Chapter Text
Late January 2000, Zurich, Switzerland.
It was cold tonight in Zurich, the kind of freeze that brushed against your skin and reminded you to pull your coat tighter. Frost clung stubbornly to the pavement and the edges of buildings, creeping into the narrow seams of the city as though it intended to claim every inch of it by morning; snow was not unheard of this late in January, but it was rare at this level.
Stephen didn’t know if he was supposed to feel lucky or simply damned. There was a certain kind of beauty to it, he supposed. The way the light caught on the thin layer of frost, and the way each of his padded steps sent a soft crunch echoing through the otherwise almost empty street. It was the sort of night people remembered fondly from behind warm windows, the kind they spoke about with a sense of wonder when they had nowhere urgent to be and no reason to fear the dark, but Stephen was not behind a window. He walked down an unfamiliar street with his shoulders drawn in against the cold, the sleeves of his jacket pulled down over his hands as if the extra layer of fabric might somehow shield the bruises beneath. The material was worn thin at the cuffs, offering little real protection against either the cold or the sting that flared whenever his fingers shifted too much beneath it.
The street was almost empty, for a few figures lingered at the edges of the road, their presence more suggestion than substance beneath the dim glow of streetlights. The women stood out most clearly—thin silhouettes wrapped in clothing that seemed wholly inadequate for the weather, their bare skin catching the cold light in a way that made it look almost fragile. They shifted their weight from one foot to the other, their movements small and restless, as if standing still for too long might cause them to freeze where they stood, which, judging by the shiver in their shoulders and the white mist in front of their mouths, probably wasn’t much further off from the truth. Cars passed occasionally, and they moved slowly, engines running low, with their headlights cutting narrow paths through the dimness before disappearing again. Some of them slowed as they approached the women, lingering just long enough to suggest a conversation between them before they continued on their way. Only one stopped to pick up one of the women; this one wore a large burgundy-coloured coat that shielded her frail-looking shoulders from the bitter weather.
Winter had come down hard on the city. It had wrapped its icy fingers around Zurich and squeezed, tightening its grip until the weaker parts of it began to crack. For some, it meant opportunity, ski resorts filled with tourists, and cafés bustled with people eager to escape the cold outside. It was the kind of seasonal prosperity that made the country look prosperous and untouched. But for others, it meant something else entirely, and Stephen belonged to that second group.
The cold did not feel beautiful to him. It was something that pressed in from all sides, something that seeped through the thin layers of his clothing and settled deep in his chest, where it made every breath just a little bit harder to take. His stomach twisted meanly as it rumbled again, the sound loud in the otherwise quiet street. Hunger had a way of making everything more cutting, the cold more biting, and the silence more oppressive, the distance between one step and the next far longer than it should have been. Snow shifted beneath his shoes as he walked, and each step sent up small clouds of powder that drifted briefly in the air before settling back down on the rocky pavement. Stephen kept moving anyway, his pace steady despite the ache in his hands and the hollow feeling in his stomach.
Luck, he decided, had nothing to do with it. If anything, the night felt less like fortune and more like condemnation, something vast and indifferent pressing down on him from above while the city carried on around him as though he did not exist at all. To most, that was true, but for others, it was not as true and absolute as he wished it was.
His mother—his mother this time, not his aunt—had forgotten to leave enough money for food again. Or perhaps she hadn’t forgotten. Forgetting implied carelessness, a kind of neglect that suggested something had slipped her mind. But his mother did not forget things like that easily. She remembered too much; she carried too much with her at all times, names, routes, faces, and threats, an entire world of dangers mapped out in her head. So if there was no money for food, it meant something else had taken priority. But if she had taken what little they had and fed herself, then at least there was a kind of logic to it. Survival required strength, and she needed to stay stronger than the people hunting them. Though if she hadn’t, if she had simply gone without, the way he had, then the situation became something far more difficult to account for.
It made his job harder. Stephen had long ago accepted that protecting her was part of his responsibility. The idea had taken root so early that he no longer questioned it, but protecting someone required understanding their limits and anticipating their needs before they became problems. Something his mother made nearly impossible; sometimes she became so focused on shielding him from his father’s men, so consumed by the network of threats she navigated every day, that she seemed to forget the more ordinary dangers. Hunger. Cold. The grinding erosion of the body when it was denied the simplest things it needed to function. Food. Or, in the very rare case, shelter. Things that should have been obvious, but things that somehow became secondary.
