Before ll

In the beginning, it wasn't so bad. The house—perched on the edge of the beach like a secret too heavy to hold—seemed almost beautiful in its precariousness. It stood defiantly at the lip of the tide, as though the ocean might one day grow bold enough to claim it, dragging it down into saltwater dreams.A six-foot window carved out the sea like a portrait. The waves curled and hesitated at the shore, their edges frothing white, shy and apologetic, like uninvited guests unsure of their welcome. Inside, the decor clung desperately to its nautical theme: whitewashed walls, blue trim, shell-shaped lamps, and duvets littered with cheery anchors or a throw pillow with the quote'stay put, to resist the drift'. Their forced whimsy grinning back at me like an inside joke I wasn't in on. The worst offender was a lamp shaped like a fish, its mouth agape, gulping a bulb that could only be described as a fiery scrotum. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

At first, I tried to make it work. I tossed out the custom nightwear they'd sent—a confection of baby blue so cloying it felt like an insult. It reeked of curated perfection, the kind that doesn't let you breathe. The kind that pretends life is neat, bright, and easy.

So, I began replacing things. In town, I scoured secondhand shops for treasures the locals didn't know they'd discarded. A chipped vase with a floral pattern nearly faded to ineligible doodles. A rug that carried the faint, loamy scent of damp earth, as if it had once belonged to a forest. Each trip to town was a gauntlet of enforced optimism.

"How are you settling in, love?" they chirped, their voices syrupy, their smiles sharp enough to cut.

"I'm not," I wanted to say. Instead, I smiled back—a pale imitation of theirs, though my lips twitched at the edges, almost wolfish.

The beach house was no home. It was a hollow thing, an echo chamber of someone else's idea of life. I moved through it like a ghost, all creased shirts and threadbare jeans, my hair tangled as if the wind had claimed it. Once, a toddler pressed her face to the front window, her wided eyed in unblinking awe. She mouthed the word Ghost fogging up the display glass.

At the market, the cashier whispered behind the register, his darting eyes betraying his gossip. "Drugs," I caught, and something in me laughed—dry and hollow, that scraped my throat on it's way out ."Not since Year 8 and never when Incarcerated to pastel-coated purgatory",I said sweetly. Though the wolf in me stirred at the insult. Its hackles rose, bristling with a disdain too primal to deny. The wolf was always there. Pacing. Watching. Restless and sharp, a shadow with claws that curled just beneath my skin ,waiting for the thin membrane of control to give away. Helsbruck, with its pastel houses and sugared smiles, wasn't built for something like me.

And then, Valli called again.

"Hey, Valentine," she drawled, her voice familiar and cool, like the first sip of something bitter. "Still brooding in that existential hellscape of yours?"

"Brooding's a strong word," I replied, my laugh softer than I intended, like it might shatter under its own weight.

"You sound like shit babe," she said bluntly, but not unkindly.

I didn't have an answer for that. The call ended with a tone so long and tragic it felt like punctuation on a life.

The phone sat heavy in my hand, a lifeline that felt more like an anchor. Outside, the rain began to tap at the window, its rhythm impatient.

My wolf stirred again, pacing. She hated waiting.

I didn't want to leave. But staying wasn't living either.

A tall figure stirred in the thrashing waves, emerging as though conjured from the shifting tides themselves,carving a jagged, meandering path through the black, slick rock . The water shaped his path, weaving around him in harsh lines. His movements were unhurried, each step purposeful, deliberate, as if nothing—not the biting wind, not the sea—could sway him. The last light of dusk dimmed his eyes to an inky black, while strands of sandy hair clung to his face, salt-crusted and wind-tangled, eyelashes flecked with traces of salty precipitate. Not for the first time I couldn't help thinking he didn't belong in the world I inhabited, or maybe I didn't belong in his.There was something elemental about him, a pull as inevitable as the moon's claim on the tide, and when his gaze met mine, it lingered, concern flickered there. Not heavy, not sharp—just there, refusing to be ignored .A judgment, or maybe a mirror.

Behind me, the pier creaked softly, a shiver through the boards. The wolf beneath my skin stirred, its instincts sharper than mine. I didn't turn; I didn't need to. There were people you recognized in the marrow of your bones before you ever saw them.

" You're going to catch your death out here," Leocade said. His voice reached me before he did, curling in that low, teasing lilt he wielded so effortlessly. I could hear the faint smirk shaping his words, though I didn't turn to confirm it.He stopped just short of reaching me,always waiting for an unspoken invitation.

I didn't bother to turn. "Is that why you're here? To rescue me from the cold ?"

"Maybe," he said, with a laugh that was more shadow than sound. "Or maybe I just wanted to see if you'd finally traded your soul for a lantern and gone full lighthouse keeper."

