– Yes.

– Where's the picture you showed to Attick?

– He has it. As agreed. Bye, Brandon. You're a pleasure to do business with. – I winked playfully at him and walked slowly, beautifully and smoothly out of the restaurant.

It wasn't until I left the hotel that I allowed myself to squeeze my eyes shut. For a few seconds. Banish this conversation. This meeting.

He knows. About me. Knows my secret.

But he reacted with complete indifference. I can breathe a sigh of relief.

And yet. The fact that I was seen with mortals by two witnesses is disturbing. Two? Maybe more? Shit. We have to be careful.

Five minutes. Five minutes, but it was an eternity.

Get out! Get out of here!

"I need Adam," I thought.

But this time, if I do find him… I'll kill him. I'll kill his light form.

I needed to kill.

Kill. Something pure. A light.

Adam.

But I didn't find him that night.

Back at the hotel, devastated, angry and nervous, I called the airport to buy tickets.

To escape. Out of this city where Brandon Avery Grayson reigns supreme.

But as I clutched my phone, sitting in the chair in my expensive suite, I realised. The truth had hit me: I had no one to fly to.

Misha is with Fredrik, and he won't be happy to see me.

My parents. No. They have their own lives.

Mariszka and Markus… Yes, ha ha ha! You bet!

Mscislav… I don't even know where he is or what he's doing.

Martin.

I dialled my older brother's number. He answered after four seconds. I counted.

– I'm coming to see you. On tonight's flight. Where are you? Meet me at the airport.

A minute later, a night flight to Gdansk was bought. One way.

It's about one o'clock in the morning.

Martin and I are sitting on a wooden bench facing the sea, overlooking a narrow but picturesque bay full of ships, old-looking yachts and boats. On the other side of the bay, to which a wide paved bridge connects us, shine the bright red glowing letters of an advert near the roof of a low building. The lights of the waterfront are reflected in the dark water. The lifeless glow of the streetlights. The quiet noise made by the few mortals left here in the late hours pales against the beauty of this evening. The sound of the waves caresses the ear. Somewhere on another street, a street musician is playing, making a living by singing and playing guitar. But he has a good voice. Strong. Solid. It's nice to hear him in duet with the splash of the sea.

Martin met me at the airport. But I didn't stay in his flat. I went to the nearest hotel, because this time I didn't care where and in what conditions I would spend the few hours when I would come to my room just to change my clothes.

It's one o'clock in the morning and I'm sitting in the centre of an old Polish town looking out over the bay.

Just a couple of days ago, I couldn't imagine spending the night like this. Just sitting on a bench. Next to my brother.

We don't speak. Martin, my dear brother, has always understood me like no one else. Only with him can I be myself. One hundred per cent. With Misha – sixty, because she mustn't know me as I am. With my parents, maybe seventy-five. With Mariszka and Mscislav, maybe eighty. No. Seventy-nine. When I was with Fredrik, I let myself be ninety per cent me. Only Martin knew me inside and out. Only with him could I really relax, discover all sides of my multifaceted character. A break from compromising my nature for the sake of others. He didn't ask me why I'd come here. He just met me at the airport and drove me to the hotel. We made an appointment and parted ways.

We met. We sit. We don't talk. He doesn't ask anything. And it's beautiful. I couldn't lie right now. Not to him, not to myself. But I don't want anyone, not even Martin, to know what I'm hiding. It's too humiliating. My shame and my ruin.