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As he watched the pink fade from the cooking meat, Hans hummed a little tune. The smooth and even sizzle reminded him of another familiar sound, that of a broken bone. The quick cleave through ligament and meat right down to the bone. Add a little more force and snap, the knife cuts cleanly down. The butchering, which Hans did himself, did wonders for his arms.
Anna had always loved his arms -- his whole physique, actually. From the very first glance, Anna seemed to have fallen head over heels for Hans, although Hans couldn't quite return this newfound affection for quite some time.
She was a liability for what seemed like eons. He was constantly paranoid that she would stumble into his basement at just the wrong time or know that normal pork tasted a bit different than the meat Hans had claimed to be pork. But he had seen a lot of him in her -- the same life of loneliness and desperation for love, or maybe just desire. He had even seen his darker side in her, even if it was just for a second. That one moment, when the usual bright glimmer in her eye became the shade he so often held in his, was the turning point for Hans. She was perfect to him. For him. Of course, her being the heir to a massive trading company didn't hinder anything between them.
But one thing had stood in the way of Anna and Hans's future as the heads of the Arendelle Company: Anna's elder sister, Elsa. After years of running the business silently after their parent's deaths, Elsa had decided to go public with the company. To celebrate, she had held a charity ball at the enormous family estate. Hans, who had no real value to Westergaard and Sons at home, was sent to attend and had, ironically, gotten himself deeper into the Arendelle Company than his brothers had in the past five years with his burgeoning relationship with Anna.
Within a couple of months, Hans was even sharing a dinner table with the young tycoon and her sister. She was civil, but not warm. It seemed completely normal to Anna, so it became the norm for Hans as well. Dinner never swayed from the weather or stocks or complete silence when it came to Elsa.
On the somewhat rare occasions that Elsa and Anna joined Hans at his home, Elsa's chill seemed to follow. It didn't take long for Hans to realize that she didn't trust him. Of course she wouldn't, he thought. She was a vegetarian. He didn't make many salads.
What he could make, however, was nearly limitless as long as he had enough meat to play with. Finding a source wasn't difficult. There were many lonely souls in this city, people who wouldn't be missed. Of course, Hans had to watch out for druggies. He didn't want to run any risks of contamination. He was a charming, handsome young man. The young widow couldn't recognize the shadow on his face before the flash of a blade. The executive who had been tragically laid off wouldn't have noticed the young man in the parking garage lying in wait, he was most likely a coworker.
It was all too easy, and the butchering was even easier. Sometimes he even played with his food, leaving identifiable scraps around the city to give the usually-useless police something to do with their lives. But he was very careful.
Hans had taken great pains to conceal this side of him. It was something he might have even prided himself on. Then came Elsa with her salads and distrustful glares. He had even asked her permission for Anna's hand in marriage. She didn't even consider the boundless opportunities a marriage would mean, and she especially didn't think of true love. She had shot him down immediately. It didn't matter much to Hans, and he proposed that night. After that, only Anna joined him for dinner. Elsa simply refused to attend, and Hans knew that the previous times the three had dined together Elsa had only been doing so for her sister's sake.
It bothered Anna for only a short while -- after all, Elsa had shut her out for most of her life. Anna had, sadly, grown accustomed to her sister ignoring her.
Hans decided that to fill the gap, which Anna constantly denied existed, he would teach Anna to cook. Nothing with meat, of course. That was Hans's duty in the kitchen for now. he showed her the most innocuous "secrets" behind what she called his "culinary artistry": sauteing the mushrooms in olive oil and pepper before cooking them into a risotto, salting water for pasta instead of adding oil. Butter over Pam. Simple stuff, really, but they did make a difference when cooking. In fact, when Hans would hold dinner for his associates, Anna often helped behind the scenes. Not too much, though.
One particular night, Hans had invited several of his associates over for a dinner, one he promised would be "most satisfactory". Not only was the food special, but the event; Hans was closing a deal the next morning. Anna, who had barely spoken to Elsa since her engagement to Hans, decided to extend one final invitation.
Before Hans picked Anna up, she came to Elsa's door and knocked sedately.
"Elsa?"
No answer. She knocked again, a little louder.
"Elsa, please. I know you're in there."
Still nothing. Anna pressed her ear to the door. Dead silence.
Anna let out an exasperated sigh. "Look, I don't know what Hans did to make you not like him, but I'm sure he's sorry." She paused, hoping Elsa would at least stir. Another, quieter, sigh from Anna. "Please come to dinner tonight, Elsa. I helped cook it." Anna added the last bit quickly, beseechingly. Anna had even started rocking on the balls of her feet, but she stopped short; she was a grown woman.
She waited for a long, quiet moment before leaving. In her mind, Elsa was now officially a lost cause.
