it: the way her body numbed, her jaw slackened, blood rushed to her ears and she almost went dizzy with the racing fear that strummed up her heart––

Oh.

A breath had caught in the back of her throat and she almost choked on it.

It was almost what killed her–– that was, of course, if this stranger didn't kill her first.

He was much taller than her. He fit awkwardly in the doorway, as if this house was never intended for him.

His skin was pale, chalky, as if he had leeches between every finger and in the web between his toes. Sickly, almost. Pale golden hair bristled, matted, against his forehead and his whole posture skewed until he was holding himself up against the doorframe.

He looked tired. Eyes were wide, shadowed by bruises and bloodshot.

But his gaze –– that was unwavering.

How it burned, like petrol on a fire or a forest fire. It stuck to her and Ella found herself breathless; whether from the sheer fear of the moment or from his gaze alone, her lungs squeezed and choked her.

Burning like napalm. Impossible to escape.

She was frozen in that moment of horror and caught up in a moment of uncertainty.

Who are you? What are you? And What will you do?

Meeting a stranger, for Ella, was never easy, but in this situation, the questions that hung around them almost blinded her.

She didn't know who this man was, or what he wanted, or why he was here –– all she knew was that she was terrified. Honestly terrified. To her core and to her toes and to the ends of her split ends, Ella Davis was scared beyond belief.

Her nose burned with the threat of tears, fingers trembling as she remembered that isolation really did, occasionally, have its drawbacks.

Two hours from Pierspoint. Two hours from the Sheriff's Department. There was no one nearby who could possibly save her from the stranger in her house.

Ella didn't dare look away from his face. Her eyes hadn't moved since they'd met his. It felt like a bad nightmare where she was so deeply convinced that if she looked away he'd reach for her, right there.

As she fought to ease a breath into her tight chest, Ella's first and only blazingly coherent thought was that he could do anything to her and absolutely no one would know.

The man shifted and Ella flinched.

It was her first movement since the fear hit and it seemed to make him jolt in return––

His wide, round eyes burned a hole into her as she dragged in a shaky breath––

  "Uh," he cleared his throat and then spoke: "Hi."

His voice was raw and husky, as if his vocal chords ached just from the noise. He, too, seemed to labour in his breathing –– he was positioned so uncomfortably upright that, for a moment, a part of Ella (beautifully delusional and dangerously empathetic) wondered if he needed to sit down.

Hi.

Ella didn't respond.

She was too busy trying her best not to cry.

Just as she had been in her bedroom, her muscles were locked in fear.

Every hair on her body felt as though it was stood–– if she'd been a cat, she was sure her back would have been arched and her tail stiff. She couldn't find it within herself to blink talk about talk.

The man didn't seem to be swayed by her silence, but he did look away –– Ella allowed herself a sudden influx of air just as his eyes wandered around her kitchen.

   "I like..." He had an accent she couldn't place. She'd never heard one like that before, "...your house."

Ella just stared.

She was concentrating so hard on not letting her bottom lip wobble.

She was so overwhelmed by the feeling of her heart in her chest, as if it was desperately trying to beat its way out of her chest. She could feel it, fighting muscle and bone, the noise beating wildly through every limb.

The stranger's eyes flickered down to her chest, and, as if he could hear it too, his brow furrowed.

  "No," He said, his voice breathless, "That's... No, don't––"

He took a step forward and Ella, finally, moved. It was a blink of a movement. One moment she was stock still and the next she'd reached behind her, grabbing the knife from the kitchen counter.

Before she'd even registered what'd happened, she was holding it out before her, eyes pearling with unshed tears and arm shaking.

The man froze, mid-step.

She watched his eyebrows raise slowly, as did his hands.

He shifted his weight away from the door and his arms raised upwards in a badly coordinated surrender.

An odd, foreign-to-her expression flickered across his face and he seemed to wince, very slightly.

She wasn't sure if it was because she'd pulled a knife on him or whether the movement of straightening had hurt him, but either way, the man seemed surprised by the sudden escalation.

  "What are you doing in my house?"

Her voice was a half-whisper; half terror and half an attempt at assertion.

The stranger just sighed to himself, face twisting slightly.

  "You don't have to..."

Everytime, he seemed to run out of breath before the end of his sentence. The beginning was like gravel, the end like a death rattle.

It didn't occur to Ella until he was holding his arms out to her, that he was visibly bloodied and bruised.

