Elsa woke in her uncle’s chair, warm under a thick blanket. Someone had banked up the fire in the sitting area and dimmed the workshop lights. Still groggy, she pushed back the hair escaping her plait.

“Are you feeling better?”

She peeked beneath her hand. The Blood Wolf sat across from her, his muscled frame much too big for her small, padded chair. Noak had washed while she’d slept, and water darkened the strands of his short hair from blonde to light brown. Clean-shaven and free of dirt, his face revealed a strong jaw and firm lips. Elsa caught herself staring and lowered her gaze to inspect the blanket tucked around her.

“Did you move me?” She asked.

“I thought you’d be more comfortable. Your uncle said you don’t sleep well.”

Awkwardness gripped her, especially when she threw back the blanket and found someone had removed her shoes. “How long was I out?”

Noak shifted his shoulders into a new position. “A couple of hours.”

“And you’ve sat there the whole time?”

“Most of it,” he said. “I tried to sit with Finn, but seeing his stitches…I don’t need to be angrier with this place.”

She glanced at the curtain dividing workshop and sleeping alcove. “Is my uncle with him?”

“He went to the city.”

Elsa straightened. “Haven, why?”

“The Keeper wanted to speak with him.”

“She did?” Elsa stood. “That’s not good. And he’s been gone all this time?”

Noak nodded. He tracked her movement as she paced in front of the fire.

“The Keeper must be on to us. Why else would she summon him to Haven?” Elsa instinctively reached for her pocket watch, only to find it missing. She remembered how she’d thrown it away in a fit of anger and her agitation increased.

Noak shrugged at her worry. “Your uncle didn’t seem concerned.”

“He wouldn’t.” Elsa halted before him. “That’s not his way. He’s very good at hiding when things bother him.”

“Or,” Noak said, rearranging his position again. “There really is nothing to worry about.”

Elsa wanted to believe him, but the dark thoughts were once more swirling through her mind. She searched the workbench for a simple task to keep her occupied and picked a small silver box, tarnished and covered in surface muck.

She crossed the room to light more lamps. Soon the workshop was washed in a soft yellow. Elsa skirted around the Blood Wolf’s long legs to stoke the fire and settled a kettle of water over the flames to boil. Returning to the bench, she put on her leather apron and tied the back into a neat bow. Elsa reached for her sleeve button and hesitated. She glanced at the Blood Wolf and found him staring at the fire, deep in thought.

Elsa took a deep breath and rolled her sleeves to her upper arms, exposing her tattoo to the light. She sat down at the workbench, picked up the silver box and forgot her worries the moment she began to work.

Armed with a small bowl of cold water and an old toothbrush, Elsa removed the soil from the silver box. A second bowl of soapy water cleansed it of oil and any remaining dirt. Elsa set the box down on a towel and glanced up. The Blood Wolf sat across from her, watching.

She stared back and he shifted on the stool, giving her a glimpse of a man closer to her age. He pointed to the little box.

“Can I help?”

Elsa studied his large hands and wondered if they were capable of touching anything with delicacy and care, or whether they were only good for snapping necks and crushing skulls. The Blood Wolf cleared his throat. The action drew her gaze to the strong pulse there. She wrenched her eyes back to his face.

“Please,” he said, “I need something to do. I’m not good at waiting.”

Impatience and frustration were emotions Elsa understood.

She pointed to the kettle hissing over the fire. “Can you carry that over here, please?”

Noak did as she asked and when he returned, she’d lined a new bowl with a cut square of foil and placed the box inside. She sprinkled white powder over the top.

“Okay. Pour the water over,” Elsa said.

The steamy water hissed between them. Job done, Noak stood back, regarding the rest of the process with mild curiosity. Minutes later, she pulled the box out and rinsed it again. Most of the tarnish was gone. The Blood Wolf took the item from her and turned it around. He stuck his fingers in the water and touched the foil edge before raising his eyebrows. He picked up the box of powder.

“It seems like magic.”

“It’s not.” She took the box back from him. “My uncle is always searching for products like it on the surface. He said it’s just as important to find such everyday items as it is to find jewels.”

Elsa put the silver chest on a towel to dry.

“Although,” she added, “I wouldn’t complain if we found jewels.”

“What next?” Noak asked.

“I need to clean the locking mechanism and fashion a new key. We’ll get more for it that way.”

She pointed to a milk crate full of light bulbs and a small battery-powered tester. “If you want something to do, you can check if those still work.”

He reached for one and Elsa grabbed his wrist.

“Just be gentle with them, okay? We can only sell them if they light up and they won’t if you break the circuit, or the glass.”

