I suddenly had a small understanding for Pim and her aversion. If she’d been trained to accept nakedness as her uniform, how hard would it be to go back to confines of elastic and thread?

My patience stretched thin. “Are you coming or not?” Facing away from the car, I took a step toward the bustling street where street vendors hid under the shade of their cart sails and shopkeepers did their best to keep away flies and ragamuffins.

Pim bit her lip; her hands splayed on the car leather. The anxiety on her face from being forced to choose made my gut clench. “There is no right or wrong answer here, silent one. You return to the boat either with Selix or with me. I won’t hurt you for choosing.”

Still, she didn’t decide.

“Fine. I’ll make it for you. Go back to the boat with Selix. You’re probably still too weak to walk that far anyway.”

The moment I spoke, she leapt from the car, hiding her wince from sore knees. Keeping her head high, she came to my side as if daring me to call her weak again. I’d probably get my ass kicked by Michaels when we boarded in a few hours, berating me for dragging his patient through grungy streets, but I couldn’t hide my grin as I struck off with her glued to my shadow.

“Fair enough. Let’s walk.”

WHAT WAS THIS new game?

What were the rules? How should I act, behave, or respond? There were so many unfinished games between us, I was lost on how to continue.

For fifteen minutes, I kept pace with Elder’s long stride as we headed toward the dock. Cafes and shops bustling with people with families and loved ones, people who had their own burdens to bear, slowly blocked the sea view.

Had one of them been kidnapped? Did they share a story similar to mine or was I an anomaly here, just like I would be if I ever returned home?

Elder kept glancing at me, but he didn’t speak, letting silence weave us together instead. If he was trying to use quietness against me, he wasn’t successful.

Ever since we’d walked into that restaurant, I’d been hyper-aware of everything about him. For three hours, he sat and answered every question with fluid intelligence and grace. He wasn’t just a business owner who barricaded himself in a seafaring tower and let minions do the work. He was the business.

My mouth had parted multiple times when technical terms and complex mathematical calculations were given in mere seconds of being asked. With his attention on Dina and her husband, I was free to watch, to listen, to understand.

Finally, I’d had enough time to use the meagre skills my mother had taught me on how to read body language and find out I’d been wrong about him.

I’d seen him as a single dimensional arrogant bastard who pursued me for his own gain with just enough decorum to be respectful to those who worked for him.

Oh my God, I was so wrong.

He wasn’t just multifaceted; he was layers upon layers of hypocrisies.

The outer shell he wore—roguish and suave—had holes enough to glimpse into the veiled worlds beneath. And in those worlds were shadows holding such pain.

He thought he kept it hidden as he studied schematics and blueprints with His Highness, but I saw how he never took his eyes off the way Dina cuddled close to her husband or how the two children leaned together in sibling-bond.

He ached.

It was a physical thing.

He craved.

It was a visible thing.

I saw so much while enjoying the luxury of sitting quiet and undisturbed.

But why did he covet a family when he was a bachelor of his own devices—surrounding himself in water and horizons? Why did he look at children, not as a man who was desperate for his own, but with nostalgia—heralding the ghosts of perhaps a brother or sister he missed.

Despite myself, I thawed toward him.

But I didn’t fully let go of my dislike until the second course of our luncheon. The switch inside me happened when Elder sketched a third amendment to the drawings and laughed real and carefree when the little girl swatted her brother for snapping a crayon and gave her his expensive biro to replace it.

The moment stretched a tad too long; he’d frozen, remembering a different time. He didn’t shutter his eyes enough to hide the agony resounding inside.

He was no longer just Elder. My saviour and captor.

He was so, so much more.

And it hurt because I wanted to know how deep that more went.

It seemed I wasn’t the only one.

Whatever conversation occurred while Dina and I were in the bathroom had stripped Elder down to his bare defences. He no longer had a swagger or solid footing in whatever persona he’d created. He’d suffered a trip down memory lane and somehow left pieces of himself behind when he returned to the present.

I wished I’d been there to listen—a spider in its web, catching the puzzle pieces like fat juicy flies. However, I wouldn’t trade my own bathroom conversation because Dina had done for me what Simo had done for Elder.

She’d woken me up.

Giving into the lull of walking in hot sunshine and enjoying the dusty grit on my feet after too long of being pristine and undirty, I recalled the first chat with a woman in two years.

“How are you enjoying our country, Pim?” Dina escorted me into the bathroom, her eyes warm and kind. The moment the door shut, blocking us from Selix standing guard, I tensed for those eyes to leave mine and lock onto my bruises.

Self-consciousness brought my arms up, wrapping tight around my waist. Did she know what I was? Did she come to the washroom to interrogate me and somehow get Elder into trouble?