   "You don't need to––"

   "Who are you?"

She was as clumsy in her fear as she was in her anger. Ella knew there was nothing threatening or scary about a crying girl, and yet a tear ran down her cheek.

Her hand holding the knife wavered too –– it wasn't a butter knife, it was a carving knife. She'd sharpened it just last week.

The blade glinted ominously in the early morning as she struggled to keep in focused on him.

The man's hands, however, didn't waver.

  "That's..." He winced a second time, "I can't––"

  "Why are you in my house?"

She was only capable of those two alternating thoughts –– Who was this man? What did he want? Who was this man? Why the hell was he in her house?

Ella's voice shook as much as her body. Her shoulders twitched and her lungs ached.

Who was he? What did he want?

  "Please..." He murmured it lightly, eyes, once again, dropping to catch the way the light glinted off the knife in her hand. He seemed to sigh at it, as if he was disappointed, "Please put the knife down."

(What kind of intruder said please?)

Ella's head shook from side to side, the movement uncomfortable and jerking.

  "G-Get out––"

  "The knife––"

  "Get out of my house––"

  "Put it on the table," The man said, "Please."

When she didn't move, the man sighed a second time.

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and groaned –– his head twisted to the side so he grimace from some sort of pain ––

He appeared like a bloodied divine being. Too tall, too pale, too rough around the edges— Ella's eye sight flickered as she watched in terror, but ever so often she saw the hues of bruise against his porcelain skin —

Something bad has happened here, part of her concluded, but she couldn't find it within herself to tell if he was the bad thing or not.

  "I don't want to hurt you," The stranger said after a suspended pause. He chewed his way through the word as if they had a bad taste, "Don't–– I don't... just..."

He heaved a breath and hunched over slightly, one hand pressing against his abdomen.

  "Put it down––" He said between clenched teeth; voice still both exhausted, insistent yet soft.

He didn't want to hurt her... He would hurt her... He could hurt her...

Her eyes widened and she took a step away, edging towards the door that lead to the truck. For the first time in at least 60 seconds, Ella blinked and her eyes, subtly, flickered towards her exit.

Just like with her heartbeat, she could've sworn he just knew ––

  "Don't," He warned. His voice grew increasingly more estranged.

But she did ––

Her body lunged towards the back door and, with it, time seemed to fly –– one blink, Ella was running for freedom and the next, she was faced with a bare chest.

A strangled scream caught in the back of her throat but it never made a sound.

The man was in front of her now ––

Her back thudded against the refrigerator as she stumbled backwards.

His hand was on her wrist. An affirmative grip that wasn't too tight.

His bright eyes burned even hotter up close, she felt the scold against her skin as her breath stopped entirely –– she shuddered, like an animal backed into a corner.

She was forced to stare up at him now. His neck had to crane from the difference in their heights –– God, he was so much taller.

Ella had never felt so small and her ex had been tall too.

He was muscular too. He could kill her so easily.

That was all she could think about.

He could kill her. She could scream. He could kill her. She could die.

No one would ever be none the wiser. No one would hear.

No one would know.

Ella could die and her body would grow flowers in its place.

...

The stranger seemed to take a moment.

He breathed in sharply between his teeth. She could hear it whistle between his teeth. She was close enough to hear his every breath.

She was sure he could hear hers too; or at least, the lack of it –– when she looked up at his face, he was concentrating on her. Only her.

Her nostrils filled with the smell of his sweat.

Her limbs quaked from the impending sobs; terror that had overflowed into something that Ella imagined happened at the end of peoples lives.

The desperate bargaining, the begging, the feeling that her whole body was about to slip and slid into total destruction––

The realisation this was what had been truly inevitable this whole time sunk under her skin. She'd forgot how isolation could protect her too.

The stranger didn't respond, he just, very gently, increased the pressure on her wrist. His eyes flickered down to watch her grasp on the knife loosen –– a light clatter filled the kitchen as Ella's only weapon for self defence fell to the floor.

A horrified breath squeezed its way out of Ella's lungs and she stared at him, wide eyed, as his eyes met hers again.

  "I did ask you to put it down," He murmured, each word caused a breath to flutter across Ella's face. He seemed to frown at her, "That would hurt... It wouldn't be very nice––"

But Ella couldn't stop herself from interrupting.

  "P-please," It was her turn to beg now. Her mouth tasted of saltwater from her tears, "Please don't–– P-please don't hurt me."

