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00:00:00i never knew that one wrong turn could change absolutely everything i arrived in veltara city
00:00:07with nothing but a worn backpack and the desperate hope that no one would find me here when i got
00:00:14lost three blocks from my new apartment i stopped the first person i saw and asked for directions
00:00:20he was tall dark-haired dressed in an expensive coat with eyes like cold stone
00:00:28he looked at me like i was something fragile he had never once encountered before
00:00:33i had no idea who he was no idea that the entire city trembled at the sound of his name
00:00:38no idea that asking him for directions would cost me everything and give me so much more
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00:00:56the bus station in veltara city smelled of diesel exhaust and old rain the kind of smell that
00:01:02settles into everything and refuses to leave i stepped off the overnight bus at six in the
00:01:07morning with a backpack that held everything i owned in the world two changes of clothes
00:01:13a thin wallet with enough money for two months of rent if i was careful
00:01:18a folded piece of paper with an address i'd never seen in person
00:01:23a photograph of my mother i had taken from her shelf the night i ran because i could not leave
00:01:28without something of her and a single orange calendula from her garden pressed flat between
00:01:34the pages of a notebook i had never written in i stood outside the terminal and told myself this was
00:01:40a
00:01:40beginning not an end not a defeat a beginning my name is kale arden i am 23 years old an
00:01:53omega who has
00:01:53never been particularly good at knowing when to be afraid i was born in mirin a smaller city 200 kilometers
00:02:00north in a family that had once been comfortable and was no longer my father had borrowed money from men
00:02:07who do not forgive debts and when dorian crane came to our door and expressed an interest in bonding
00:02:12with me my father said yes before i was even in the room i found out from my mother three
00:02:19weeks before
00:02:20the ceremony with tears in her eyes and an apology she could never quite finish dorian crane was 38 alpha
00:02:29wealthy and known in quiet circles for what happened to the omegas in his household
00:02:35two previous bonded partners had disappeared without explanation
00:02:40a third had fled the city with both wrists bandaged and was never found
00:02:46his pheromones carried a specific undertone like iron and rot beneath the dominant scent that made every
00:02:54omega around him feel sick with a dread that could not be reasoned away my father had sold me to
00:03:00that
00:03:00man in exchange for the forgiveness of his debts i was told later the payment was not even generous
00:03:06i ran the night before the ceremony i had been planning it for two weeks saving money from the
00:03:12small amounts my mother slipped me quietly always with that same unfinished apology in her eyes
00:03:19my one trusted friend helped me create a false identity document under the name kale verdant a rental
00:03:26application for an apartment in valtara city a bus ticket purchased in cash from a terminal three towns over
00:03:34i left a note on the kitchen table i told my mother i loved her i told her not to
00:03:40look for me
00:03:42because if she found me dorian would find me too and then i walked out in the hour before dawn
00:03:48and did not look back
00:03:50that was six days ago the overnight journey had used most of my courage and the last of my composure
00:03:57and i had spent the final two hours staring at the pressed calendula and trying not to cry
00:04:04but i did not cry because i had made a decision on the night i ran i was going to
00:04:10build something and no
00:04:12one was going to take it from me so i stood outside the terminal in the gray morning light and
00:04:17breathed in
00:04:18the cold and told myself this is the beginning and then i looked at the address on my folded paper
00:04:27looked at the street signs around me and realized i had absolutely no idea where i was
00:04:33my phone's data plan had run out three days ago the printed city map from the rental agency's website
00:04:39had been folded so many times that two key intersection labels were gone
00:04:45i stood on the pavement with my backpack on my shoulders and looked up and down the street
00:04:50there were not many people out at that hour a few early workers a street cleaner two women sharing a
00:04:58cigarette outside a bakery that had not yet opened and on the corner partially visible from where i stood
00:05:05a small cluster of men in dark coats gathered around a black car i noticed only that one of them
00:05:11stood
00:05:12slightly apart from the others not hunched against the cold but perfectly still in it and he looked
00:05:18like someone who might know the city so i walked toward him i should explain something about my
00:05:24relationship with self-preservation most omegas develop a very sensitive internal alarm when it comes
00:05:31to dominant alpha pheromones they learn to read the difference between confidence and danger
00:05:36to know when to lower their eyes to know when the correct response is not hello can you help me
00:05:43but
00:05:43a swift and quiet exit this instinct is biological and social both and most omegas have it refined to
00:05:51a fine art by the time they are adults i apparently do not my mother always said i was missing
00:06:00the part of my
00:06:00brain that registers threats until they are directly on top of me she said it with love with the specific
00:06:08tired affection of someone who has accepted a thing as permanent she said it right up until the moment
00:06:14she told me about the bonding arrangement and i had not screamed or collapsed but simply sat quietly in
00:06:20the kitchen chair and said huh and then begun methodically planning my escape so perhaps it is not surprising
00:06:27that i walked up to the man on the corner with my printed map and said with complete sincerity
00:06:34excuse me i'm looking for chellin street in the ash gate quarter and i think i'm rather lost
00:06:40could you help me the men around him went very still not the ordinary stillness of interrupted
00:06:48conversation a different kind entirely the kind that precedes something i noticed it only at
00:06:56the edge of my attention what i was focused on was the man directly in front of me he was
00:07:03tall in
00:07:04a way that recalibrated the space around him dressed in a black coat that should have looked formal
00:07:10but instead looked like a second skin of authority his hair was very black so black it absorbed the
00:07:18morning light rather than reflecting it cut short at the sides with a strand falling across his forehead
00:07:24he had a strong jaw a straight nose and a mouth designed specifically for the expression it was
00:07:30currently wearing absolute contained stillness like a sea before a storm his eyes were dark in a way that
00:07:40had no name beyond dark and they were fixed on me with an intensity that would have made most people
00:07:45step back i did not step back i had a printed city map and i needed sellin street he did
00:07:54not answer
00:07:54immediately he looked at me the way you look at something that requires the creation of a new
00:08:00category something that does not fit anything you currently have available then one of the men to his
00:08:06left made a small movement and the tall man made a single minimal gesture with two fingers
00:08:12and that man went immediately and completely still sellin street he said his voice was low and unhurried
00:08:20with the quality of a voice that is used to being listened to without needing to be raised
00:08:26ashgate quarter yes my map is unclear about this section i think i need to turn left somewhere
00:08:37he reached out and took the map from my hand he turned it the correct way up looked at it