They had only gone without proper shelter once—shelter was one of the highest of priorities for them because it kept them safer than sleeping on the streets—and it was only because they had been made to make a very impromptu departure, so really it hadn’t been her fault. They had left before dawn, abandoning whatever fragile safety they had managed to build in that place. That night had been an exception, forced on them by circumstances neither of them could control, so it hadn’t been her fault.
Stephen held onto that thought firmly, the way one might hold onto a fragile object that threatened to break if examined too closely; placing blame was a dangerous thing to do when survival depended on trust. But this time was different; this time, the absence of food was not the result of urgency or any immediate danger; it had been a choice.
His mother—Anna was her name in Switzerland—had buried the last of their spare funds back in Germany. The decision made sense when viewed from a distance. Too much money was a liability; anything that could be tracked, traced, or stolen became a risk the moment it was carried across a border. By leaving it behind, she had reduced the chances of someone following their trail. She had made them smaller and harder to find. It was safer, but safety had a cost. Stephen felt it now in the hollow ache of his stomach and in the way his whole body seemed to fold inward on itself with each passing hour. The cold only made it worse, hardening the edges of his hunger until it became something almost tangible, a constant presence that followed him down the empty street. His mother had chosen invisibility, and in doing so, she had left them with nothing to eat. But Stephen did not resent her for it; he couldn’t. Resentment required the belief that things could have been done differently, and he knew better than to indulge in that kind of thinking. His mother made decisions based on survival, and survival did not allow for comfort.
Still, as he walked through the frozen streets of a city that did not know his name, Stephen found himself wishing—almost apologetically and without any real expectation—for something as small and ordinary as a pastry. It wasn’t a grand desire. He just missed the faint memory in the back of his mind that he remembered whenever he walked past a bakery. It tasted of warmth and sweetness, of something soft enough to break apart between his fingers and rich enough to sit comfortably in his stomach afterwards. But it was the kind of wish that belonged to a different life, one where hunger was an inconvenience rather than a constant companion, a life where comfort could be found in something as simple as food bought without fear.
He knew better than to expect it, really; expectation required a certain level of stability, and stability was something he had learned not to rely on. Still, the thought lingered stubbornly at the edges of his mind, returning again and again despite his efforts to dismiss it. The cold seemed to encourage it somehow, solidifying the memory of warmth until it became almost unbearable to ignore. It would have been easier if he could forget, but forgetting had never been his strength.
The memory of what had got him into this mess came back to him in pieces as he walked, disjointed at first, but it became clearer with every step he took forward. The narrow alley behind the bakery was clouded with the faint smell of sugar and yeast clinging to the air even after the shop had closed for the night. The way the dumpsters had seemed almost promising in the dim light, as though they might offer something salvageable, something that hadn’t been ruined beyond use. It had been his idea, and that was the part that stayed with him most persistently; none of this would have happened if he had simply kept walking that night instead of letting himself hope for something more.
He had suggested it without thinking: they could check behind the shops, he had said. There had to have been something left; people threw away more important things than they realised, and it had sounded reasonable at the time, almost clever; it was a small risk for a chance at something better than the unfulfilled ache in his stomach. He had been thinking about pastries, and that was the worst part of it. He hadn’t been thinking of survival or necessity, but something as trivial and selfish as a craving for sweetness had been enough to steer him in the wrong direction. He had missed the taste of them, the soft crumble and the faint dusting of sugar that lingered on the tongue afterwards. The taste had been vivid enough to feel real, and that had been enough to convince him it was worth trying.
But it hadn’t been; the store owner had stepped out just as they were beginning to search. Stephen could still see the way the door had opened suddenly, spilling warm yellow light into the alley and cutting directly across the darkness. The man’s shadow had stretched long across the ground, his presence immediate and unmistakable in a space that had felt empty only seconds before. They had been too close, and if his mother hadn’t reacted as quickly as she did, it would have ended there. Stephen didn’t let himself think too closely about what there might have been meaning, but he didn’t need to; the fear had been clear enough in the moment.
His mother had moved, and it had been a quick decision, a sharp gesture, and then suddenly they were running—not together, though, but apart. It had been the only way to reduce the risk, the only way to ensure that if one of them was caught, the other might still get away. Stephen had not seen her since, and the thought settled heavily in his chest as he walked, heavier even than the gelid air assailing him. It had been his idea. If he had kept his head down and ignored the hunger, if he had remembered what survival actually required of him, he would not be here now—alone in a city that he did not know the shape of, walking through streets that did not care whether he lived or froze where he stood. He would be with her. Safe, or as close to safe as they had ever been, but instead, he kept moving forward, the snow crunching softly beneath his feet, carrying the weight of a mistake that had begun with something as simple as wanting a pastry.
