Under the Arch, Without an Echo E-Book

Natascha K

• Herausgeber: neobooks
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: Natascha K – Dark Romance Romane
• Sprache: Deutsch

Seitenzahl: 421

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2026

Beschreibung

She leaves the town before it finishes speaking her name. Anklam is a place of brick arches, quiet streets, and systems that remember longer than people do. When Marlene steps away, she believes distance will be enough. But silence can be documented. Streets can be weaponized. And power rarely announces itself loudly. Caught between administrative pressure, invisible control, and a form of intimacy that confuses restraint with safety, Marlene learns that survival is not about escape, but about refusal. Refusal to explain. Refusal to echo. Refusal to become accessible again. Under the Arch, Without an Echo is a psychologically intense Dark Romance novel where desire is never safe, love is never redemptive, and choosing oneself comes at a cost. Set in the real streets and landmarks of Anklam, this story explores how power operates quietly—and how intimacy can exist without ownership. This is not a story about healing. It is a story about consequence. Attention: The author uses artificial intelligence for creating most of his texts (and is required to disclose this use).

Leseprobe

Under the Arch, Without an Echo

English Subtitle

A Dark Romance Novel About Power, Silence, and Choosing Without Permission

Trigger Warning

This novel contains mature themes intended for adult readers only.

It explores psychological tension, power dynamics, emotional dependency, manipulation, and erotic intimacy within a dark romantic framework.

The story includes depictions of toxic relationships, control, and situations that may be emotionally intense.

There is no glorification of violence.

The focus lies on emotional perception, internal conflict, and consequence rather than shock value.

Please read with care.

Foreword

Some stories do not begin with a moment, but with a sound.

A voice in a hallway.

A pause that lasts too long.

A presence that shifts the air in a room.

This story is rooted in a place that carries its own weight: Anklam.

A town shaped by water, wind, and silence. Streets that remember. Buildings that watch without speaking. Between the Peene, old brick facades, and narrow paths, proximity becomes unavoidable. History presses close. So do people.

This is not a tale of innocence.

It is not a promise of safety.

It is a story about attention that feels like gravity.

About closeness that tightens before it comforts.

About desire that does not ask gently.

The characters in these pages are shaped by their time, their town, and the things they learned to endure in the 1990s years of quiet hardness, of learned restraint, of unspoken rules. They carry habits, tics, and fractures they rarely name.

Nothing here is accidental.

Nothing is entirely free.

Disclaimer

This is a work of fiction.

All characters, events, and interactions are fictional, even when inspired by real locations in the city of Anklam and its surroundings. Any resemblance to real persons is coincidental.

This book was written with the assistance of artificial intelligence. The author curated, directed, edited, and shaped the narrative, but openly acknowledges the use of AI as a creative tool in the writing process.

This novel does not glorify violence, abuse, or coercion.

It portrays difficult dynamics to explore their emotional impact and consequences.

The content is intended exclusively for adult readers.

Imprint:

V. i. S. d. P.: Marcus Petersen-Clausen, Ginsterweg 7, 30900 Mellendorf/Wedemark (DE) - Tel.: [phone]

Dieses Dokument ist lizenziert unter dem Urheberrecht!

(c) 2025 Marcus Petersen-Clausen

(c) 2025 Köche-Nord.de

Table of Contents

Chapter One – The Corridor

Chapter Two – The Room Where She Leaves Space

Chapter Three – The Route He Named

Chapter Four – The Place Where People Don’t Look

Chapter Five – The Door That Isn’t There

Chapter Six – The Light She Leaves On

Chapter Seven – The Third Voice

Chapter Eight – The Way Heat Learns a Name

Chapter Nine – What She Breaks Quietly

Chapter Ten – The Damage That Stays

Chapter Eleven – The Thing She Does Not Undo

Chapter Twelve – The Cost of Staying

Chapter Thirteen – The Place Where She Lets It Be Seen

Chapter Fourteen – The Meeting That Takes Her Name

Chapter Fifteen – The Weight That Does Not Lift

Chapter Sixteen – The Error He Makes for Her

Chapter Seventeen – The Night She Carries Her Address

Chapter Eighteen – What the Walls Remember

Chapter Nineteen – The Place Where It Ends

Chapter Twenty – The Tether That Tightens

Chapter Twenty-One – The Map That Follows Her

Chapter Twenty-Two – The Proof They Keep

Chapter Twenty-Three – The Exit She Misses Once

Chapter Twenty-Four – The Shape of Quiet

Chapter Twenty-Five – The Message That Finds Her Anyway

Chapter Twenty-Six – The Report That Does Not Save Her

Chapter Twenty-Seven – The Streets That Follow

Chapter Twenty-Eight – The Thing That Breaks the Pattern

Chapter Twenty-Nine – The Call That Uses Her Silence

Chapter Thirty – The Barrier That Feels Like Him

Chapter Thirty-One – The Heat That Doesn’t Ask Permission

Chapter Thirty-Two – The Letter That Chooses the Floor

Chapter Thirty-Three – What Remains When the Door Stays Closed

Chapter Thirty-Four – The Weight of What Doesn’t Return

Chapter Thirty-Five – The Map That Refuses to Burn

Chapter Thirty-Six – The Street She Doesn’t Walk Again

Chapter Thirty-Seven – The City That Keeps Its Postcards

Chapter Thirty-Eight – The Information That Doesn’t Knock

Chapter Thirty-Nine – The Quiet Place Where Stories Die

Chapter Forty – Under the Arch, Without an Echo

Chapter One – The Corridor

Anklam learned how to hold its breath long before she did.