00:08:42for four
00:08:43seconds then handed it back and pointed left seven blocks south right at the bridge crossing third street
00:08:51on the left seven blocks south right at the bridge third left i repeated checking the map got it thank
00:09:02you so much i looked up at him and smiled the relief of having a direction the simple habit of
00:09:10gratitude my
00:09:11mother had drilled into me i smiled at this man the way i would smile at any ordinary person who
00:09:16had done
00:09:16an ordinary kindness and then i put the map in my pocket and walked away i did not look back
00:09:23i had
00:09:24places to be and a life to start behind me on the corner none of the men moved for several
00:09:31seconds then
00:09:32one of them said quietly in a voice that was trying hard not to express the thing it was feeling
00:09:38boss
00:09:41the man with the black hair did not answer boss did that omega just ask you for directions
00:09:49still no answer the man with the black hair watched the retreating figure of the small blonde with a
00:09:56backpack until he turned a corner and disappeared then he turned back and said nothing his face was the
00:10:04same as always contained controlled unreadable but for just a moment before the stillness resettled there
00:10:14had been something on it not a smile something smaller and more complicated than a smile something that
00:10:21had not been on that face in a very long time his name was ryan valdress 32 years old head
00:10:29of the valdress
00:10:30family which was not a family in any traditional sense but was the most powerful criminal organization
00:10:36in veltara city and the entire surrounding region he controlled 43 percent of the city's underground
00:10:42economy he owned 11 legitimate businesses through untraceable holding companies three government
00:10:49officials owed him significant favors two police commissioners were on his payroll the other major
00:10:57crime families in veltara maintained their positions only because ryan valdress had decided for strategic
00:11:03reasons to allow them to continue existing no one in this city approached ryan valdress without an
00:11:10appointment without a reason and without carefully managed fear a small blonde omega with a torn backpack
00:11:17and a badly printed map had walked up to him on the street asked him for directions smiled like he
00:11:24was
00:11:24perfectly ordinary and walked away ryan valdress stood on the corner in the cold morning air and
00:11:31thought about that for longer than he had thought about anything in recent memory then he said to his
00:11:36second in command whose name was sable and who had been with him for seven years and was therefore
00:11:42very good at reading the specific gradations of ryan's silences find out who that was sable who had
00:11:51also watched the small blonde disappear and who had understood from multiple simultaneous signals that
00:11:58this was a moment of significance he could not yet fully parse said simply yes boss that was how it
00:12:06started
00:12:08over a printed map in a wrong turn in the gray morning light
00:12:13i found challenge street exactly as directed the apartment was on the second floor of a narrow building
00:12:19between a laundry and a grocery the landlord a man named peter who smelled of cigarettes handed me the
00:12:28keys with minimal conversation mentioned that the hot water took four minutes and the bedroom
00:12:34radiator made a noise but was harmless and left me alone i stood in the center of the apartment which
00:12:40was small and smelled of dust and someone else's recently departed life and i breathed it was mine
00:12:49small and bare but mine my name on the rental agreement no one else's i set my mother's photograph on
00:12:58the
00:12:58windowsill placed the notebook with the pressed calendula on the kitchen table unpacked two changes of
00:13:05clothes into the narrow closet then i lay down on the bare mattress with my backpack as a pillow and
00:13:11slept for ten hours without dreaming when i woke it was late afternoon that particular october gold light
00:13:19that looks like something remembered i'd lay still and listen to the city the laundry next door voices on the
00:13:28street below someone's radio through the wall the ordinary sounds of an ordinary neighborhood doing ordinary
00:13:36things i had never felt so safe in my life not because i was safe i was a runaway omega
00:13:43from a contracted
00:13:44bonding in a city i didn't know with limited money and a false identity but the apartment was mine and
00:13:51no one
00:13:51knew i was here and that meant i had something i had not had in weeks time time to think
00:13:58time to plan time
00:14:00to become something before someone found me and tried to turn me back into nothing i made a list find
00:14:07work
00:14:07learn the neighborhood get a data plan find the nearest omega support center keep my head down do not
00:14:15attract attention and at the bottom because it was honest if not practical remember that you chose
00:14:22this it is a good choice do not be afraid then i went to find dinner the flower shop was
00:14:30two streets
00:14:30from my apartment i found it the next morning while looking for a grocery because its door was propped
00:14:36open despite the cold and the smell coming from inside was so forcefully alive that i stopped walking
00:14:42before i'd consciously decided to buckets of orange chrysanthemums and white dahlias and late autumn roses
00:14:49stood out front and through the glass i could see more cascading up the walls and baskets and buckets
00:14:55a whole world of green and color and life the woman inside looked up from a bunch of eucalyptus she
00:15:02was
00:15:02arranging perhaps fifty silver streaked dark hair pulled back loosely the kind of face that has weathered
00:15:11things and come out softer rather than harder you're looking for work she said not quite a question
00:15:19yes i said because she was right and there was no point pretending otherwise can you arrange flowers
00:15:27i can learn she considered that briefly i'm petra the shop is bloom and thorn seven to four
00:15:37tuesday through sunday pay is modest but reliable are you allergic to anything not that i know of start
00:15:46tomorrow she said and went back to the eucalyptus that was how i met petra vas who would become the
00:15:53closest thing i had to a friend in valtara city she was not warm in the conventional sense not soft
00:16:01or
00:16:02demonstrative or given to reassurances she did not mean but she was honest and consistent and she had
00:16:09a way of simply being fully present that felt more reliable than many people's most effusive declarations
00:16:16she did not ask where i came from or why i had no references or why i flinched sometimes at
00:16:23sudden
00:16:23loud sounds from the street she watched and she understood and she let me build things at my own pace
00:16:32i was grateful in a way i could not express so i expressed it by learning her craft as thoroughly
00:16:38as
00:16:39i could the names of flowers how to condition stems how to read a bloom past its peak how to
00:16:48build an
00:16:48arrangement so the eye moved through it naturally petra had built the shop herself 17 years ago from
00:16:54nothing had survived a bonding that did not last and had arrived at the philosophy that flowers were
00:17:01more reliable than people while also somewhat contradictorily caring fiercely about the people
00:17:07she let close within two weeks i had settled into something that felt almost like a life
00:17:13every morning i walked to bloom and thorn in the early light and worked through the day in the company
00:17:18of flowers and petra's quiet presence i ate lunch in the back room with old paperbacks from petra's shelf
00:17:27i went home in the evenings and made simple food and sat at my kitchen table and felt the strange
