⇚ 13 ⇛

❚ ❙ The Shape of Grief ❙ ❚

The thing about grief was that people expected it to look dramatic.

Sobbing.
Screaming.
Breaking apart beautifully beneath rainstorms.

But real grief was quieter than that.

Less cinematic.

More humiliating.

It lived inside stupid things.

Inside songs you suddenly couldn't listen to anymore.
Inside empty bedrooms preserved like museums.
Inside buying two coffees before remembering there was no one left to drink the second one.
Inside hearing laughter through a wall and turning too quickly because, for one ridiculous second, it sounded like someone dead.

Stella existed everywhere.

That was the worst part.

Not loudly.

Not enough for anyone else to notice.

She haunted me politely.

In apple-red ribbons.
In church bells.
In the smell of vanilla sugar.
In every little girl who smiled too easily.

At The Noodle Barn, she appeared in Allison's laugh most often.

Not because Allison sounded like her.

She didn't.

Stella's laugh had been softer.
Warmer.
Like sunshine through curtains.

Allison laughed like a tiny animal escaping captivity.

But sometimes, when the pub grew loud and Victor smiled tiredly across the room while Archie committed another crime against music, I would forget for half a second.

I would turn, ready to tell Stella something cruel and funny.

Then remember.

Again.

That was grief.

Not one wound.

A thousand tiny ambushes.

I noticed it most after two in the morning.

The Noodle Barn became quieter then, laughter fading into muffled echoes beneath my floor while London softened beyond my apartment windows. Those were the hours I hated most because silence gave memory too much space to breathe.

I sat cross-legged on my kitchen counter beside the open window, cigarette burning between my fingers.

Outside, Shoreditch glowed wet and electric beneath the night.

Inside, Victor's apartment door sat across the hall with warm light still bleeding faintly beneath it.

He was awake again.

Of course he was.

Probably hunched over paperwork, saving people who could not pay him and pretending exhaustion counted as a personality.

Idiot.

My burner phone vibrated beside me.

Unknown Number.

I stared at it for a long moment.

No one good ever called from unknown numbers.

Eventually, I answered.

"What."

A familiar silence followed.

Then:

"Still rude, I see."

Frederick.

My heartbeat slowed instantly.

Not from fear.

Something colder.

Older.

"You've got nerve calling me," I said.

"And you've got nerve disappearing to another country."

I exhaled smoke into the night.

"How did you get this number?"

"Do you honestly think I wouldn't find you eventually?"

Actually, yes.

That had been the entire plan.

"You sent Bernie first."

"He worries about you."

"No. He stalks people professionally."

Frederick sighed softly.

For a moment neither of us spoke.

It struck me suddenly how familiar his breathing still sounded.

I hated that.

Some people were less people than they were muscle memory.

Frederick was like that.

A voice from hallways I no longer lived in.
A shadow at church doors.
A hand pulling me back from roads before cars passed.
A brother I resented too much to stop loving.

"Beatrice misses you," he said quietly.

Coward.

Always the softest knife first.

My cigarette paused halfway to my mouth.

"She's alright?"

"Yes."

"Eating?"

"More than you probably are."

I almost smiled.

Almost.

"Valerie?"

A pause.

Interesting.

"She's fine."

Lie.

Frederick only hesitated when emotions got involved.

Or when Valerie did.

I tapped ash into an empty wine glass.

"Why are you calling?"

Silence again.

Longer this time.

Then:

"Someone tried to kill me yesterday."

The world went completely still.

For one second, I heard nothing.

Not London.
Not traffic.
Not my own breathing.

Only Frederick's voice and the violent absence that followed it.

"...What?"

"It wasn't successful."

"That's not the point."

"I know."

My mind immediately began calculating.

Jean-Claude.
Internal betrayal.
Valerie.
Rival factions.
Old André loyalists turning impatient.
New alliances shifting in the dark.

Too many knives.

Too many hands.

"What happened?" I asked quietly.

"Car bomb."

Rage hit so quickly I nearly dropped the cigarette.

Someone had tried to blow Frederick apart like an animal.

Frederick.

My brother.

The idiot who still sent Beatrice flowers every Sunday.
Who checked whether I had eaten during depressive episodes by sending threats disguised as reminders.
Who had once carried Stella on his back through a summer storm because she refused to ruin her shoes.

Frederick, who loved people badly but loved them completely.

"Are you hurt?"

"No."

"Don't lie."

"I'm not hurt, Camille."

My real name sounded different from him.

Not soft.

Not dangerous.

Just old.

I closed my eyes briefly in relief and immediately hated myself for it.

"If they failed once, they'll try again."

"I'm aware."

"You don't sound aware."

"And you sound like you still care."

I went quiet.

Frederick exhaled slowly.

There it was between us.

The thing neither of us knew how to hold properly.

Love, deformed by grief.

"I need you to come home," he said.

"No."

A long silence followed.

