You Came Back Changed

She hadn't meant to paint.

She was supposed to be restoring a Florentine altar panel from the 1800s, the kind of work that required monastic patience—scalpel work, pigment testing, matching fractured gold leaf to centuries-old prayer.

But Aanya's hand kept twitching toward the wrong brush.

The sky she was supposed to fix bled instead.

Not into blue, but into red.

That red.

Her red.

The one from the pigment set that had arrived anonymously and ruptured the fragile line between her art and her privacy.

And then, without deciding, she reached for a blank canvas from the shelf.

No gesso. No prep.

Just impulse.

Her glove snapped off.

The first stroke wasn't slow.

It was a wound.

She didn't stop for forty minutes.

There was no thought. No plan.

Only feeling.

When she finally stepped back, her chest was tight, her hand numb.

The canvas showed a mouth.

Open. Half-formed. A smear of red like silk dragged across skin.

Fingers—hers, probably—tugging at the edge of her own bottom lip. Not erotic. Not violent.

But something between the two.

Something dangerous.

She stared at it like it was a stranger's confession.

Then she covered it with a cloth, too quickly, as if someone else might see.

The red pigment was still wet beneath the fabric.

She found herself outside without remembering the steps that got her there.

Her coat was too thin. The wind slid under her collar like a warning.

She sat on the back step of the studio, knees up, fingers tight around nothing.

The sky was the same flat grey as her thoughts.

Heavy.

Mute.

Emilia found her ten minutes later, two mugs in hand.

She sat down beside her and passed one over. "Caffeine and sugar. Legally obligated coping mechanisms."

Aanya took it, grateful for the heat, even if her fingers didn't stop shaking.

"You okay?" Emilia asked.

Aanya didn't answer.

"Your face says no."

Aanya gave a dry laugh. "I feel like I'm being... undone. But not all at once. Like someone's peeling me backwards."

"Is it the work?"

"No."

"Someone in the studio?"

A pause.

Longer than necessary.

"I don't know."

Emilia sipped her drink, then glanced sideways. "Then maybe we need to do something stupid tonight."

Aanya blinked. "Stupid?"

"Not too stupid. Just... drinks. Somewhere dim. Somewhere without frescoes or brushes or goddamn pigment."

"I don't really drink."

"Perfect. That means I'll get twice as charming, and you'll remember everything I say."

Aanya hesitated.

"I know a place," Emilia added. "Quiet. Old. Locals only. Probably haunted. Low lighting, bad jazz. Just one drink. Then we come back and pretend today didn't happen."

Something about the offer—simple, selfish, human—felt like a rope thrown into water.

"Okay," Aanya whispered. "One drink."

They went after dusk.

The bar Emilia led them to was tucked between two alleys, half-buried beneath ivy and shadow. There was no name on the door. Just a brass handle and a single lantern flickering above.

Inside, it smelled of warm wood and rain.

Old records spun on a turntable behind the bar—slow saxophone and scratchy vinyl. Shelves of dusty bottles stretched to the ceiling. There were only four tables. Two were occupied. The third became theirs.

Aanya sat with her coat draped over the back of her chair, fingertips damp from the condensation on her glass. She didn't drink it. She didn't even remember ordering it. Emilia had done that for her.

Across the table, Emilia was on her second drink and already leaning sideways into her elbow, smiling lazily at nothing.

"You're quiet," she murmured.

"You said no pigment, no thoughts. I'm following the rules."

"Good girl," Emilia said, then hiccuped. "God. Sorry. That sounded... weird."

Aanya half-smiled, but her eyes kept shifting toward the front door.

And then it opened.

And of course—

He was there.

Leonhart.

Black coat. Damp collar. Pale eyes scanning the space like it already belonged to him.

He didn't look surprised to see her.

He walked in like he had been expected.

The bartender didn't even ask what he wanted—just nodded, poured, and passed him a glass.

He didn't go to a separate table.

He walked straight to hers.

Emilia blinked up blearily, then smirked. "Well, hello, dark stranger."

Leonhart said nothing.

He looked at Aanya.

Only Aanya.

She didn't move.

Didn't breathe.

Didn't speak.

"Do you mind?" he asked finally.

His voice was low. Measured.

She said nothing.

But her silence wasn't a no.

He took that as permission.

He sat.

Emilia grinned, then slumped sideways again, her arm folded like a pillow on the table.

Within minutes, she was asleep.

"I didn't follow you," he said calmly.

"I didn't ask."

"I would've told you if I had."

Aanya's hands tightened around the stem of her glass.

"She's drunk," she said. "This isn't the time."

"No. But it's the space."

She swallowed. "You're everywhere."

"You keep finding places I already am."

"That's not comforting."

"It wasn't meant to be."

Silence stretched.

He sipped his drink once. Neat, amber. She didn't know what it was. It smelled expensive.

She stared at the melted ice in hers.

"I saw your painting," he said, voice like a blade sliding through cloth.

She flinched.

"No one was supposed to see it."

"But someone did."

"You?"

He nodded.

"Of course."

Leonhart's gaze didn't waver. "It was honest. Unfiltered. You didn't paint a scream. You painted the desire to scream. That's rarer."

"I didn't paint it for you."

"No. You painted it because of me."

Her breath hitched.

He didn't say it arrogantly.

He said it like fact.

"You think you know me," she said, voice hoarse.

"I know how you bleed."

A beat passed between them.

Slow.

Terrible.

Alive.

"I'm not one of your... women," she whispered. "I'm not something you buy. Or sign. Or corner."

"I know."

"I won't be pulled apart just because you decided I'm interesting."

"Good," he said. "Because I don't want interesting. I want truth."

Her fingers trembled on the glass.

"Why can't you leave me alone?"

"Because you came back changed."

He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small black card.

He set it gently in front of her on the table.

Unmarked. Smooth.

Only the weight of meaning inside it.

"There's a showing tomorrow night. Private. Quiet. Artists. Collectors. No cameras. No press."

She stared at it.

"Why should I come?"

He didn't smile.

Didn't flinch.

"Because part of you already has."

Later that night, Emilia snored softly in the cab beside her.

Aanya clutched the invitation in her coat pocket like it might burn.

When she got home, she placed it on her desk beside the closed pigment box.

She stared at it.

Still unmarked.

Still humming.

Like it knew.

Like he knew.

She didn't sleep.

She couldn't.

She felt seen in a way that peeled something off her bones.

And for the first time in years, her hands ached to paint again.

Final Lines:

Some predators circle.But the ones worth fearing are the ones who wait—for you to step closer.