Gasping and shivering, Elise recovered from the instantaneous trip in her living room. The weight of Loki's gaze prolonged the process. When she finally stood, her legs shook, her ears rang, and her extremities tingled as fear and guilt wracked her body.

"Is this your dwelling?" Loki inquired as Elise got to her feet.

"Yeah," Elise exhaled. "This is it."

Loki cringed. "You live in squalor," he commented as he roamed the apartment, inspecting as he went. "Is this all there is?"

"Yeah," Elise replied quietly. She was insulted, but she didn't dare disagree with him.

His eyes refocused on Elise. "This will do," he said.

"What?"

"I said, 'this will do.'"

"Do for what?" A dense feeling settled in Elise's stomach as she realized what was happening.

"I will remain here until the time is right," Loki clarified. He crossed to the window that looked overlooked the street and brought the curtains to a close, then added, "And so will you."

Once more, Elise could do nothing more than shake her head. "No, no, no," she stammered. "Please, no."

"I did not ask for your opinion." Loki turned and paced toward Elise. "You were so eager to rescue me before," he remarked, somewhat sarcastically. "Have you changed your mind?"

"Someone's gonna come looking for me," Elise blurted before she could stop herself.

Loki continued, quickening, toward Elise. "Who will look for you?" he laughed. "Thor? The Avengers?" He kept on until she was trapped between him and a wall. Lowering his voice, he said, "How presumptuous of you, that you think you are of such importance to them."

"I know I'm not," Elise defended. "But you are, and they can probably infer-"

Without warning, Loki threw up a clenched fist and slammed it into the wall beside Elise's head, causing bits of plaster to come dislodged, exposing brick. She squealed, but contained her voice quickly.

"Thor cannot even communicate with this realm while I hold the Tesseract," Loki snapped, his mouth intimately close to Elise's. "No one knows of this besides you and I, and if you value your life, you will keep mum."

Elise did just that. She willed her lips shut and forced her anger and fear down.

After a moment of calm, Loki withdrew his hand, and dust fell from the shattered wall onto Elise's shoulder. "That's better," he said. He seemed satisfied with her silence, but he did not back away. "You will not leave this place until you have my permission," he continued. "Is that clear?"

Elise shook her head slightly. "I can't," she whispered, fearing another escalation.

Loki tilted his head forward, casting a shadow over his eyes and lowering the horns of his helmet toward the top of Elise's head and the damaged wall. "You can, and you will," he insisted, his teeth clenched.

"What about work?" Elise suggested timidly. "I have to go to work."

"What about it?"

It was clear that Loki was once again losing his patience, so Elise kept her explanation short. "They'll wonder where I am if I don't show up. They could call the cops."

"And what will happen then?" Loki asked, his question obviously rhetorical. "Do you think 'the cops' will stand against me?"

"Maybe not," Elise replied, her confidence growing, "but then they'll know you're here, and they'll come."

Again, Loki struck the wall, this time cracking the brick. He let out a frustrated growl, turned away from Elise, and took a few steps before wheeling around to face her once more. "Do not attempt to deceive me," he commanded. "When are you expected to be there?"

"Eight 'til four, Monday through Friday," Elise answered quickly. "Sometimes longer if they need me."

"And what is tomorrow?"

"Sunday."

Loki bit his thumb as he mulled the schedule over. Elise watched apprehensively as he emoted, his expression conveying contemplation, irritation, rage, and finally, resignation.

"You will work," he said, "and nothing more. You will go only where you must, and you will use the same route each day."

Elise nodded rapidly.

"And should you choose not to obey me," Loki continued, each word more deliberate than the last, "should you choose to alert anyone of my presence, or should you stray..." he trailed off. He looked to the window, then to the door, and then resumed his speech. "Should you stray – and you will not stray – know that I have ways of finding you, and know that the consequences for your choices will be dire."