A dent pressed itself between his eyebrows.

  "Hurt you?" The man repeated.

He seemed confused.

She couldn't shake off the way that he looked at him. It blazed even through the film of tears ––

  "I d-don't know what y-you want," Ella said, sniffing loudly through her nose. Her head shook from side to side as she cried, "B-but there's some money o-on my dresser–– I have s-some jewellery in my drawer– j-just please–– Please don't hurt m––"

  "Just breathe."

Ella blinked through her tears, his face appearing like the moon behind clouds. There was an unreadable look in his eye –– his grip on her wrist loosened into something far softer.

  "W-What?"

  "You're shaking," The stranger said, "I want you to calm down. Breathe."

Her eyes widened, this time with bewilderment.

  "I-I don't––"

  "In... Out..."

With shuddering breaths, Ella found herself following him.

The strange man in her kitchen let go of her wrist entirely, his hold gently transferring to her arms.

As she fought her way through a breathing exercise, Ella couldn't help but think this was such a sick way to kill someone ––

Lull them into calmness then what?

But she looked at him.

He was concentrating on her again. His face was twisted in pain but he seemed to listen closely. She slowed her breathing but she couldn't stop that feeling in her chest, nor could she top her tears.

Up close, she noticed the bruising across his face.

He wasn't just visibly exhausted–– a painful looking black eye was just about beginning to fade around his left eye. A cut struggled to connect on his cheek.

His bottom lip was slightly swollen and she couldn't help but wonder if his nose had been broken recently.

Her head fell to look at the muscular arms pinning her in place.

He must've been in so much pain...

  "There you go..." He murmured, "Nice and steady––"

  "Please..."

Ella chipped it out between every breath.

  "D-don't... Hurt... Me..."

The man grimaced and his face scrunched with an emotion unfamiliar to Ella.

  "I told you I don't want to," He said. His voice was unnervingly level and calm. Restrained as if he was in great pain. As Ella's gasps faded, he looked away. "Just please... please don't do that again––"

  "I h-have money––"

  "Ella, please."

...

An inexplicable feeling twisted in her chest and Ella couldn't tell if it was fear or something else. Either way, her blood ran cold and she stilled again –– screw a breathing exercise, this was what had knocked her back into rhythm.

Her head raised to stare at him, eyes wide with horror.

Ella.

He knew her name.

  "H-How do you know my name?"

The stranger's brow furrowed again but he didn't reply.

  "My n-name," Ella said, "Y-you know my n-name––?"

This stranger knew her.

How did he know her?

He'd called her Ella and they'd never met ––

Oh god, he was going to kill her, wasn't he? He was here to make her pay ––

  "Who are you?"

He seemed to realise his mistake.

She watched something pass behind his eyes.

His shoulders slumped slightly.

   "Who are you?"

Again, he didn't speak.

  "What are you doing in my house?"

The stranger just stared at her.

Ella had so many questions.

She could keep going. She could keep asking them over and over, but she had a feeling that this stranger had absolutely no intention of answering any of them.

And she would keep asking –– she'd ask them over and over until he made her stop –– she'd burden him with it until he put her out, whether it was outside or six feet under.

Ella had always been more of a lover than a fighter, but she'd make this as difficult as possible for the both of them if it was the last thing she did.

  "I will answer some of your questions if you promise not to stab me."

The man spoke quietly, holding her gaze intently.

He made sure she was paying attention to his every word.

This man, this man who knew her name, had presumably broken into her house, he made sure she was listening as he gently loosened his hold on her arms.

  "Okay?" He prompted, but Ella didn't reply. She just stared at him, her heart in her mouth. "If I let you go... if I let go... will you promise not to run away?"

Silence.

  "Will you promise not to try to stab me again?"

When she didn't answer, his lips pressed into a thin line.

  "I don't want you to stab me," The man tried again, "I don't think that would feel very nice."

Ella didn't say a word.

He nodded, as if he understood her silence, but added, as if as an afterthought that he needed to make explicitly clear:

  "Please don't stab me."

They held each other's gazes for a long prolonged beat and, for some reason, Ella found herself the calmest she'd been in hours –– with her breathing level and her heart tripping clumsily, Ella could only listen.

  "I'm going to let go," The man said, "I'm going to let go... please don't run or... scream... or... or get the knife. I don't want to harm you... I don't want to scare you–– I'm just going to let go of you––"

A beat.

  "Ella? Do you understand?"