00:17:33incremental weight of a life being built from nothing i thought about dorian crane every day
00:17:41a low hum of dread that i had learned to conduct my life beneath like living under power lines something
00:17:48you stop hearing individually but that is always there and i thought about the man on the corner more
00:17:53often than made any particular sense not his face exactly but that moment when i had smiled and said
00:18:00thank you and something had crossed his expression that i could not name something that looked impossibly
00:18:07like surprise not the ordinary surprise of being thanked something rawr something that did not belong on the
00:18:16face of a man who looked like he had never been surprised by anything in his life i told myself
00:18:22it was nothing and went back to work what i did not know in those early weeks in the ashgate
00:18:29quarter
00:18:29was that i was being watched not the way dorian crane's people were undoubtedly watching for me somewhere
00:18:36not with intent to harm but watched with a thoroughness and resources i could not have imagined
00:18:42on the third day after our meeting sable had placed a folder on ryan valdress's desk name kail verdant
00:18:52recently relocated employed at bloom and thorn on ashgate lane origin mirin omega a handwritten note
00:19:01beneath the official details read real name likely different documentation false but high quality appears to be in
00:19:10hiding hiding no criminal connections no debts no traceable affiliations whatever he is running from
00:19:17he is not running from us ryan had read this with the same expression he brought to everything
00:19:25contained unreadable he set it down and turned to the window for a long time then he said
00:19:33find out what he is running from sable said yes and privately noted that in seven years of service
00:19:41ryan valdress had never once asked him to investigate a private individual with no criminal connection to
00:19:48their operations he had ordered investigations before but both times those people had been threats this
00:19:55was different sable had read ryan's face through years of difficult moments and this was not the face
00:20:01of a man calculating a threat he said nothing about this observation put the folder away and began the
00:20:09second investigation what sable found three days later was complete real name kale arden 23 years old
00:20:20fled the night before a contracted bonding ceremony to one dorian crane 42 alpha minor underworld figure in mirin
00:20:30known for brutality toward bonded partners specifically omegas two previous bonded partners missing one under
00:20:38suspicious circumstances currently crane had deployed two investigators and three enforcers to find the
00:20:47missing omega and believed him to be hiding somewhere in veltara ryan read the file twice set it down said
00:20:56where are crane's people now still searching haven't located the shop yet operating off old contact records
00:21:04another week possibly less before they reach the ashgate quarter a pause put people on the shop discreet
00:21:13sable wrote it down anything else a longer pause the file doesn't leave this office a beat and
00:21:23sable make sure cranes people don't come anywhere near the ashgate quarter understood sable said and left
00:21:32for three weeks i worked and built and did not think at all about the quiet figures who stood at
00:21:37the edges of
00:21:37my neighborhood with no obvious purpose the first time i saw ryan again was a tuesday morning in the
00:21:44second week of november i was outside arranging the morning display moving a bucket of late season
00:21:50dahlias to catch the light when a black car pulled up across the street a very good car the kind
00:21:58that
00:21:58communicates wealth in the understated way that is actually more expensive than ostentation
00:22:03i noticed it i noticed also the man who stepped out the man from the corner he was looking at
00:22:12his
00:22:12phone as he got out and for a moment he did not look toward the shop then he did look
00:22:17up and his
00:22:18eyes from across the street found mine with the immediacy of something that had already known where to
00:22:22look i was holding a dahlia my hand was around the stem of an orange dahlia and i was looking
00:22:29at him and
00:22:30i had the peculiar sensation that the air between us had changed had developed a pressure that had
00:22:36not been there before behind him partially visible were two men with the specific quality of men whose
00:22:43purpose is to remain between their employer and whatever should not reach him he crossed the street
00:22:50not hurrying moving with the same contained purposefulness i remembered from the corner
00:22:56the quality of a man who is always exactly where he has decided to be he stopped two meters from
00:23:03me
00:23:05the shop is new he said not a question i've been here about three weeks i said the window arrangements
00:23:14have improved since monday i looked at him you've been passed on monday he did not answer that he looked
00:23:23at
00:23:23the flowers with the same contained attention he seemed to bring to everything you made those petra did
00:23:31the centerpiece the smaller ones are mine you have a good eye for contrast he said thank you and then
00:23:43because i say what i am thinking more often than is strategically wise
00:23:48you seem like an unusual customer for a flower shop something moved across his face adjacent to the
00:23:55thing i had seen on the corner i have a meeting nearby he said every tuesday closer to a smile
00:24:03now
00:24:04you're observant you have a distinctive car i said he looked at me for a moment then very briefly the
00:24:14corner of his mouth moved in a way that was not quite a smile but was the shadow of one
00:24:18the ghost a
00:24:20smile leaves pressed against glass and then he said something that stopped my heart for a full second
00:24:27kale he said not a question not a greeting my name spoken with the certainty of someone who has been
00:24:35carrying it for a while i went completely still i had not told him my name i had not told
00:24:43anyone my
00:24:44name except petra and petra knew me as kale verdant no one in this city should know my name at
00:24:50all
00:24:52you know my name i said he said nothing you've been past the shop before today you know my name
00:25:01i worked through it slowly why do you know my name he was quiet a moment then i like to
00:25:09know the people
00:25:09in my city your city i repeated he held my eyes and did not explain that further something was
00:25:17assembling in my mind from its component pieces the men on the corner who had gone so still the way
00:25:23no
00:25:24one had walked within three meters of him the two men currently positioned at the edge of my vision
00:25:30with the specific quality of trained invisibility the way he said my city i thought i do not know who
00:25:38this person is and simultaneously with the particular perversity of my own brain i am not afraid of him
00:25:47that was the wrong response that was the response that made my mother sigh about missing parts of my brain
00:25:54but standing in the cold morning light with an orange dahlia in my hand and his dark eyes on my
00:26:00face what
00:26:01i felt was not fear it was something more complicated but considerably more inconvenient
00:26:09curiosity partly but not only who are you i asked he was quiet for a long moment you asked me
00:26:17that the
00:26:18first time we met you didn't answer it then either no he said i didn't he looked at the dahlias
00:26:26then back
00:26:27at me then he turned crossed back to his car got in and was driven away i stood on the
00:26:35pavement with
00:26:36my orange dahlia and watched him go petra appeared in the doorway behind me reading glasses on tea in
00:26:43hand she looked at the disappearing car then at me with an expression very carefully not any particular