The town lay low between river and sky, stretched thin along the Peene like something that had decided not to leave. Water moved slowly here, carrying reflections it never kept. Brick buildings leaned into each other along the streets near the old town, their facades weathered, patched, never fully repaired. The wind came off the river without apology. It slid through alleys, pressed against windows, rattled doors that were already loose in their frames.

Marlene stood in the corridor of the apartment building on Steinstraße and listened.

The light above her flickered. Not enough to go dark. Just enough to make the walls pulse. The floor tiles were cold through the soles of her shoes. She had stopped walking without deciding to. Her key was still in her hand, teeth biting into the skin of her palm.

Steps.

Not rushed. Not hesitant.

Measured.

They came from the stairwell behind her, each footfall placed as if the distance had already been calculated. The sound carried in the narrow space, amplified by the height of the ceiling, by the way the building trapped everything that entered it. Voices. Movements. Silence.

She did not turn.

The air changed first. A shift she felt between her shoulder blades, like a hand hovering there without touching. The steps slowed. Stopped. Close enough that she could feel warmth at her back. Close enough that the line between her body and someone else’s became thin, unstable.

She counted her breaths. Lost track after three.

“Marlene.”

Her name was not raised. It wasn’t softened either. It landed exactly where it needed to, low and controlled, as if he had spoken it only for himself and allowed her to overhear.

She closed her fingers around the key.

“I didn’t hear you come in,” she said.

A pause. Not empty. Deliberate.

“I know.”

Jannik’s voice carried that same quality it always did. Not loud. Never urgent. It made space by taking it. The kind of voice that did not chase attention because it expected to be given.

She turned then, slowly, as if moving too fast might shift something she was not ready to name.

He stood one step below her, one hand resting on the metal railing, fingers loose. His jacket was still on. Dark. Worn at the cuffs. His hair was damp, pushed back as if he had run a hand through it and stopped halfway. His mouth was neutral, but his eyes held her in a way that felt like being weighed.

“You’re early,” she said.

“I was done earlier.”

Another pause. He looked past her, down the corridor toward her door. Toward the thin line of safety it represented. Then back to her face.

“You stopped,” he said.

It wasn’t a question.

Marlene lifted her shoulders, let them fall. “I forgot something.”

“What?”

She didn’t answer. The light flickered again, slower this time. Somewhere in the building, a door closed. Water pipes knocked faintly behind the walls.

Jannik took the step up. Not into her space. Close enough that she had to tilt her head back to keep eye contact. Close enough that she became aware of details she hadn’t noticed before the faint crease between his brows, the small scar near his jaw, pale against darker skin.

“You always do that,” he said.

“Do what?”

“Pause. Right before.”

Her mouth dried. She shifted her weight. The key slid in her grip, metal scraping skin.

“Before what?”

He watched the movement of her hand. Her fingers tightening. Then he reached out.

Not to take the key.

He closed his hand around her wrist instead. Not hard. Certain. His thumb rested against the inside of her arm, where her pulse jumped without permission.

She inhaled sharply. Did not pull away.

“Before you decide,” he said quietly.

The corridor seemed to narrow. The walls pressing closer, the ceiling lowering by a fraction. She could smell him now cold air, river damp, something clean underneath. Familiar enough to unsettle her.

“Let go,” she said.

He didn’t.

“Say it again.”

She lifted her chin. “Let go.”

His thumb shifted. Barely. A small movement that sent a ripple through her arm.

“No.”

The word was calm. Almost gentle.

She swallowed. Her eyes dropped to where his hand held her, then back to his face. He didn’t look down. He didn’t need to.

“You don’t get to ” She stopped. The sentence broke before it could form.

He leaned in then. Not to kiss her. Not to threaten. Just close enough that his voice reached her without effort.

“You stopped,” he said again. “If you didn’t want me here, you would have kept walking.”

Her heart beat too fast. She hated that he was right. Hated that he knew it.

“Anklam isn’t that small,” she said. “You don’t have to follow me everywhere.”

His mouth curved slightly. Not a smile.

“I wasn’t following you.”

“Then why are you here?”

Another pause. This one stretched.

“Because you keep choosing the long way home,” he said. “Even when you don’t have to.”

Her breath caught. She pulled her wrist free. He let her. The release felt heavier than the hold.

She turned toward her door, hands shaking just enough to notice. The key slid into the lock. She hesitated. Just for a second.

Behind her, Jannik didn’t move.

“You should come inside,” he said.

“I didn’t invite you.”

“I know.”

The lock clicked open. The sound echoed.

She pushed the door inward. Stood in the threshold, half in, half out. The apartment was dark behind her. The kind of dark that waited.

She didn’t look at him when she spoke. “You don’t get to decide what happens.”

His voice came closer. He had stepped forward without her hearing it.

“I don’t,” he agreed. “You do.”

She turned then. Fast. Their faces inches apart. His eyes didn’t flinch.

“Stop saying things like that,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because they sound like lies.”

His gaze dropped to her mouth. Lingered. Then back to her eyes.

“They only do if you say them out loud.”

The silence between them thickened. Outside, somewhere beyond the walls, the Peene moved on, indifferent. The town held its breath again.

Marlene stepped back.

Not away from him.

Into the apartment.

The door remained open.

Chapter Two – The Room Where She Leaves Space

The apartment smelled like cold plaster and detergent that never fully rinsed out.

Marlene shut the door with her foot, not her hand. The lock caught on the first try, then slid into place with a soft, final click. She stood with her back to it for a moment, key still in her fist, as if the metal could anchor her.

Jannik didn’t step in immediately.

He stayed on the threshold, one foot inside, one foot still in the corridor. His gaze moved across the room without hurry. The narrow entry. The coat rack with one empty hook and one worn scarf. The shoe mat with the frayed corner she kept meaning to cut off. He noticed everything. He always did. Not like someone curious. Like someone collecting.