Again, Elise nodded. She wanted to show him neither weakness nor resistance, and she knew that if she spoke, he would interpret her words to mean one or the other.

"You have a decision to make now, Elise." Loki's posture seemed to slacken, and he spoke authoritatively, though his hostility had vanished. "Will you do as I say? Will you assist me in reaching what is already nearly in my grasp, or will you delay my good work?" Slowly, he approached Elise again, but this time he halted before she was forced to take a step back. "Will you gamble your own life and countless others," he went on, "or will you have faith in my power?"

Just as Elise opened her mouth to respond, four quick, hard knocks on the door caught her attention.

"Hey, open up," the voice outside called. It was her landlord.

"Answer him," Loki whispered.

Before Elise could turn to look at him, he had vanished. Baffled, she stood, seemingly alone, surveying the room for any sign of Loki's having been there. Another set of knocks reminded her to answer the door.

"I can hear you in there," the landlord half-shouted as Elise approached and reached out for the doorknob.

Opening the door only a quarter of the way, Elise cleared her throat, then asked, "What's up?"

"Everything okay up here?" the landlord queried, craning his fat neck in a thinly-veiled attempt to peer inside for a look at the property. "I was on my way up and I thought I heard you slammin' around or somethin'."

Elise hesitated, weighing the consequences of each potential answer to what on any other day would have been a very simple question. What if she told him what was happening? What if she bolted out the door, past the landlord and out onto the streets? Each scenario played out badly. She'd be caught, maybe killed, possibly even worse. She didn't want to test Loki's temper, nor did she want to know what he could do.

"I'm fine." Her reply came out breathy and weak as she struggled to maintain composure.

"You sure?" her landlord pressed, desperately trying to look beyond her and into the apartment. "What's that shit on the floor?"

Elise looked to the pile of plaster bits that had been punched out of the wall moments before. "Oh," she said. "I did that. I was mad. Sorry." She was sure the tears pooling at the bottoms of her eyes would give her away.

"Mm-hm." The landlord nodded and flashed a sarcastic smirk. "Whatever. Just keep it down, okay? And this is comin' outta your deposit. Just sayin'."

"Okay, sorry, thanks." Elise shut the door slowly and listened as his footsteps faded. She wished that her landlord, the guy who lived above her, had shown more concern. He knew something was wrong when he saw the plaster. He knew. But he wasn't going to do anything, and neither was anyone else.

Finally, Elise started crying. At first, she just faced the door as tears made their way down her cheeks and rolled off her chin, but after a few seconds of that, she was sobbing. She turned to retreat to the couch, rubbing her eyes with the backs of her hands, but Loki reappeared before her, stopping her in her tracks.

"Are you weeping?" he asked, concern noticeably absent from his voice. "Why are you weeping?"

Elise responded by crying harder, drawing in shallow, jagged breaths. She slid past him and plopped herself down, sinking into the soft cushion of the sofa and bending at the waist so that her head nearly reached her knees. She heard Loki laugh.

"So strong-willed, so sure of yourself, and yet you weep because of me?" He sat down beside her, and she pushed her body into the couch's arm.

"Please, just leave," Elise pleaded. "I won't call the cops. I won't say anything to anyone. Just get out of here. Please."

"I will do no such thing," Loki taunted. "Besides, it would be a shame for you to miss what I have planned for this realm."

His words were like a blow to the gut. He was going to re-offend. Elise was aiding and abetting not just a criminal, but an alleged mass-murderer, and whether she was doing so against her will or not, she knew what the consequences would be.

"I'm gonna lose my job," she mumbled. That was the best case scenario.

Again, Loki laughed. "When I am king," he said, "I will give you a new one. That is, if you answer my question."

"What?" Elise lifted her head and gazed at him vacantly.

"I had asked you a question before we were interrupted." He seemed distracted, his eyes fixed on the shaded window. "What will you do?"