It wouldn’t have mattered if they hadn’t found anything to eat, and that was the part that settled into him most heavily as he walked: the gnaw that hunger left in its wake would have been easier to bear if it had been shared. He could have ignored the ache in his stomach if she had been beside him and could have convinced himself that it was temporary, that it was something they would outlast the way they always had. Hunger passed, and the cold passed. Even fear, some kinds of fear anyway, when divided between two people, became something smaller, something almost akin to manageable. But they weren’t together, and without her, everything felt meaner. The cold cut deeper into his skin, and the hunger lingered longer. Whilst Stephen didn’t get along with his mother in the slightest, he needed her the way a drowning man starved for oxygen.
Now he was left with a decision, and it was the kind of decision that never felt like a real choice, only a weighing of different risks, each one edged with its own danger. He could try to find his way back to their meeting point—the place they had agreed on in case something went wrong. She would be there; she had to be there; that was the rule they lived by. If separated, return to the last agreed place and wait: always wait. Or he could find somewhere to sleep. The thought came reluctantly, but it refused to leave. His body was already beginning to feel the strain of the night, and the slow seep of exhaustion settled into his bones with every step he took. Sleep would make things easier in the morning. It would give him time to think, time to move when the streets were brighter and the danger less immediate.
Both options felt equally fragile. If he tried to make his way back now, he would need money. He didn’t know exactly where he was, not well enough to navigate the city with confidence, and wandering blindly through unfamiliar streets at night was its own kind of risk. The simplest solution—the most immediate one—would be to take what he needed from someone who wouldn’t notice until it was too late: pickpocketing.
It wasn’t something he had done often, but he knew how. His mother had made sure of that. Survival required a certain flexibility of morals, a willingness to do what was necessary without lingering too long on whether it was right. Still, the idea felt a little more corrupt tonight, which was odd because he had no qualms about doing it before, but perhaps it was because he was alone, perhaps because the weather made everything feel a little more erroneous. But if he succeeded, he could make his way back. He could find her sooner, and maybe—just maybe—she wouldn’t be angry. His mother’s anger was never loud or chaotic, but it was controlled, and it settled thickly into the air, making it difficult to breathe. Her fingers would wind into his dyed-black hair, and she would twist them until his scalp turned bloody and little strands of it would wind tightly around her pale skin, cutting off the circulation there. If he returned quickly enough, if he could prove he hadn’t wasted time, maybe it would soften the edge of whatever waited for him there. It was Stephen’s fault she would get so angry; after all, she was only trying to protect him.
But he didn’t know where he was, and that was the problem that refused to resolve itself, no matter how he turned it over in his mind. The streets around him were unfamiliar, their shapes and turns offering no comfort nor any recognition. The darkness made it worse; shadows stretched too far beneath the streetlights, swallowing details that might have helped him orient himself. Everything looked the same in the dim light—buildings were reduced to vague outlines and signs unreadable unless he stepped directly beneath them.
He could get lost. Worse, he could walk in the wrong direction entirely, but the alternative was no better. If he chose to wait—if he chose to find somewhere to sleep and try again in the morning—he would have the advantage of light.
Daylight made things clearer. It revealed details that the dark cloak of the night concealed. It made movement easier and safer in ways that were difficult to explain but impossible to ignore. But waiting meant staying where he was, and where he was offered very little in the way of safety. He glanced down the street again, taking in the empty spaces between buildings, the narrow alleys that disappeared into shadow, and the cold stone steps leading up to doors that would not open for him. Any place he chose would be temporary at best, exposed at worst. An alleyway might shield him from the wind, but it would also hide him from view in ways that were not always beneficial. Stairs offered elevation but no protection. Every option carried its own risk.
There was no safe choice, but there never was.
A flicker of movement caught at the very edge of his vision. It was small—so small he might have ignored it on any other night—but here, in the half-empty street where every sound carried farther than it should, and every shadow seemed to linger too long, it was enough.
