Knock. Knock.<br/><br/>The apartment was a poorly furnished moldy place with empty bookshelves covered in old dust and bare light bulbs that actually buzzed quietly, just like in the old movies. It had a tight unwelcoming doorway leading into a green-and-gray living room with a squeaky couch, a cheap coffee table, and a broken TV sitting upon a wooden stand in the middle of the room. The bathroom smelled of mold and old soap and hosted a horrible looking toilet, a shower cabin with no curtains, and a dirty sink with a rusted drain. No mirror. The bedroom had a bare screeching wooden floor, a one-person IKEA bed with a metal frame and a bumpy mattress, and a crack on the window that generously welcomed the cold Chicago air in. Galen never looked into the kitchen. With his particular feeding habits, he was genuinely not interested in the kitchen.<br/><br/>All in all, it was a typical Community hideout, and one not used for many years.<br/><br/>He came from Prague prepared and black curtains were already hanging at the bedroom window; his sack was dumped into the corner of the living room, the sleeping bag already taken out of it and unrolled over the gray carpet opposite to the window. He had been a soldier for nearly two decades and he wasn't new to new places, so to speak.<br/><br/>Galen had already changed when the knock came. A black Armani suit and a dark blue satin shirt were wrapped around his round muscles and his bright shoulders. No tie, and his messy black hair hadn't been introduced to a comb, either. He had no patience for combing. Black leather shoes and the scent of a Gucci cologne completed his presence.<br/><br/>He opened the door and Ana-Lucia's perfume immediately enveloped him. She stood there, only four inches shorter than him on her high heels, wrapped up in a woolen coat. He nodded and stepped aside, giving her enough room to enter comfortably.<br/><br/>"Miss DelaCourt."<br/><br/>He looked straight into her eyes. With her dark eyes and her dark hair and her glancing skin she reminded him of these smooth olives his uncle had loved so much and had insisted on having on the table almost every dinner. The mischievous boy Galen had told him that the wrinkled olives were the real deal, and had taken the slap across the face without blinking or moving. But he had remembered it, just like he had remembered all the other slaps and the insults and the night he'd had to go to bed hungry because he'd been "naughty". And he had reminded each and every one of them to his uncle, one by one, staring at the face of the scared fat man before snapping his neck like a twig and tossing him aside like an empty sack. And then he'd had to listen to Demetrina's lecture, trying to suppress the happy grin.<br/><br/>It's all well when it ends well.<br/><br/>He let all of these thoughts cross his mind while looking into Ana-Lucia's eyes, not allowing any emotion out, standing still, shoulder rubbing against the wall so that the lady can walk past without ever having to touch him. Very gentlemanly, a lesson taught to him by an overly patient and thorough Demetrina. And easy to follow in this particular case because he sincerely hoped he would never have to touch that arrogant spoiled bitch.