“You left it open,” he said.

“I didn’t,” she answered. “I stepped back.”

He looked at her then, as if the difference mattered only because she needed it to.

Marlene walked past him into the kitchen. Not because she wanted distance there wasn’t enough space in the apartment for that but because movement was the only thing that kept her from turning into something static and easy to handle. The linoleum under her feet gave a dull sound. The kitchen window faced the street. Outside, Anklam pressed close to the glass: the line of parked cars, the uneven sidewalk, the corner where Steinstraße bent toward the old town as if it had a memory of where it used to lead.

She set the kettle on the stove without filling it.

Her hands paused on the knob.

Behind her, Jannik stepped inside and shut the door properly this time. The click sounded different when he did it. More deliberate. Like a keepsake.

He didn’t take off his jacket.

Marlene stared at the kettle. The metal reflected her in a warped curve. Her face stretched thin, as if the apartment had already started to distort her.

“You came to talk,” she said.

“I came because you keep pretending you don’t hear me.”

The words landed quietly. Not accusation. Not pleading. A statement in a voice that didn’t ask for permission.

She turned the stove on anyway. The flame hissed, pointless under an empty kettle. The sound helped. It filled a gap she didn’t want to acknowledge.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” she said.

Jannik’s steps were soft. He entered the kitchen and stopped behind her, close enough that she felt his presence before she saw it in the corner of her eye. He didn’t touch her. Not yet. He didn’t need to.

“Supposed to,” he repeated. “Who decides that?”

Marlene kept her eyes on the window. On the street. On the pale evening light sliding between the buildings. It was late winter in Anklam, the kind of cold that didn’t sparkle. It just dulled everything down. The sky looked like old paper. The wind came in low gusts from the Peene, carrying dampness and something metallic, like the river had scraped itself raw against its banks.

“I do,” she said.

A pause behind her. Then, “You’re saying that like you believe it.”

Her throat tightened. She shut the stove off again. The hiss stopped. The room became too quiet.

“Take your shoes off,” she said. “Or leave.”

He looked down, then back at her. She didn’t move. She kept her arms loose at her sides, fingers slightly curled, ready to do something anything if he tried to make her still.

Jannik exhaled once, slow, and bent to untie his boots. The gesture was unhurried, almost intimate, and it made her skin prickle anyway. He set the boots neatly by the wall as if this was his home too. As if he had always been here.

Marlene opened a cabinet and took out a mug. Then another. She didn’t know why she took two. Habit. Or a mistake she couldn’t undo. She filled the kettle this time, hands steady enough to pass as calm.

“You’re early,” she said again, because repeating a thing made it less sharp.

“I told you.”

She heard the faint scrape of a chair behind her. He sat at the small kitchen table without asking. The table was pressed against the wall because the room was too narrow for anything else. A cheap table from years ago, when she’d moved in with a single suitcase and a plastic bag of kitchenware she’d taken from her mother’s cupboards with silent permission. She could still remember the smell of that old apartment cigarettes, coffee, and damp wallpaper. The 90s in Anklam had felt like waiting rooms. Everyone had been waiting for something to arrive. Some people still were.

Marlene placed the mugs on the table and sat opposite him. Not beside him. Opposite.

He watched her sit down.

He didn’t look at the mugs. He looked at her fingers, the way she placed them on the tabletop, spread slightly as if to take up space. The way her nails were short. The faint red line across her palm from where the key had pressed earlier.

“You always hold onto things too long,” he said.

Marlene shifted one hand off the table. “What do you want, Jannik?”

His gaze moved to her face. “Say my name again.”

“No.”

A brief stillness. Then his mouth tilted, barely. He leaned back in his chair, stretching his legs out under the table until her knees felt the edge of his presence. Not touching. Close enough to make her aware of how easily he could.

“You used to say it differently,” he said.

Marlene stared at him. “Used to.”

“That summer,” he continued, tone even. “When we’d walk from the Neuer Markt down toward the Peene and you’d keep your cassette player too loud because you didn’t want to hear anyone behind us.”

Her breath caught. Not because the memory was sweet. Because he had kept it. Because he had carried it like a tool.

She didn’t respond.

He kept speaking anyway, voice low. “You had that denim jacket with the torn lining. You’d pull your sleeves over your hands when it got cold. You never asked anyone for a lighter you’d take one without looking at the face it came from. Like you didn’t want to owe.”

Marlene’s jaw tightened. She picked up the mug in front of her, empty, and turned it slowly between her palms.

“You remember wrong,” she said.

Jannik’s eyes held hers. “I remember exactly.”

The kettle began to heat. A faint sound at first, like distant breath. Anclams’ buildings always carried noise strangely. Pipes, radiators, the creak of old floors. Everything told on you if you listened hard enough.

Marlene stood up to retrieve the kettle before it boiled. She didn’t want it to whistle. She didn’t want any sound that could be heard in the corridor. She wasn’t sure why that mattered. She just knew it did.

Jannik rose too.

Not to help. To follow.

He stopped behind her at the stove. His body near enough that she felt the warmth through her sweater. Still no touch. That was the worst part. The restraint. The way he made her notice the gap like a held breath.

She poured water into both mugs, hands steady, careful. A few drops splashed onto the counter. She wiped them with the edge of her sleeve without thinking.

Jannik’s voice came close to her ear. “You’re trying not to shake.”

Marlene’s fingers tightened on the kettle handle. “Back up.”

He did not move. But he lowered his voice further, as if the apartment had ears.

“You didn’t invite me,” he said. “But you made tea anyway.”

She set the kettle down too hard. The metal clanged against the stove. The sound rang in the small kitchen like an accusation.