00:26:51expression at all do you know who that was she asked no i said honestly come inside kale i'll make
00:27:01you another tea petra do you know who he is she looked at me over her reading glasses with the
00:27:09expression she used when deciding how much of a thing to say then his name is ryan valdris he owns
00:27:16this city not officially but in every way that matters i let that sit and that means what specifically
00:27:28it means be careful it means things are always more complicated than they look when ryan valdris is
00:27:35involved and it means she paused with the care of someone placing something fragile on a shelf
00:27:42that if he knows your name he already knows considerably more than your name
00:27:48i thought about that for the rest of the morning while i arranged flowers ryan valdris
00:27:55the name meant nothing to me yet because i had not been here long enough for names like that to
00:28:00carry their full weight but something in the way petra had said it the way you speak around something
00:28:05sharp had lodged itself in my chest and was still going down i cut stems and arranged white roses in
00:28:13a
00:28:13long throated vase and told myself it did not matter i was here to build a life not become entangled
00:28:21in
00:28:22the lives of powerful men i had barely escaped one powerful man's claim on me the last thing i needed
00:28:30was to walk into the orbit of another i set the roses in the window and stepped back the problem
00:28:36was that he had not looked at me the way powerful men look at omegas they want he had looked
00:28:42at me the
00:28:42way a person looks at something that does not fit their existing categories the way a person looks when
00:28:48they are for the first time in a long time genuinely curious about something they had stopped expecting
00:28:54to encounter i did not know why that distinction mattered to me as much as it did i picked up
00:29:01the
00:29:01shears and went back to work three days after that tuesday morning two men came into bloom and thorn
00:29:10i knew they were wrong the moment the door opened it was a recognition faster than thought residing in
00:29:17the body's older knowledge large carrying the specific chemical undertone of dominant alphas
00:29:24who are unused to being refused something like metal and pressure in their pheromones
00:29:29that pressed against my senses and made my instincts want to make me smaller
00:29:34i did not make myself smaller help you i said and my voice came out level the larger man looked
00:29:44around
00:29:44the shop with the disinterest of someone who has no interest in flowers looking for an omega blonde
00:29:51new in the city about your height my hands were under the counter i kept them still
00:29:59we get a lot of customers i said this one is named kale came from mirin his intended is very
00:30:06worried about
00:30:06him his intended i looked at this man's flat patient face and thought they found me faster than i expected
00:30:16i don't know anyone by that name i said the second man shifted slightly to my left a subtle repositioning
00:30:24designed to make the space feel smaller i watched him do it understood the tactic exactly and kept my
00:30:32hands still and my face neutral you sure about that the first man said i'm sure i said they looked
00:30:42at me
00:30:42for a long moment then the first man smiled with a smile that was not warmth but its opposite
00:30:49we'll check back in case your memory improves they left i waited until they were gone then i sat down
00:30:58on the floor of the back room with my back against the shelving and breathed the smell of cut stems
00:31:04and
00:31:04cold water and green things filled the air i let it do what it could petra found me there
00:31:12she sat down on the step stool across from me with her tea and did not say anything for a
00:31:17full minute
00:31:20then dorian crane's men not a question i looked at her i know who you are kale she said gently
00:31:29i knew the
00:31:30documents were false i didn't ask because it wasn't my business but i know how to recognize someone
00:31:37running and i know the kinds of people who send men like that she paused you should have told me
00:31:45i didn't want to put you in danger you already put me in it by being here she said without
00:31:51accusation
00:31:52just steadiness the question is what we do about it before i could answer her phone rang
00:32:01she looked at the screen her expression shifted to something careful and still
00:32:06she answered listened said only i understand and hung up she looked at me that was a message
00:32:16she said slowly from a man i have not spoken to in three years it said tell him not to
00:32:22worry it has
00:32:22been handled he is safe i stared at her the message was from ryan valdris she said i sat on
00:32:32the floor of
00:32:33the back room surrounded by the smell of flowers and thought about a man who had given me directions
00:32:38on a corner and who apparently knew my real name and who would just without any request or negotiation
00:32:44on my part made dorian crane's people disappear from my neighborhood i thought about the words he is safe
00:32:54i thought about how long it had been since anyone had said anything like that about me
00:32:58as though my safety was something to be actively secured and not merely a thing that happened or
00:33:04didn't i closed my eyes the flowers smelled like cold air and growing things petra i said i need to
00:33:16see
00:33:16him she was quiet for a moment that is either the best or the worst idea you have had since
00:33:23walking into
00:33:23my shop which do you think it is she looked at me for a long time with those direct eyes
00:33:31i genuinely don't know yet she said and went to put the kettle on what i didn't know then was
00:33:37what
00:33:37ryan had done in the hours before that phone message when sable had reported that crane's investigators
00:33:44had reached the ashgate quarter that the two men from the flower shop had been identified and their
00:33:49descriptions confirmed something had moved through ryan valdris's chest that had nothing to do with
00:33:54business logic he had told sable remove them from the neighborhood permanently don't hurt them just make
00:34:04sure crane understands that this territory is not available for his activities sable had looked at him for
00:34:10exactly one additional second then understood two large men had found themselves escorted to the city limits
00:34:19with a message for their employer delivered in the language ryan valdris reserved for things he needed
00:34:24understood once and only once now ryan stood at his office window looking at the city lights and thinking
00:34:31about a small blonde omega who was according to sable's report sitting on the floor of a flower shop being
00:34:39given tea
00:34:41his phone showed a new message he's safe the shop is clear crane's people won't come back he read it
00:34:50twice set the
00:34:52phone face down sat in the chair he did not think of himself as a man prone to wanting things
00:34:59he could not
00:34:59strategically justify he had built his entire existence on the opposite principle every decision with its
00:35:07calculation no sentiment without purpose the world he had built and lived in for 14 years did not permit
00:35:16softness had not permitted it since he was 18 and made choices that could not be undone and he had
00:35:23long
00:35:23since arranged his life around that fact walls inside walls distance maintained inside distance
00:35:31the problem was that this did not feel like sentiment it felt like something older the specific
00:35:39recognition of something absent for so long you had forgotten it could exist making its absence
00:35:44known not as a want but as a returning the way a compass needle released from an opposing force
00:35:50swings back to north he thought about a small blonde omega who had walked up to him on a public
00:35:57corner