The shift registered before he consciously understood it, something instinctive tightening low in his spine, pulling his attention sharply back into his body. Then came the sound. It was a low, steady hum of an engine approaching from behind, close enough that it could not be dismissed as distant traffic, and it rolled up beside him, its movements slow enough to suggest observation rather than a mere coincidence. The tyres pressed softly against the layer of frost, the faint crunch beneath them echoing in the stillness, a warning that had come far too late.
Stephen’s shoulders tightened immediately, and the reaction was automatic, a reflex honed by repetition rather than thought. His body recognised the pattern before his mind caught up: the movement and the sound. He didn’t look, not at first anyway. Looking too quickly would have been its own kind of admission, an acknowledgement that he had noticed and that he understood the implication of a car slowing to match his pace on a street like this. Instead, he kept his gaze fixed forward, his steps continuing at the same measured rhythm as before, though the tension had already begun to gather in the line of his shoulders.
The engine idled beside him, and it was close enough now that he could feel it rather than just hear it—the faint vibration of it humming through the cold air, pressing lightly against his side—and the presence of it filled the space in a way that the empty street never had; it was too solid to ignore. Stephen’s hands curled slightly inside the sleeves of his jacket. The bruises along his knuckles throbbed faintly as his fingers shifted, a dull reminder of something recent and unfinished, so he pressed them deeper into the worn fabric, as though the thin barrier might somehow make them less visible and less inviting, but the car did not pass. Instead, the person inside rolled down the window, and Stephen’s heartbeat stuttered in its confines of flesh and bone.
The man leaned out of his seat, and the car idled beside the curb, engine humming low beneath the quiet of the street, his eyes dragged slowly over Stephen with a look that lingered far too long to be mistaken for anything neutral.
“Wie viel kostet das?” he asked.
The words came out of the man’s mouth casually, almost lazily, as though he were asking the price of something ordinary, like if he were at a farmers' market, and it took Stephen a moment to understand. The language itself wasn’t unfamiliar—he had picked up enough German over the years to recognise most of what he heard, even if it was Swiss—but the context refused to align properly. His mind caught on the words, turning them over slowly, trying to force meaning into something that didn’t quite make sense.
How much does it cost?
For a second, Stephen only frowned, his eyebrows drawing together as confusion lingered stubbornly at the edges of his thoughts. The question seemed misplaced, detached from anything he could immediately identify. There was nothing about him that looked like it should be priced, nothing about this moment that resembled a transaction at a store; it wasn’t like it had anything on him that could’ve been mistaken as for sale. And then—
Understanding arrived, not all at once, but in a slow, creeping realisation that settled uncomfortably into place alongside his hummingbird of a heart.
His gaze shifted, almost involuntarily, drifting past the man in the car and back toward the figures standing along the edge of the street. The women, thinly dressed despite the cold, were shifting their weight from foot to foot beneath the dim streetlights. The way the cars slowed when they passed, and the way the drivers looked at them. The pattern clicked together; that was what they were doing. They weren’t waiting for someone to take them home, and they weren’t wandering around late at night; they were working. The street wasn’t empty in the way he had first thought; a different kind of economy was moving through it, one that operated in low voices and brief exchanges, hidden in plain sight beneath the thin veil of night.
Stephen’s stomach twisted again, though this time it had little to do with hunger. The man was still watching him, still waiting, his expression unchanged, as if the question had been perfectly reasonable and required no further explanation, but Stephen said nothing; he couldn’t even if he wanted to.
For a brief stretch of time, neither of them spoke. The silence uneasily settled between them; it wasn’t quite comfortable, but not immediately hostile either. Stephen stood there with the wind pressing steadily through his clothes and into his skin, his breath coming out in faint white clouds that dissolved almost as quickly as they formed. The man in front of him in the black car watched with a kind of impatient curiosity, his expression hovering somewhere between annoyance and mild confusion, as though he had expected the interaction to move along more efficiently than this.
Then the moment soured, and the man’s face shifted, the faint neutrality twisting into something more openly disgruntled, his patience thinning in visible increments. His mouth pulled slightly to one side as he exhaled sharply through his nose, the sound carrying just enough irritation to break whatever fragile quiet had existed before.
“Sag mal bist du blöd?” he said, the words snapping out in German before he followed them with equally fast German. “Are you not going to answer?”
