3. Esmerelda #2
His jaw tightens. I've pushed too far, I think, gotten too close to something he's not ready to share. But then he exhales, a long slow breath, and some of the tension leaves his massive shoulders.
"I like order," he says quietly. "Patterns. Things I can count on."
"What do you count?"
The question seems to surprise him. He turns to look at me, really look, and I hold his gaze without flinching. Whatever he's searching for in my expression, he seems to find it, because something in him softens just slightly.
"Everything." The word is barely more than a breath. "Steps. Heartbeats. Seconds between one thing and another."
"That sounds exhausting."
"It keeps me... grounded." He pauses, and I can see him wrestling with whether to say more. "There's noise sometimes. In my head. Counting helps quiet it."
I want to ask what kind of noise. I want to understand what haunts this gentle giant who feeds stray cats and speaks in whispers and watches me like I'm the sunrise he wasn't expecting to see.
But I can also see the tension creeping back into his posture, the walls rebuilding themselves brick by brick, and I know that pushing now will only push him away.
So instead, I say, "I hum. When I'm stressed or anxious. Old church hymns, mostly—the ones with minor keys and melancholy undertones. Drives Kira absolutely crazy because I don't even realize I'm doing it half the time."
He blinks at me, clearly not expecting the abrupt subject change, and I can see him trying to reorient himself.
"My grandmother used to sing them when I was little," I continue, giving him space to breathe.
"Every Sunday morning while she made breakfast, every evening while she washed dishes.
I don't even believe all the words anymore—haven't set foot in a church in years—but the melodies stuck somewhere deep.
They feel like home, like safety, even when nothing else does. "
"That's..." He stops, seems to reconsider his words carefully, as if weighing each one before offering it to me. "That's nice. Having something that feels like home."
"Everyone should have something like that," I say softly, watching his profile in the dim light.
"Not everyone does." The words are flat, matter-of-fact, and somehow that makes them sadder.
"What feels like home to you?"
The question hangs between us, heavier than I intended.
I watch emotions flicker across his face, too fast to identify, and I wonder if I've finally asked the thing that will make him walk away.
He's so guarded, so careful, and I'm over here with my social worker instincts, trying to crack him open like he's one of my clients who needs saving.
Maybe that's not fair to him. Maybe he doesn't need saving. Maybe he just needs someone to sit with him in the silence without demanding anything in return.
"This," he says finally, and his voice is rough in a way I haven't heard before. "The club. My brothers." He pauses, and his dark eyes meet mine with an intensity that steals my breath. "Being useful. Keeping people safe. That's what home feels like."
"Not a place?"
"Places don't last." Something old and painful moves behind his eyes. "People do. If you're lucky."
I think about the sister Marcus mentioned, the one who made the leather bracelet still wrapped around Stellan's massive wrist. I think about the way he said "if you're lucky," like luck is something that ran out for him a long time ago.
"I'm sorry," I say softly. "For whoever you lost."
He goes still. Completely, utterly still, like a statue carved from stone. For a long moment, I think I've made a terrible mistake, pushed too hard, broken whatever fragile connection we've been building over these past two days.
Then he lets out a breath that sounds like it's been trapped in his chest for years.
"Her name was Mira," he says, so quiet I almost don't hear him. "My sister."
"Tell me about her?"
"I can't." His voice cracks on the word, just barely, a fracture in the careful control he maintains. "Not yet. Maybe not ever."
"That's okay." I reach out without thinking and touch his arm, just briefly, just enough to let him know I'm here. His skin is warm through his sleeve, his muscle tense beneath my fingers. "You don't have to tell me anything you're not ready to share."
He looks down at where my hand rests against his arm, and I watch the muscles in his throat work as he swallows hard, like he's trying to force down words that want to escape.
"You should go," he says, his voice rougher now, strained. But he doesn't pull away. His arm stays perfectly still beneath my touch, like he's afraid that moving might break whatever spell is holding us in this moment. "The others will wonder where you are. They'll start asking questions."
"Let them wonder."
"Esmerelda." My name in his mouth sounds like a prayer, like something sacred and reverent, the syllables shaped with more care than I've heard anyone give them before. "I'm not... I'm not good at this. Talking. Being known. Letting people see past the surface."
"You're doing fine," I tell him, meaning it.
"You don't understand." He finally does pull away, stepping back, putting deliberate distance between us like it physically hurts him to do it, like every inch of space costs him something. "I'm not someone you should get close to. I'm not safe to be around."
"You've done nothing but keep me safe since I got here," I point out.
"That's not what I mean." The frustration in his voice is palpable now, edged with something darker.
"Then what do you mean?"
He shakes his head, jaw clenched, hands curling into fists at his sides. The conflict in his expression is painful to witness, wanting and fear tangled together so tightly I don't know how he breathes under the weight of it.
"There's something inside me," he says, and the words sound like they're being torn out of him. "Something that I can't always control. If you knew what I was capable of?—"
"Then tell me."
"You'd run."
"Try me."
He stares at me, dark eyes searching my face for something I hope he finds.
The silence stretches between us, heavy with everything he's not saying, and I wait.
I've always been good at waiting. It's part of the job, part of who I am, this willingness to sit in uncomfortable spaces until the other person is ready to fill them.
But Stellan doesn't fill the silence. He just looks at me with something that might be wonder, might be terror, might be both, and I realize that whatever secret he's carrying is too big to share in a hallway during a lockdown, too heavy to drop into a conversation that started with coffee.
"I should get back to my post," he says finally, and his voice is steady again, controlled. "Thank you for the coffee. And the... conversation."
"Same time tomorrow?"
He hesitates. I can see him wanting to say no, wanting to rebuild the walls I've been carefully dismantling. But something else wins out, something that looks almost like hope.
"Same time tomorrow," he agrees, and the words sound like a promise.
I walk back to the women's quarters with his voice echoing in my head. There's something inside me. Something that I can't always control.
Kira told me about the berserker, about what Stellan becomes when his control breaks. She told me I should be afraid, that he's different from the others, that the danger isn't just theoretical with him.
But when I look at Stellan Vargas, I don't see a monster.
I see a man who feeds stray cats and counts his heartbeats and speaks in whispers because he's afraid of scaring people with his voice.
I see someone who's spent so long keeping everyone at arm's length that he's forgotten what it feels like to be reached for.
I see someone who needs exactly what I have to give.
The question is whether he'll let me give it.