Vincent’s eyes were dry and red, and when tears finally came again, they stung worse than anything he could remember in his adult life. He dreaded crying but knew it was the only form of release he was going to get. Endless hours of sleeplessness had also left his eyes swollen, and he couldn’t remember how long it had been since he’d caught more than an hour or two of rest. Even then, most of that had been filled with either nightmares or truths he wasn’t ready to face.
The last six months had been a blur of tests, failed treatment, and lost dreams. All of the money in the world couldn’t cure or diminish this disease, and no matter how hard he fought, researched, and called upon other altered people who could heal, it never mattered. For reasons no one could explain, the radianite that allowed the healing couldn’t penetrate cancer cells. Vincent had spent hours, days, weeks away from her, trying desperately to find someone, anyone, who could help. It hadn’t made a difference.
Finally, after weeks of spinning his tires and getting nowhere, she took his strong hand in her shriveled, bony fingers and looked at him with red, sunken eyes. “Give it up, tiger…”
Tubes trailed from her nose, and an IV ran under her ashen, paper-thin skin. The machines that accompanied her once-strong voice merely droned in his mind, filling the air with the cacophony of subtle death music, threnodies that reminded him of the inevitable. Sounds he feared he’d never shut out, even after she was gone.
He glanced at the EKG, watching her heartbeat line rise and fall. She was still here. “No.” His whisper turned to a wail. “No!” He shook his head from side to side, eyes filling once again with tears. The tears stung worse than freshly cut onions, and his dehydration didn’t help; they were thick with saline. “There must be something,” he insisted, wiping his face frantically. “There must be.”
She smiled softly at him. She no longer had any hair, and all color had faded from her eyes and cheeks. Her skin clung to her brittle bones as though she was melting. “Not everything’s a win, Vincent,” she croaked.
He gritted his teeth and turned away from the skeletal, unfamiliar figure in the hospital bed. Through the window, he spied a young blonde woman walking in the hospital courtyard with her equally young husband, who moved slowly with the help of a cane.
Vincent’s chest burned so intensely it convinced him he was dying, which caused him to cough and pat his chest. There were no glorious silks, nor expensive suits and ties, not on that day or the many days that had gone before it; he wore only unwashed jeans and a large, dark-blue sweatshirt that did nothing for the cold that ran up and down his back in waves.
He stroked his chin as he watched the couple, then smoothed both hands over his face and ran his fingertips through his dark, unkempt hair. “Dr. Eastmon said”—he turned to her—“we could remove it…”
She shook her head slowly. “No, Vincent. I’ll die a whole woman.”
His face contorted in agony as he bit back another wave of tears. “But she said there’s a small chance that—”
She cut him off, her voice far calmer than his as she reached out to him with a withered hand. “Vincent…” He bit his lip and turned away. “Too late.”
More water poured down his face. How much weight had he lost in the past several weeks? His stomach churned. He hadn’t satiated his need for food in the last three days.
“It’s spread.” Her big, red eyes welled and tears fell, but she was smiling. “It’s spread.” She continued to reach toward him. “Vincent. There is no chance.”
He mumbled something in French, something he could never remember upon waking, and turned to her. “But what if—”
She was already shaking her head. Rage poured into his expression, threatening to tear his very skin back. “Stupid, stubborn woman!” he spat.
She gave him an understanding smile. He was in the kind of pain that had no cure and could not be soothed. It was easier for him to rage and blame what he could, whether that was the doctors, her, the universe, or God. “You love me because I’m stupid and stubborn, Vincent.”
A sound came from his mouth that was hard to describe, something between a sob and a gasp. “Oui.” He nodded. “I always have.”
“So let me stubbornly die.” Her smile was filled with adoration for him. “And sit here with me and keep me company.” She patted the mattress on her small hospital bed.
“N-now?” he asked, his very being shrinking before her.
She nodded, forcing a grin through the agony spreading across her trembling lips. “Very soon.”
