Glück

                                    

                                          
"Glück" - berge
🎵 Egal was wir tun und was immer auch passiert / Wir finden unser Glück im Jetzt und Hier / Vielleicht wär's mal gut sich einfach glücklich zu schätzen🎵
"It means you're mine."
That phrase kept circling my mind over and over again, further ruining my sense of inner peace. I had no clue why Dominik would say that, nor did I have the faintest idea as to what it meant exactly. 
I was his? His what though? His stepbrother? His least favorite person in the whole wide world? *Gasp! His next murder victim?!
Regardless of whatever the F his underlying motives are, all that I seemed to be able to conclude was that Dominik is strange. Point blank.
I mean, I could've sworn up and down that the guy hated my guts and didn't give two shits about me. Then he goes and lets me wear his hoodie so that I don't get too cold, and he drives me to the Wasgau where he buys my German SIM card and where he almost gets into fight with Erik. And then at the very tail end of that excursion, he claims that I'm his.
I was so caught up in trying to decipher this mystery that I was dead silent at the dinner table that evening. My fork pretty much just made little patterns in my mashed potatoes while I struggled to figure just what was going on in the Stubbe Household.
Even at the small dining room table that Alaric had, he sat at the head of it, acting as if it was symbolic of his position as head of the household. My dad sat to his right, just around the corner (the two of them were not being stealth at all as they played footsies under the table like damn teenagers). I sat next to Dad on his side, trying to pretend that I wasn't living in a crazy house. Finally, Dominik sat across the table from me. He was gnawing on his rare steak, having just stabbed a fork into it and going to town like a wild animal. 
Every so often though, he'd glance up at me with his yellow eyes and the corner of his steak-juice covered mouth would pull up into a smirk— taunting me. He must've known that I was still mulling over his words from earlier, and he seemed to like seeing me squirm in my seat. What a bitch.
As soon as Dominik and I had returned from the Wasgau, I'd tried my hardest to avoid him like the plague. I'd watched TV, hid in my bedroom, or even had done some laundry. But no matter what I did, Alaric's house was smallish, so it was next to impossible to not have the dude somewhere within the vicinity. And I'd been too stunned to pry for some information, trying to come to terms with the horrifying fact that Dominik viewed me as his.
I mean, I could say something now, right here at the table. I could bring up the fact that Dominik called me his and that he was about to kill a Wasgau employee. Then Alaric and Dad would both be alerted to the young man's odd behavior. Then, who knows? Maybe he'll be kicked out and I'll be free from his strangeness. One can only hope.
But at the same time, my brain also told me that that'd be a terrible idea. After all, I hadn't seen Dad in seven years; hence, he'd had ample time to bond with Dominik as his stepson. Plus, Alaric was his biological dad, and he seemed to be the one who paid the bigger bills. Logic dictates that if push comes to shove, Dominik would have more pull here than I would. Shit.
Dominik glanced up at me from his half-eaten steak for the thousandth time, giving me one more smirk.
I scowled back in response.
"Maxie, you haven't touched your food," Dad commented, placing a hand on my forehead. "Are you feeling well?"
"I feel fine," I muttered, stabbing my fork into a carrot slice and taking a bite just to appease him.