00:35:57and asked him for directions and smiled like he was ordinary he had not been treated as ordinary since he
00:36:04was very young he had stopped expecting it so long ago the expectation had dissolved into the background
00:36:10of a life that ran on deference and managed fear and then this person had appeared and smiled and said
00:36:17thank you and walked away without looking back and ryan valdress had stood on that corner and felt
00:36:24with unwelcome certainty that something had changed he did not know yet what to do about that he did not
00:36:32know whether the distance he had spent 14 years building was something he could dismantle or whether
00:36:37it had become by now the only thing holding him together but the city glittered outside his window and
00:36:43somewhere in the ash gate quarter a blonde omega with clear eyes had just told petra vast that he needed
00:36:49to see ryan valdress and whatever that meeting would hold ryan found with considerable and alarming
00:36:57specificity that he was not turning away from it he was for the first time in longer than he could
00:37:04name
00:37:05leaning towards something and that he thought looking at a thousand city lights he owned and yet somehow still
00:37:13felt outside of was the most dangerous thing that had happened to him in years petra arranged it
00:37:20i did not ask her how i only told her i needed to see him and she looked at me
00:37:26with those direct eyes and
00:37:27went into the back room and made a phone call in a voice too low for me to hear when
00:37:33she came back she said
00:37:34tomorrow morning eight o'clock the valdress building on merchant row ask for sable at the front desk he
00:37:43will know you were coming i asked her how she knew ryan valdress well enough to arrange a meeting in
00:37:4912
00:37:49hours she poured two cups of tea and was quiet a moment 17 years ago she said when she had
00:37:58nothing and
00:37:58was building the shop from absolute zero she had needed a loan no legitimate institution would give
00:38:04her a man came and told her mr valdress was aware of her situation and was prepared to offer reasonable
00:38:11terms she took the loan she paid it back in full within four years after that ryan occasionally sent
00:38:20flowers to various events and she had never asked who the recipients were or what the occasions meant
00:38:26and he had not asked her any questions either mutual silence she said professional and consistent
00:38:34i asked if she trusted him she was quiet for longer this time then she said i trust that he
00:38:42is
00:38:42consistent he is and in my experience consistency is rarer and more valuable than goodness i cannot tell
00:38:51you he is good i can tell you he has never broken an agreement in seventeen years and i can
00:38:57tell you
00:38:57that the way he looked at you on tuesday morning from across the street was not the way a man
00:39:01looks
00:39:02at something he intends to use i thought about that for a long time that night sitting at my kitchen
00:39:08table
00:39:08with my mother's photograph on the windowsill and the calendula in its notebook the city outside making
00:39:15its ordinary sounds i thought about walls built to keep things out and walls built to keep things in
00:39:23and how you cannot always tell the difference from the outside i was ready at 7 30. the valdress building
00:39:31on merchant row was tall and gray and considerably older than its neighbors the kind of architecture that
00:39:37was built to last and has no visible signage a heavy door flanked by two men who did not look
00:39:44like doormen
00:39:45but were positioned like them the street had that same quality i'd first noticed on the corner
00:39:51a slight but consistent clearance as if pedestrians made unconscious calculations about proximity
00:39:59the man waiting in the entry hall was lean and watchful with the quality of attention that
00:40:04processes everything simultaneously without appearing to focus on anything particular he said kale i'm
00:40:13sable not a question i followed him up two flights of stairs and down a corridor to a door he
00:40:20opened
00:40:20without knocking and step back from he'll knock when he wants to leave ryan said from across the room
00:40:27not looking up from the desk jacket off dark shirt sleeves rolled to the elbows
00:40:33pen in hand morning light from the east window caught the black of his hair
00:40:40sable closed the door behind me ryan finished what he was reading set the pen down and looked up
00:40:49for a moment we simply looked at each other across the room him at his desk and me near the
00:40:55door
00:40:56the city far below the windows you wanted to see me he said
00:41:01you made it difficult to thank you in person i said given that you kept not introducing yourself
00:41:09something moved at the corner of his mouth not the ghost of a smile this time something closer
00:41:16how did you find out what i done petra told me you called her after your people removed crane's
00:41:22men from the ash gate quarter i held his eyes you could have let them find me yes he said
00:41:30so why didn't you he was quiet a moment then sit down kale
00:41:38i would like an answer first the corner of his mouth moved again
00:41:44you are very direct for someone standing in my building asking me questions i don't usually answer
00:41:51i asked you for directions on a street corner and you gave them to me i said i don't think
00:41:57of you as
00:41:57someone i need to be indirect around something moved across his face something open briefly unguarded
00:42:07no one has said anything like that to me in a considerable number of years he said i know i
00:42:13said i can
00:42:14tell he gestured to the chair across the desk i sat he said i had crane's men removed because they
00:42:24had no business in that neighborhood and because what they were doing violated what i consider my
00:42:29territory and because he paused the pause of a man deciding to be precise rather than vague
00:42:37because you were afraid and you didn't show it and you had worked that hard to build something and
00:42:42you deserved better than being hunted down in a back room how much do you know about where i came
00:42:47from i asked enough he said tell me what enough means he told me plainly without decoration the file
00:42:58my real name the contracted bonding dorian crane and his history every step of how he had understood what
00:43:07i was running from and chosen to respond i listened until he finished you investigated me i said
00:43:16i investigate everyone in my city i don't recognize it is consistent not personal then you put guards on
00:43:24the flower shop without telling me also consistent i thought about being angry about that
00:43:32i turned it over from several angles then i set it down because the truth was that without his people
00:43:39knowing exactly what was happening i would right now be in a considerably worse situation than this
00:43:45chair with the tea sable had silently placed at my elbow what does crane know about your involvement
00:43:51i asked he knows his men were removed he knows by whose order he has received a clear communication
00:43:59that pursuing his interests in veltara city will create consequences he is not equipped to manage
00:44:06level voice stated as fact for a man of his position that communication is usually sufficient
00:44:15usually i said usually he agreed you're not certain crane is a man who does not respond to logic when
00:44:25his
00:44:25pride is involved he will have understood the message strategically whether his pride allows him to act on
00:44:31that understanding is a separate question i sat with that then if he comes here himself what happens rian
00:44:42looked at me steadily then he will find that coming here was the worst decision he has made in a
00:44:47life full of
00:44:48poor ones it was not a boast not a performance stated with the flat certainty of a man telling you