Her hand was still dangling for him to take. Shaking, he did.
Vincent swallowed and opened his eyes. He was alone in the holding cell at Valorant. Sitting up partially, he looked around. There was no one. He could call her name, but she was not there.
Gritting his teeth, he pounded the pillow with his balled-up fist until he was spent.
***
Marielle’s night was quite a bit different from Vincent’s fretful, memory-laden dreams. She spent the better part of the evening at a small grocery store that carried fine, local ingredients, carefully picking and choosing each item. She breathed in herbs and earthy spices, and felt and smelled each crust of bread until she found the perfect baguette. Then she chose a more expensive wine than the one she’d served the night before, caring not a bit that her receipt added up to over a hundred and fifty dollars; she had that to spend for now.
Back at the apartment, she made slow-cooked lamb with fragrant herbs and spices, spicy roasted carrots with a touch of honey, a cooling yogurt sauce, and a salad with fresh greens, figs, nuts, prosciutto, and crumbled goat cheese.
After a quick taste of everything, she decided the meal was good enough, although that took a bit of convincing for some reason she couldn’t identify. Then she went to her bathroom for a late-night bubble bath, where she let herself sink into luscious thoughts that were most certainly forbidden at this point.
“Who are you, Vincent?” she whispered as if he could hear her, and her mind conjured up the image of him looking at her from behind the bars. There was something in that look—he was trying to romance her, and she felt every bit of it all over her naked body. “How do I get in there?” she wondered aloud in reference to his mind. “What kind of woman attracts you? What kind of woman was your wife?”
“Is that your way of asking me if I’m single?”
“Are you?”
“When I want to be.”
Sighing, Marielle submerged herself in the hot water, feeling a little insignificant compared to all of the women he’d probably romanced in his twenty-nine years. She was certain that all of them had been younger, taller, and more attractive than she was. She could never compare, could she? He was wealthy and dangerous and handsome and… and… perfect?
She cursed at herself for thinking any of this. He was work. He was work. He was work. She tried to think of something else. What wasn’t work? Who wasn’t work? Heh… Austin Rancor wasn’t work. Well, he was in a way, but not like Vincent. If anyone was ever perfect—at least in features—it was that guy for sure.
Biting her lip, she smirked at the idea of Austin’s beautiful hands and fingertips slowly running down her spine, which she imagined as being exposed by a low-backed black dress. Her cheeks burned as she scrunched her face up in embarrassment. Was she really thinking about him that way? Sure, but just for fun—if one could call fantasies fun. Coughing and patting her chest, she got out of the tub and wrapped herself in her towel.
“You were thinking about me, weren’t you?” Austin’s voice broke into her thoughts in a low whisper.
Embarrassed, she glanced away from the mirror as she towel-dried her hair. “Figured you were the kind of guy who wanted me to,” she murmured aloud. “Not that you’ll ever know.”
Then she went straight to bed, exhausted from the night before. Felix joined her. Tomorrow was Wednesday, and apparently she had a date.
In the morning, after a sleep that was mostly peaceful, Marielle washed quickly, fed Felix, and got out all of the food she’d made the evening before, double-checking to make sure everything was ready. Then she preheated her oven, pulled out the sourdough baguette she’d purchased, sliced it in half, and put it in the oven to toast with a smile.
“I’m making food for the stranger at Valorant,” she chuckled to herself in a tone of complete bafflement. Then she shook her head. “No, I’m making food for Vincent… Vincent Fabron.”
Marielle touched her cheek; it was hot. The timer dinged, and she removed the sliced baguette from the oven, noting its brown edges and center. It was absolutely perfect. She quickly stirred together a creamy mint sauce and packed that, the bread, and the rest in a large bag and headed out the door, rushing the whole way to the subway, and then to Valorant headquarters.
Once there, she immediately went to find Liam, who was in the library speaking to his “class” for the day. This consisted of Mateo, Jamie, Tayane, and Tala. Jamie smiled at Marielle, and she smiled back.
