I was officially unemployed after the fire. My parents offered to pay for my expenses for as long as I needed until I could find another job and they were adamant that I took some time to process what happened to get to a good place mentally and emotionally. I didn't have anything to distract myself from the awfulness of it all since I was on winter break and had no job, so I thanked them profusely but declined. I knew that if I stayed unoccupied I would just focus too much on my dire situation and make everything worse. I had already decided I would stay in town and told them I didn't change my mind after the fire, even though they tried to convince me otherwise.

They made a lot of sense. Of course it would be better to go home to them, to my actual house and my actual room, step away from the place where it happened and see my childhood friends and all of my family, but I honestly didn't want to do that. I wanted to get another job as soon as possible and get busy to take my mind off of the bar and the boy in the car.

Besides, I really wanted to attend Lucia's and Marcelo's funerals.

I just told them the part about the funerals. I didn't want to discuss the best way to deal with it, didn't want to hear that I should at least consider attending therapy, so I just told them I would stay to go to the funerals and that I would get another job as soon as possible because I couldn't stand becoming a financial burden to them. There was a lot of back and forth about the money, but they eventually accepted I wouldn't take any from them. They promised to visit me as soon as they could.

I dove into my hobbies, especially bookbinding and calligraphy. I took the extra time I had to walk around town, visit the churches and museums, and see the statues and sculptures. Most of it was very familiar to me already since I had been living there for a few years and was studying art in college but it was comforting to be around beautiful familiar things. I spent a lot of that time with Luke whenever he could, but unlike me he still had a job so sometimes I would be alone.

Life went on with no other surprises for a while. I attended Lucia's funeral and then Marcelo's. I found a job in another bar and when classes restarted I went back to studying. My parents visited for a few days in August and we had a nice time. For eight whole months everything was fine and nothing out of ordinary happened. Summer break came and went, I went back to the capital to be with my family and in February I was back in town to start another semester in college.

I was excited. I would be turning twenty-one in a couple more months and planned to celebrate with Luke, the girls that lived with me and my friends from college. I put the fire accident behind me and barely thought about the boy with red eyes anymore. Every once in a while I wondered about him but even my memory of him was beginning to fade and I started to question what I really saw after a few weeks.

That being considered, I had the fright of my life when I got home one evening and found him standing on our front porch.

I only noticed him when I was very near the front door, almost at arm's reach from him. His eyes were not red this time, but a very dark brown, almost as dark as his hair, and he was wearing more casual clothes than when I first saw him. I couldn't see very well what he was wearing then but it was definitely more formal than the grey shirt and black trousers he had when he showed up in front of my house. He looked at me in silence and still didn't say anything when I stopped walking after finally noticing him.

"Uh, can I help you?"

He didn't answer immediately, instead he walked away from the house to close the distance between us and though my heart felt like it was trying to fly out of my chest I schooled my features to not give it away, I stared back at him with a perfectly neutral expression. He still seemed to know somehow that I was not as calm as I tried to portray myself because with his face only a few centimetres away from mine he smiled softly and said —

"You remember me."

I breathed out heavily without meaning to and his smile got a little wider.

"It would be really difficult to forget a face like yours." He spoke to me in English so I answered in English.

He laughed and took a step back. I sighed in relief and hoped he didn't hear it but I was starting to have a feeling that he could hear anything from me, even my thoughts.

"I would like to talk to you. Could we go inside?" He gestured to the house and I tried not to panic.

God, no . Absolutely fucking not.

"Sorry, we are all girls and there is a 'no boys' rule because of that. We can talk outside if that is ok."

If that bothered him he didn't show it in any way. He simply made his way back to the porch and sat on one of our benches.

I pondered while I walked to him if I should sit by his side on the same bench or if I should sit on another bench right across from him. I didn't feel like making it too obvious that I was terrified of him so I sat by his side, doing my best to keep my cool.

"My name is Alec," he started with a sudden serious expression "I work for very important people and they are interested in you."

He seemed too young to work at all, especially for very important people but I didn't comment on it. I just waited for him to elaborate, but he did not. He waited for me to say something.

"Interested in me in what sense?" I asked "Because of my degree?"

"No, nothing like that. I don't have permission to disclose exactly what they are looking for but if you really want to help me you only need to allow me to be around you for long enough to gather the information I need."

