He Comes Back - Raine

I really try to pretend it didn’t happen.

That the man with the suit and the dead eyes and the ink-covered hands never stepped into my life. That I didn’t see him drag another human being out of this building like it was just another task on his list. That he didn’t look at me like I was nothing.

The mop water is colder tonight. Or maybe it’s just me.

I scrub harder than I need to, working the brush into the same corner over and over until the grout starts to peel. My body aches in places I don’t usually feel anymore, shoulders, wrists, behind my eyes. Sleep didn’t do much. I lay in bed most of the day with the curtain cracked just enough to watch the street.

He never left. Hours sitting in that car. Engine running, eyes on my window.

Now he’s gone, and the silence is somehow worse.

“Earth to Raine,” snaps a voice behind the front desk. Linda. This woman thinks power is found in petty cruelty and nicotine-stained clipboards.

I blink. “Sorry?”

“You’re on lobby floors tonight. Not up here daydreaming.” She waves a hand without looking up, already annoyed with me for existing. “Get fucking moving, idiot.”

I nod, clutch the mop handle, and head toward the lobby. My sneakers squeak once against the tile, and I wince. The sound too loud.

I haven’t even made it halfway down the hall when the front doors hiss open.

Footsteps, his footsteps. My stomach folds in on itself. I duck back behind the corner and peek, just a glance.

It’s him, the stranger.

Not in a suit this time. Black button-down shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbow, tattoos wrapping his forearms, inked armor. Collar open, the moth across his neck more obvious now, wings stretched wide across his throat.

He moves like gravity bends for him.

Linda’s voice squeaks like a balloon losing air. “Can I help y…”

“No.”

Just the one word.

I watch from the shadowed edge of the hallway as she blinks at him, her mouth twitching. She steps aside without another word.

He doesn’t even glance at her. Just turns his head slightly, toward me.

Shit, he definitely sees me.

I backpedal fast, nearly tripping over the mop as I slide into the side bathroom near the lobby. I flip the sign to “closed for cleaning” and pull the door almost shut behind me, heart going feral in my chest.

Maybe he didn’t really see me. Maybe he just…

The door opens. He steps inside like it’s his room and I’m the one trespassing.

“You’re late,” he says.

I freeze. “What?”

“You should’ve shown yourself already. I was starting to think you were avoiding me.”

I grip the mop handle tighter, trying to keep my voice from shaking. “What…what are you doing here?”

He watches me for a second too long, then shrugs off a thought I’ll never hear. “I don’t like seeing my things treated like garbage.”

The words hit me square in the chest, but not for the reasons he probably intends. I laugh.

Hard.

Bent double, breathless, laugh-like-I’m-choking kind of laughter. The kind that slips out when you’re exhausted, scared, and standing two feet from a man who could probably kill you with his bare hands.

He doesn’t laugh with me.

He just waits, watching with that same cold stillness, like he’s letting me run out of air.

Eventually, I do.

“I don’t… I don’t know what you think this is,” I say, trying to breathe again. “But I’m not some damsel or… or whatever fantasy this is for you.”

“You’re right,” he says. “You’re worse.”

That shuts me up.

He steps closer. “I’m offering you a job.”

I blink again. “I already have one.”

He glances around the dingy tiled room, at the mop water sloshing against my boots, at the rubber gloves stuffed in my back pocket.

“I noticed.”

I cross my arms, though it’s a weak defense at best. “Why?”

“Because you’ll take it.”

“You don’t know me.”

His smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “I don’t need to.”

He reaches into his coat and pulls out a small black business card. No name or number. Just a silver symbol in the center.

A moth, wings open, silver ink gleaming under the bathroom light.

He holds it out, I don’t take it.

He sets it on the counter beside the soap dispenser instead.

“I’ll send a driver tomorrow morning.”

“I didn’t say yes.”

“You don’t need to.”

He turns, already halfway out the door before I find my voice again.

“This is a setup.”

He glances back, eyes dark, unreadable.

“It is.”

I’m still staring at the card when I return to the front desk. Linda doesn’t even look at me. Just flips her clipboard and mutters without glancing up.

“That man said your room’s paid for. Full month. And, you’re not working nights anymore.”

I open my mouth to argue. To ask what she means.

But I already know.