Stephen blinked, and the question reached him in pieces rather than as a whole, the German brushing past his understanding while his own English translation followed just slowly enough to feel almost delayed. His thoughts felt sluggish, dulled at the edges by the weather and the pulsing ache of hunger that had settled somewhere deep in his stomach. For a second, he simply stared, trying to organise the man’s words into something he could respond to. Then he remembered. Stephen lifted a hand and pointed weakly at his throat; the motion was unsteady, from the freeze, but clear enough in its intention. He shook his head immediately after, the gesture firm despite the slight dizziness that lingered behind his eyes. It was a response he had used before, simple and effective, with the constant failure of his words.
The man’s expression changed almost instantly, and the irritation drained out of it as though it had never been there, replaced instead by something far more animated. His brows lifted, his eyes sharpening with a sudden, almost eager interest that made Stephen hesitate for a fraction of a second. It wasn’t kindness, not exactly; it felt closer to fascination, the kind that flickered into place when someone stumbled across something unexpected.
“Du bist ein efterbliven?” the man asked.
The word sat awkwardly in the sentence, unfamiliar and slightly out of place even to Stephen’s understanding of German. His brow furrowed faintly as he tried to pick it apart. Efterbliven. It didn’t really sound German, but it had to be because he recognised the rest of the sentence well enough. Du bist ein. Are you a. That much was clear; the structure was simple, something he had heard often enough in conversation to recognise without needing to think too hard about it. But the last word refused to settle into anything meaningful.
Stephen hesitated, and the icy gnawing air crept further into his fingers, which hovered uncertainly at his side, the numbness making it harder to focus. The man was still watching him, that strange brightness lingering in his expression as though he were waiting for confirmation of something magical. He was looking at him as if he were some sort of wondrous science experiment, an innovation. Mute, that was the most likely explanation. That must have been what he was trying to ask, if he was mute. Stephen didn’t know the exact word or meaning of it that the man had used, but it fit the situation well enough.
So Stephen nodded, and the movement was small; his head dipped once in agreement as he chose the safest interpretation available to him. It was easier to accept the assumption than to risk misunderstanding something worse; it wasn’t like he could’ve asked the stranger what he had meant. For a moment, he allowed himself to hope that would be enough.
The man’s mouth twitched into a smile. “Are you cold? Why don’t you come in? I’ll drive you wherever you want, ja?”
Every alarm bell he possessed went off at once, and it wasn’t a single clear warning so much as a collision of instincts, each one clamouring over the others until his thoughts dissolved into a kind of low, frantic noise. The feeling spread quickly, filling the more subdued empty spaces in his mind with a restless, insistent pressure that refused to be ignored. Something was wrong; this was a bad idea. The thought surfaced cleanly for a moment before it was swallowed again by everything else. Not just bad—worse than that. Reckless in a way that felt almost suicidal, he had chosen it knowing full well where it might lead. If his mother found out, there would be no argument, nor any explanation that could soften the outcome.
She would kill him.
Not even metaphorically, or in the exaggerated way people spoke about strict parents or harsh consequences, she would actually kill him this time. Stephen understood the difference. He had grown up with it; he had learnt early how thin the line could be between discipline and something far more permanent. He knew how easy it was to slip over the edge; his father had used the line as a jump rope, after all. The certainty of it sat heavily in his chest, colder even than the winter air pressing through his jacket.
His thoughts faltered there, caught on something weaker but more persistent. Was it really so different? Hitchhiking was dangerous, too. He knew that, but it was something he and his mother had done before. So what was any different then from this? He would direct the man to their meet-up spot or somewhere near, and then he would be done with it. He could do that, couldn’t he? Stephen shifted his weight slightly where he stood, the movement small enough that it barely disturbed the snow beneath his worn shoes. His mind worked on the problem the way it always did. He turned it over, looking for angles that might make it less dangerous than it felt.
He wasn’t helpless, and that was the most important factor. He had been taught how to fight, at least enough to make someone regret underestimating him. The lessons had been brief and hadn’t lasted long before he and his mother had left. It had been a strike here; move like this, and don’t hesitate. They had never been presented as optional skills; they were a necessary thing to know growing up in a crime family, and Stephen still remembered them. Then there was the knife. He could feel it even now, tucked into the pocket of his jacket. The metal was rusted, and the blade was dulled from neglect, but it was something. A small, tangible reassurance pressed against his side, reminding him that he wasn’t entirely without options. He curled his fingers slightly inside his sleeve, as though acknowledging its presence without drawing attention to it.