00:44:56something about the weather and it landed exactly that way in a simple information as the thing that
00:45:02was simply true something in my chest the low persistent hum of dorian crane's threat that i had been
00:45:09carrying beneath everything for weeks loosened by one small but significant degree why are you personally
00:45:16invested in this i asked not the strategic calculation you specifically he was very still the morning
00:45:26light caught his jaw and the dark eyes that were watching me with that quality i had noticed on the
00:45:31corner the quality of someone creating a new category i don't know yet he said that is an honest answer
00:45:40i know it is i said that's why i believe it he looked at me for a long time you
00:45:47are not afraid of
00:45:48me at all he said i know what fear feels like i said what i feel around you is not
00:45:54that what is it
00:45:57very quietly it feels like the first morning i stood in my apartment in the ash gate quarter
00:46:04and knew no one could find me there the particular safety that is not the absence of danger but the
00:46:09presence of something strong enough to stand between you and it i paused it also feels like
00:46:16something i haven't named yet something i'm not sure i should no he said probably not yet
00:46:26we looked at each other then slowly the corner of his mouth moved into something that was not the
00:46:32ghost of a smile or the shadow of one but an actual real brief devastating smile and it changed the
00:46:40entire architecture of his face for the two seconds it lasted and then it was gone and he was looking
00:46:46at
00:46:46his desk come on thursday he said same time i want to show you something about the city i stood
00:46:54picked up
00:46:55the tea i had not yet touched took one sip because it would have been rude not to set it
00:47:01down then
00:47:05all right at the door i looked back he had picked up his pen again but was not writing
00:47:12he was looking at the wall with an expression i had not seen on his face before something open and
00:47:18slightly undone the expression of a man surprised by himself i went back to the shop and arranged
00:47:25dahlias for the rest of the morning petra did not ask thursday came and then the thursday after that
00:47:33and the one after that they were not dates something more careful than dates and more honest ryan would
00:47:41arrive at eight and we would walk and he knew the city the way people know things they have spent
00:47:46years
00:47:47learning with their whole bodies the light moving through different neighborhoods at different hours
00:47:53which streets were safe at which times the history embedded in old architecture the names of the people
00:47:59who ran the market stalls on ashgate lane he talked when we walked in longer looser sentences with
00:48:06something almost like ease underneath the usual containment as if motion released something that
00:48:12stillness kept locked i listened and asked questions and told him things in return the real things small
00:48:21things the smell of my mother's garden in summer what the overnight bus had sounded like in the
00:48:28dark hours before dawn how the word beginning had felt in my mouth on that first gray morning outside the
00:48:35terminal he listened with that deep attention the kind that processes things at a level most people's
00:48:41listening never reaches he responded not with what he was supposed to say but with what he actually
00:48:47thought which was not always the same thing and was always more interesting once in the fourth week we
00:48:55walked further than usual and ended up at the edge of the old industrial quarter in front of a derelict
00:49:01building
00:49:01whose ground floor windows had been fitted with new glass and inside which someone was constructing what would
00:49:08eventually be a bookshop he stopped and looked at it for a long time then he said i used to
00:49:16live two streets from here
00:49:18when i was sixteen i looked at him he was looking at the building what was it then i asked
00:49:27a salvage yard he said
00:49:31my mother worked the counter wednesday evenings and saturday mornings the pause she died when i was eighteen
00:49:40and i made a series of decisions he did not say more i did not ask i thought about walls
00:49:48inside walls about
00:49:50choices made in grief that cannot be unmade about fourteen years of building distance and calling it
00:49:57architecture i did not say any of this i just stood beside him and without deciding to put my hand
00:50:06over his
00:50:07where it rested on the low wall he went very still not the practice stillness of command something raw and
00:50:15momentary like a person hearing a sound they had forgotten existed then he turned his hand over and held
00:50:22mine we stood like that looking at the new glass and the ghost of what had been and neither of
00:50:29us said
00:50:29anything and it was the most complete conversation i had ever had
00:50:36in the third week of december on a wednesday evening petra called her voice had the specific
00:50:48quality of someone being very careful to sound steady she said kale listen carefully then she told
00:50:56me a man matching dorian crane's description had arrived in veltara city that afternoon asking at two
00:51:02hotels in the central district about a recently arrived omega showing a photograph i sat down in my
00:51:09kitchen chair the low hum i had carried for seven weeks became suddenly close and loud i called rayon
00:51:17he answered on the second ring crane is here i said he's asking about me a pause of three seconds
00:51:25then
00:51:27where are you home selling street stay there don't open the door for anyone except sable i'm sending him
00:51:35now then before i could speak kale you are safe i need you to trust me for the next few
00:51:42hours
00:51:43i already do i said a pause something in it that was not strategic and not managerial
00:51:51i know i know he said quietly i'll be there sable arrived in 20 minutes he checked the locks looked
00:52:01out the windows sat on my kitchen chair with his coat still on and said with the directness i had
00:52:06come
00:52:06to understand was an organizational quality crane made a mistake by coming himself if he had kept sending
00:52:14men ryan would have handled it as a territorial matter by coming personally crane has made it personal
00:52:21in veltara making things personal with ryan valdris is always a mistake are you all right i'm deciding
00:52:30whether to be frightened i said decide no said sable it won't help and you don't need it tonight
00:52:40ryan arrived an hour later he came through the door and looked at me across the small kitchen
00:52:46standing there with my coat on because i had put it on at some point without noticing and something
00:52:52moved across his face quick and unguarded and specifically fierce then he crossed the room in
00:53:01four strides and put his hands on my face and looked at me at close range are you all right
00:53:08he said yes i said i have to go handle this he said sable will stay i'll be back within
00:53:17two hours
00:53:20ryan he was already turning what are you going to do he looked back i'm going to have a conversation
00:53:28with dorian crane that will end this don't hurt him i said if you hurt him it will follow me
00:53:36i don't want that history attached to this life he looked at me a moment no physical harm i give
00:53:44you
00:53:44my word i believed him i let him go what happened next i know only from what ryan told me
00:53:54afterward
00:53:56quietly in the way he told me things he thought i had a right to know he found crane at
00:54:02the second hotel
00:54:03he went with two of his people and asked with the kind of politeness that is a form of message
00:54:08delivery
00:54:09rather than courtesy to speak with the guest in room 411 and the hotel staff responded accordingly crane
00:54:16opened his door to find ryan valdris standing in the corridor whatever he had been expecting from
