Alain
Elias touched the soft envelope on his left side, and felt for his knives on his right. Brushed his fingertips through the doll’s hair. His heart raced.
He walked up the path, soles burning from the heat of the ground, climbed the white painted porch and knocked.
It was a full three minutes time before the door opened.
He was an incredibly strong man. Elias immediately could tell his grip would be iron. He was finely dressed, if a bit disheveled, and very handsome though he was not young. His blond hair was shot through with gray. His chiseled face was dusted in arterial spray.
Elias’s eyes trailed down his body to his arms, hands, gloved and coated with blood.
Then he looked back up into Alain’s dead eyes. Eyes like Victor’s.
“Il y a un garcon qui va venir à votre porte—” he started, but Alain interrupted him. In German.
“He has been here already.”
Without any warning at all, Alain swiftly grabbed the side of Elias’s head. He turned his face, scrutinizing the cuts closely. His breath smelled like violets beyond the reek of iron, and Elias closed his eyes.
Alain tilted Elias’s jaw up roughly, and Elias bent to his will like a willow. Allowing the thick fingers to wedge themselves between his throat and shirt collar to check the scars running beneath.
“It has been twenty days. They heal fast,” Elias murmured.
Alain let out a shaky sigh. He put both hands to Elias’s cheeks and pushed their foreheads together, smearing Elias’s face in stranger’s blood.
“This should never have happened to you,” Alain whispered.
And oh, Elias had not been touched with intention in so very long that he let him.