It should have been enough to settle him, but it wasn’t. The alarm bells hadn’t stopped. They had only grown quieter, sinking into the background of his thoughts where they continued to ring in a steady, relentless rhythm. Stephen stood there for a moment longer, caught between instinct and necessity, between the voice that told him to walk away and the one that insisted he didn’t have that luxury. The cold pressed in around him, and he hesitated before nodding once, feeling acidic dread burning through his stomach walls. He had no choice. He had no choice. The group of women on the corner of the street looked fine; if this man were anything similar to the ones driving up to them, he would be fine. Right?
The man’s grin widened, and he leaned over to open the car door in front of him. “Spring rein.”
Stephen hesitated, and it lasted only a second, perhaps less, but within that second something inside him recoiled sharply, his instinct to run rising with a violent urgency. Every warning his body could produce seemed to surface at once: the tightness in his chest, the faint tremor in his hands, then the creeping sense that stepping forward would cross a line he would not be able to uncross. He ignored it, or rather, he forced it down, but the panic did not disappear; it never did. Though it did shift, pressing backwards into some dim, crowded corner of his mind where it could continue its relentless noise without interfering with what had to be done. Stephen had learned long ago that fear was rarely useful on its own. It needed to be contained, folded neatly into something smaller and manageable.
Only then did he move. He opened the passenger door and climbed into the car; his motion was stiff with the bone chill and exhaustion. The interior was warmer than the street, though not by much, and the air carried a faint smell of something indistinct. Leather, perhaps, or old smoke that had long since settled into the fabric of the seats. It was not unpleasant, but it was noticeable enough to remind Stephen that this was not his space and not somewhere he belonged.
The door shut behind him with a muted thud, and for a moment he simply sat there, his body adjusting slowly to the change in temperature and to the relative stillness of the enclosed space. The world outside—the frost, the empty street, and the drifting snow—felt suddenly distant, as though it had been pushed a step further away, miles away, even another lifetime away, by the simple act of closing the door.
Now that he was closer, he could see the man properly. Before, the stranger had been little more than a silhouette behind the wheel, his features obscured by shadow and distance. Up close, the details came into focus with uncomfortable clarity. Stephen let his gaze move carefully across the man’s face, taking note of each feature.
He wasn’t old. Though there were marks on his skin, faint lines that suggested experience in the beaming heat of the sun rather than age, they did not carry the weight of years. His hair was still black, untouched by grey, and there was a steadiness to the way he held himself that spoke of almost youthful strength rather than decline. Thirty, perhaps. Or maybe a little older, but not by much. His shoulders were broad, filling the driver’s seat in a way that made the confined space of the car feel even smaller. The lines of his coat stretched slightly across his back, hinting at a frame that was both tall and solid. Stephen found himself calculating the difference between them without meaning to. The height, the reach, and the advantage the man would have in close quarters. It was a habit, one he used often at that.
The man turned his head slightly then, as if aware of the scrutiny, though his expression remained neutral. There was nothing overtly threatening about him, nothing that immediately set off alarm beyond the vague, persistent unease Stephen already carried with him.
“Leon,” the stranger said, and his voice was low, even, and carrying a faint accent Stephen couldn’t immediately place. “Leon Kobel.”
Stephen repeated it silently in his head, committing it to memory the way he did with everything else. Names were important, names were useful, even when they were lies.
“I was going to ask where you’re heading,” he continued, his voice settling into that same easy, conversational rhythm he seemed to favour, as though this were nothing more than a casual ride between acquaintances instead of whatever strange arrangement this actually was, “but you can’t tell me, can you?”
“So I’ll just drive into the main city, ja?” he added after a brief pause, one hand loosening slightly on the wheel as he spoke. “Just—” he exhaled softly, almost amused at himself. “I don’t know; shake me if that isn’t the right place.”
Stephen narrowed his eyes slightly, not at Leon but at the thought itself, turning it over in his mind with suspicion. He had learned not to accept things too quickly, even when they sounded harmless. Especially when they sounded harmless, but the city centre would be safer, at least in theory. It would be familiar enough that he might be able to orient himself without feeling like he was wandering blind through someone else’s territory. Here, the streets felt wrong, but in the centre, there would be landmarks he recognised, places he could slip into without drawing attention, and crowds large enough that he could disappear into them without anyone bothering to look twice. He should be able to get where he needed to go from there, and after a moment, Stephen gave a small nod.
Leon caught it, and there was a slight lift to his chin, an acknowledgement that the decision had been made. Then, without another word, he pressed a little harder on the accelerator, the car responding with a louder but just as steady hum as it pulled away from the street and merged more into the flow of the road.