00:54:23viltara city it had not been this ryan said without preamble you have been looking for something in
00:54:32my city i am here to tell you that the thing you have been looking for is under my protection
00:54:38this is
00:54:38not a negotiation it is information delivered once any further attempt to locate or contact the person
00:54:45in question in this city or anywhere else and i will make it my specific purpose to dismantle every
00:54:51enterprise you have built in mirin down to its foundations quietly completely without leaving a trace i
00:55:00was involved i have done this before and i am very good at it a pause i would also like
00:55:08you to understand
00:55:09that the person you contracted to bond with did not run from you because they were afraid they ran
00:55:15because they are considerably smarter than you and because the life you were offering was beneath them
00:55:21what they have built here is already worth more than anything you could have given them
00:55:26go home forget the name exhale our den do not test what i have just told you crane said nothing
00:55:36he stood in his hotel room doorway and looked at ryan valdris and understood with the particular
00:55:43clarity that arrives when you encounter a category of power you genuinely cannot match
00:55:48that he was done he checked out that night he was back in mirin before morning
00:55:55ryan came back to selen's street at 11 30. i heard his footstep on the stairs the specific
00:56:02weight and rhythm of it that i had learned over weeks of thursdays and i opened the door before
00:56:08he knocked he stood on the landing in the dark in the december cold and he looked tired in a
00:56:14way
00:56:14that was not physical but something longer and deeper the tiredness of a man who has been carrying
00:56:21a very heavy thing and has just in some small way set a piece of it down i stepped back
00:56:28to let him in
00:56:30sable said something quiet and left and then it was just the two of us in the kitchen
00:56:36is it done i asked yes he said he won't come back
00:56:42i breathed the hum was gone the thing i had been carrying for seven weeks and longer the weight
00:56:49of dorian crane's particular patient cruelty his belief that i was something that could be owned and
00:56:55collected was gone not gradually and not partially gone the silence where it had been was so complete
00:57:05it was almost disorienting i sat down on the kitchen floor not because my legs gave out but because i
00:57:13needed the solidity of the floor under me for a moment rion looked at me on the floor then he
00:57:20sat
00:57:20down beside me back against the cabinet shoulder against mine we sat like that without speaking
00:57:26then i said thank you you don't need to thank me i know i don't need to i said i
00:57:34want to there's a
00:57:36difference i looked at him you changed something in yourself to be able to do this for someone
00:57:44he was quiet for a moment then you treat me like i'm ordinary he said not an accusation something much
00:57:52quieter you are ordinary i said underneath everything you're a person who grew up near a salvage yard
00:57:59and lost his mother and made choices he couldn't take back and built walls to survive them that is
00:58:06the most ordinary kind of person there is he turned his head and looked at me i have never heard
00:58:13anyone
00:58:14describe me that way he said i know i said i think you've needed someone too for a while
00:58:22he looked at me for a long time the kitchen was quiet the city outside went on being the city
00:58:31my mother's photograph smiled from the windowsill the pressed calendula was bright orange in the notebook
00:58:37cover rion reached out and took my hand the way he had on the wall near the derelict building
00:58:44slowly and completely careful the way you hold something you understand the value of
00:58:51kale he said i know i said i haven't done this he said not for a very long time i
00:59:00don't know how
00:59:00anymore i don't need you to know how i said i just need you to want to he was quiet
00:59:08for a long moment
00:59:09then he said with the precise honesty that was the thing i had come to love most about him
00:59:15the thing that had reached me before everything else i want to i have wanted to since a cold morning
00:59:23on a street corner when you asked me for directions and smiled like i was the most ordinary person on
00:59:28the street and walked away without looking back i have been trying to be careful because you deserve
00:59:35someone who knows how to be careful i have never needed someone to be careful about wanting me
00:59:41i said i have needed someone to want me enough to be honest about it that is a completely different
00:59:47thing he leaned forward and pressed his forehead against mine his pheromones at this proximity were
00:59:54warm and deep cedar and stone the smell of something solid and reliable and every instinct i had
01:00:01heard was saying without alarm and without ambivalence yes i'm not a good man he said quietly i have done
01:00:11things i will not pretend i have not done the world i built is not a clean one i have
01:00:18lived in clean i said
01:00:20my father's house was very clean and he sold me to a man who hurts people i don't need clean
01:00:26i need
01:00:27honest are you honest always he said it is the one thing i have never compromised then that is enough
01:00:36i said more than enough he kissed me slowly with the concentrated attention he brought to everything
01:00:45as if every detail was being registered and held the kind of kiss that is not an arrival but a
01:00:52beginning
01:00:53that says i have been moving toward this and now i am here and here is where i intend to
01:00:58stay
01:00:59when he pulled back he kept his forehead against mine hands on my face warm and steady outside the
01:01:07window the december city glittered with its thousand lights and went on being the city entirely unconcerned
01:01:15with the two of us on the kitchen floor come on i said eventually get up i'll make you something
01:01:21to eat
01:01:22you've been out handling my problems all night and you haven't had dinner he let out a breath that was
01:01:28almost a laugh the surprise slightly undone quality of a man who has not been spoken to that way and
01:01:35longer than he can recall i haven't he admitted sit at the table i said i have leftover soup
01:01:45it isn't very exciting soup but it is warm and you will feel better after it he sat at my
01:01:51kitchen table
01:01:53this man who owned the city and looked at my mother's photograph with an expression that was
01:02:10exactly right i heated the soup i set it in front of him i sat across the table and watched
01:02:18him eat
01:02:19and felt the particular warmth of something finally placed in its right location after a very long time
01:02:26in transit he looked up and found me watching and raised an eyebrow my mother always said you learn
01:02:33things about a person by watching them eat something you made i said what are you learning
01:02:39that you eat everything that you keep looking at her photograph
01:02:44i nodded toward the windowsill he looked at it again she looks kind he said she is i said she
01:02:55couldn't protect me but she was never cruel there is a difference between weakness and cruelty
01:03:02i paused i would like her to know i'm all right when it's safe it will be safe he said
01:03:11when you're
01:03:12ready i'll make sure of it i believed him the way i had believed every honest thing he had ever
01:03:19said to
01:03:19me completely and without reservation in the weeks that followed he moved through my life with attention
01:03:27and without assumption he never arrived without asking he never made decisions about things that
01:03:34were mine to decide on the mornings i needed the shop and the quiet work and petra's steady presence
