(wip)
Chrysanthemums laid within a vase atop her windowsill. Flowers of death, beautiful and white. 

He gave them to her.
The devil, she supposed. 
He wore a suit of a man who cut throat in business, and carried with him a stoic expression; secrets filled the smoke that would leave his lips, and his gaze always landed on her with such peculiarity. 
A warmth she could not pinpoint.

In the dead of night he visited her, always without fail. Always with a gift. 
Prior to the flowers, 
It was a box, 
A silk dress black as the night laying inside, a note nestled over.
‘To the Angel. God may have made you, but I will take you.’

He was going to kill her,
She supposed. 

She sat with her back pressed to the board of her bed, the cross her grandmother gave her laying limp atop her bosom. The clock at her bedside read ‘3:00’, and her eyes shut; it was what he instructed her to do each night. 
One second,
Two.
Before the third struck,
There was a palm beneath her chin.

“Open.”

Thick lashes parted, her blue gaze resting on the man holding her face far more tenderly than she thought he would. His usual coat was gone, and the button up white shirt he always wore had sleeves rolled back to his elbows. 
She did not remember such a charming appearance.

“I’m taking you away today.”

“I don’t want you to kill me.” 
His hold on her jaw lessened, a soft chuckle exiting his lips. She had spoken such calmly, but he was not one to miss the sweet scent of fear filling the room. Brave girl.

“Kill you? Perhaps, some of you.”
The cross over her chest was gathered tightly by his digits, unflinching as it was yanked gently from her neck. The chain was dropped to her bedside table, and suddenly she was lifted from her bed. Pressed to his chest, he smelled like the night. 
Smoke, bergamot, fresh spring water, mint— 
He smelled like the world, like everything she had not seen. What she assumed the far stretches of clouds in the sky could smell should they have a nose, flying far and far away from her little cabin, away from the village, away from everything she knew; he smelled like what her long-dead excitement for the world had felt. She was so entranced, she had almost forgotten he was speaking to her.

“The part that stares dourly into the wall every morning. The part that crosses fingers and prays. The devout love you hold for a god that has kept you selfishly locked here. But I will not touch that glare you gave me every night when we sat and talked, nor the little bread knife that you thought I didn’t know what under your pillow. And, I will definitely not touch the delicate little fingers that slipped so slowly beneath that pillow like I wouldn’t notice.”

His palm lifted once to turn her face to his shoulder, holding her in place as he moved towards the window. The air of the night felt foreign on her skin, kissing sharply at the nape of her neck.

“Close your eyes. I will give you everything God cannot.”