The city shifted around them as they drove. Buildings blurred past the windows in muted shades of grey and amber, streetlights casting long streaks of light across the glass before vanishing again. The heater hummed faintly, filling the car with a dry warmth that felt almost foreign after the biting cold outside. Stephen sat stiffly in the passenger seat, his hands tucked carefully into his sleeves again, and his shoulders drawn in as though he could make himself smaller by sheer effort.
Time stretched strangely, and it felt longer than it should have; each minute dragged, and his mind refused to settle, flickering restlessly from one thought to the next without ever landing anywhere long enough to be useful. Every passing street, every shadow, and every moving car in the distance felt like something that might matter if he looked at it closely enough. Paranoia had a way of filling empty space like that. It crept in quietly and then refused to leave when it got loud and pressing, turning even the most ordinary details into potential threats. Stephen found himself watching the reflections in the window more than the road ahead, tracking the shapes of headlights behind them, and counting turns.
By the time Leon spoke again, it felt as though they had been driving for far longer than they actually had, but in reality, it was probably no more than fifteen minutes. Leon glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, the movement subtle enough that Stephen might have missed it if he hadn’t already been watching him.
“Do you work as one?” Leon asked. There was a brief pause, as if he were considering how best to phrase the question, before he added, more clearly, “Ich meine damit eine Prostituierte?”
His eyebrows lifted slightly, the expression hovering somewhere between curiosity and something a little harder to define, but Sephen didn’t hesitate. He shook his head once, the movement small but firm, his gaze fixed somewhere ahead rather than on Leon as he gave the answer.
He was not, and he had never been. The idea in itself felt distant, almost abstract, like something that belonged to a world he had only ever brushed against by accident. It wasn’t just that he had never done it; he had never even considered it. His life had never allowed for that kind of contemplation; survival had a way of stripping things down to their barest necessities, leaving little room for questions about desire, intimacy, or anything that required time to explore. He hadn’t even kissed anyone, though; it was not like he had any particular want to do such a thing; he never really spent any time around any girls to do so.
But, really, Stephen wondered, was sex work anything more than survival for them? Or was it for pleasure reasons? He chewed on his lip. How much did they get paid? A lot? Was it enough?
Leon made a quiet sound beside him. It was a hum, low and thoughtful, as he considered the answer rather than reacting to it straight away.
“Too bad,” he said after a moment. “I’m sure you would’ve made good money.”
Stephen didn’t react immediately, and Leon’s gaze flicked toward him briefly before returning to the road, and his grip on the wheel relaxed.
“You look like you need it, anyway.”
Stephen blinked, confused, and the reaction was small, almost delayed, as his mind took a second longer than usual to process what had just been said. The words didn’t quite settle properly at first. They hovered somewhere just out of reach, their meaning clear but their impact oddly difficult to place. What? It wasn’t outrage that surfaced first, nor embarrassment, nor even defensiveness. He was just confused.
How could someone even tell who would be good at such a job? Logically, he knew the person must have a certain level of attraction, but he was not attractive in the slightest. A face like his, a face that resembled the monster of a man who was his father so clearly, could not be beautiful, or handsome, or anything of the sort. He didn’t have any of the sort of qualities that he associated with a prostitute.
Leon laughed when he caught sight of Stephen’s face, the sound breaking into the quiet interior of the car with an ease that felt far too relaxed for the situation. He had been watching Stephen—he realised that a second too late—and whatever Leon had seen there had apparently been entertaining enough to earn a reaction.
“Ah,” Leon hummed, the word drawn out slightly as though he were indulging a private thought, “well, you are young. It’s no surprise you wouldn’t understand.”
There was something faintly condescending in the way he said it, though it was wrapped carefully enough in that same casual tone that it could almost be mistaken for harmless.
“Have you even had your first kiss yet?” he continued, tilting his head just slightly as he spoke. “Nein? Ja?”
The question was somewhere between awkward and invasive, but Stephen didn’t have time to decide how to respond.
He didn’t realise the car had stopped until the engine fell silent, and the absence of motion hit him suddenly, like the bottom dropping out from under him, leaving the ground to swallow him whole. The vibration that had been growling through the seat and the car floor was gone, leaving only the muffled sounds of the outside world leaking faintly through the windows. Somewhere beyond the glass, a car passed, its tyres hissing softly against wet asphalt, but inside the vehicle, everything felt abruptly still.