“I made tea because I ” She stopped. The sentence cut off before it could become something he could use.

Jannik’s hand came up then. Not to grab. Not to restrain. He placed two fingers on the inside of her wrist, light, almost careless, as if he had reached for a pulse without meaning to. Her skin reacted anyway. Heat rising, a tension that made her want to jerk away and stay at the same time.

“Don’t,” she said.

He didn’t remove his fingers.

He slid them a fraction, slow, until his thumb replaced them. A hold that was still not a hold. A suggestion of one.

“You told me to leave,” he said. “And you stepped back.”

Marlene stared down at his hand on her wrist as if it belonged to someone else.

Outside the window, a car passed slowly. Headlights washed the kitchen wall for a second. Then gone. The street fell back into gray.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked.

He looked at her profile. “Because you keep acting like we never happened.”

Her mouth went dry. “We didn’t.”

A beat.

Then his grip changed, not stronger, just more certain. His thumb pressed lightly into the soft skin where her pulse kept betraying her.

“You’re lying,” he said, calm as a door clicking shut. “You’re just trying to make it sound clean.”

Marlene swallowed. She forced herself to lift her eyes to his face. He was close now. Close enough that she could see the small marks on his skin from shaving. The faint shadow under his eyes. The control in his expression. The way he didn’t need to rush.

“I live here,” she said.

“I know where you live.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Jannik’s gaze flicked toward the window. Toward Steinstraße. Toward the route out of the apartment, the route into the city, the routes she took when she wanted to be unseen. Then back to her.

“You walk past the Steintor when it’s late,” he said. “You stop at the edge of the old town like you’re waiting for something to come through the gate.”

Marlene’s throat tightened again. She hadn’t told him that. She hadn’t told anyone. The Steintor stood there like a survivor, tall and narrow, the brick darkened by weather and years, the kind of landmark that made you feel watched even when the street was empty. She had passed it more times than she could count, sometimes without meaning to, sometimes deliberately, drawn to the way its shadow fell across the pavement like a line you either crossed or didn’t.

“You don’t know what I do,” she said.

Jannik’s mouth curved slightly. “I know enough.”

Marlene tried to pull her wrist back.

He let her go. Immediately.

The sudden release made her sway, not because he had held her tight, but because the space he left behind felt like a shove.

She took a step away from him, toward the sink, toward the window, toward anything that wasn’t his body. Her hands gripped the counter edge. The laminate was chipped where a pot had fallen years ago. A small crescent missing. She stared at it, as if the damage could explain anything.

Jannik stayed behind her.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” he said.

Marlene laughed once. A short sound with no warmth. “You don’t have to hurt me to make it worse.”

Silence.

Then, softly, “Say that again.”

She didn’t turn. “No.”

He moved at last, stepping closer until his chest was near her back. Still not pressing. Still not touching. Just close enough to make her aware of how easily he could.

“You were always like this,” he murmured. “You draw a line. Then you stand right on it.”

Her fingers dug into the counter. Her shoulders rose, then lowered. A breath she forced into control.

“You should leave,” she said, voice flatter now, quieter. “Before I ”

“Before you what?”

She didn’t answer.

Jannik leaned in, close to her ear. His words came like a thread pulled taut. “Before you decide you’re alone again?”

Marlene’s hand reached for the dish towel and wiped the counter as if cleaning could erase him. The movement was too fast. Too sharp. The towel slipped, and she had to catch it with her other hand. A small clumsy moment that made her cheeks heat.

Jannik noticed. Of course he did.

He stepped back half a pace, giving her a fraction of air, then slid around her to face her. The kitchen was too small for this. Their bodies had to negotiate space whether they wanted to or not.

He looked at her for a long moment.

Not at her mouth. Not at her chest. At her eyes. At the muscles around them, the tiny signs of exhaustion she kept trying to smooth away.

“You’ve been to the Otto Lilienthal Museum,” he said.

Marlene blinked. “What?”

“Ellbogenstraße,” he continued. “You went. I saw you come out.”

She held still. The museum’s glass and brick facade had reflected the gray sky when she’d stood outside it, hands in her pockets, pretending she had a reason to be there. Lilienthal. Flight. The dream of leaving the ground. She had stared at the entrance longer than she’d meant to, thinking about what it took to step into air and trust it.

“Why were you there?” she asked.

Jannik’s gaze didn’t waver. “Because you were.”

Marlene’s nails bit into her palm.

“That’s not an answer,” she said.

“It is,” he replied. “You just don’t like it.”

He reached out then and brushed his knuckles along the side of her jaw. Light. Almost absent. A touch that could have been nothing if it hadn’t been everything.

Marlene flinched just slightly then stopped herself. She didn’t pull away. She didn’t lean in either. She stayed in the middle, caught on the line he kept putting under her feet.

Jannik’s hand remained near her face, not cupping, not claiming. Waiting.

She stared at him, breathing shallow.

“You’re doing this on purpose,” she said.

“Yes.”

The honesty hit harder than denial would have.

“Why?” she asked.

His eyes narrowed slightly, not in anger. In focus. “Because if I let you pretend, you’ll disappear again.”

Marlene swallowed. Her tongue felt thick.

“I’m not yours,” she said.

Jannik’s hand dropped. He looked down at the mugs on the table. The steam had faded. The tea sat untouched, a sign of hospitality neither of them had earned.

“You never were,” he said.

Marlene’s stomach tightened at the words. Not relief. Not comfort. Something sharper. He looked back at her, and his voice lowered.

“But you like when I act like you could be.”

Her breath hitched. She opened her mouth, then shut it again. The denial was there, ready, but it wouldn’t come out clean. Not now. Not with his gaze on her like that.

Jannik stepped closer.

