Thank you for all the kind comments! As you can probably see, we're in the slower part of the story so that development can occur between the characters, but we'll see some tension here soon enough. Enjoy!

Raoul's car was having some work done, so he was going to take an Uber to his next meeting with Saeed at a coffee house. But Lily, who had mostly been with Phillip the last couple of days, had stopped by the apartment to look for a leather belt that she'd lost. She offered to take him to the meeting, and he accepted without thinking about it much.

Phillip called right after they climbed into the car. And Raoul was treated to a five-minute conversation over the speaker that involved Phillip trying to find his favorite tennis racket.

"Is it with your golf stuff?" Lily asked.

"This is for tennis, Baby."

"Yes, I know it's for tennis, Sweety. But sometimes you put your tennis stuff with your golf stuff. I'd look there first."

"Oh. Where is my golfing equipment?"

"I think it's in the game room. That closet near the pool table."

"Oh, right. Heh. Abby probably put it there when she was cleaning."

"Isn't that where it goes?"

"I guess that's cool. Let's see…."

Raoul rolled his eyes as this continued. Finally, it ended with a, "Found it! Thanks, Baby! Love you!"

As Lily turned at a red light, Raoul asked, "What do you see in my brother?"

"Raoul! Wow."

"Sorry, I just…wonder."

She huffed. "Phillip can be very sweet. Don't get me wrong. I don't like how your whole family has handled everything regarding poor Christine, which is why I invited you to stay at my apartment. But beyond that, Phil can be very cute when we're alone."

"I'll take your word for it, Lily. As long as you're happy."

"I'm very happy. Like I said, besides all this with Christine."

Raoul hesitantly asked, "Why…why do you think Christine couldn't be happy? Was it just my parents being jerks? Is that the only reason?"

"I don't know. She was so shy. I tried to be her friend, but I never completely understood her."

"Yeah," Raoul sadly replied. "I guess I didn't either."

A short silence passed. Then Lily slowly continued, "But I think it was hard to be in a situation where she felt, like…Well, I dated this guy for a year. He was an awesome cook, great photographer. He would make me dinner, like gourmet restaurant style. Beef bourguignon. Did I pronounce that right?"

"Uh…"

"We had a lot of fun, and I was, you know, in love. But – I came from more…wealth than he did. It didn't matter to me, of course. I didn't mind paying for dates. Made me happy. Anyway, he broke up with me because he said that he always felt like he owed me something. It stressed him out. But I didn't want him to feel that way. I tried to tell him it wasn't that way. He couldn't get past it."

Raoul thoughtfully nodded. "And you think Christine felt the same way as that guy?"

"Maybe. And your parents certainly didn't help."

"Right. I get that. But how do I make her not feel bad if…if we do get her back?"

"I don't know. I think she was trying to fix it by finding a way to support herself. Through singing."

"Right. Which led to all this." Raoul considered everything for a couple of moments. "She didn't want me to help her make a recording. Maybe I could offer to find a voice teacher for her. A really good one. Would that help?"

"Yeah. I think that's a nice idea." She was pulling into the parking lot of the coffee shop now. Raoul checked the clock. Right on time.

Raoul looked up toward the entrance. "There he is." Saeed was standing on the sidewalk with one hand on the door handle, ready to go inside. Raoul waved at him. Saeed stared and then gave him a short wave back.

"Raoul, are you trying to buy a house? Because your parents really aren't going to like that."

"What?" He looked at Lily as though she had lost her mind.

"You're meeting with a real estate agent."

"What? No, I'm not."

"Yeah, my best friend used him and then gave me his card because he was so helpful, in case Phil and I ever decide to buy a house. I've seen him on some billboards." She braked near the sidewalk and rolled down her window. Before Raoul stop her, she called out, "Let Saeed find the home of your dreams!"

Saeed froze. Then he slowly, and somewhat awkwardly, smiled and gave her a short wave. She had obviously shouted his advertisement at him.

Lily gave Saeed a thumbs up and then turned back to Raoul. "See?"

Raoul blinked. "Okay then. You are right."

"Have fun. You're okay to get home?"

"Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Lily."

"No problem! Bye!"

Raoul climbed out and walked toward Saeed. "So…real estate?" asked Raoul with a touch of gentle teasing in his tone.

But Saeed's smile had disappeared along with Lily. "You should be careful bringing other people to these meetings. Even if they're only driving you. Everyone around you can become a target."

Raoul's eyes widened, and his heart skipped a beat. "I'm sorry. I didn't think about that. I won't do it again."

"You're young. You wouldn't know." Saeed sighed. "Raoul, I went into real estate because I needed an occupation that brought me a little less pain. Both physically and…otherwise. I'm trying to spare you more pain. That's why I seem harsh all the time."

"I understand. Completely. Won't happen again."