Tala was relatively new to the group. She was barely over nineteen, the youngest of them all, and she stood out in a good way. A Filipina with bright-blue hair, she seemed to wear exclusively electric or royal blue clothing no matter what kind of outfit she chose. Although Marielle didn’t know much about her or her powers, she guessed that this was why Tala’s agent name was Neon. She also knew that Tala was very fast, and that her abilities made her difficult to beat in sports and training sessions. She wasn’t always the smartest, but she could outrun just about anyone and anything. Her ultimate ability had something to do with shooting a lightning bolt from her fingertips.
Marielle ran up to Liam, eyes pleading. He looked up at her from the book he was reading, snapped it closed, and removed a pair of glasses, which she thought looked funny on him. She didn’t think of him as someone who needed glasses.
“Take five,” he told those listening to him, and shooed them away to the kitchen. They all scattered like chickens.
Sabine, whom Marielle didn’t spot until after the flock of young adults dispersed, stood and came forward from the back of the room. She had been writing something, maybe taking notes.
Marielle hid a sigh. “You have to let me take him out today.”
“Not a chance,” Sabine hissed, glaring at her.
Marielle glared back, matching her intensity, and Liam put his hand up between them. “Let me hear the explanation.”
“He said he’d talk to me if I made him some real food, so I made him lunch, something I know he’ll like,” she explained. “I can get somewhere with him, I know I can. I’m only asking to take him out into the courtyard. It’s completely enclosed, and we can cuff him. He won’t be able to go anywhere.” Somehow, she knew this was not true, but she also knew that Vincent wanted to be at Valorant for now. He would not try to escape anytime soon.
Liam turned his head, looking at both of them as if listening to his two fighting daughters, and gave them a soft smile. “For how long, Marielle?”
“An hour or two? I want to get him to trust me.”
“How do you know he’s not manipulating you?” growled Sabine.
“He’s doing some of that too, but I know he’s doing it,” Marielle snapped. She crossed her arms, and the food bag on her back shifted a little. Her gaze met with Sabine’s, but the other woman said nothing in return.
“What did you make him?” Liam asked with a smile, sniffing at the air.
“Wow, sounds like a date,” Sabine scoffed.
“Yes, Sabine, I’m dating him,” she replied, her cheeks growing hot and her hands balling into fists. “I’m dating a prisoner who I’ve literally spoken to only twice and have known for just over a day. Mm-hmmm, and we’ve also made violent love”—she lifted a finger—“while you watched on camera yesterday, remember? And I’m pretty sure I’m currently pregnant with his space alien baby. Can you leave it?”
Liam grinned, knowing how difficult it was to deal with Sabine’s venom every day. Brief silence passed between them; it had been a long time since Marielle had bitten back at Sabine’s harshness.
Marielle composed herself. “I know what I’m doing.”
Sabine straightened her back and cut her eyes at Marielle, but her gaze became glassy as she moved past her and out into the hall. Marielle exchanged looks with Liam before she dashed after her. Sabine was already halfway down the hall.
“Sabine!” Marielle cried, trying to catch up to her. “Sabine, I’m sorry.” Sabine lifted a hand and waved it in the air as if telling her to go away. “It’s not like you care!”
“Of course I care, Marielle!” Sabine roared, stopping and turning back to her.
Marielle jerked to a stop and went silent, waiting to hear what else Sabine might say, but she didn’t speak. The two women stared at one another for so long that they began to draw a crowd. Jamie, Austin, Mateo, and a few others popped their heads out at the end of the hall.
“I care, too,” Marielle said at last.
“Great, then it’s settled,” Sabine said flatly.
Austin narrowed his eyes at the situation, undoubtedly begging Marielle to tell him later. Marielle got the sense that, given the chance, Austin would call himself a “gossipy chick.” She almost smiled. They were going to be good friends.