Marlene lifted her hand between them, palm out. A stop sign. A boundary.

He didn’t push past it.

He simply brought his own hand up and placed it against hers, palm to palm, pressure light but steady. The contact sent heat through her fingers. Her arm stiffened, then loosened as if her body couldn’t decide which way to go.

“Tell me to leave,” he said. “And mean it.”

Her eyes locked on his. Her throat moved once, swallowing something she didn’t want to name.

“Leave,” she said.

Jannik didn’t move.

He waited.

Marlene’s palm stayed against his. She could feel the lines in his hand, the callus near his thumb. A detail that made him real in a way she didn’t want.

“Mean it,” he repeated.

Marlene’s breath came uneven. She pulled her hand back at last and stepped away. The space between them widened by a foot. It felt like nothing. It felt like everything.

Jannik watched her without moving, without speaking, until she turned her head toward the window again. Toward Steinstraße. Toward the city.

Outside, the streetlights had come on. Yellow pools on wet pavement. The faint outline of the old town in the distance, where the Steintor stood like a sentinel and the churches rose in dark shapes against the sky. Anklam was quiet in the way it always was at this hour quiet like someone listening.

Marlene spoke without turning back.

“You don’t get to decide what I mean,” she said.

Jannik’s voice came from behind her, softer now, almost careful. “No.”

A pause.

Then, “But I get to notice when you don’t.”

Marlene’s fingers tightened on the window frame. The paint was rough under her nails.

Behind her, she heard him move, slow steps across the linoleum. He stopped near the door. She expected the sound of the lock. The click that would free the apartment of his air.

It didn’t come.

Instead, his voice, low and close to the corridor, as if he was speaking to the building itself.

“Tomorrow,” he said.

Marlene didn’t answer.

“You’ll be on Baustraße,” he continued. “You’ll cut through by the Schulstraße. You’ll pretend you’re going somewhere specific.”

Her spine stiffened.

“And you’ll look over your shoulder,” he finished. “Not because you’re afraid. Because you want to know if I’m still there.”

Marlene turned then, fast, anger flashing sharp in her face before she could hide it.

“Get out.”

Jannik looked at her for a long second. Then he nodded once, small.

He opened the door.

Before he stepped into the corridor, he glanced back. His eyes found hers like a hand closing around a wrist.

“I’ll see you,” he said.

Not a promise.

A decision.

The door shut.

The click came at last.

Marlene stood alone in the kitchen, the mugs still untouched, the air still holding the shape of him.

Outside, Anklam kept its quiet. The river moved. The old streets waited.

And her body, stubborn and traitorous, listened for footsteps that were already gone.

Chapter Three – The Route He Named

Morning in Anklam didn’t arrive. It seeped in.

Gray light pressed against the curtains like a hand that didn’t knock. Marlene woke before her alarm, already tense, already listening. The apartment was quiet in the way a place gets quiet after someone has been in it too deliberately. The kitchen still held last night’s shape. Two mugs on the table. A faint ring of dried tea on the counter where she’d set the kettle down too hard. Her coat on the chair instead of the hook.

Small disorder. A trace.

She stood under the shower until the water went lukewarm. She dressed without music. No radio. No background. She didn’t want anything to blur the edges of sound.

In the hallway, she put on her shoes and paused with her hand on the door handle.

Her own rule, every time: count to three, then go.

One.

Two.

She stopped at two.

Her fingers tightened. She hated that she could feel him in her timing now. Like he’d slipped something into the mechanisms of her day, a thin wedge that made everything catch.

She opened the door anyway.

The corridor smelled the same as always cold stone, old paint, the faint sourness of other people’s meals. The light above the stairwell flickered. It was still broken, still half-working, still refusing to decide.

She walked down the stairs. Not fast. Not slow. Careful enough that each step sounded like it belonged to her.

Outside, Steinstraße was wet from a night of thin rain. The sidewalk reflected the pale sky in patches. Cars stood in a line, parked too close. Across the street, a bakery was already open. The warm smell came out each time the door swung wide, then vanished again when it shut.

Marlene pulled her collar up and started walking.

She told herself she was going to work. To the little office near the Neuer Markt, where she did the kind of tasks that made her disappear behind paper and screens. She told herself she would take her usual route.

She didn’t.

At the first corner, she turned early, cutting onto a side path, heading toward a strip of buildings where the windows were small and the doors looked like they’d been repainted too many times. She walked with purpose she didn’t feel. The street narrowed. The sound changed. Fewer cars. More echo.

She turned again, aiming for Baustraße, not because she needed to, but because he had said she would.

She wanted to prove him wrong.

She could have gone the other way. She knew Anklam well enough to cut through back streets, to weave past courtyards and garages, to vanish into a neighborhood of identical doors. She could have crossed toward the Peene and walked along the water where the wind would erase footprints and the open space would make it harder for him to corner her.

Instead she walked onto Baustraße.

The street carried its name like a warning construction, rebuilding, the idea of change that never quite got completed. The buildings here looked sturdier, but the facades still had stains where rain had run down for decades. The pavement was uneven. A puddle spread in the shallow dip near the curb, reflecting a distorted piece of sky.

She kept her eyes forward.

No looking over her shoulder, she told herself. No feeding it.

Half a block in, her phone vibrated in her pocket.

She didn’t take it out.

It vibrated again. Then stopped.

Her pulse thudded against her ribs like it was trying to exit.

She walked faster.

At the intersection near Schulstraße, she slowed. The street sign was rust-streaked at the edges. A few meters ahead, a school building sat back from the road, its yard empty at this hour, the fence damp and dark. She remembered standing outside a place like this in the late 90s, backpack heavy, palms sweating in cheap gloves, pretending not to care who was watching. She remembered the smell of wet asphalt and the way her friends had laughed too loud to cover the fact that they were afraid of being seen as afraid.

