For the second time in my life, I cried while eating soup. The first time was on my fifth birthday. I worked myself into a fit, and then a cold over the news that my baby sister shared the same birthdate as me. It was the elder sibling mentality; I was cast to the side in favor of raising my sisters. I wanted just something that would be my own, where everyone had to pay attention to me for a little bit. Not only was I pushed aside once more, my birthday no longer mattered with my baby sister there. Yet, my parents wanted me to name her. We were five years apart; I think it was their way of keeping me connected to her. I didn’t want to, not at first. But I held her, looked into those innocent blue eyes, and I named her.

I didn’t have a reason or excuse for the second time. I merely wanted to cry. Shot in my leg, hit with a pistol, forced to eat a cigarette, and soap. I had plenty I could cry at, and he had no right to tell me not to. I’m sure he wouldn’t have, not after he told me I looked cute crying.

I sipped at the soup in my makeshift bed on the couch. He had propped my leg up with a pillow, then used more to force me into a weird sitting position. Threw a blanket over me. He sat in the armchair reading the file, glancing up at me every few minutes. I wasn’t sure what he was afraid of, I wasn’t able to run away with my leg the way it was. I wiped my eyes the way my baby sister always did, the way I always did. Closing my eye, pressing one finger overtop the overlap of my lids. My sisters told me it was too of an effeminate way to wipe away tears. I was supposed to be their big brother after all. It was the youngest, Clarisse, who always defended me. I practically raised her, and that attachment of hers only switched to her eldest sister as she got older.

He was watching me while I wiped away my tears. I could feel that predator gaze on me. I hung my head, went back to my soup. It was less of a soup and more of a chicken broth with some chives floating in it. I hated to admit to myself that it was good chicken broth. That only made me cry harder. I wanted to throw the soup at that file of his. I’d gladly let him have me if that meant he wouldn’t go harm or harass my sisters. But I had done all this for a reason. A reason I didn’t fully understand, nor remembered anymore. It had become my life to ruin someone else’s. I deserved whatever Luis wanted to do to me.

In the quiet of shuffling papers and my sniffling, he didn’t seem too scary. When he was focused on something other than me, his face had a soft expression to it. If I were to pass by him in this state, I wouldn’t know he could shoot me without a second thought. I finished the soup, wiped at my nose. He set the file, open, on the coffee table before he got up, taking the bowl from my hands. I tried to read as much as I could while he was away. It wasn’t a lot I could read as I never mastered the art of reading upside down. However, I saw Jeanne-Claudette’s name. My third sister, the streamer with a following. It put me at peace to think he only knew of Margot and Jeanne. It meant they were unable to find my other three sisters.

The sound of a whistle came from the kitchen, and I faced away from the file. I turned my body and head slightly into the back of the couch. His cadence was much different, as if he was trying to be silent with boots that made a sound every time he took a step. He put something on the coffee table, then settled back into his seat in the armchair. I looked over at the mug on the table, a tea bag in it. I couldn’t make out what kind of tea it was, but I didn’t move to take it. I knew it was for me. I didn’t want tea; I didn’t want him taking care of me. I wanted to punch the couch. I wanted to punch him. I wanted to stop crying.

“What’s the crying from?” He asked without looking up from the file. I balled up the blanket in my hands instead of answering. “Oh c’mon,” he smiled, looking at me with the most innocent expression he had. “I won’t get mad at your answer.”

I let go of the blanket in anger. Crossed my arms and looked down. “I…I d-d-don’t know,” I whispered as quietly as I could. I swallowed all the words stuck in my throat, all the words I couldn’t say.

It didn’t seem to be too quiet for him. “It must be from something,” his smile fell. “Your leg still hurt? The fever making your head hurt?” I slid down the pillows keeping me upright. I threw the blanket over my head, turning to lie fully on my right. I winced at the pain in my leg. I’d rather have that pain than the pain of talking to him. “Is this still about the soap thing?” I didn’t move, say anything. “I said I was sorry.” I heard him move around. “If you don’t tell me what’s wrong, I won’t know what to do.” I flinched at the closeness of his voice next to my ear and fought the urge to punch him in fear.

My tears came faster, harder. I didn’t know why I was crying; I didn’t know how to answer him. I couldn’t get my voice out in fear he’d do something to me because he didn’t like what I said. I closed my eyes, pretending he wasn’t there, that he’d go away. He touched my arm through the blanket instead. A sob left my mouth before I could do anything about it. In some part of me, I wanted Anne to come to my side and tell me it was alright. That I could come out now. That the people I was supposed to hide from were all gone. She wasn’t here, I needed to come to terms with that. She had her family to take care of. I had to face my own problems. I made it this way.