The Blood Wolf looked down at her hand and Elsa realised she still held his forearm. His skin was warm beneath her fingers, even though the material of his shirt, and his muscles were firm. She blushed and released his arm.

“Sorry.” Elsa sat down hard and focused all her attention on the silver box. She added lubricant to the keyhole and polished the outside while she waited for the oil within to take effect.

The Blood Wolf broke the quiet between them first.

“Why choose junk?”

“Hmm?” Elsa said, distracted as she peered inside the lock.

He placed a burnt-out bulb into the container at his elbow. “Your uncle seems to be a man of learning. Why not turn his hand to something else?”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

“Junking wasn’t a choice,” Elsa said. “My uncle was an important man in Haven, part of the prestigious Engineers’ Guild. When my mother and I were sent to the Darkzone, he wanted to help, but he needed permission from the Keeper to follow us.”

“Why couldn’t he leave when he wanted?”

Elsa wrapped a swab of cotton around the end of a toothpick. “Citizens with valuable skills can’t just walk away from their guilds. Junking was his excuse and eventually permission was granted. His decision caused a scandal. The previous Head of the Engineers vowed that my uncle would never have the support of his guild for his Junking endeavour.”

She inserted the swab into the keyhole to wipe away the rust before she continued her explanation. “Outwardly, my uncle lacks support and recognition, but there isn’t a Citizen who hasn’t purchased something from our market stall. People want the things he brings back from the surface, because they’re unique and because they’re reminders of the old world. And people are willing to pay to have them.”

Noak picked up the half-finished porcelain doll, its floral dress stained with black grime.

“People really pay for this stuff?”

Elsa smiled. “No, not like that.”

She took the doll from his hands and inspected the dress and head. Her fingers touched the areas in need of replacing and repainting out of habit. “A Junker sees potential in everything. An item like this, once cleaned and repaired, would find a home very quickly.”

“You want to be a Junker as well?”

“I am a Junker,” Elsa said, “in my heart, at least. I love this work as much as my uncle does. And as soon as I get my permit and travel to the surface, I won’t be an apprentice anymore. Nothing will stop me.”

“Aren’t you afraid?”

“Terrified.” Elsa had never admitted that to anyone, but her uncle before. “I don’t have a choice. My uncle is getting old. He tries to hide it from me, but I see. He can’t continue much longer. I will take over as Head Junker and I will support him, just as he’s always done for me. As a Junker, I will no longer be a burden.”

“The surface is not a safe place.”

Elsa sighed at the warning she’d heard a hundred times before. “True, but soon that won’t matter. When you uphold your side of the bargain I won’t need to fear those dangers, will I?”

“Have you ever thought that fear is a necessary part of survival?”

Elsa snorted, “Says the man who lives without it.” She placed the doll back onto the repair pile.

“I know I told you that when we first met, but I feel fear.”

“I don’t believe you,” Elsa said. “What could you possibly have to fear?”

Noak picked up the tester and a light bulb. “Failure.”

He said it so casually. Elsa searched his blue eyes, looking for the man who’d attacked her uncle, the one who would have killed those guards without hesitation. Her eyes travelled down his body, to where he’d pushed back his sleeves and exposed his forearm. Noak’s left arm was clean and tanned, but his right was covered in dark tattoos. Swirling designs and lines patterned his skin. An image flashed across her mind, one of small dusty white hands and a floor of peach-coloured stone covered in chalk drawings.

“It’s funny,” Elsa said. “The symbols on your arm look familiar.” She studied the tattoos closer. They were like her charms, the ones she used when she needed to regain control. “I think I know what they mean.”

Noak’s hand tightened on the tester.

She pointed to his forearm and became more and more certain as the patterns emerged. “That one’s protection. The one above it means strength.” She looked further up his arm. “And friendship. I’m right, aren’t I?”

Noak scowled and Elsa’s memory showed her another face, pale and tired, with the same determined eyes. The pieces of the puzzle clicked into place, just as the Blood Wolf pushed the box of light bulbs away.

“I think I’ll check on Finn.”

Noak stood.

Elsa couldn’t let him leave without knowing.

“I see monsters in my sleep,” she told him abruptly, “every night, without fail.”

Her strange admission threw Noak, enough that he paused midstep. He regarded her warily.

Elsa continued, “I have ever since I was a child.”

“Find me a person in the Chaos who doesn’t have nightmares,” Noak said gruffly, but he sat down again.

Elsa fidgeted with the buttons on her dress. “I remember when and how these nightmares started. When I was a girl, I overheard an argument between my parents late one night. They were talking about my selection for the Farm. My mother said it was a privilege to be taken and my father started to yell at her—something he’d never done before. He shouted that the Keeper was a liar, and he wasn’t going to sacrifice his daughter to those monsters. He said they’d have to take me over his dead body.”