I considered that for a moment. He just wanted to be around me? That was a really odd request but I had no reason to refuse it as long as it didn't interfere with my life except for the fact that having a stranger near me was a bit unsettling.

Then again, he was just a boy. He didn't look older than fifteen so he couldn't be that dangerous. How much harm could he cause?

"That would be fine. I don't think I would mind, as long as it doesn't disrupt my day-to-day life. And you can't enter the house, as I mentioned." I paused then, feeling too naive for accepting that weird request from a stranger I thought was a monster just a few months earlier. I decided it was best to have more information about his job and what his superiors were looking for. "If you find whatever it is that you are seeking, what does that mean for me?"

He was clearly expecting that question.

"An incredible job offer."

"Incredible, really?"

" Really. Unrefusable."

I eyed him suspiciously and then shrugged. I thought it was unlikely he would see in me anything impressive enough to get me a job offer that was unrefusable. I had no skills that would justify such a thing and even the skills I did have were all arts and crafts related and he said it was not about my degree. I came to the conclusion that he would watch me for a little while, see that I had nothing special to offer and then leave, so I confirmed he could spend time with me.

"Yeah, I guess it's fine. Nothing here to see, though, be warned."

He didn't smile that time, he just kept looking at me quietly. I fought the urge to fidget uncomfortably under his stare and stood up when I felt I couldn't do it anymore.

"I would like to go inside now, if that was all would you mind leaving?"

"Of course. Forgive me, I was lost in thought." He stood up as well and extended a hand to me "Thank you for your help, it makes my work a lot easier."

I took his hand and shook it. It was ice cold even though it was a really hot summer evening.

"Are you alright? You're freezing."

Then he smiled again.

"I'm quite alright, no need to worry. I will see you tomorrow."

It wasn't a question and I wondered if he would be around me everyday or just every other day, but he was gone and it seemed better to ask him the next time I saw him.

When I went inside I remembered the other time I had seen him. The day the bar caught on fire. I was so sure he was a supernatural being and I could no longer remember why I felt so sure of it. There was definitely something different about the way he looked and acted there in the porch but he didn't feel as menacing as before and I didn't feel quite as scared.

"Who was that boy?"

I turned to the person speaking and saw Natalia in the kitchen. She should have seen us through the windows.

"It was really strange, actually" I walked to her while throwing my purse on the couch in the living room "he said he had an amazing job offer to me, but only if I had something his bosses are looking for."

"God, that sounds like they want you for prostitution."

I laughed and she did too.

"Gross. He is like fourteen."

She just shrugged.

"Inconspicuous."

He really was, wasn't he? Maybe that was why he was chosen to speak to me. Maybe it was because he saw me that day, or maybe it was both. I couldn't imagine what he expected to see in me, the only thing he saw me doing in June was dropping my food. Maybe he was looking for people to look stupid on television.

I voiced that thought to Natalia and she had a laughing fit.

"That has to be it. Man are they lucky, you really are perfect for that job."

I hit her playfully on the shoulder and started dinner for myself. She apologised for not sharing hers but she was finished and just had the dishes to wash.

"Don't worry, I didn't want your gross vegan food anyway."

"Wow, shut the fuck up."

We laughed and talked a little more before she bade me goodnight and went to her room. She was the closest one to me in the house, literally and figuratively, since we shared a bathroom. I ate, cleaned up and went to bed all the while thinking about the strange things that happened since June and how I had more than half a year of believing it was all over only to meet that boy again. What happened in these eight months that made him come back? He was obviously not from here, not even speaking the language. He probably left and returned, but why?

I could not think of one single reason. I gave it a lot of thought and could not come up with anything about myself that could interest "very important people". If he told me what they wanted I could just tell him if I had it, but not being able to inform me of that made it impossible.

"Let the boy hang around", I told myself when I decided to stop thinking about it to get some sleep, "he is a child, he won't hurt you."


a/n: ok I guess it's pretty obvious by now that English is not my first language, please bear with me.

I'm not making Alec older or my oc younger cause the story is already pretty fucked up anyway and him looking like a kid is the least of my worries lol

I'm trying to write a chapter a day but damn that's difficult, who would have thought (everyone that's who)

hope you like it? idk it's been 10 years since I last wrote fanfiction I have no idea of what I'm doing tbh