Liam caught up to them. “Have you two made up yet?”
Sabine continued to march down the hall. “Decide whatever you want, Liam. Just don’t drag me into the cleanup.” She pushed past the gathered crowd.
“We could talk, you know?” Marielle called after her. Then she lowered her voice. “I miss that.”
“I don’t really care what you miss, Masin,” Sabine snapped.
“Look, I know you’re hurt. I was there.” Sabine stopped, her back stiff and her fists clenched, but Marielle continued to plead with her. “I think you’re too hurt to truly express it. We’ve never talked about that day… I can read a lot, but I can’t read your mind.”
Sabine didn’t move for a moment. Then she lifted her middle finger. “You can read this.”
She disappeared toward the kitchen. Marielle turned and looked up at Liam with a heavy sigh and a shrug. “Well, it is a very lovely finger.”
Liam chuckled silently. “I can get Erik and Sasha to stand guard, so I’ll allow it.” Marielle started to speak, but he lifted a finger. “If Chamber is cuffed.”
“Thank you.”
“Klara is on watch duty right now. Just make sure she cuffs him,” he reiterated.
Marielle nodded, gave him a quick hug, and ran to the elevator. When she exited it at Cellblock Two, she came face-to-face with Klara.
The epitome of a nerd, Klara was a lovely German about Marielle’s size who never wore makeup and often hid her long, unkempt brown hair under her favorite green beanie. She had big Coke bottle glasses, and always wore Converse sneakers that she’d painted green, possibly to match her beanie.
Klara and her girlfriend, Tayane, were both techy types, always tinkering with machines, robots, and blueprints. Klara had singlehandedly crafted much of the technology and mechanisms that made Valorant’s training systems so precise. She’d also developed bots that did amazing things, like lock down every radiant within a certain area so they couldn’t use their abilities. She assisted in several departments at Valorant, mostly in the labs, and she also helped Kirra from time to time with research regarding the human genome. She was, for lack of a better word, a genius. Her agent name was Killjoy. Marielle considered her a friend, but not a close one. They were cordial to one another, but their relationship wasn’t deep.
“Ooh, what’s in the bag?” Klara asked excitedly, pushing her beanie back a bit.
“I made food!” Marielle exclaimed, matching her excitement.
Klara’s eyes grew big with hunger. “I can already smell it!”
“I’ll give you some if there are any leftovers.” Marielle chuckled. “How have you been?”
“I’m okay.”
The two walked toward Vincent’s room together. When Klara opened it with a key, Vincent was sitting on the bed, arms around his drawn-up knees, fingers loose on his shins. He was staring at nothing that Marielle could detect, and his eyes looked exhausted. She knew that being in the military probably meant he could survive for days without sleep, but this kind of fatigue also revealed pain. Almost the moment the door opened, however, he lifted his head a little more, looked over at them, and smiled. Even so, Marielle could tell at a glance that something more than simple lack of sleep had been bothering him.
It must be the nightmares again. I get them, too, Vincent, she thought, desperately wanting to tell him this.
“I’m supposed to cuff you,” Klara explained.
Reflexively, Vincent looked at her and nodded once, then stood and put his wrists behind his back.
Marielle felt awkward. All of this was new territory. She gestured to the bag she was carrying. “We have permission to go out into the courtyard. Sasha and Erik will have to watch us, but we can speak privately.”
He gave Marielle a weak, tired smile. Maybe eating would cheer him up. Klara put the handcuffs on him without any resistance, and Marielle led him into the hall and down to the elevator.
Back in the elevator, Marielle felt small again. She felt like this was the first time they had been entirely alone, and the confined space made her claustrophobic. Maybe this was a bad idea.
Vincent was staring at the ground. “How are you feeling, Marielle?” he asked, putting her doubts to rest.
“I’m okay. I slept all right. How about you?”
“I did not,” he replied flatly.
She nodded. “I know.”