Then, softer:

"I don't sleep properly when I don't know where you are."

My throat tightened.

The words were too quiet.

Too tired.

Too much like something he should not have said out loud.

"You don't get to say that."

"I know."

"Then don't."

Another pause.

"You disappear for weeks," he murmured, "and somehow you're still the first thing I think about every morning."

My chest tightened painfully.

"Fred-"

"Don't," he interrupted quietly. "Just... don't."

The nickname hung between us.

Old.
Unsafe.
Too intimate in a way I refused to examine.

"You don't know what's happening here," he said after a moment.

"And whose fault is that?"

His voice hardened slightly.

"Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"Pretend leaving means you stopped belonging."

"I don't belong there anymore."

Frederick laughed once beneath his breath.

Tired.

Hollow.

"You used to come find me after nightmares," he said suddenly.

My fingers went still around the cigarette.

"You were six."

I said nothing.

"You'd crawl into my room and refuse to leave until you fell asleep again."

The memory rose without permission.

Dark hallways.
Small hands.
Frederick lifting the blanket without asking questions.
Stella asleep on the rug because she hated being left out of anything.

His voice roughened quietly.

"Now I don't even know what country you're crying in."

Something inside me cracked sharply.

"Stop."

The word came out too soft.

Frederick went silent.

For a moment, neither of us breathed properly.

Then he said:

"You think I don't know you hate me?"

That startled me.

"I don't hate you."

"Yes, you do."

"No," I said quietly. "I hate your choices."

Another long pause.

Then his voice lowered.

"There's something wrong with Valerie."

Ice slid down my spine.

Frederick never admitted weakness regarding her.

Never.

Not to me.

Not to anyone.

"What do you mean?"

"She's hiding things."

I almost laughed bitterly.

Congratulations.
Only took you a year.

But the bitterness died quickly because Frederick sounded genuinely unsettled.

And Frederick did not unsettle easily.

"What kind of things?"

"Staff changes I didn't authorize. Accounts moved through shell companies I can't trace. Calls she takes outside the house." His voice tightened. "Documents missing from André's office."

My fingers curled around the edge of the counter.

"What documents?"

"I don't know. That's the problem."

Worse.

Much worse.

Frederick was intelligent.
Careful.
Paranoid by nature.

If he couldn't uncover what Valerie was hiding, then whatever game she was playing had gone deeper than I thought.

"Phones?" I asked.

"Tapped, probably."

"Guards?"

"Some are still mine."

Some.

Not all.

The word sat between us like a loaded gun.

France was fracturing.

And Frederick was standing in the middle of it alone.

"You need to get Beatrice out," I said.

"I know."

"Then do it."

"I'm trying."

Trying.

Frederick hated that word.

Which meant he was losing control faster than he wanted me to hear.

"Camille," he said quietly. "Come back."

The softness in his voice was worse than shouting.

I looked across the hall again.

Victor's warm light still glowed beneath his door.

Safe.
Soft.
Normal.

A life that did not smell like gun oil and blood money.

"I can't," I whispered.

Frederick went very still.

Even through the phone, I felt it.

Then he said:

"There's someone there with you."

It wasn't a question.

I should have denied it.

Immediately.

Cleanly.

Instead, silence answered for me.

Frederick inhaled slowly.

Not angry.

Hurt.

Somehow that was worse.

"I see," he murmured.

"No, you don't."

"I think I do."

"You don't know anything about him."

"Him," Frederick repeated softly.

Idiot.

I had given too much away.

My jaw clenched.

"Don't."

"I'm not threatening him."

"Good."

"But you should understand something." His voice turned colder now. More controlled. More like André. "People like us ruin normal lives, Camille."

I said nothing.

Because I knew.

God, I knew.

His voice lowered slightly.

"And you..." He stopped himself.

Another silence.

"You destroy yourself trying to love people properly."

The words landed too deep.

Because they sounded less like an accusation and more like confession.

"If this family finds out someone matters to you," he continued, "they won't punish you first."

My stomach twisted.

"They'll punish him."

The cigarette burned down between my fingers.

I barely felt the heat.

Frederick's voice softened again.

"I'm not saying that to hurt you."

"Yes, you are."

"No," he said. "I'm saying it because I know what our world does to innocent people."

Victor's face flashed in my mind.

Tired eyes.
Crooked glasses.
Warm hands.
Terrible password.
The way he waited outside locked emotional doors instead of forcing them open.

My chest hurt.

Frederick spoke one last time, quieter now.

"Be careful who you let love you."

The line went dead.

I sat there long after the call ended, staring into darkness while the cigarette finally burned to ash between my fingers.

For the first time since running-

I realized I wasn't afraid for myself anymore.

I was afraid for Victor.

•••••

The next morning, I walked downstairs sleep-deprived, underfed, and emotionally hostile.

Unfortunately, chaos had already begun inside the pub.

Archie stood on a chair holding a ferret above his head like a priest presenting a cursed offering.

