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Slightly tensing my entire body, I watched the stranger curiously as he happily drew on his cigarette and then elegantly blew the smoke into the air above him. I was amazed at how relaxed he seemed despite his injury, but I decided it wasn't his first.
Again and again his dark eyes met mine, but I avoided his intense gaze, embarrassed, because I didn't want to question his dominance again. Surely that would have been a mistake, so I inspected the many tattoos on his upper body, all of which seemed random. Some were somber, like the raven under his heart, others showed that he must have loved ones, for I recognized the name Mira on a spot between his ribs and the raven.
When I finally felt him staring at me as I stared at him, I immediately dropped my eyes to the ground and continued to wait.
It felt like forever, sitting against my wall, basically waiting for something to happen.
It occurred to me that maybe he would really just get dressed and disappear forever, but there was still the panic that consumed me at the thought that witnesses were always eliminated.
When he suddenly ran behind him to the window with the cigarette in his hand and opened it, the gun on the table caught my eye and very briefly, for about a millisecond, I wanted to grab it and point it at him, but what if if he had a second one in his pocket... Then I'd probably be finished.
The other question I asked myself was if I would have been able to pull the trigger at all... The answer to that was actually pretty simple...
No...
"Two things," came his dark voice, filling the room and I stared at him intently, holding my breath. He just flicked the cigarette out of the window and closed it again to find his old position again with slow steps around the desk.
"Two things?" I repeated questioningly in a trembling voice and as if he was scathing that I even asked, he put a blank look on his striking face and just stared at me skeptically.
Luckily, without giving me an answer, he broke his cold gaze from me and grabbed his white shirt, which was stained with a lot of blood, and then tried to get dressed.
One arm was working just fine and I just wanted him to hurry up and get out, but he was groaning at his injured, bleeding arm and just not getting his shirt on, which was making me more and more nervous.
"May I help you?" I asked quietly and immediately cursed myself again. Just how stupid was I? Shouldn't I shut up and pray?
"You can not help me."
His words sounded sincere, but I knew from the expressionless look he was staring at me that he wasn't talking about his shirt at that moment, which raised more questions than answers in my mind.
But I let it go, stared at the ground again in silence and heard him breathing heavily again and again, but when I looked up again after a short time, he had his shirt and even his black coat back on and was just putting his gun in his pocket.
"Two things," he repeated again, slowly walking toward me, making my heart beat harder and faster against my ribs.
"First of all... I've never been here," he stated with a firm voice, standing right in front of me, making me tremble uncontrollably and looking up at him, mouth slightly open.
The scent of suntan lotion clung faintly to him, but I could also smell perfume and cigarettes as I looked deep into his dark eyes and almost lost myself in them.
So dangerous and yet so fascinating... It was a mixture that could cost you your life, that much was certain.
"And secondly?" I whispered lightly, suddenly startled when he put his hand on my cheek and gently ran his thumb over my heated skin.
"Don't ever open your door at night again. There are too many men with bad intentions."
He breathed those words on my lips, getting my body to respond to him and I was good enough at my job to know he was playing a game with me.
I knew he was sure of his power over me, but I was also sure of something, and that was that he wouldn't hurt me.
If he had, I'd be dead already and he wouldn't bother warning me about such a thing.
"Well then. Sorry for this mess," he whispered and I immediately noticed that he glanced down at my lips, on which his gaze lingered for a while before he let go of my cheek and turned his back to me.
I breathed a sigh of relief, looked down at the floor for a moment and carefully leaned away from the wall, only to then turn back to him with my eyes on his back.
"And you're someone with good intentions?" I wanted to know, as curious and stupid as I was, but he only paused in his movement for a moment and then, without saying anything to me, opened the front door and walked in to disappear into the night
The door slammed shut and I just stood there for a while with my eyes on the front door. It was as if none of this had happened, as if he had never been there, and yet my hands were still shaking slightly, giving me the certainty that he was there after all.
Actually, my next instinct would have been to lock the door as soon as possible and call the police, but I didn't do either. Instead, as if in a trance, I ran into my bedroom and frantically searched for my cell phone to dial my best friend Anja's number with trembling fingers.
" Hey sweetie," she answered the phone, happy as she was, and I immediately wanted to say something, but I choked on my own words from the chaos in my mind and collected myself for a moment.
"Ist alles okay, Isa?"
Her worried voice came through the phone, but I took a moment and sat on the edge of my bed, facing the small window, to take a deep breath.
"Yes, I'm fine," I reassured her, flopping backwards so that I was lying on my plush bed, staring up at the ceiling. I forced myself not to tell her about the unknown and instead decided that she should distract me...
and she was really good at it.
"How's things going with Josh?" I asked, getting her to talk about her prince charming for hours, my eyes drooping so that I fell asleep peacefully with her familiar voice in my ears.
That night, the stranger not only visited me in my apartment... No... He also invaded my dreams, but not to scare me...
Rather to drive me crazy...
Absurd, right?
