5. Esmerelda
ESMERELDA
The common room has become our refuge.
Five days into lockdown, and we've carved out a space that almost feels normal, if you ignore the armed men rotating past the windows and the distant sounds of tactical briefings from the command center.
The women have claimed this corner of the clubhouse as our own, filling it with the rituals that keep us sane: Eliza's stress-baking, Margot's quiet embroidery, Camille's aggressive knife maintenance, and Kira's endless security reports.
We're all pretending things are fine. We're all failing.
I'm curled up on one of the worn leather couches with a book I'm not reading, my mind wandering to a certain mountain of an orc stationed somewhere in the compound.
Five days of morning coffee and halting conversations, five days of watching Stellan's walls crack in tiny, almost imperceptible ways.
Yesterday he almost smiled at something I said.
The corner of his mouth twitched upward for just a second before he caught himself and smoothed it away, but I saw it. I've been thinking about it ever since.
"You're staring at Stellan again," Camille says from across the room, not looking up from the knife she's sharpening with methodical precision.
"I'm not staring. I'm reading."
"Your book is upside down."
I glance down. She's right. Heat floods my cheeks as I flip the paperback right-side up, and I hear Eliza's delighted laugh from the kitchen area where she's pulling another batch of cookies from the oven.
The smell of chocolate and sugar fills the room, warm and comforting, a small rebellion against the tension that permeates everything.
"It's cute," Eliza says, carrying a plate of cookies toward the seating area. Her red hair is pulled back in a messy bun, flour dusted across her cheek. "The big scary berserker and our resident sweetheart. Very beauty and the beast."
"He's not scary," I say automatically, my voice coming out more defensive than I intended.
"He's literally the scariest person in this entire building," Camille counters, testing the blade's edge with her thumb. "And that's saying something, considering Barrett exists and has that whole warlord vibe going on."
"Barrett's not scary anymore," Kira says without looking up from her tablet, her fingers still scrolling through whatever data she's analyzing. "He's just dramatic now. All growl, no bite."
"Says the woman who somehow negotiated her way into running half his operations," Camille points out with a knowing smirk.
"Someone had to organize the chaos," Kira replies, her lips twitching with barely suppressed amusement. "He's brilliant at commanding troops and inspiring loyalty. He's absolutely terrible at spreadsheets and logistics."
The easy banter is familiar, grounding, a reminder that these women have become more than friends during the chaos of the past year.
We've watched each other fall in love with orcs who shouldn't have been possible, who challenged everything we thought we knew about safety and danger and what it means to belong.
We've held each other through fear and violence and the particular terror of loving someone who walks into battle.
But when Kira sets down her tablet and looks at me with those sharp, assessing eyes, I know the banter is about to end.
"Esme. Can we talk?"
The question lands heavy in the comfortable silence. Margot's embroidery needle pauses. Eliza sets down her cookie. Even Camille stops sharpening her knife, though she doesn't look up.
"Of course," I say, because what else can I say?
Kira nods toward the hallway, and I set down my upside-down book and follow her out of the common room, past the reinforced windows and the distant murmur of male voices from the command center.
She doesn't speak until we're alone in a small alcove near the back rooms, far enough from the others that our conversation will be private.
"I talked to Stellan yesterday," she says without preamble. "I told him to be careful with you."
"I know." I keep my voice steady. "He was quieter than usual this morning. I figured something happened."
"Did he tell you why I'm concerned?"
"Not directly." I lean against the wall, crossing my arms. "But I'm not stupid, Kira. I know what the berserker is. I've heard the stories."
"Stories." She lets out a short, humorless laugh.
"The stories don't do it justice, Esme. I've seen security footage of what Stellan becomes when he loses control.
It's not like Roman's violence, or Barrett's.
It's not even like the worst thing you can imagine.
It's something else entirely. Something barely human. "
"But he is human," I say. "Orc. Whatever. The point is, he's a person. A person with a condition he didn't choose and has spent fifteen years trying to control."
"A condition that makes him capable of killing everyone in a room before he even realizes what he's doing.
" Kira's voice is gentle, but her words are brutal.