(He said her name as if she'd given him permission to use it.)

It made her flinch slightly.

Ella finally found her voice, eyes slowly dipping to gaze at his bare collarbone.

She felt the words swirling around her mouth, a thousand things that she could say; if she was a bolder person maybe she would've cussed at him.

Maybe she would've told him to get the hell out, to leave and never come back, or that she didn't negotiate with criminals, just like they said in the movies?

  Instead, she just looked back at his face and spoke in the smallest voice imaginable: "Are you naked?"

The man stared at her.

He seemed to freeze for a moment.

As if to check, himself, his head moved downwards and he looked himself over. All the while, Ella's eyes stayed fixed over his shoulder, even when his nose almost bumped the top of her head.

After a long, almost horrified moment, the man cleared his throat.

  "I, uh..." He said, "Yes, I am."

A pause.

Within that pause, it became apparent to her that he hadn't realised until she'd noticed it herself.

   The stranger sighed, "I did think it was pretty cold in here.."

Another pause.

Ella refused to look any further down than his face.

  "Why?" She asked, her own voice still strained,"Why are you naked?"

When the man looked up, his ears were slightly tinged pink. For a moment, he couldn't quite meet her eye. He just heaved a breath, chin raising to look at the ceiling.

She blinked at him and the stranger, with his unfamiliar accent, just shook his head with a disheartened sigh:

  "I don't know."

──────

Ella hadn't had many visitors to her home.

If she had to count all of the people who'd come to the small building on an afterthought road on the Olympic Penisula, she'd figured that they would've easily all fit on one hand.

A finger for Art McCabe, Pierspoint's own Sheriff. He'd gotten into the habit of occasionally swinging by, just to make sure things were fine (and to have a piece of whatever cake Ella had baked in anticipation of his un-planned but definitely planned visit.)

A finger for Maren, who'd once dropped off bird feed and then marvelled at the care she'd put into her flower boxes and herb garden. Another finger for her wife, Luce, who'd bought Ella more flower seeds and entered the home with the intention of teaching her cards.

An extra finger for the moving company who had helped her fill this place (albeit scarcely) two years ago; a woman who'd complimented the fresh air and said how much she envied the quiet out here.

The fifth finger for a hiker who'd taken a lost turn and asked for directions back to Pierspoint on Ella's doorstep.

A full hand of five people who'd seen Ella in these rooms and behind that front door.

But now, this stranger, sitting at her dining table, made six.

Ella hadn't had the energy to apologise for the blood. It looked like a halloween house of horrors in here, but having a naked intruder disarm her and then sit himself on one of her chairs was the kind of situation that forgoed traditional hospitality.

She'd stood there once he'd let her go, barely even blinking as he'd grabbed the towel off of the table, wrapping it around his waist with no fear of the blood on it––

Shit.

Ella's head had turned, warily, to stare out the back window.

The wolf.

She still didn't know where it had disappeared to.

  "I didn't mean to scare you," The man said.

He staggered into one of her kitchen chairs, the exact one she'd sat at for the past few hours. It the kind of distance that let Ella breathe–– she, too, sagged against her refrigerator, shoulders hunched and arms folded across her midriff.

The woman stared at the man in her kitchen, holding herself tightly in the same places he'd previously held her.

From this distance, she could see more bruising that she hadn't noticed before: an extensive network of grey, red and grey spanning across his side. She noticed more stitches too, painstaking patches of skin that were struggling to heal, just like his cheek. He'd wobbled as he held her and now, in that chair, it seemed like too much effort on his part to keep himself up.

Ella's gaze lowered as he set the knife on the table, an even distance between the two of them; then, as if he was dealing with a skittish animal, he held up his hands, once again, as if to show he really did mean no harm.

  "I didn't want to frighten you," He repeated, "But... I just... I didn't know how to do this––"

  "Are you okay?"

She spoke so softly and yet still seemed to catch him completely off-guard.

He came to a complete still as she had so many times. A moment ticked over between them and, in that silence, Ella found herself looking him over again; the bruises, the scalds, the scratches and the wince that fell past his lips at the smallest movement.

It was a question she could have answered herself.

He wasn't okay.

He was very visibly not okay at all.

The only thing that didn't look tarnished were his eyes. She'd never seen that shade of blue before. So light it was almost transparent –– burning so brightly, so inquisitively, that a part of her wasn't surprised when he smiled ––

  "I h-have some orange juice in the fridge," Ella said when he didn't reply, "I-I forgot to do a grocery shop b-but... I-I can find some food––"

  "You're terrified of me," The man said.