The cuffs made him raise both of his hands as he rubbed his left eye. Wiping away a tear? She wasn’t certain. Before she could assess it any further, the elevator dinged and the door opened. Erik met them with a large gun cradled in his muscular arms.
“Marielle,” he acknowledged, then turned to Vincent. “Chamber,” he said with a nod.
Vincent didn’t look disturbed by being called Chamber, and Marielle assumed this was because at this point, those who hadn’t met him probably hadn’t heard his real name yet.
“Vincent,” he said in a charming tone, and reached out his hand.
Erik waited a beat, as if trying to assess Vincent’s motives, then shook it firmly. “I’ll escort you both from here on out.”
Erik was as big—if not bigger—than Liam and certainly more menacing. Although he had been born without arms, he had built a pair for himself later in life out of a metal that conducted his powerful kinetic energy abilities, which had given him the agent name Breach. He was from Sweden. He was loud, and Marielle wasn’t too fond of him. She acknowledged him but little else.
She’d had the presence of mind to bring a blanket, so once they were in the courtyard, she laid it out on the grass near the marble fountain and sat down. “I thought…” Her voice trailed off. Suddenly, she was rethinking everything.
“This is fine,” Vincent assured her. He sat with his back to the fountain so he could lean against it.
She began to set out the food, plates, and silverware, painfully aware that he was watching her every movement, his eyes burrowing into her like a drill. Her hand trembled a little as she arranged the plates.
He’s dangerous, she kept thinking, very dangerous. He can escape. What the hell am I doing?
She felt fingers on her hand. “Marielle,” he said gently. “It’s okay.”
For a moment, she froze with his fingers gingerly touching the back of her hand. Knowing the situation, she looked up at Sasha, who was eyeing them, a hand on the pistol at his hip. He was about twenty feet away, but she knew he could make a killing shot from twice that distance. She shook her head to tell him she was fine. He nodded, straightening up again.
Vincent took his hand away and adjusted his glasses, then leaned against the fountain again. The gold tattoos glinted in the sunlight as he turned to look at it over his right shoulder.
“The—the nightmares…” She bit her lip nervously. “Are they about battle? Or your wife?”
He twisted the small gold ring around his finger, slipped it off, seemed to glance at it, then slipped it back on. “A little battle, mostly my wife.”
Marielle swallowed and continued her task. His attention was drawn back to the fountain. The statue at the center was a saint; she didn’t know which one. The little ivory man bent over, pouring water into the basin of the fountain, where orange, white, and black-dotted koi fish swam.
“It’s Florian,” Vincent mused.
Marielle smiled without looking at him as she spread sauce on the toasted bread, not surprised that he knew who the saint was.
“He’s pouring out a single pitcher of water to stop a whole fire.” Vincent turned to her. “I don’t believe fires can be quenched with one pitcher of water. Do you?”
“What are we talking about?” she asked, thinking that the question was laced with hidden meaning. Her trained ear listened for emphasized words and phrases.
He opened one hand to suggest a shrug. “The Florian Principle is named after a strange prayer said to Florian. In order for his—that is, the supplicant’s —house to be spared, he must ask Florian to set fire to another.” Vincent was staring at her. “Interesting, oui? Asking a saint to harm someone else in the same way he would harm you…” He left that hanging in the air.
She paused for a moment, analyzing his tone of voice and the words he had chosen. “I know you’re trying to tell me something, I just don’t know what,” she whispered under her breath as she put more food on a plate.
He smiled at her, a smile that could only be called “adoring” in her mind. She had the distinct impression that he wanted to reach out and tuck her hair behind her ear. It had fallen out of her long braid, so she put it there herself and continued to work.
“I prayed something similar to that once,” Vincent admitted, looking down at his empty hands.
She cleared her throat quietly. “When your wife died?”
