Rain ran down the window. The trees beyond were dark with it. The road outside shone wet where it cut between them.
He sat and watched until his eyes stopped trying to make sense of it.
A month. Maybe more. He could not keep the days straight. The light would change, morning to evening, and the house would stay the same. Too quiet. Too clean. Too much space for one man to sit in and think.
He did not think he was meant to sit like this.
Before, there had been noise. Work. People. The small mess of living. Drink when he could afford it. Women when he could manage it. The sort of life where you wake up, do what you must, and go to sleep again without troubled thought.
Here there was only the name.
Raizel.
He did not say it aloud. He did not need to. The place felt built around it.
His hand went to the latch. He stopped there, fingers resting on metal.
He listened. Nothing. Only rain.
He opened the door.
Cold air came in. Wet pine. Damp earth. The rain should have hit his face. It didn't. The drops slid away from him, turning aside before they touched cloth or skin.
He stood a moment with that, jaw tight.
Inside the study, a few bills lay on the desk where Frankenstein had left them. He took them and folded them into his pocket. He could have asked. He did not.
Outside, the path was empty. A few houses sat back among the trees, smoke thin from a chimney here and there. No voices. No laughter. Just the hiss of tires when a car passed, and the steady sound of water.
He walked.
After a while he found himself thinking about beer. Not the taste, not really. Just the feel of it. Something ordinary. Something that belonged to him.
The thought followed, quick and ugly: he could take whatever he wanted. A word, a look, and people would do what he said.
He kept walking.
No.
He did not dress it up. He did not argue with himself. He just refused.
He left the road where the trees grew thicker and the houses fell away. He moved faster there, faster than he meant to, and the ground stopped mattering. Wind caught him. The wet air went cold against his face. Below, Forks shrank into a smear of lights and roofs and dark forest.
He came down behind the shops where the alley ran narrow and slick, the smell of rot and wet stone rising out of the bins.
A dog barked, sudden and sharp.
He turned his head.
The dog froze. Its ears went back. It backed away, low, as if it had been struck without being touched.
He watched it a moment.
"…I need a drink," he said.
--------------------
Rain had left the town slick and dark. Roofs dripped. The road shone wet between the stores.
He walked.
Forks was small enough that strangers were noticed, and a man dressed as he was would be noticed twice. Heads turned when he passed. Not everyone stopped; most did not. They looked the way people look when they mean to pretend they are not looking. A woman with a bag of groceries slowed, then remembered herself and went on. Two boys by a truck fell quiet for a breath, then spoke again under their breath, eyes following him.
He gave them nothing. No smile. No scowl. Nothing to catch on.
The café sat where the road bent, lighted from within. The sign over the door read Carver Café. The bell gave a small sound when he entered.
It did not go silent. A town does not stop eating because a stranger walks in. Plates still scraped. A man still talked, though he lowered his voice without meaning to. A laugh started and died halfway through. Eyes rose, fell, rose again.
The woman behind the counter had a towel in her hands. She looked up and her practiced welcome did not quite find its footing.
"Hi," she said, then cleared her throat. "Can I… help you?"
He did not pretend ease.
"Do you serve beer?" he asked.
She hesitated. Not long. Just long enough to show she was thinking about rules. Then she nodded. "Yeah. We've got bottles."
"Fries," he said. "And one of those."
His voice was soft. It carried anyway.
She reached for a pad, wrote as if she needed to, and glanced up at him again as if to make sure he had not changed into someone else while she looked down.
"Sit wherever," she said quickly.
He chose the table by the window with the wall at his back. It was a habit the body supplied without asking.
People looked in small, human ways. A man over coffee watched him and then looked away as soon as their eyes met. Two women leaned together and whispered. A teenager lifted his phone, then thought better of it when his mother snapped something under her breath. None of it was worship. None of it was fear. Only the ordinary curiosity of a town with little else to do.
Water came first. The waitress set it down, lingered as if waiting for him to ask for something more, then left with a hurried, "I'll bring it right out."
Across the room sat a girl with dark hair and a pale face, still as a held breath. She glanced up once and met his eyes for half a heartbeat.
Then she looked away too fast.
"Kristen Stewart?" He thought
Raizel smiled faintly.
Beside her, a man in a sheriff's uniform watched without trying to hide it. Tired eyes. A set mouth. The look of a man who had raised a child alone and did not care for surprises.
Charlie, Jay thought, and disliked the thought as soon as it formed. It came too easily, like a word remembered.
The fries were hot. The beer was cold. He ate and drank without hurry. The bitterness on his tongue was plain and real, and that was the point of it. Ordinary things. Proof.
When he rose to leave, the looks followed him again. Not dramatic. Not theatrical. Just the slow turning of attention as a stranger passed.
Outside, a car waited at the curb.
It was parked neatly, too neatly. The engine idled with the same steady patience as the man inside it.
Frankenstein sat behind the wheel. Hands placed right. Posture straight. Face calm.
Raizel stopped.
Frankenstein looked at him as if he had been watching the door the entire time.
Raizel got in.
The car was warm. It smelled faintly of clean fabric and a good perfume.
For a little while, only the wipers spoke.
Raizel said, "I took money from your desk."
Frankenstein's hands stayed on the wheel. For a moment he did not speak.
"…Yes, Master."
"I didn't ask."
Frankenstein's eyes moved quickly to Raizel's face, then back to the road. The car stayed steady.
"There is nothing to ask," he said at once. "Everything I have is yours, Master."
Raizel did not answer.
After a beat Frankenstein added, quieter, "Did anyone trouble you?"
"No."
Frankenstein let out a breath he'd been holding. It was small, almost silent.
Raizel looked out at the wet road. "I went out for a short while. I wanted it to be… ordinary."
That made Frankenstein turn his head fully for the first time. Surprise showed plain and unguarded, then it vanished behind composure.
"Ordinary," he repeated.
His voice softened. "Master… if you wished to go out, you only needed to tell me. I would have prepared what you required. I would have accompanied you. Or stayed away, if that is what you wanted."
Raizel's mouth tightened, faintly. "I didn't want it to become a thing."
"It will become a thing," Frankenstein said, and stopped himself before the words sharpened too far. When he continued, his tone was careful again. "Not because of you. Because of them."
He nodded once toward the blurred town outside. "Forks is small. People watch. They talk. If you move through it as you are, it will draw eyes that should not be drawn."
Raizel said nothing.
Frankenstein's grip on the wheel eased a fraction. "If you want to walk among them, we can do it safely. Quietly. I can arrange a route, a place, a time when fewer will be present. And if you want something as simple as food or drink…" He hesitated, then spoke like a confession. "You should not have had to take money. I should have placed it where you could reach it without effort."
Raizel kept his gaze on the rain.
"Tell me next time," Frankenstein said softly. Not an order. A plea dressed as manners. "So I can make it truly ordinary for you."
The wipers swept. Rain slid away. Frankenstein guided the car back into the road as if nothing had happened, though his attention did not leave Raizel for long.