She hadn’t thought about that in years.

Now she felt it like a ghost under her skin.

She stepped onto Schulstraße and immediately regretted it.

The street was quieter, narrower, lined with trees stripped bare for winter. The branches looked like hands reaching up. The buildings here had small gardens and low fences. Places people pretended were private.

Her phone vibrated again.

This time she stopped and pulled it out.

No call. Just a message.

A single line.

“Left side. Not the middle.”

Her throat tightened. Her gaze snapped up, instinctive, scanning the street ahead, the sidewalk, the parked cars. Nothing obvious. No figure leaning against a wall. No shadow moving.

Then she saw him.

Across the street, half-hidden by the trunk of a tree, standing too still for how cold it was. Dark jacket. Hands in his pockets. His posture relaxed in a way that felt insulting. He wasn’t blocking her path. He wasn’t rushing toward her. He was simply there, as if he had been waiting for this exact moment to appear.

Marlene’s body reacted before her thoughts caught up. Heat under her skin. Cold in her fingertips. A tightening low in her stomach she didn’t want.

She put her phone back in her pocket and kept walking.

On the left side.

Not the middle.

She hated that she adjusted.

Jannik stepped off the curb and fell into pace beside her without touching her.

A careful distance. A half step behind.

A position that made her aware of him without giving her the relief of direct confrontation.

“You read it,” he said.

She didn’t look at him. “Go away.”

“You didn’t,” he replied.

She stopped walking. He stopped too.

They stood on Schulstraße like two people who belonged there, like two people meeting by coincidence, like anyone passing would assume there was nothing wrong. The normality of it made her skin crawl.

“I don’t want you near me,” she said.

Jannik’s gaze moved over her face, slow, collecting. “Then don’t walk where I tell you.”

Marlene’s jaw clenched. “You don’t tell me where to walk.”

His mouth barely shifted. “You did anyway.”

The trees above them creaked in the wind. A car passed at the far end of the street, tires hissing on wet pavement. Someone’s dog barked behind a fence, then quieted, as if even it had been corrected.

Marlene’s hands curled into fists in her coat pockets. Her nails bit into her palms.

“You were watching me,” she said.

“I was waiting,” he corrected.

“For what?”

“For you to stop pretending you’re invisible.”

The words hit a nerve she didn’t want to admit existed. She inhaled sharply, then forced the breath out slower.

“Move,” she said. “I’m going to work.”

Jannik didn’t step in front of her. He didn’t block her. He tilted his head slightly, as if considering.

“Neuer Markt,” he said. “That’s where you’re going.”

She tried to walk past him. He moved with her, still beside, still that half step back. Not a guard. Not a partner. Something in between that made her feel like she was failing at both resistance and surrender.

They walked.

Schulstraße led them toward streets that opened gradually, the town shifting around them like a stage changing sets. The quiet residential strip gave way to more traffic, to storefronts, to the first signs of the old town’s center. Anklam tightened as they approached the Neuer Markt. The buildings stood closer together, taller, their windows staring down. People moved here with purpose, bags in hand, heads lowered against the wind.

Marlene felt exposed.

Not because Jannik was beside her, but because he was beside her like it was nothing. Like this was an ordinary thing he had earned.

At the next corner she veered abruptly, cutting toward a narrower lane.

Jannik paused, then followed.

She quickened her pace, turning again, then again, weaving into the small grid of streets that ran behind the more visible storefronts. The kind of routes she’d learned in the 90s, when getting out of sight mattered. When you didn’t want to be followed by boys on bikes or men with too-long stares. When you knew exactly which alley opened into which courtyard.

She didn’t look back to see if he was still there.

She felt him anyway.

Near a low brick wall, she stopped and turned sharply.

Jannik stopped a step away.

“Why are you doing this?” she demanded.

His eyes held hers without flinching. “Because you keep leaving things unfinished.”

Her mouth went dry. “What things?”

He took a slow step closer. She didn’t move back. She hated herself for it, but she also didn’t move forward. Still on the line.

“The night at the river,” he said.

The words were quiet. Not dramatic. Not loud enough to draw attention.

Marlene’s pulse jumped.

She turned her head slightly, scanning the street behind him. A couple walked past farther away, laughing at something private. A man carried a plastic crate, shoulders hunched against the cold. No one looked at them.

She forced her gaze back to Jannik. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t bring that up.”

Jannik’s eyes narrowed, not in anger. In focus. “You remember.”

Marlene’s throat tightened until swallowing felt like pushing glass.

She remembered a strip of riverbank near the Peene where the grass had been flattened by other people’s summers. A night that smelled of cheap beer and damp earth. A group of them, too young to be out that late, pretending they belonged to the dark. Someone’s cassette player. A song she couldn’t place now but could still feel as a throb in her ribs. Jannik’s hand on her elbow, guiding her away from the group as if he’d decided she didn’t belong to anyone else’s gaze.

She remembered telling him to stop.

And not meaning it.

She pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth, grounding herself. “That was years ago.”

He stepped closer again. “You still flinch like it was yesterday.”

“Don’t talk about me like you know me.”

Jannik’s gaze dropped to her mouth. Then to her throat, where her pulse moved visibly. He looked back up.

“I know your habits,” he said. “I know how you avoid the middle of the sidewalk when you’re nervous. I know you don’t like your back to open space. I know you still carry keys in your fist like a weapon.”

Marlene’s fingers tightened around the keys in her pocket. Metal edges biting through the fabric.

She forced a laugh that didn’t feel like her own. “Congratulations.”

His face didn’t change.

“You want me to stop,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Then stop answering me.”