They were the only customers in the café, which Saeed seemed very pleased about. As soon as they were seated with cups of coffee, after glancing once over his shoulder, Saeed began, "I am going to be completely honest with you now about what has transpired recently. But know that this might be difficult for you to hear."

Raoul froze. "Is she d-dead?"

"No. I don't know. It's not that exactly." Saeed revealed his conversation with Raymond.

Raoul felt his stomach plunge. "So the psychopath has her? She's with Erik right now?"

"It sounds like it. Unless Raymond doesn't know what he's talking about. I know it's upsetting. But at least we know she might still be in the country."

Raoul was about ten seconds away from a complete panic attack. Christine was at best trapped with a monster and at worst – dead. The room tilted. Blood rushed to his neck and face. His hands tingled. Saeed, probably noticing his expression of horror, gently placed a hand on Raoul's shoulder. He said, "I know it doesn't sound good, my friend. But we have to reason our way through this situation. One step at a time. Raymond believes that Erik could be back at one of his old hiding places. Erik had a lot hiding places. Why Raymond believes that – I don't quite know."

Raoul tried to calm down as his brain overheated. "Do…do you know where they are? These hiding places?"

"Some of them. Probably not all."

"Well, we have to check. We have to! This is all we have. Then we can call the police-"

"That's not part of the deal. We could. But Raymond might still go after Christine, if there's not enough evidence to quickly put him away."

"So you're going through with the deal?" Raoul asked without judgement. "Whatever. As long as Christine is alive. Who cares if you bring one psychopath to another psychopath?"

Saeed scratched his head. "I honestly don't know what I'm doing yet. I need to assess the situation, figure out what the hell is going on."

"Well, I'm helping," Raoul stated. "I don't care what you say."

"I knew you'd want to. Look - you're not coming to all these places with me. But I will let you be on standby in case I need you to call the police. You'll remain at a safe distance. Do you know how to use a gun?"

"My dad takes me to the shooting range sometimes."

"I'll teach you a few other things. But you listen very carefully. If you ever see Erik, you are not to go near him. You turn and run as fast as you can."

Raoul nodded and asked, "What's the first place we're looking?"

Saeed groaned. "Well, it used to be this weird little apartment over a gym. You could barely tell it was there."

"And now?"

"Now it might be a weird little apartment over a strip club. And you, Raoul, are definitely not going in there."

As he led her out of the building, Christine carefully made note of every turn that they took, every stairwell that they went through, anything that distinguished one hallway from another, like the giant tattered spiderweb in one of the corners.

If she did ever need to escape, she might be able to find her way out. After thinking about it for a considerable amount of time, still traumatized from that man's death, she decided that her only option probably was the police. She would not go to Raoul. It was far too dangerous to get him involved.

She didn't know if or what she would tell the police about Erik. An uncomfortable tugging at her chest told her that she didn't really want to see him hurt. He had changed her fate. She could always tell them the truth, "He kept me with him but didn't hurt me. Well, except when he grabbed my neck after I hit him with the hammer – but that was a weird time that I still don't understand, so let's not focus on it. He didn't do his job. And so I'm kind of okay because of him. Can you maybe give him community service or something?"

She still wondered if Erik had been telling the truth when he said the authorities couldn't protect her. How would she ever know until it was too late?

"Is there a department that you would like to see first?" he asked as they emerged into the cold night. Only a few lamps along the sidewalks lit their way.

"I don't know." She remembered the sign from earlier. "Biology?"

"The labs. I will keep you away from the animals. You will not like that."

"Probably not," she agreed.

"One night, I freed all the rats," he said as they ascended a set of concrete stairs. "But they only purchased more."

She couldn't help but softly laugh. "What was your degree?"

"Initially, I attempted to follow in my uncle's footsteps because that was what I knew. Computer science. As time passed, I developed other interests. Architecture, for one."

"That all sounds…really hard."

He shrugged. "It was fine. The coursework was the least of my concerns."

He led her into the biology building. At first, it was only another limbo of rooms and hallways. But eventually he brought her into an area with all these huge microscopes, scales, and instruments she had never seen before. Erik eventually found some slides and let her look at them through one of the microscopes. She saw strange tubes and dots that moved around. "What is it?" she asked.

"Bacteria."

"Oh."

"Do you like it?"

"Um-"

"I am kidding."

He let her see a few more that had animal cells and algae. Then he said, "Let's go now."

In the plant biology area, there was a greenhouse located outside a pair of glass double doors, in a kind of courtyard. It was warm and humid inside, a nice contrast to the night air. That was her favorite part of the department, at least that she saw. There were tomato plants, orange peppers, eggplants, and lots of flowers. She smiled at a pot labeled "sunflower" that was just beginning to sprout. "One time, my dad and I filled our entire yard with these," she said. "It wasn't a very nice yard. I don't think anyone had tended to it in years, so it was all weeds. But we covered it with sunflowers."