“Elsa—”

“No listen. I was a child, and I’d just learned monsters were coming for me. I should have been terrified, but I wasn’t. My father had promised to stop it. I believed him.”

The Blood wolf shifted on his stool. “A nice story. You were lucky to have a father who cared.”

“I was lucky. But that feeling of security didn’t last. My father was a guard in Haven. Soon after that argument, the Keeper sent his unit out to the Darkzone to quell another uprising. A tunnel collapsed and he died. Everything changed. I didn’t have anyone to turn to for protection. My uncle was different back then, a model citizen and a rising star of his guild with no time for anyone else, and my mother was lost in her own grief. She rarely left her room. She barely ate or spoke to anyone, including me.”

Elsa hated returning to that time, but she made herself go on.

“My nightmares started then. In them, monsters stalked me through the night. I thought these were the ones my father had spoken of. The nightmares were so vivid I had trouble discerning reality from dream. I refused to sleep. I got sick and stopped eating too.”

The Blood Wolf stared at the table in front of him.

“An older boy lived in the apartment next door. I knew of him, but we’d never interacted much because our parents were from different guilds and the four-year age gap back then seemed enormous. We weren’t friends, yet he noticed something was wrong. No one answered the door when he knocked. He heard weeping. Food deliveries went uncollected.”

Noak still refused to look at her. The tightly clenched fist on the workbench was her only clue she was on the right track.

“So, one night this boy slipped across the adjoining balconies into my room. He sat with me and told me stories while I rocked back and forth, pinching myself to stay awake. He remained at my side until the morning chime. The next night he returned and the next, until finally I told him my fears. The following visit, he brought a book filled with drawings and a piece of chalk. He said the stories within were the answer to my problems. He pushed the bed into middle of the room and drew symbols in thick white lines. He created a circle of protection, then he promised to stay awake the whole night to make sure it worked.”

“You were foolish to believe him,” Noak said, finally breaking his silence, “chalk drawings cannot protect you.”

“Neither can tattoos,” Elsa said. “And yet you still wear them.”

The Blood wolf fell quiet again.

“I was a child who was very, very afraid,” Elsa said. “The boy offered me a pathway through my terror. He showed me the power in a charm and gave me back control of my own mind. I took that comfort—I grasped it with all my might—and it worked. I slept fully, for the first time in weeks. And the boy kept his promise. He came every night to draw the symbols, right up until he was taken to the Farm. He saved me.”

The Blood Wolf growled, “Why are you telling me this story?”

“Because,” Elsa said, “I see you now.”

The Blood Wolf rose to his feet and Elsa rose with him.

“You’re wrong,” he said. “I’m not that boy.”

Noak backed away, but it was too late. She knew.

“You are.”

“No.”

Elsa blocked his path before he could retreat. When he didn’t move away, she reached up to touch his chin and searched his face.

“You’re different,” Elsa said. “You’re harder, leaner… but also the same. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before. I should have recognised you straight away.”

She felt his jaw harden beneath her hand.

“What happened to you, Nicholas? Why aren’t you at the Farm?”

His eyes turned cold and his movement slow and deliberate as he removed Elsa’s hand from his face and stepped back.

“My name is Noak.”

***

Noak had never run from anything in his life, but he ran from Elsa. He left her, disappointed, in the middle of the workshop and retreated to the safety of Finn’s room. His mind returned over and over to the touch of her fingertips against his skin and her warm scent.

He slumped onto the stool.

“She’s the girl from your stories, isn’t she?” Finn said.

Noak grunted. “You should be sleeping.”

“I like her. Elsa’s smart. Why not admit it?”

Noak felt the memories of his past life press against him. He rose, too agitated to remain still, and pushed them away. He did not want them.

“Noak, why pretend? Why not tell her who you are?”

He scowled. “And what would I say?”

“I don’t know. Maybe that you’ve worried about her for the last ten years. That you didn’t forget her or abandon her. That it’s Cohen’s fault you never made it back to the underground.”

Noak shook his head. “Too much time has passed. Everything’s changed.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is, Finn!” Noak said. “The boy Elsa knew is dead. He belongs to the Chaos and nothing good can come from pretending otherwise.”

Noak’s words hardened his belief. In the last decade he’d become a ruthless efficient killer, one willing to do almost anything to survive. There was nothing left of the gullible, weak boy from Haven who drew chalk symbols to make another smile. Noak was a monster now—just like the one Elsa had feared all those years ago—and talking of the past wouldn’t change that fact, no matter how much he wished it.

“Damn it, Finn. Of all the places in the Chaos, why’d you have to come here?”