"Maybe I like the cold," I replied, my eyes still fixed on the endless roll of the sea.

"Do you?" He came closer, footsteps soft against the damp wood. "You know, sitting out here like this makes you look like the cover of a very niche poetry collection," he said, voice tinged with that faint, unshakable accent that always made his words sound sharper than they were. I didn't turn around. "Maybe I'm auditioning for one," I replied, letting the words hang in the damp air between us.

He moved closer, his boots scraping against the wooden planks of the pier. I could feel his gaze on me—steady, unwavering. "Audition over, then. You've got the part."

I sighed and finally glanced over my shoulder. There he was, Leocade, with his wind-tousled hair and that maddening half-smile. He was the sort of person who looked as if he belonged to the sea, all salt and sinew.

"Don't you have somewhere better to be?" I asked.

He shrugged, unbothered. "I could say the same to you."

I turned back to the water. "I like it here."

"Of course you do. Nothing says inner peace like the threat of hypothermia."

I laughed despite myself—a short, sharp sound that felt foreign in my throat. Leocade had a way of dragging levity out of even the bleakest corners. It was both infuriating and comforting, though I'd never admit as much to him.

I glanced at him then, just briefly. He was near enough now that the wind couldn't strip his presence away. The faint glow of the pier light brushed his face, catching on his cheekbones, his mouth—too knowing to be soft, too soft to be cruel. His expression was its own kind of weather, unreadable but inescapable.

"Does it matter?" I asked, breaking the final thread of silence between us.

"To me? Not particularly." His tone was casual, but his gaze wasn't. He stepped closer, his shoulder brushing mine, and though I didn't flinch, I felt it—a small, steady pressure that rooted me in place. "I'm just here for the show."

I laughed, a quiet, brittle thing. "And what kind of performance do you think this is?"

"The kind where you pretend you don't want anyone to watch."

I didn't answer, letting the air between us thicken with unspoken things. He leaned against the railing, his posture careless, though I could feel the weight of him even in the empty space he didn't quite occupy.

"You didn't have to follow me," I said, the words slipping out before I could catch them.

He tilted his head, studying me as though I'd offered him a puzzle missing its edges. "Didn't I?"

"You're deflecting."

"And you're avoiding." His lips curved slightly, though whether it was a smile or a warning, I couldn't tell. "So I suppose that makes us even."

I turned to face him fully now, the sea forgotten, though its echo still hummed in the back of my mind. He met my gaze with an ease that felt deliberate, like he wanted me to know he wasn't afraid to look at me—not just at me, but through me.

"Why are you here, Leocade?" My voice was quieter now, softer, though I wasn't sure if it was resignation or curiosity that smoothed its edges.

"Why are you here?" he countered, the question slipping between us like the tide slipping through cracks in the rocks.

"Don't turn this into a game."

"Why not?" His smirk deepened, just enough to irritate, not enough to wound. "You're better at them than you think."

I shook my head, but his words lingered, tugging at something I didn't want to name. He shifted then, shrugging off his jacket in one fluid motion and draping it over my shoulders with a practiced nonchalance that left me momentarily undone.

I'm not avoiding you," I insisted, but even the wolf growled low at the weakness of my words.

"Right." He let the word hang there, heavy with disbelief. "And how's that working out for you?"

"Brilliantly," I muttered, though the sarcasm landed soft.

His laugh cut through the dark, and for a moment, it felt like the waves themselves faltered, pulled out of rhythm by the sound.

"You don't have to do this alone, you know," he said, his tone shifting, anchoring somewhere deeper.

"Do what?"

"Whatever it is you're doing. Or not doing. Hiding. Waiting for the world to collapse under its own weight." He gestured vaguely toward the endless sea. "You're like a wolf circling its cage, growling at ghosts no one else can see."

"You need to stop calling me a ghost"

"Haven't you heard ghosts are my 'fetish' ,you kind of look like one" He gave me a lascivious once over.

"You're impossible," I murmured, the faintest laugh threading through the words.

"So I've been told."

His jacket smelled faintly of salt and something I couldn't quite place. Warm, grounding, a small betrayal of the distance I tried so hard to keep. I could feel his gaze on me again, steady but not suffocating, like the edge of a storm you knew would break eventually.

"You should go," I said, though the words came out thin, a contradiction more than a command.

"Should I?" His voice dipped, quieter now, as though he were sharing a secret I hadn't earned.

I looked at him again, the lamplight catching in his eyes like the glint of something sharp beneath the surface. And yet, it wasn't the sharpness that unsettled me—it was the softness beneath it, the kind of quiet that pressed too close without asking.

"You don't have to stay," I said, but my voice faltered, the truth of it fraying at the edges.

"I know," he said simply.But he didn't move.