Marlene’s chest tightened. “I’m not answering you.”

He watched her. “You are.”

The silence between them thickened. It wasn’t empty. It was loaded. Like a room waiting for a door to close.

Marlene made a decision.

Not a perfect one. Not a clean one.

She stepped forward and shoved him.

Not hard enough to hurt. Hard enough to make contact. Hard enough to break the careful distance he’d kept.

Jannik’s shoulders rocked back a fraction. His boots scraped on wet pavement. He caught himself. His gaze flickered, surprise so brief it almost wasn’t there.

Then his mouth tilted. Not a smile. Something colder.

Marlene’s breath came sharp. She stared at her own hands as if they belonged to someone else. She didn’t apologize. She didn’t speak.

Jannik stepped forward again, closing the distance she’d created.

“You touched me,” he said quietly.

Marlene’s jaw clenched. “Don’t make it sound ”

“Like what?”

She swallowed. Her voice came out lower. “Like it means something.”

Jannik’s gaze stayed on her. “It does.”

Marlene’s stomach clenched. She turned away abruptly and started walking again, fast. She cut through the narrow street toward the more open area near the Neuer Markt, where people would be, where she could disappear into crowds.

Jannik followed.

Still not grabbing her. Still not forcing. Letting her do the moving, the choosing, the escalating.

That was what made it worse.

When they reached the Neuer Markt, the space opened suddenly. The square spread wide, the buildings around it taller and more formal. The surface was slick from rain. People crossed in different directions, shopping bags swinging, shoulders hunched. The wind slid through the open area with more force, biting at cheeks, pulling at hair.

Marlene stopped near the edge of the square and turned on him again.

“Why now?” she demanded. “Why are you doing this now?”

Jannik stepped closer, then stopped, his posture relaxed as if he had all the time in the world. Behind him, the town moved around them. Normal life. Ordinary people. None of them seeing the line tightening between her ribs.

“Because you came back,” he said.

Marlene froze. “I never left.”

His gaze didn’t waver. “You left me.”

The words landed harder than anything he’d said so far.

Marlene’s breath caught. The cold air burned in her lungs. She looked away, scanning the square, trying to find something else to focus on an old facade, a shop sign, the movement of a cyclist cutting across the wet pavement.

Jannik’s voice lowered. “You think if you don’t say it, it didn’t happen.”

Marlene turned back, anger flashing. “It didn’t happen the way you’re trying to make it sound.”

He stepped closer. “How did it happen then?”

She opened her mouth and nothing came.

She could have lied. She could have called it a mistake. She could have called it youthful stupidity, cheap beer, bad timing.

But the words stuck because he’d kept the memory sharper than she had. Because his gaze held her as if he could see the shape of that night through her skin.

Marlene’s hands trembled. She shoved them into her pockets harder, keys biting into her palm.

Jannik watched the movement, then looked back up. “You’re still carrying it.”

“Stop,” she said. The word came out ragged.

His head tilted slightly. “Stop what?”

She took a step closer, not away. A mistake. A choice. Something in between.

“Stop standing there like you own me,” she hissed.

Jannik’s eyes darkened. “I don’t have to own you.”

Marlene’s breath hitched.

He leaned in slightly, close enough that only she could hear his next words over the wind.

“I just have to know you’ll come back when I call.”

Her stomach dropped. Her skin heated. Her mind went blank and too full at the same time.

She raised her hand, not to strike him. To push him away again. To do something that would make the air move.

Jannik caught her wrist.

Not gentle this time.

Not violent. Not bruising.

Certain.

His fingers closed around her like a lock. His thumb pressed against the inside of her wrist, right on the pulse that betrayed her again.

Marlene’s breath came sharp. Her eyes widened. She tried to pull back.

He didn’t let her. He didn’t yank her closer either. He held her exactly where she was, forcing stillness. Forcing her to feel every inch of the space between them.

People walked past them. None of them looking closely. In a town like this, you didn’t intervene unless something broke loudly enough to require it.

Jannik’s voice dropped. “Don’t do that again.”

“Let go,” she breathed.

“Not until you look at me.”

Her jaw clenched. She looked anyway.

His eyes held hers, calm and relentless. His mouth was neutral. His expression didn’t show triumph. That was the point. He didn’t need to look pleased. He looked inevitable.

Marlene’s throat tightened. She forced her voice steady. “You can’t do this in public.”

Jannik’s thumb shifted slightly, a small pressure that made her inhale.

“You’re the one who chose the market,” he said. “You wanted witnesses.”

“I wanted people,” she snapped.

“Same thing.”

Marlene’s vision blurred at the edges for a second, not from tears, from the sudden surge of heat and anger and something else she refused to name. She jerked again. The keys in her pocket cut into her palm. She felt the sting. It grounded her.

She stopped resisting.

Not surrender.

Strategy.

Her shoulders lowered. Her breathing slowed. She forced her face still.

Jannik watched her carefully, as if he could tell the difference.

Marlene’s voice came quiet. “You’re hurting me.”

His grip loosened immediately. Not releasing. Lessening.

The quick adjustment made something twist in her chest. A reminder that he was paying attention. That he could be careful if he wanted to. That he chose when to be.

Marlene stared at him. “You want control that badly?”

His gaze didn’t shift. “You want it too.”

Her mouth opened. Then shut.

Jannik’s hold remained. Not painful now. Just present. A claim disguised as restraint.

Marlene leaned closer, just enough that he would have to listen.

“You’re not the only one who remembers,” she said.

His eyes flickered, the smallest sign of reaction.

She continued, voice low, sharp. “You used to stand by the Steintor like it was your wall. Like if you leaned against it long enough, nobody could push you over.”