Erik grabbed the pot.

"What are you doing?" she asked with slight alarm.

"You can have these."

"But won't someone miss them?"

"No. What good are they here? You will appreciate them more."

"Doesn't a sunflower need like…sun?"

"Yes. That is why we are also taking one of these lamps."

She was too puzzled to argue. After the things she had seen and experienced, flower theft seemed pretty low on the list of crimes. Hopefully, no students were on the cusp of a breakthrough that involved sunflowers curing some terrible disease.

"Now we will go to the music department," he said.

In the distance, she could barely hear traffic. She only saw two other living souls that night, boys around her age playing with a skateboard and smoking something, laughing. They were at a distance. She didn't even think about getting their attention.

As soon as they arrived at the next building, Christine looked up. It was much newer than the other one. She gasped and stopped walking.

"What?" he asked.

"Um. You drew that building. I found your drawings." She looked it over. "You did a good job."

"Ah. I had forgotten those were in there. I designed that building."

Her head jerked to stare at him. "Really?"

"They were looking for architects. I submitted anonymously. For fun."

"Why did you submit anonymously? You might have gotten a building named after you."

"Privacy. I don't want anything named after me."

Sheesh. He was really into being private.

The music building was open and airy with lots of windows. Many rooms had plusher blue carpets, and she could still smell freshly cut wood. Erik took her into a room with a black grand piano in the middle of it. "Here we are," he said. "I think your voice will flow even better with the piano."

"I'm going to sing?"

"For a short while."

"Will anyone hear?"

"Doubtful. If they do, overhearing a voice lesson in a music building is not exactly a shocking occurrence."

"Will you play something first?" she asked, folding her arms up against her chest, feeling a little nervous. Singing underground was one thing. She felt more exposed up here.

"What would you like?"

"Whatever you want."

"Fine. Chopin."

He sat and played a slow, pretty song that she had heard before but didn't know the name of. Christine took a seat and leaned against the wall, listening and enjoying. The piece had kind of a nice, nostalgic sound, relaxing her a bit.

"What's that called?" she asked when he finished.

"Nocturne in E-flat major," he replied. "You are familiar with it?"

"I think so. Maybe in a movie or commercial or something." Her voice sounded a little lost in the giant room. She felt lost with it. "It's pretty."

"Now for a piece that will quickly improve my technique." He hesitated. "Christine?"

"Yes?"

"I will play better if I remove my gloves." A pause. "But my hands are…thin and unpleasant. They look like the hands of a skeleton. Does that bother you? If so, I will continue to play in gloves."

Her hesitation didn't come from not knowing the answer to the question but rather that he would ask in the first place. Did Erik think she was…not a nice person? She could practically hear her father's voice in her head giving a reply to him. He would have said something like, "Hell, seriously, Man? Take off those damned gloves and go for it."

For all her father's flaws, she had loved that about him. He didn't think anyone should have much shame. All her silly questions were answered without condescension. All her awful crayon drawings were posted on the fridge of wherever they happened to be.

"Of course you can take off your gloves."

"Thank you." His hands were as he had described, his fingers very long and bony. "This one goes by "Winter Wind," also Chopin."

The song started out slower. Deceptively simple.

And then…then it went kind of berserk. She sat there in a state of slight shock as he played the piece from memory. The music was pleasing, also kind of jarring, putting her on edge. Christine finally stood up and walked a little closer so that she could watch his fingers fly down the keys from right to left. The sight was mesmerizing. It was one of those songs where she wouldn't have known if he had made a mistake. But she was fairly sure the performance was flawless.

When he was finished, hands resting in his lap, he said, "The first time I heard that piece, I decided I had to memorize it. That was not a perfect performance. But not horrible after…."

"No, I think that was probably close to perfect."

He turned and stared at her face. "Are you angry?"

She hadn't noticed that her tone was sharp. "Envious," she lied, as her emotions felt too complicated to explain.

"Envious? Do not be of me. Ever. Do you want to learn how to play?" He gestured at the instrument.

"I don't think…Not right now."

"But you will sing?"

"Yes. For a little while. I'm kind of tired."

As she warmed up, Christine focused on the small reddish patch of skin near his ear. It was kind of hidden by the hat but still visible. She would have expected a purplish bruise from her attack. But no – he had cut into his own head afterward, right? That's why it was red.

He was not a robot. Robots that advanced didn't exist. She threw out all ideas of science fiction, trying to think of what else could help with her narrative of this strange man.

"You aren't focusing," he told her. "Perhaps you are too tired."

"Sorry. I think I was dazed by the piano earlier."

"Perhaps another night then." He stood, putting on his gloves, and added, "I will make sure to play a calmer piece next time, so that I don't distract you."