He nodded. “I saw a woman helping her husband recover. I saw them all the time. He didn’t seem to make much progress in the four weeks I watched them from the hospital window.” Vincent swallowed. “I prayed, ‘God, give him the cancer that is killing my wife now.’” He rolled his eyes and sighed heavily. “The Florian Principle. Pathétique.”
She finished plating the food and turned to him with a hopeful smile.
“You are hoping I will like it,” he said as he took the plate. “I will, Marielle.”
He picked up the roast lamb sandwich and took a generous bite, his eyes rolling back into his head as if he’d just eaten something made by the angels themselves. He flicked a brow, chewed, swallowed, and dove in for more.
“Marielle,” he said gratefully, “you are a saint.”
She chuckled silently. “I wouldn’t exactly canonize me yet.” She shook her head as she ate a little as well. It was good, she admitted to herself. He popped a carrot in his mouth, his expression delighted, the gold on his face shining. “Besides, what would I be? The patron saint of roast lamb sandwiches?”
Both of them laughed, and their faces wrinkled up in that way only joy can cause.
“No… as the star of the sea,” he said straightforwardly when he stopped laughing.
She found his statement curious. That was the meaning of her name. How strange that he knew this bit of information. Had he looked it up in the last few days? No matter, she’d find out, but for now it reminded her of The Old Man and the Sea.
She was chewing, so she put her wrist in front of her mouth to speak. “How did my name get in that book?” she asked.
He shrugged a single shoulder. “I told you: I did not print it.”
Picking at the salad, she popped a fig quarter into her mouth. “Who did?”
“Ernest Hemmingway,” he said with a chuckle.
Marielle threw a small piece of cheese at him, which he avoided with a laugh. “Really,” she pressed.
He stopped chewing. “That, I will tell you, but after some time has passed.”
They ate in silence for a few moments.
“So beyond good,” he complimented again. “I’ve so missed this,” he added under his breath.
She smiled at him. The meal was closely related to a classic French dish, after all. She dared to meet his eyes. “Did your wife cook like this?”
Avoiding her eyes, he paused briefly, and she couldn’t quite read the look on his face. He dug something out of his teeth to cover up his true thoughts. “Yes,” he whispered, the ghost of a smile on his lips as his gaze became distant.
“She was a good cook?”
Another small, sad smile. “The best.”
They resumed eating. Marielle opened the wine, poured it, and gave him some. He took it graciously.
“Tu as de bon goûts,” he muttered as he drank.
“Doit-on parler en français?” she asked, throwing a glance at Erik. He was looking around the courtyard, not paying attention to them. Sasha, on the other hand, was too far away to overhear, even though he was staring at them intently.
Vincent shook his head, turning the corners of his mouth downward. “Je ne pense pas que ce soit nécessaire sauf si tu veux flirter.” He popped a bit of cheese in his mouth and raised a brow at her knowingly.
She couldn’t hold back her grin, nor the redness in her cheeks that betrayed her. “Oui,” she replied, and they both laughed quietly. “Okay. They only found the card on you, so how did you get the book into the building?”
“I put it in the library,” he said.
“How?” She leaned in a bit, interested now.
He nodded, quickly looking into the distance as if gesturing to something with his head. “I teleported into the library two days before I allowed myself to get caught,” he said, trying to stifle a laugh with the back of his wrist.
She tilted her chin up, looking down at him over her nose. “Ah, so you did get caught on purpose.”
“Oui.” He smiled proudly, taking another large bite of his sandwich. “You knew that.”
“Where did your teleporter and your”—she searched for the right word but couldn’t find one—“other thingy go?”
He chuckled. “That other ‘thingy’ is called a trademark. It slows down people who are nearby, which is why I did not get caught before I vanished”—he made a “poof” gesture with his cuffed hands before slipping his glasses back up his nose—“the first time.” He meant after he had fired at Liam.
“So where did they go?”
He chewed for a moment in silence, then swallowed. “I’ll explain some other time.” He turned his head, and the golden lines on his skin gleamed.