Jannik’s grip tightened by a fraction. Not on purpose. A reflex.

Marlene saw it.

She pressed her advantage, small and vicious. “You used to count your cigarettes in your pocket before you offered one. Like you were always making sure you didn’t give too much away.”

His gaze held hers, but the calm in it shifted. A hairline crack. Almost invisible.

Marlene’s heart hammered. She kept her face steady.

“You remember me,” she said. “But don’t pretend you don’t have your own ghosts.”

Jannik’s jaw clenched once. He leaned in. His voice was low, almost against her mouth.

“Careful,” he murmured. “You’re getting brave.”

Marlene’s breath caught.

She didn’t pull away.

She should have.

She didn’t.

The space between their mouths was thin enough that she could feel the warmth of his breath. The market wind slid around them, cold, but the air between them stayed hot and private.

Jannik’s grip on her wrist changed again, not tighter lower. Guiding. He turned her slightly, angling her body so the crowd would see less. So she would have fewer excuses.

Marlene’s spine stiffened. “What are you doing?”

His voice stayed low. “Helping you.”

She let out a harsh breath that sounded like a laugh. “I don’t need help.”

Jannik’s eyes met hers. “You do.”

Marlene’s hand rose, the free one, and pressed against his chest. Not pushing. Not pulling. Feeling the solid warmth through his jacket. The contact made her stomach tighten again.

She hated that her hand stayed there.

Jannik looked down at her hand, then back to her face.

“You always do that,” he said quietly.

Marlene’s voice came thin. “Do what?”

“Touch first,” he murmured. “Then pretend you didn’t.”

Her fingers flexed against his chest. She pulled her hand back as if burned.

Jannik’s mouth tilted slightly. Not a smile. A quiet, pleased recognition.

Marlene yanked her wrist free before he could decide otherwise. He let her this time. Again, the release felt like being shoved into cold air.

She stepped back, breathing hard. People streamed around them, indifferent. A woman with a stroller. A man with a newspaper tucked under his arm. An old couple walking slowly, shoulders pressed together against the wind.

Normal life. Anklam pretending nothing was happening.

Marlene’s voice came tight. “Leave me alone.”

Jannik’s gaze stayed on her like a hand. “Walk away.”

Her throat tightened.

He wasn’t blocking her. He wasn’t grabbing her now. He was giving her the option with too much emphasis, like a dare.

Marlene took one step backward.

Then another.

Her body wanted to turn, to flee, to cut away into the streets behind the market, to vanish down a lane toward the Peene, to put water between them.

Instead, she stopped.

She looked at him.

Jannik didn’t move. He simply waited. The way he always did. The way he had learned in the 90s, leaning against brick, watching who would crack first.

Marlene’s breathing slowed. Her hand in her pocket tightened around the keys until the metal edges dug deeper. A small pain. A small reminder.

She forced herself to speak without shouting. Without pleading.

“You can’t keep showing up like this,” she said. “You can’t just insert yourself.”

Jannik took one step closer. Not closing the whole distance. Just enough to shrink her space again.

“I can,” he said. “Because you let me.”

Marlene’s jaw trembled once. She clenched it.

Her voice came quieter. “If you keep doing this, I’ll ”

“You’ll what?” he asked, calm.

She opened her mouth. Nothing came. The threat was supposed to be simple. Call someone. Report him. Tell him to stop. Make it official.

But she knew Anklam. She knew what official meant here. Paper. Waiting. People asking why she didn’t just avoid him. People telling her she should have been clearer. People looking at her like she had invited it by not leaving fast enough.

Jannik watched her struggle and said nothing. He didn’t need to. He let the silence do the work.

Marlene’s voice broke slightly. She pressed it back into control. “Stop.”

Jannik’s gaze softened by a fraction, like he’d heard something he wanted.

“No,” he said quietly.

The word landed like a hand around her throat. Not squeezing. Just there.

Marlene’s breath hitched. She stared at him, and for a second she saw the shape of the boy he had been the one who had leaned against the Steintor and counted cigarettes and watched the world like it owed him something. The one who had looked at her like she was the only thing worth noticing in a town full of people trying not to be noticed.

Then the moment snapped back, present again. Cold wind. Wet pavement. Crowds.

Marlene forced herself to move.

She turned and walked away.

Not running. Not stumbling. A controlled retreat.

She headed across the square, toward the street that would take her to her office, toward the buildings that would swallow her into routine.

She didn’t look back.

She felt his gaze anyway, following her like a pressure between her shoulder blades.

Halfway across the Neuer Markt, her phone vibrated again.

She kept walking.

It vibrated a second time.

She couldn’t stop herself.

She took it out.

A new message.

“Good. Keep going. Don’t turn around.”

Her stomach dropped.

Her fingers went cold.

She kept walking.

And behind her, in the noise of the market and the wind and the indifferent town, she heard it.

Footsteps.

Measured.

Close.

Chapter Four – The Place Where People Don’t Look

She didn’t run.

Running would have admitted something. To herself. To the street. To the windows that watched from above wet sills. She kept her pace even, shoulders steady, breath measured, as if the message in her pocket hadn’t turned her blood into something thinner.

Good. Keep going. Don’t turn around.

The words sat against her thigh like a hand.

She crossed the Neuer Markt with the kind of control that made her jaw ache. The square was busy enough to swallow a person, but not busy enough to hide the one thing she could feel without seeing: his distance. His timing. The way he placed himself behind her like an idea she couldn’t shake off.

Marlene kept her head forward. She focused on details that belonged to the town, not to him. The slick shine on the stones. The smell of exhaust mixing with bakery warmth. A scarf flapping loose from a man’s coat. A child tugging at a woman’s sleeve, impatient, loud, alive. Normal.