Stephen’s hand moved before he consciously decided to act. His fingers reached for the door handle, driven by a sudden, instinctive need to get out, to put distance between himself and the man sitting beside him. The motion was quick and unthinking, but the second his fingers closed around the handle, there was a soft, mechanical click. The door did not open because the lock had slid into place beneath his touch; the sound almost echoed in the enclosed space. The realisation took a fraction of a second to register, but once it did, something cold slid slowly down Stephen’s spine, and he stilled in his seat. Every muscle in his body tensed at once, making his breath slow and shallow. His eyes remained fixed forward for a moment longer, refusing to acknowledge the shift in the atmosphere.
“Hold on,” Leon said. “Let’s talk for a minute, ja?”
He turned slightly in his seat so that he could watch Stephen properly. The small movement felt larger than it should have in the cramped space, forcing Stephen to become aware of the proximity between them in a way he hadn’t been before.
Leon’s voice remained soft. “Answer my question,” he added, the faintest hint of expectation edging into the words. “I drove you here after all; it’s only polite.”
Stephen didn’t move, and his hand stayed where it was, fingers still resting uselessly against the locked door handle. His pulse had picked up, though he could not remember when it had begun to climb. It beat steadily now, a persistent noise in his ears timed in with his heartbeat that refused to slow down, no matter how carefully he tried to control his breathing. The air in the car felt impossibly thicker suddenly, and he swallowed once, the motion small and dry, and for a brief moment, he wondered whether the cold outside would feel like relief or punishment if he somehow managed to get out. But the door remained locked, and Leon was still watching him as he shook his head tightly, fear stiffening his movements. Bad idea; this had been such a bad idea.
Leon hummed. “A shame, really, and surprising; you were practically asking for it out in the streets.” He lifted a finger to point at Stephen. “You're lucky it was me and not some creep, aren’t you?”
Stephen reached a hand down into his pocket where his pocket knife rested with shaky fingers and watched as Leon tracked the movement with narrowed eyes.
“I’ll let you go,” Leon said, his tone of voice suggesting that Stephen ought to be grateful. “You look tired, but why don’t you come back here this Wednesday? I think I have a job you would quite like to do. Don’t worry, it will only be a one-time thing, but it’ll pay well. Ja? What do you say?”
Leon didn’t press him, but when Stephen didn’t answer, Leon simply exhaled softly through his nose as if he had expected as much, and there was no visible disappointment in him, no irritation, nor did he attempt to coax or corner a response out of something Stephen clearly wasn’t willing to give.
Instead, Leon turned the engine on, and the engine roared to life. Outside, the city had thinned again; the buildings here stood a little further apart, and the streetlights were casting long, pale halos across the snow-dusted ground. It wasn’t the heart of the city, not quite anyway, but it was closer than where they had started. It was close enough that Stephen could recognise the outlines of places he might use and paths he could take without feeling entirely lost. He would know what he was doing here.
For a moment, neither of them moved. Then Leon leaned back slightly and reached across, unlocking the door with a quiet click.
“That’s as far as I go,” he said, his tone returning to something neutral, almost absent-minded.
“Wednesday,” Leon added after a second, "if you decide.”
Stephen didn’t answer; he couldn’t even if he wanted to. Instead, he pulled his hand free from his pocket and reached for the door handle. The metal was cold beneath his fingers, colder than anything inside the car, and for a brief second, he hesitated, not because he didn’t intend to leave; he did, he wanted nothing more, but because stepping out meant returning to something he had not yet decided how to face. Then he pushed the door open, and the cold rushed in immediately. It wasn’t gradual, and it didn’t give him time to adjust. It swept into the car in a biting wave that carried with it the scent of frost and distant exhaust. Stephen stepped out into it without another thought, his shoes crunching softly against the thin layer of snow that had gathered along the edge of the street.
The door shut behind him with a dull, final sound, and for a moment he stood there, the cold settling quickly into his bones, the warmth from the car already beginning to fade from his skin. The street stretched out in front of him, pale and busy despite the time beneath the scattered glow of streetlights. Snow shifted faintly in the wind, lifting in soft, uncertain drifts before falling again. Stephen didn’t look back. He shoved his hands deeper into his sleeves, drew his shoulders in against the cold, and stepped forward into the snow.
It was cold tonight in Zurich, and Stephen had just made the biggest mistake of his life.