“So you plant the book, you go to the event and shoot at Liam, you get captured on purpose…” She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Why?”
“I needed to talk to you, and to make sure that all attention in this building was centered on me.”
That made her skin crawl. It sounded ominous, although she didn’t sense anything threatening about it. “Why me?”
“I looked you up before I came and learned of your talents. And because they know you can read me. If you tell them I’m trustworthy, they’ll believe you.”
“But you’re not,” she whispered.
“Marielle.” Inching toward her, he pitched his voice even lower than hers. If she had known him better, she might have suspected that he was moving in for a kiss, but he stopped about a foot and a half back. “I am trustworthy to you.” He paused. “And I don’t need to tell you that; you know it.”
He sucked something off the tip of his finger, another gesture she found attractive. She knew that in part, he was manipulating her, but she also detected no lie.
She thought for a moment, eating a few carrots. “You lied on purpose that first day, didn’t you? You wanted me to have a baseline for when you lie.”
“Oui.”
Marielle glanced up at the building. Austin’s office was on this side, and she wasn’t shocked to find him at the window, watching them. She could see his teal button-up shirt clearly, but not his face.
Vincent’s eyes followed hers. “Be careful around that one.” She turned to him. “He’s tricky.”
“I know,” she said distantly. Then she looked at Vincent. “But I don’t think it’s malicious.”
He shrugged and turned his attention back to the previous topic. “You know I’m not lying now. I promise you, I am here to help,” he stated plainly, and she knew this to be the truth. “Valorant has been working on something here for a long while now. I discovered a little about it when I”—he looked up as if trying to find the right words—“reconstructed a research facility nine years after First Light. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?”
She nodded. “You blew up the building,” she breathed, trembling inside. “A lot of people died.”
“Oui. Here, they have been working on a certain type of fusion that is being used somewhere else, too.”
Surprised, she narrowed her eyes at him. “Somewhere else?”
He nodded, and threw a glance at both Sasha and Erik over his glasses. Then he pushed them back up his nose a little as he glanced toward Austin’s office. Austin was still there.
“I’ll make another deal with you,” Vincent said, and she turned to him, listening. “Do this again for me tomorrow, and I will tell you a lot more.”
She sighed. “Vincent, I-I don’t know how long we can do this before everyone gets up in arms over it.”
“I know. I promise, tomorrow.” He wiped his mouth. “We are running out of time anyway,” he whispered under his breath.
She eyed him, trying to understand this statement. “You want the sandwich again, or…?”
“No, something else,” he said with a smile, “something you are known for making, or… How you say? A specialty?”
She smirked. He’d really liked lunch. “Vincent, I don’t have this kind of money. I mean, I had some extra money yesterday, yes, and I’m not poor or anything, but—”
He cut her off. “Of course not. Go to Gonnal Street. There’s a small French café there. If you sit on the bench outside the café where the stoplight is, you’ll find that you can remove the end of the”—he screwed his eyes up for a moment as if trying to remember and drew imaginary lines in the air with one hand—“left armrest. There is an envelope there. You’ll find money inside.”
“Plant that too, did you?”
Vincent nodded. “I have had some time to plan.” He tilted his head forward. “I pay for the meal, you cook it for me.” He smiled. “A proper date, if you ask me.”
This time, he reached over and tucked the bit of loose hair from earlier behind her ear. She froze at his touch, which felt as delicate as though he were handling a flower.
“But first you have to trust me,” he whispered. “Avez-vous confiance en moi, Marielle?” He was staring at her, his gaze unblinking.
She nodded. “Oui, je te fais confiance… Vincent.”
He exhaled slowly, eyes fluttering closed as if the entire weight of the world had just lifted off of him. All of the exhaustion from being there and the lack of sleep from the night before looked like it hit him squarely in the jaw. For the first time in a while, he relaxed and closed his eyes, leaning back against the fountain and becoming still, almost as if falling asleep. “That’s all I can ask for.”