He said it as if it was a fact and Ella wasn't really in the business of correcting him.

She was, for the record, completely terrified of him.

Just as she had been of the wolf on that same table.

  "I terrify you," He repeated, "And you're offering me orange juice?"

And he laughed: it was a breathy, hapless sound that should have had a shape but didn't. It seemed to hurt him. He lowered a palm to press against the dark, tortured skin; his face twisted in a grimace.

Ella just looked back at him.

She didn't challenge it –– She couldn't.

Again, Yes, she was scared. She was always scared, most days. When she'd seen him in that doorway, she'd been the scardest she'd been in years. Years. He'd shattered the comfort of the sanctuary she'd built her in seconds –– that had taken her years to gather, too.

But then there was that concern that she could never bite down. The same concern that had burned through her on those late night, empty forest roads, the blindness that had lead to her dragging a whining wolf across these hardwood floors—

Ella inclined her head towards every bruise and every healing wound.

  "You're hurt," She said, as if it eclipsed everything else.

Although, granted, his lips weren't trembling as he said it. Ella had to sniff loudly and stand a little straighter, trying to find her footing on a floor that didn't feel as solid anymore.

When the stranger at her kitchen table met her eye again, there was a weird look in his. It was unreadable or maybe, even, undigestible, Ella didn't know what to do with it.

(It was, ever so fleetingly, the most human he'd ever felt.)

His wry smile caught in the corner of his lip. It crumpled there like a discarded piece of paper.

He was softer, somehow.

  "Sure," The stranger said, and as if he was surrendering his strength, he leant back entirely against the back of his chair. "Okay. I won't say No."

Ella didn't feel easy turning her back on him, but she did. She reached for a cupboard and then the fridge –– she poured a glass of orange juice with an unsteady hand and set it down in front of him.

A little too close to the knife between them.

The bottom of the glass almost brushed it.

The stranger seemed to watch her hand place the glass as if he was concentrating really hard. Ella just retreated back to her solitude in the furthest corner –– the man cleared his throat but before he could speak, Ella got there first ––

  "Did someone do that to you?" She asked.

There was a lump in her throat. Her heartbeat was steady but her chest ached. The man sighed to himself softly, chin dropping against his chest. His smile appeared and disappeared in a single breath.

(She'd asked him that already.)

  "It's my turn..." He said instead, a hand set against the table, "You asked your question... I'll ask mine."

Ella didn't reply. She didn't challenge it. She didn't deny him his question in return –– All the while, her head reeled on how weird her morning was getting.

  "Where am I?" He asked in her silence.

His question caught her off-guard. Her eyebrows raised.

   "Where are you?" She repeated.

  "Yes," He said, eyes flickering between his hands and her bewildered expression, "Where am I?"

  "You're in my house––"

  "I know that," The man said, and then he, weakly, nodded to the knife as if to say 'duh', "But where is your house?"

  Ella frowned, "About 90 miles out from Pierspoint, WA."

  "WA?" He frowned back.

  "Washington State."

He nodded thoughtfully, head turning to look out the window.

But Ella wasn't interested in that. She wanted to know the impending questions that felt so interwoven with her impending doom:

  "How did you get in?"

  "Here?" The man asked, as if it needed specifying.

She nodded.

  "I'm assuming the door," He said, and Ella wasn't sure if it was an attempt at humour.

He tried a breathy laugh with a smile, but overall seemed too tired for a perfect delivery. It wasn't the time. He waited for her reaction.

Ella just blinked back.

His smile faded.

  "I, uh... I'm not sure––"

  "You're not sure?" Ella echoed it back.

She sounded slightly miffed. On the other side of her kitchen, the stranger opened his mouth to speak but then closed it.

He grappled with what to say for a few moments and then clasped his hands together.

There was so much repeating, so much need for clarification –– and yet, throughout everything, the only thing Ella was sure of was that this man was very hurt and she didn't know how the hell he'd made it in here.

The more she looked at him, the more apparent his injuries became. Daylight stretched across the room and brought with it new welts, bruises, shadows and pains.

It was the deja vu that hit her harder than anything else.

    "How long have I been here?" He asked next and Ella thought that was weird.

She would've estimated under ten minutes.

A hand came up to wipe at her wet cheeks.