“Seriously, what’s wrong?” He asked once more. “You’ve been crying since I gave you the soup.”

I shook my head under the blanket, hoping the message that I didn’t know came across. I brought my left arm up to cover my head, curled my knees. I wanted him gone. To leave me alone. I wasn’t sure how to go about it, though. To let me cry until I dehydrated and fell asleep. I brought my knees up closer to my chest and gasped at a different kind of pain. I rolled to my left, holding the bullet wound on my right leg. It seemed all too fast that the dry denim became soaked. My crying was overtaken with panic when I realized what that must mean. I stuck my now bloodied hand outside the blanket.

Cooler air hit my face from him tearing the blanket off me. He picked me back up, the events of yesterday playing in my head. This time at least, he had the dignity to treat me like a human and not a sack to be thrown over his shoulder. He set me on my feet in the bedroom, told me to take my pants off but not to get blood on his floor. While he was gone I did what he instructed, using the darkened denim to soak up as much blood that escaped from the gauze as I could. He returned with the stained towel to put under my legs.

The red bag made its appearance with its torture-like surgical tools. Mathias had me place the jeans to the side while he put on surgical gloves. After watching him pull the bullet out of my leg, I couldn’t bring myself to watch him assess what I had done to myself. I closed my eyes, feeling him undo the gauze he had only just rewrapped. “You popped a few stitches,” he said. I felt him tug at the skin around the opening, then a small piercing in my skin. It happened maybe three or four times before he slathered something around the wound, then wrapped it again.

I opened my eyes as he snapped off his gloves, rolling them into a ball in his hands. He looked at his wrist, where I noticed a watch now sat. He stood, looking down at me, asked me if I wanted a shower. I nodded; he left. I felt gross from the blood on my hands, from not having showered since the night previous. My eyes hurt from crying for who knows how long, and my head hurt as the dehydration started to sink in. He came back in with a box of saran wrap and duct tape. Half of me, the half that was now leading my rational thought, screamed at me that he was going to choke me. Yelled at me to get away, but I couldn’t do anything.

He knelt back by my side, setting the duct tape down. He fought with the saran wrap to tear it away from its roll, resorting to a pocketknife I wasn’t aware he had on him. That only made me more scared of him. He could hide weapons to use in a frightening number of ways against me. I calmed myself when he only wrapped the saran wrap over the bandages, duct taping it to my skin to make it airtight. He grabbed halfway up my forearms and pulled me up, rearranging himself to help me walk. It was less of a walk on my part, and more putting my left foot in front of me and dragging my right one behind me.

I showered with him leaning against the bathroom door, and my hand gripping the bar to keep as much weight off my right leg as possible. It was uncomfortable knowing he was right there and that I was in even less of a position to fight back against him than I was the first day. I washed the blood from my hands, the syrup smell from my hair and body. When I was done, I stuck my hand from behind the curtain and he handed me a towel. Slowly, I got dressed in that fashion. Drying myself with the towel and handing it back to him, only for him to hand me underwear. I stuck my hand out again and he handed me a shirt. If I wasn’t a grown man, the wonders of spatial awareness would have been a comfort to me. To pretend I didn’t know who was giving me clothes.

He whipped the shower curtain open the fourth time I stuck my hand out. He picked me up under my arms, like a young child. I wasn’t particularly heavy, but it still amazed me that he could pick me up like I was nothing to him. I held onto the wall when he ripped the duct tape off. It was a slow process, tearing it off, wiping the water above that I missed to keep it from contaminating the gauze. He threw the mess of clear plastic and tape in the trashcan, finally permitting me to put pants and warm socks on.

I was to be put back in the makeshift bed on the couch. He told me I wasn’t to move my leg around too much. Half-laying, half-sitting there was better for me, better for him. He warmed the forgotten tea back up, then took his seat once more in the armchair. I stared at the ceiling, wondering if he’d leave me on the couch if I fell asleep, or if he’d bring me to the bedroom. I didn’t want the tea any more than I did when I was crying. I wanted to go to sleep, to go somewhere where I wasn’t fearing that one wrong move, saying one wrong thing, may cost me my life.

Then, I moved my gaze from the ceiling to him. He read the file, leaning back in the chair with a foot resting on his knee. He didn’t look unhinged, he looked…normal. A man doing his work. His eyes flitted to mine. I looked away, ashamed I was staring at him. I closed my eyes, letting my body process the events of today. The couch was comfortable enough, but I hoped the heart he seemed to grow would stay to bring me to the bedroom. At this point, I would gladly sleep on the floor.