3. Esmerelda
ESMERELDA
I've spent my whole life being the one who reaches first.
It's what I do, who I am, the thing that makes me useful.
I reach for the foster kid who won't make eye contact.
I reach for the grieving mother who can't stop crying.
I reach for Kira when her walls are up so high she can't see over them.
Reaching is my superpower, my calling, the reason I became a social worker instead of doing something easier with my life.
But I've never reached for someone like Stellan Vargas.
It's the second day of lockdown, and I've been watching him the way he watches me.
He stands apart from everyone, a mountain of muscle and scars positioned by the door like a sentinel.
He eats alone when he eats at all, which isn't often.
He speaks only when spoken to, and even then his answers are short, soft, surprisingly gentle for someone who looks like he could tear the building down with his bare hands.
The other brothers give him space, and not just because of his size.
There's something in the way they move around him, a careful distance that speaks to knowledge I don't have yet.
Everyone treats him like he's dangerous. Everyone keeps their distance.
I'm tired of distance.
The kitchen is quiet when I slip in to make coffee, most of the women still asleep in the back room and the brothers rotating through their shifts outside.
The morning light filters through reinforced windows, pale and gray, and I find myself thinking about my apartment, my job, the clients I'm not helping while I'm trapped in this fortress.
The guilt sits heavy in my chest, familiar and uncomfortable.
I should be out there. I should be doing something useful.
Instead, I'm making coffee for a man who probably doesn't want it.
"Bringing coffee to the big guy?"
I turn to find Marcus leaning against the doorframe, that easy grin on his face.
In the two days I've known him, he's become a constant presence, checking on the women, making sure everyone has what they need, filling the tense silences with jokes that are actually funny.
He reminds me of a golden retriever in orc form, all enthusiasm and loyalty and the kind of optimism that hasn't been beaten out of him yet.
"He looks like he could use it," I say, reaching for a second mug.
"He won't talk to you. Fair warning." Marcus pushes off the doorframe and wanders closer, watching me pour. "Stellan doesn't talk to anyone. Not really."
"You talk to him."
"At him, maybe. I've been here two years, and I think I've had maybe three actual conversations with the guy.
" He pauses, something shifting behind his amber eyes.
"But you know what? I've seen him feeding stray cats behind the garage.
Late at night, when he thinks no one's watching.
He brings them the good food, too. The expensive stuff. "
The image settles into my mind, unexpected and achingly sweet.
This massive, terrifying orc, crouched in the darkness behind a garage, feeding stray cats with gentle hands.
It doesn't match the monster everyone seems to see when they look at him.
It matches the gentleness in his eyes when he looked away from me yesterday, like he was afraid of what I might find if I looked too long.
"So he's not what he seems," I say.
"None of us are." Marcus's grin softens into something more genuine. "Good luck. You're going to need it."
I find Stellan exactly where I expected, stationed by the main door with his arms crossed and his expression carefully blank.
He's wearing the same dark t-shirt as yesterday, stretched tight across shoulders that could probably bench press a car.
His leather cut hangs open, the Ironfang patches stark against worn black leather.
In the morning light, I can see more of his scars than I noticed before: the ragged line across his throat, the burn marks on his knuckles, the way his left ear is missing a chunk at the top.
He's a map of violence, a history written in damaged skin.
He's also watching me approach with something that looks almost like panic, his entire massive frame going rigid, shoulders tensing beneath the worn leather of his cut.
"You look like you could use this," I say, holding out the mug with both hands, steam curling up between us in the cool morning air.
He freezes completely. For a long moment, he doesn't move at all, doesn't even seem to breathe, just stares at the coffee in my hands like I'm offering him a live grenade instead of a simple gesture of kindness. His dark eyes are wide, uncertain, and I can see his throat work as he swallows hard.
"I don't—" His voice is low, barely audible, a rumble that vibrates somewhere deep in my chest and makes my breath catch.