"After memorizing "Winter Wind," what came next?" she asked as they left. "Something even harder?"

"It was not always about finding the most difficult pieces. I wanted to find the best, easy or challenging. But, eventually, I moved onto composing my own."

"Oh. You'll have to play those for me."

"Those are more difficult to remember now," he murmured.

"Did you ever think about becoming a professional musician?"

"That is difficult to do without an invasion of privacy. With fame comes a hell that I could not tolerate."

There was the privacy thing again. "How about an architect? Or a programmer. Did you ever think about being any of those?" And there was that anger in her voice. She couldn't help it.

"I thought of many things, Christine," he replied with little emotion. "What I thought did not end up mattering." She sharply glanced up. Before she could ask what on earth he meant by that, Erik continued, "What are your goals? That is what is important now. You. You are very young with your whole life ahead of you. Do you want to be a botanist?"

His tone was kind. And he spoke to her as though she did have a future, which she had been certain she was about to lose until recently. She relaxed a little. "Well. I need to get my GED."

"You did not graduate."

"I was close. But I don't want to go to another high school."

"I don't blame you," he replied. "I will find you books to prepare. You are going to get a perfect score on your tests. And after that?"

"Um. College, I guess. Maybe community college at first. I don't know yet. I guess it depends on what the Chagnys…" She tapered off as it hit her. How would she ever ask them for anything again? She was going to move out. Even if she had to live in a homeless shelter. She was done depending on them.

"Do not worry about that now," he told her. "What will you study?"

"I don't know yet."

They walked on. She asked, "You studied computer science because of your uncle, right? You never told me what his research was about." She was afraid that he would refuse to talk about it and was pleasantly surprised.

"Officially, he was involved with experiments concerning using only the mind to move objects or operate software. The trials usually featured a headset that detected electrical activity in the brain. At first, the scientists had their subjects move virtual objects. Then they tried real objects. This kind of technology, when it improves, could be used for many purposes. Military applications. Victims of paralysis."

"That's very cool," she said and meant it.

"It was not exciting enough for him, though. My uncle had his own goals. It was difficult for him to find funding and support, though, and he wanted a…Well, that was his agreement with my father. My uncle would pay for a tutor and my other childhood requirements if he could use me in his research. My father eagerly agreed to this."

"…What sort of research?" The idea of testing something on a child made her a little nervous.

"Imagine that all your thoughts and emotions could be preserved. Everything in your mind that makes you you. What if it could be preserved in a computer? Or on a network? Even after death. It would be a sort of immortality, wouldn't it?"

She momentarily stopped walking and stared. "He could do that?"

"No. He could never get there. Not even close. The technology for it does not exist, and the brain is far too complex. But it was his obsession. He died angry at himself for being a failure. My uncle hated failure more than anything else. And he had probably wanted that elusive immortality as well."

"Oh, that's too bad it didn't work. I mean, I don't know if I'd want to live forever like that. But if it makes some people happy."

"What he did do was create a roadmap for my mind, far beyond what anyone had done before. I would lie there for hours while he studied and mapped it. My brain was all there. Laid out. Like a playground."

"Wow." This was all so far beyond her. They headed down a set of stairs, and he stopped talking. But she really wanted him to keep talking. "You'll have to forgive me, but I'm kind of technologically…um…what's the word?...illiterate. Technologically illiterate. I really thought you were a robot. That's stupid, huh?"

"You are not stupid."

"So a playground, huh? Like swings and slides? Heh."

He didn't respond. They were going back into the storage building, where he lived. Her head was spinning from all of it. She tried to change the direction of the conversation to see if he would answer more questions. "You talk about your uncle a lot. But why didn't you get to spend time with your aunt and cousins?" Please don't let it be because you're a psychopath.

"Because they were highly esteemed members of the community. And I would have ruined their image. So my uncle did not want me around them."

"Why?"

No response.

"Because you and your father were poorer? Or because your father was an alcoholic?" She scoffed. "God, your uncle would have hated my father. He ruined everyone's image. He would walk the streets shirtless with a guitar. At midnight!"

Erik stopped in the middle of unlocking the door and asked suddenly, "Everyone you have met during your ordeal – they were wearing a mask?"

She blinked at the question that seemed to come out of nowhere. "Yes. Everyone. So I can't testify against all of you, right?"

"…Exactly. If you ever saw my face, I could never let you go. You know that, right?"

She shrank back. The evening had been pleasant. She had enjoyed talking to him, interacting with him, because he had been really interesting. He had shown interest in her future and revealed more about himself. She had relaxed. And now - she was again reminded that Erik could also be very scary. "Then I don't want to ever see your face," she replied, looking down, feeling her cheeks warm with anger.

"No, you certainly do not." A pause. "Christine?"

"Yes?" she nervously asked, still keeping a distance.

"Let's find a good spot for your sunflower."