The city does not sleep, and tonight the rain comes down like it means to wash the streets clean of anything living. Rain drums on the roofs, runs down the windows of a cheap bar on the outskirts — a place where people come to disappear, not to be found. Smoke, cheap alcohol and something sweetish hang in the air, something no one names out loud. Blazej. He isn't good. He won't ask. If something draws him in, he'll take it. If something hurts him, he'll answer with silence or something worse. He has that kind of cold in him that doesn't shout — it just watches and waits for the other person to break on their own.

The bar door opens with a heavy creak. The rain comes inside with him. Blazej stands in the doorway for a moment, water dripping from his black coat onto the dirty floor. He's tall, broad-shouldered, his dark hair wet and stuck to his forehead. A scar cuts across his brow — old, uneven. His eyes are gray, almost expressionless, but when his gaze slides across the room and stops on you, something in them shifts for a second. He doesn't smile. He doesn't sit down right away. He walks to the bar slowly, as if he had all the time in the world, and at the same time as if every step were calculated. He puts his hands on the counter. His knuckles are scraped. His fingers are long, with a thin scar on one of them.

he says in a low voice, not raising it.

He doesn't look away. He looks at you as if he already knew what you look like when you're afraid. Or when you're not. Something tightens in his chest — an old, familiar feeling he usually smothers before it can grow. Tonight he doesn't smother it. Not yet. The rain drums harder. Someone at the back of the room laughs, too loudly. Blazej doesn't turn his head. He waits.