  "What do you mean?"

  "How long..."

The man trailed off and seemed to think about it. He went to scrunch his nose but seemed to regret it— Ella grimaced with him as a sharp gasp of pain fell through his lips. After a pause, he shook his head.

  "Nevermind," He said, then made a gesture for her to continue, "You."

Ella hated how prepared she was with her next question:

  "D-Did someone send you here?"

Her voice, this time, sounded foreign to her. In the same way she couldn't place the stranger's accent, she struggled to place the voice she knew the best. She spoke with her fingernails digging into her arms and when she finished, she buried her tooth in the tip of her tongue.

His brow furrowed.

  "To me..." Ella specified, "Did someone send you to fi––?"

  "Send me here?" He repeated it, cutting her question in half. His face contorted, "No––"

He appeared shocked by the question, but Ella had met a lot of liars in her lifetime.

   "I don't..." He shook his head, "I don't know how I got here... I..."

His head turned towards that window again and Ella wondered whether he saw what she did.

Did he see a home that she'd painstakingly put together? A garden she'd tended until her ankles ached and her knees bruised?

Or did he see a patch of grass where he'd hide the evidence? Soil to overturn with her bones?

  "I don't remember."

The stranger said it as if that was all. It had a definite end.

He didn't remember. That was all. He couldn't remember how he'd got here. He couldn't remember where he was and he couldn't remember how long he'd been here.

Ella's head tilted to the side.

  "You don't..." She said it slowly, "...remember?"

He reached for the orange juice and seemed to regret every single moment of the movement. Ella wasn't sure if she imagined it, but she could've swore she heard every one of his bones click as he leant down.

Halfway there, the man cracked a wry, deeply pained smile.

  "My turn, right?"

Ella's eye twitched slightly.

  "What day is it?" He asked.

  "Saturday?"

He lightly tsked as if that hadn't been what he'd meant.

  "What month?"

  "January," Ella replied, "January 10th."

He lifted the glass of orange juice towards him just as his eyebrows rose on his forehead. She didn't miss the surprise on his face. It flickered and festered no matter how hard he tried to hide it.

A pause.

Ella, again, found herself uncomfortable in the silence. It itched at her skin. It made her uneasy in ways she hadn't ever felt before — all the while, her eyes scanned over his injuries.

There were so many, too.

  "How did you get like that?"

He glanced up at her but then followed her gaze. She watched him study himself, in far more depth than he had before — a long, choppy breath fell past his lips and she didn't realise he was chuckling to himself until his head lifted back.

The laugh descended to a groan.

  "Damn," He murmured to himself, "I hoped... I really hoped it'd be one of those that looked better than it felt—"

  "Did you hurt someone?"

Ella couldn't stop herself.

The question came out against her will. It slipped so easily, just as the knife had slid from her shaking palm when he'd disarmed her — she thought about it then and was struck, for a startling moment, how she hadn't thought about defending herself for at least a handful of minutes. In conversation with this stranger, she barely thought of it at all.

But she glanced at it on the table as the man placed the orange juice back down onto the table. He hadn't drank from it.

When Ella looked back at his face, he was trying not to meet her eye —

  "I don't know," he said evenly, "I hope not."

And, for some reason neither of them would be able to explain, a part of Ella believed him.

──────

To make it clear, explicitly and unanimously clear to everyone in the audience and beyond: Ella Davis was not a naïve individual.

Maybe she'd been particularly naïve and gullible, but that had been a diffferent person entirely –– that one had died and Ella Davis had taken it's place.

The years she'd spent here had made her suspicious. Most of her solitude was curtained by a degree of paranoia that Ella only admitted in darkness. (She won't expand on that, not now, at least.)

But she was a person who lead with her heart. Her empathy and her softness bit at the back of the throat like some other's anger. What a burden it was to not to be terrified by this man's wounds, but concerned –– when she blinked, it was like that injured wolf was in her kitchen again.

This time, it was just taller, had golden hair and only two legs, yet –– still, somehow –– had that very same look in their eye.

The words 'I don't know' rang through her ears as she stood in that kitchen. The syllables of 'I hope not' followed suit, quickly after. She held her breath and knew, in that moment, that could sense her unease.

Ella didn't know what was happening.

She was sure that all of this had just been a dream.

She'd gone to bed when she'd changed her shirt –– yes, that was it. She'd sat down for a moment and she'd fallen asleep.

