The Last Snow With Max Dante

Snow fell again over the city, decorating the windows of Café Lumière with white crystals that soon melted into sad trails of water. Angel rubbed her arms, feeling the cold that crept in even though the heater was on inside. The holiday season two words that meant happiness to others, for Angel only meant a deeper, more piercing loneliness and longer work hours. "Order number 45! Extra foam cappuccino!" she called out while placing the cup on the counter, her hands trembling slightly from the cold. From behind her worn, dark green apron, she watched the bustling customers. Families with laughing children, young couples sharing a slice of red velvet cake, a group of office friends celebrating the year-end party. Everything was so bright, so warm, so alien. She sighed, rubbing her temple. This month's credit card debt was still unpaid, and the electricity bill was two months overdue. The Christmas overtime money would all go towards the rent for her tiny, damp room. Her life was like a hamster wheel running endlessly but getting nowhere. The café doorbell chimed, letting in a biting night breeze. Angel turned, and her entire body instinctively tensed. The man stood in the doorway, like a storm suddenly visiting a calm world. He was easily close to six feet tall, wearing a black leather jacket that fit perfectly across his broad shoulders. His hair was jet black, slightly messy as if just tousled by his hands, and his eyes Angel swallowed his eyes were the grey of the sky before a snowstorm, sharp and scanning the room in one sweep. Max Dante. She didn't know his name then, but the man's aura emitted something that made Angel's nerves tingle. Not danger, at least not an immediately threatening kind, but something wild, unpredictable, like finding a wolf among a flock of domesticated sheep. The man walked to the counter with calm yet powerful steps. His black boots made almost no sound on the wooden floor. Angel felt his gaze fixed on her, heavy and intense. "Americano. Double shot. No sugar," his voice was deep, resonant, like distant thunder. Angel nodded, avoiding eye contact. "To go or for here?" "For here." She turned around, feeling that gaze stuck to her back the entire time she prepared the coffee. Her hands, usually steady when making latte art, trembled slightly. Stupid, she chided herself. He's just a regular customer. But he wasn't regular. When Angel placed the cup in front of him, the man looked up. Their gazes met for the first time, and Angel felt pierced by an ice needle. In the depths of those grey eyes, something flickered a predator's awareness, perhaps, or just a reflection of the light. "You always work the night shift?" he asked suddenly, his long fingers circling the cup. Angel frowned. "Sometimes." "Dangerous. The streets are empty." "It's fine," she replied shortly, trying not to engage further. But the man Max kept looking at her, as if solving a puzzle. "You live alone." It wasn't a question. His statement was flat, certain. Angel felt her defenses rising. "Not a customer's business," she mumbled, wiping the counter with a cloth a little too roughly. She heard a low sound, similar to a hum. "Just an observation." Max didn't leave after his coffee was finished. He sat in a corner, near the window, occasionally looking out into the snow-whitened darkness of the night. Angel tried to ignore him, but his presence was like a magnet. Every time she glanced over, the man was staring at her, or in her direction, or had just looked away. It felt like being watched, but not in a way that made her afraid more in a way that made her... aware. Aware of her every move, every breath. When the clock struck ten, Angel started to clean up. Almost all the customers had left, only Max and a student with a laptop in another corner remained. "How are you getting home?" the voice suddenly came from behind her. Angel was startled, nearly dropping the cup she was washing. She turned. Max stood only a step away, so close that Angel could smell his cold scent like a forest after rain, like snow on cedar trees, and something else... something warm, wild, like blood and earth. "What's it to you?" she asked, trying to sound firm but her voice cracked. Max raised an eyebrow. "Heavy snow. Taxis are scarce. I can give you a ride." The offer should have felt kind. But delivered in a flat tone, a soft command, it instead felt unsettling. "I'm fine," Angel replied, gathering the last of her courage. "I can walk." "Fifteen blocks. Minus five degrees. With that thin jacket?" His eyes swept over Angel's body, from the tips of her carelessly tied blonde hair to her worn boots with slippery soles. Angel felt her cheeks grow warm, whether from embarrassment or anger. "Not your" "Angel!" the manager's call from the back cut her sentence short. "Your shift is over. Go out the back door, okay? The front is locked." Max didn't move. His gaze was still fixed. "Your name is Angel?" She nodded, not knowing what to say. "Fitting," Max murmured, as if to himself. Then, with a sudden movement, he held out something a plain black business card, with no text, only a printed phone number. "If you change your mind," he said. "Or if you have trouble." Angel stared at the card, then at the man's face. Under the dim neon light, his eyes seemed to gleam for a moment a pale yellow gleam, like an animal's eyes at night. It must have been a trick of the light. She took the card, her fingers brushing his for a split second. The touch felt like a static shock, warm and piercing. Max gave a short nod, then turned. His leather jacket flared as he walked towards the door. He stopped briefly, looked out the window, and his nose seemed to twitch slightly in the air. The movement was odd, almost primal. "Lock the door behind me," he ordered, without looking back. "And don't walk alone tonight." Before Angel could respond or ask what he meant, he was gone, disappearing into the curtain of heavily falling snow. Angel stood there, the black card feeling like it was burning in her grasp. From the window, she saw a large shadow move swiftly in the darkness, too fast for an ordinary person. Then, from the distance, she heard a sound "Angel, there's something you should know" Her manager's voice called out from inside again, cutting off her thoughts. But outside, among the rumble of the night wind, she swore she heard something else a long, sad, and wild howl, carried by the snow wind before it vanished, swallowed by the night.