"HE STOLE MY HASH BROWNS!"

The ferret squeaked aggressively.

Amy stood behind the bar looking like she had aged ten years since sunrise.

"Why is it loose again?"

"Because freedom is a human right!" Archie yelled.

"That's not even human!"

Donna lifted her coffee from a corner booth.

"I support Keith's rebellion."

"His name is Keith?" I asked flatly.

Archie gasped.

"Obviously."

Granny Kim appeared from the kitchen and smacked Archie with a rolled newspaper.

"Get your rat!"

"He's not a rat, he's emotionally expressive!"

"He's demonic!"

I stared at the scene blankly.

A month ago I lived inside a heavily guarded French estate surrounded by assassins, political corruption, and enough intergenerational trauma to fill several graveyards.

Now I was watching a tattooed man chase a ferret through a pub named The Noodle Barn while a lawyer wordlessly slid toast in front of me.

Life was deeply unserious.

Victor sat at the bar drinking coffee like a man spiritually detached from reality.

"You look terrible," he said.

"Your pub is a circus."

"Correct."

Keith the ferret launched himself across a nearby table, sending Allison into delighted screams.

Demi shouted, "Not near the juice!"

Xavier yelled something about health inspections.

The Barn erupted into noise.

And yet-

I felt strangely far away from all of it.

Like my body had entered the warmth but my mind remained in France, standing beside the wreckage of a car that could have held Frederick's body.

Victor noticed immediately.

Of course he did.

He always noticed the things I wished he wouldn't.

He nudged the plate closer.

"You haven't eaten."

"I had wine yesterday."

"That's not food."

"It's grapes."

"That argument gets worse every time."

I picked up the toast because refusing would require more energy than obedience.

Victor watched me carefully.

Not pushing.

Just present.

Dangerous man.

"You okay?" he asked quietly beneath the chaos.

No.

Frederick almost died.
Valerie was hiding documents.
Jean-Claude was moving weapons and worse through London.
Someone had marked Victor's world.
And I was beginning to care about people again, which felt like walking willingly into a burning house.

But instead I took a bite of toast.

"I'm alive."

Victor's expression shifted slightly.

Sad.

Almost.

"Not what I asked."

I swallowed.

The toast tasted like butter and unwanted affection.

"I know."

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

Around us, Archie finally captured Keith and immediately started apologizing to him as though the ferret had been wronged by society.

Victor reached for my coffee and added sugar without asking.

Exactly one spoon.

He remembered.

I hated that.

The tiny domesticity of it.

The ease.

The way he knew something small about me and treated it like it mattered.

Frederick's warning echoed again.

They won't punish you first.

They'll punish him.

I looked away from Victor quickly.

Too quickly.

He saw that too.

"Diamond," he said softly.

I stood abruptly.

"I need air."

Victor did not stop me.

That almost made it worse.

•••••

Outside, Shoreditch moved beneath pale morning rain.

Delivery vans. Cyclists. Hungover strangers. Steam rising from coffee cups. People living ordinary lives while violence moved beneath their feet, invisible and patient.

I stepped beneath the awning beside Granny Kim's flower café and lit a cigarette.

Across the street, someone had taped a missing-person flyer to a lamppost.

A young woman smiled out from the paper.

Nineteen.
Dark hair.
Last seen near Whitechapel.

My stomach tightened.

I stepped closer.

Another flyer sat beneath it.

Different face.
Same age range.
Same area.

Missing.

My mind immediately returned to Bernie's voice.

People are disappearing around those routes.

The kind your father would have burned ports down over.

The cigarette went still between my fingers.

London was not just corrupt.

It was hungry.

Behind me, the café door opened softly.

Granny Kim stepped out carrying a bucket of flowers.

She looked at the flyers.

Then at me.

"Bad things come closer when good people pretend not to see," she said calmly.

I glanced toward her.

"You always speak like fortune cookies?"

She smiled faintly.

"Only when pretty girl looks haunted."

"I'm not haunted."

"No?" Granny Kim adjusted a bouquet of red tulips. "Then why ghosts follow you so loudly?"

I had no answer.

So I looked back at the missing flyers instead.

For a long moment, neither of us spoke.

Then Granny Kim held out a single apple-red flower.

"For your room."

I stared at it.

The colour was too close to Stella's old barrettes.

Too close to grief.

Too close to something alive.

I took it anyway.

"Thank you."

Granny Kim nodded once and returned inside.

I stood beneath the grey London morning holding the flower like it might bruise.

Across the street, the missing woman smiled from the flyer.

Behind me, the Barn glowed warm and ridiculous.

France pulled one way.

London pulled another.

And somewhere between them stood Victor Hart, alive only because nobody dangerous knew yet how much he mattered.

I looked down at the red flower in my hand.

Then at the missing flyers.

Then toward the pub door.

For the first time, I understood the shape of my grief clearly.

It was not only what I had lost.

It was what I was becoming afraid to lose next.