Or, maybe, she'd drifted off behind the wheel of that truck. She was sleeping. She'd buried the front wheels in some off-road bush and she'd hit her head, bleeding out until an early morning patrol found her, or an unlucky hiker with a real bad luck streak––

The stranger met her eye slowly, almost bashfully. Slowly, bashfully, shyly, haphazardly, it was all the same. There was an element of shame and apology that he could not speak.

Ella watched him search for words again and come up empty.

He shook his head again, despite how much it hurt to move.

  "I don't..."

(No. That wasn't right.)

Ella wanted to wake up.

  "I meant it..."

(He was sure he'd been better with words, once.)

The stranger spoke so softly that Ella wondered if he was asleep, somewhere, too.

  "Meant what?"

  "I'm not here to hurt you."

Ella didn't know what sort of person she would've been if she wanted not to believe him.

  "Don't worry," The stranger said, but Ella always did. She'd worry about anything and everything if she let herself (which she usually did.) "You shouldn't worry. I'm don't think I can hurt you, Ella––"

There it was again. Her name.

He said it so softly as if it wasn't something that startled her and made her heartbeat pick up again –– his eyes wandered to her face and he saw her distress before she'd even voiced it.

  "How?"

  "What?" He squinted at her, visibly confused by the question.

  "How do you know my name?"

Again, his mouth opened and then abruptly closed again.

He looked off and then took a beat, a hand raised to rub at his chin.

  "I know your name because you told me it," The complete and total stranger said to her, tenderly, "Ella... you introduced yourself to me."

For the thousandth time that morning, Ella found herself stuck in a moment of time.

A few seconds, to be exact.

She stared at this man (just as she only seemed capable of doing over and over) and watched him shift in his chair.  He seemed uncomfortable in any position. She watched him wince ––

You introduced yourself to me.

Just as she didn't have any visitors, Ella didn't meet many new people either. Clients at the clinic tended to be regulars, and most people in Pierspoint, although they hadn't spoken, tended to know her through association or just by the sight of her.

That didn't make sense...

None of this...

Ella didn't understand.

She was as confused as she had been with the wolf at this very table, picking silver from its skin and humming nonsense into the early hours.

  "You spoke to me," The man added, but he seemed to avoid her gaze.

  "I don't..."

The word 'remember' got stuck at the back of her throat.

It wasn't a particularly long word, but there was something in the way the stranger looked up at her that made her feel like it was a thousand syllables long. Her voice died off into something quieter than she'd even known herself –– inside, Ella felt like her brain was on fire.

  "Who... Who are you?" She finally asked.

Her voice caught slightly on the beginning of the question.

It was easier to ask, somehow, than What do you want? Or Where did you come from? It was the foundation of the conversations that would come ––

The kind of question that began the story, right at their beginning.

But his answer, notably, would not solve or really answer anything at all.

The stranger sitting at her kitchen table strained. He looked away again and studied his hands, of which were as scratched up and bruised as the rest of him. It was if he was seeing them for the first time–– Ella, meanwhile, could only see what looked like blood under his fingernails.

Her chest went excruciatingly tight.

  "Who are you?"

Her voice got louder.

  "I don't know," the man said, and he pressed his lips together.

His voice was so soft and tarnished compared to hers.

A choppy breath fell past Ella's lips. She shook her head as if it didn't satisfy her:

  "Why are you here?"

  "I don't know."

Ella's mouth downturned.

Alongside the crying, Ella figured that another part of herself that she disliked was the part that wobbled right there –– her concern and her confusion and her fear and her frustration knotted and pulled at whatever muscles were in her chest ––

I don't remember. He didn't remember. I don't know. He didn't know.

And Ella had no idea what to do with any of it.

  "What do you remember?"

It felt like the kind of question that someone else would have asked sarcastically, but Ella, at least not know, wasn't that kind of person. She didn't have the energy to do anything but chip out words with a weirdly estranged look on her face. She'd been awake for so long, worked so hard ––

It would've been really nice if she could wake up from this now, but she didn't.

He took his time with the question, just as he had with so many others. They'd finished their game: their even back and forth, and now, the stranger seemed to understand that she needed something definite to stop her from just exploding into something insane ––

The man at her kitchen table sighed.

  "You."

  "What?"

  "I remember you," He said.

　　AUTHOR'S NOTE ! . . .

WORD COUNT ! . . . 6655
WRITTEN ON THE 2ND OF SEPTEMBER 2024