01:03:40he stayed away and when i finished and looked up he would be at the counter with tea and a
01:03:45question
01:03:46about one of the arrangements a genuine question that wanted a real answer petra watched all this
01:03:52with the expression of someone watching something she had not been certain was possible and is
01:03:57quietly pleased to have been proven uncertain he told me things in the evenings quietly in the precise
01:04:03way of a man who has decided to be honest and is honoring that decision completely about the choices
01:04:10made at eighteen about what the city had looked like from the bottom before he built his way up
01:04:17about the people he had protected along the way and the ones he had not been able to and those
01:04:22were the
01:04:22ones that lived closest to the surface the ones he returned to in the silences between other thoughts
01:04:29i listened to all of it i did not flinch and i did not look away
01:04:34i asked the questions that needed asking i said the true things even when they were complicated
01:04:40which is the only way to say them if you want them heard properly one evening in late december we
01:04:46were
01:04:46walking in the old industrial quarter and he stopped in front of the building that was becoming a bookshop
01:04:52shelves visible now through the new windows a handwritten sign saying opening spring he stopped and said
01:04:59very quietly without looking at me when i was 16 i used to sit on the wall outside the salvage
01:05:06yard on
01:05:07saturday evenings and think about what kind of person i was going to be what would you tell him now
01:05:13i asked he was quiet for a long moment that it gets complicated that some of the costs are things
01:05:21he
01:05:21cannot currently conceive of but also he stopped that it does not stay cold that warmth is not lost
01:05:31permanently that there is a morning on a street corner coming that he cannot imagine and it changes
01:05:37something and what it changes is real i looked at him the winter light was pale and flat and very
01:05:45clear
01:05:46the kind that shows everything exactly as it is rian i said he looked at me i love you i
01:05:55said
01:05:57i have been not saying it for six weeks because i was waiting for the right time and i have
01:06:02decided
01:06:02the right time was six weeks ago and i have been unnecessarily patient about it he was very still
01:06:10then the real smile appeared the full and genuine and briefly devastating one not the ghost and not
01:06:17the shadow but the thing itself and he turned toward me and put his arms around me and pressed his
01:06:23face
01:06:23into my hair i love you he said against my temple the voice underneath the one he used in offices
01:06:31and
01:06:31corridors low and a little rough and entirely unguarded since the corner since the map
01:06:40since you smiled at me like i was ordinary and walked away without looking back
01:06:45i have been trying to work out how to say it without frightening you away
01:06:50i don't frighten easily i said
01:06:53i know he said that is one of a considerable number of things i love about you
01:07:00we stood in the winter street in front of the future bookshop and the ghost of the salvage yard and
01:07:06i thought about wrong turns and right ones and the specific kind of luck that is not luck at all
01:07:11but the accumulated result of all the moments you chose to keep going to walk toward the unfamiliar
01:07:18thing rather than away from it to smile at the person who looks like they have forgotten what a smile
01:07:24feels
01:07:24like i thought about a printed city map and a cold morning and a man standing perfectly still in it
01:07:33i thought about how much of a life can begin in the 30 seconds it takes to ask a stranger
01:07:38for directions
01:07:40in the spring when the bookshop on the old industrial quarter finally opened its doors
01:07:46we were there petra came in the good coat she reserved for occasions she considered worth it
01:07:53sable came three steps to the side in the position he occupied at all public moments
01:07:59though his expression had acquired over the months a cautious warmth that he presumably thought was
01:08:05invisible and that was not the shop was beautiful floor-to-ceiling shelves good wooden floors
01:08:13light pouring through the windows that had once been the front of a salvage yard
01:08:17where a woman worked wednesday evenings and saturday mornings ryan stood in the middle of it and looked
01:08:24at the shelves and the light and said nothing for a long moment and i watched his face which was
01:08:31the
01:08:31face of a man who is exactly where he is supposed to be i had a message on my phone
01:08:36from two days before
01:08:37from a number i had not recognized that said only the garden is still here the calendula came back
01:08:46i hope you are all right my love always i had sat down and cried for about 10 minutes and
01:08:55then called
01:08:56the number and talked to my mother for two hours and told her most of the truth and then the
01:09:01rest of it
01:09:01and she had cried also and at the end she had said what she had always said when i was
01:09:07small
01:09:07and frightened of things i did not yet understand you have a good heart my boy you always find your
01:09:15way toward the right things marion had sat beside me through the whole call not intruding just present
01:09:22shoulder against mine quiet warmth at the edge of my vision when i hung up he said when she is
01:09:30ready
01:09:30to visit i will make the arrangements not an offer an intention given his fact thank you i said you
01:09:40don't need to thank me he said i know i said i want to there's a difference he looked at
01:09:49me a moment
01:09:50then he put his hand over mine and held it and we sat in the kitchen with the photograph on
01:09:56the
01:09:56windowsill and the calendula in its notebook and the city outside going about its business
01:10:02and everything was exactly what it was complicated and honest and warm and hours
01:10:09that is the thing i had not been able to name in the back room of bloom and thorn
01:10:14sitting on the floor with the smell of flowers and petra making tea i can name it now it is
01:10:22the
01:10:22feeling of a life that belongs to you not given or sold or taken back chosen built inhabited from
01:10:31the inside the feeling that when you walked out of a house in the hour before dawn with a backpack
01:10:36and a pressed flower and nothing ahead of you but the absolute necessity of leaving you were not
01:10:42running away from something you were running toward it you just did not know yet what it looked like
01:10:48i know now it looks like a flower shop in the ash gate quarter in the cold autumn light
01:10:54it looks like a black-haired man on a street corner who took a map from my hand and pointed
01:10:59me toward
01:10:59where i was going it looks like the first morning i stood in my own apartment and understood that no
01:11:05one could find me there and felt the weightless relief of a thing that is finally yours
01:11:10it looks like all the thursdays and the winter walks and the soup at the kitchen table and the
01:11:15real smile that changes the whole architecture of a face it looks like a bookshop opening in the
01:11:21spring on a street where something was lost and something is being rebuilt it looks like this
01:11:27exactly like this if you enjoyed the story please like share and subscribe it truly means the world to
01:11:37this channel and helps more stories reach more people my beautiful heaven angels tell me in the
01:11:43comments where you are watching from and which moment in the story stayed with you longest
01:11:49i read every comment and i love hearing from you until next time take care of yourselves and i hope
01:11:56this
01:11:57story gave you something warm to carry with you today
01:12:00you
01:12:00you
01:12:00you
01:12:00you
01:12:00you
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