"It's just coffee." I keep my voice warm and steady, the same gentle tone I use with skittish clients who aren't sure they want help yet, who are still deciding whether to trust me. "I noticed you haven't eaten today either. Or yesterday, for that matter. Marcus mentioned it."
"You don't need to—" He starts to shake his head, taking half a step back like he's preparing to retreat.
"I know I don't need to." I step closer, closing the distance he's trying to create, close enough now to smell leather and metal and something underneath that might be sandalwood, warm and woodsy. "I want to."
His dark eyes meet mine, and I watch the war play out across his face.
He wants to refuse. He wants to retreat, to put distance between us, to go back to being the isolated mountain everyone expects.
But something else is happening too, something softer, something that makes his jaw clench and his hands flex against his biceps.
Slowly, like the movement costs him something, he reaches for the mug.
Our fingers brush.
The contact is brief, barely a second, but I feel it like a spark of static electricity. His skin is rough, warm, his fingers so much larger than mine that they make the mug look like a toy. He inhales sharply, and for one breathless moment I think he's going to drop the coffee and bolt.
Instead, he steps back, putting careful distance between us, and wraps both hands around the mug like he's anchoring himself to it.
"Thank you," he says, and his voice is even softer now, barely more than a whisper. It doesn't match his size at all. It sounds like something fragile, something he's trying to protect.
"I'm Esmerelda. Esme."
"I know who you are."
The words send a shiver down my spine, though I can't quite say why.
He says it like a confession, like an admission of something he's been carrying for a while.
I think about Marcus's comment yesterday, about Stellan asking which one I was, and I realize that he's probably known my name for longer than I've known his.
"Then you have me at a disadvantage," I say lightly. "I only learned your name yesterday."
Something flickers in his expression, gone too fast to read. "There's not much to know."
"I doubt that's true."
He doesn't respond, just takes a sip of the coffee, and I watch his eyebrows lift slightly. Surprise, maybe, that I made it the way he likes it. I didn't, actually. I just made it strong, which seemed like a safe bet for someone who looks like he's been awake for a week.
I don't leave.
Instead, I lean against the wall near him, not quite in his space but close enough that we could have a conversation without shouting.
He tenses at my proximity, a subtle shift in his posture that tells me he's hyperaware of exactly how close I am.
I pretend not to notice. I pretend this is normal, just two people sharing a morning, nothing to see here.
"It must be hard," I say after a few minutes of silence. "Being the one who stays alert while everyone else rests."
"It's my job."
"That doesn't mean it's not hard."
He's quiet for so long that I think he's not going to respond.
The silence stretches between us, filled with the distant sounds of the compound waking up, brothers moving through their rotations, the women stirring in the back room.
I wait. Patience is another one of my superpowers, honed through years of working with people who need time to find their words.
"I don't mind," he says finally, so soft I have to strain to hear him. "Keeping people safe."
"But who keeps you safe?"
He turns to look at me then, really look, and something shifts in his dark eyes. For just a moment, the careful blankness cracks, and I see something underneath that makes my breath catch. Loneliness. Longing. A hunger so deep it's almost painful to witness.
Then he blinks, and the mask slides back into place.
"No one needs to."
"I think everyone needs someone."
He doesn't respond. But he doesn't walk away either.
By the third day, we've developed a routine.
I bring him coffee in the morning, strong and black. He accepts it with that same soft "thank you" that sounds like it costs him something. I lean against the wall near his post, and we share silence that gradually, tentatively, becomes conversation.
It's nothing deep at first. Small observations about the compound, questions about the lockdown, comments about the weather that seems determined to mock us with perfect spring sunshine while we're trapped inside.
He answers in short sentences, always soft, always careful, like he's measuring each word before he lets it go.
But he's answering, which Marcus assured me is more than most people get.
"You're the treasurer," I say on the third morning, remembering something Kira mentioned. "You handle the club's money."
"Numbers make sense." He's staring at the reinforced window across the room, not quite looking at me, but not quite ignoring me either. "They're predictable. Controllable."
"That sounds like something a person says when other things in their life aren't."