She sighed, defeated, and more tears frothed forth. "Whatever you want," she whined, "if you promise not to hurt me."

"Then we have a deal." He placed a hand on Elise's knee, shaking her playfully, much to her dismay. "Now," he smiled, "shall we eat something? I never did finish my meal."

Was he joking? If so, Elise thought, it was more than just too soon.

"Go on, then," Loki urged, impatient. "You've promised to do as I ask. Do it."

He was serious. Elise stood and fled to the kitchen.

Opening the refrigerator door, she found that she was woefully unprepared. She pushed aside a near-empty carton of milk and pulled out a half-finished six-pack of beer, placing it on the floor to see what was behind it. There wasn't much; she found a bag of lettuce, some bread, but no meat or cheese for a sandwich. She removed two of the bottled beers from their packaging and placed the remaining one back on its shelf before closing the fridge and opening the freezer. Frozen vegetables – no time for that – and chicken nuggets. They'd have to do. She plunked roughly ten of them onto a plate, placed the plate in the microwave, and started the timer.

Her hands shook as she reached out to open the drawer that contained the bottle opener. It took her two tries to open the first beer, but once the cap was off, she lifted the bottle to her lips, rolled back her head, and took a long gulp. She finished off half of the bottle before the nuggets were cooked, and a distinct, comforting blurriness enveloped her head.

"What's that sound?" Loki's voice rang out, heavy with accusation.

Elise froze. "What sound?"

He appeared in the entrance to the kitchen. "That buzzing. What is it?" What device are you using?"

The microwave emitted a protracted beep. Elise pushed the button to release the door. "This?" she asked innocently.

"Yes," Loki said. "That."

"It's just the microwave." Elise trembled as she removed the plate and offered him the snack. "I made chicken nuggets."

Loki eyed the microwave with skepticism for several, long seconds before finally accepting the small offering. "Bizarre people," Elise thought she heard him grumble as he returned to the couch.

She sighed, relieved, when he was out of sight once more. Leaning against the counter, Elise calmed herself, drawing in a deep breath and exhaling gradually. Once her legs would carry her, she followed Loki out of the kitchen, toting the beers she had opened. She set the full bottle down gently on the coffee table in front of Loki before taking a swig from her own half-empty container. Rather than sit down beside him, she stood, drinking and trying not to look at him while she contemplated her next move.

"You need not wait right there," he said, as though he had read her mind. "You may go and... do whatever it is you usually do."

Without a word more, Elise went to the kitchen, finished her drink, and left the empty bottle on the counter. She then proceeded to the bathroom and, taking care to lock the door, prepared to shower. Under the hot water, she attempted to relax, but she remained on-guard, and she worried that Loki would intrude on her privacy. The noises he made as he moved about her apartment, while nearly inaudible behind the door, grated at her ears. She wanted to stay there in the shower until he left, but she knew he wasn't leaving.

It occurred to Elise that her handbag and its contents hadn't returned with her from Asgard. The thought of having lost all of her notes and all of the materials relating to her client's case was almost as jarring as the fact that he was sitting in the adjacent room. Perhaps worst of all, her phone was gone, and she did not expect to get it back.

"Shit," she mumbled, frustrated and fearful. "Shit, shit, shit."

When the skin on her fingers began to wrinkle, it was time for Elise to leave the warm comfort of the shower. She shivered once the water was off and grasped for a towel. Once her body was mostly dry, she put back on the clothes she had been wearing before she got in rather than walking to her room nearly naked. At least she could maintain an illusion of privacy, if nothing else.

Entering her bedroom, Elise noticed that the sun was beginning to set despite the fact that the window faced another building's facade. Though all she could see through the glass was brick, at this time of day, it was bathed in the bronze light that crept in between the high-rises. Without access to her phone's many functions and unable to work without the notes and documents she'd lost, Elise lay down on her side and watched as the sun's glow diminished. It was early when it finally disappeared, but still, she went to sleep.