"Barrett told me about an episode three years ago.
Stellan killed six men in under two minutes.
He didn't remember any of it afterward. Just woke up covered in blood with no idea how he got there. "
The image settles into my mind, ugly and unavoidable.
I think about Stellan's soft voice, his gentle hands, the way he counts his heartbeats and steps back when I get too close.
I think about the careful distance he maintains, the walls he's built, the loneliness that radiates from him like heat from a fire.
"Has he ever hurt someone innocent?" I ask. "Someone who wasn't a threat?"
Kira hesitates. "No. The berserker only emerges when someone he cares about is in danger. It's protective, not predatory."
"Then why should I be afraid of him?"
"Because you don't know what he's capable of.
Because the beast inside him doesn't distinguish between threats and bystanders when it's unleashed.
Because—" She stops, takes a breath, and when she speaks again, her voice is softer.
"Because you're my best friend, and I've never seen you look at anyone the way you look at him.
And I'm terrified of what will happen if the berserker wakes up with you standing too close. "
The words hit me somewhere deep, somewhere that aches.
Kira isn't trying to be cruel. She's trying to protect me, the same way she's always protected me, ever since we were eighteen-year-old freshmen who found each other in the chaos of a new college campus.
Twelve years of friendship, of watching each other's backs, of being the first call when everything falls apart.
But this time, I don't need protection from Stellan. I need someone to understand why I can't walk away.
"Maybe I want to find out," I say quietly. "What he's capable of. All of it."
"Esme—"
"I know you're worried. I know it doesn't make sense.
But there's something in him, Kira. Something gentle and lonely and desperate to be seen.
He watches me like he's afraid I'll disappear if he blinks.
He speaks in whispers because he's scared his voice will frighten me.
He counts his heartbeats to keep from reaching for me, and every time I bring him coffee, he looks at me like I'm offering him something he doesn't deserve. "
I pause, gathering my thoughts, trying to find the words for feelings that are still new and overwhelming.
"I've spent my whole life reaching for people who need help.
It's what I do, who I am. But Stellan is different.
He doesn't want to be helped. He doesn't think he deserves it.
He's so convinced he's a monster that he's built his whole life around keeping everyone safe from himself.
" I meet Kira's eyes. "But he's not a monster.
He's just alone. And I don't think he has to be. "
Kira studies me for a long moment, her expression unreadable. Then she sighs, and some of the tension leaves her shoulders.
"You're going to do this no matter what I say, aren't you?"
"I'm going to try. I can't promise anything else."
"Just... be careful. Please." She reaches out and squeezes my hand. "Not because I think he'll hurt you intentionally. But because you give too much sometimes, and I don't want you to lose yourself trying to save someone who might not want to be saved."
"I'm not trying to save him," I say, and I realize as I say it that it's true. "I'm just trying to know him. Whatever that looks like."
When we return to the common room, the atmosphere has shifted.
Margot has set down her embroidery and is watching the hallway with knowing eyes. Eliza is pretending to arrange cookies on a plate, but her attention keeps drifting toward us. Camille has stopped sharpening her knife entirely and is leaning back in her chair, arms crossed, waiting.
"Well?" Eliza asks as Kira and I settle back onto the worn leather couches, her dark eyes bright with curiosity and barely concealed amusement. "Did the intervention work? Is our Esme suddenly enlightened about the dangers of brooding orcs?"
"It wasn't an intervention," Kira says dryly, reclaiming her spot and tucking her legs beneath her. "It was an expression of concern from a place of genuine care and friendship."
"Same thing, just with prettier words. So did it work?"
I shake my head slowly, and Eliza grins wide, exchanging a knowing glance with Camille that speaks volumes—a whole silent conversation passing between them in that single look.
"Told you," Camille says, satisfaction evident in her voice. "Esme doesn't scare easily. She never has. Remember when she walked into that meth house over on Riverside to retrieve a toddler? Alone, without backup, into a building that could've been full of armed dealers?"
"That was my job," I protest, heat rising to my cheeks.
"Your job was to call the police and wait for backup to secure the scene. You walked in anyway, without a vest, without knowing what you'd find."