When Hans arrived, Anna explained what had gone on just then between her and her sister; or rather, what didn't. Out of ideas, she asked Hans what she should do.
Hans shrugged. "She's your sister. If she had wanted to come out then she would have already, I guess." Anna sullenly agreed and Elsa was brought up no more.
Dinner was truly exquisite, as promised. Maybe Anna's helping hands had provided something extra, or maybe it was that night's cut of meat - extremely lean and very fresh.
"What is this exactly, Hans, if you don't mind my asking?" The executive director of Weselton Industries pointed and prodded at the meat with his knife.
"Pork," Hans replied seamlessly. When Weselton decided that the pork was some of the best he had ever tasted, Hans conceded with "A lot of it had to do with Anna's risotto, she's practically mastered it. The wine helps, too. A nice Chianti, which Anna also chose." Hans glanced over at his fiancee proudly.
Anna blushed. The flush suited her. In fact, this whole evening had suited her, she looked so lovely. The forest green dress she wore make her hair gleam with a coppery glow. Hans couldn't believe his luck. He was going to marry her. She was perfect. They were perfect. And now, nothing was ever going to hold Hans back.
After the success that was dinner, Hans accompanied Anna home, where she wanted to check on Elsa before turning in. She bumped into Gerda, the housemaid, on her way to Elsa's room.
"Gerda, has my sister come out since I left?"
"No. She hasn't been out of her room all day, not even for meals." Gerda seemed just as perplexed as Anna. Then, Anna had an idea,
"You have a set of all the keys in the house, right?" She asked Gerda.
"Well, yes, Kai and I bo-"
"Can I see your set?" Anna practically begged. Gerda raised a curious brow before handing over the keyring, telling Anna that the key to Elsa's room had the blue key cap. Anna ducked her head in thanks and took off, asking Hans to stay. She'd be back in a minute.
She dashed to Elsa's door and rapped loudly on the door. Still nothing. Anna fumbled for the blue-capped key and unlocked the door before slowly pushing it open.
The lights weren't on. It was late, though, Elsa was never a night owl. Anna tiptoed to the large bed near the balcony. The plush carpet made Anna's cautious pace even slower; Anna's high-heeled shoes sank and settled unevenly into the pile. As she came closer, the beige carpet grew strangely darker, almost black. Anna paused, suddenly scared. It was too quiet. She took her phone from her purse and turned on the flashlight. She took a deep, shuddering breath. The carpet wasn't black at all.
It was crimson red.
She turned, too quickly, falling to the ground. Her phone tumbled on the floor, flashlight still on and illuminating the room in a bluish tinge. Anna felt a sick, spongy feeling under her hands as she braced herself on the floor. She scrambled away from the stain wailing. Her hands were bright red. She gripped the sheets on Elsa's bed and pulled herself into a standing position, staining the covers as she went. The walls were painted with streaks of red blood.
Anna couldn't speak, only wail.
"Elsa?"
She stood, keening and wailing her sister's name, afraid to go any further. Her wailing grew louder and louder by the second. Soon, she wasn't just crying Elsa's name, but Hans's, Gerda's. Sometimes she just screamed. She didn't hear Hans and Gerda rushing down the hall yelling for Anna, nor did she feel his hand grasp her shoulder as he too froze at the sight of the bloody mess. She resisted his attempts to console her, to get her to leave the room. She shrugged him away and collapsed into the now-red carpeting, blood pounding in her ears. It wasn't until she was thrown over Hans's shoulder and carried out of the room that she came to her senses.
Investigators searched high and low, but a body couldn't be found. There had been too much blood at the scene for there to have been any hope of finding Elsa alive to begin with. She was, everyone ruled, certainly dead.
Anna wept for days, with Hans at her side. Even when she couldn't find the tears to shed, she cried out for her sister. She slept in between the periods of her crying, sometimes for days. She wept and dreamt of the days when she and Elsa were as thick as thieves and she wept and dreamt for the years Elsa spent in solitude. While Anna mourned, Hans arranged a lavish, beautiful memorial for Elsa. Anna attended, leaving the room she shared with Hans at his home -- she couldn't even bear the thought of her old home. They stood, arm in arm. Her eyes were dry, but she swayed as she stood. She gave no words for the sister she had now lost twice in her life, for she had none to begin with.
After Elsa's memorial, Anna hunkered up and went back to her work. She was now in charge of the Arendelle Company, and on top of that, she had a wedding to plan.
She threw herself into the occasion. She chose her wedding gown with an entourage of old school friends and some company women, but the pain of Elsa's permanent absence was obvious. In the end, it was all beautiful. Anna managed to conceal the sorrow for one day, and it shocked her how easily it was to do so. She grinned at Hans at the end of the aisle, looking dapper as usual in white tails, and he grinned back. They said their vows under the dome of an ancient abbey, choirs singing. They shared their first dance under a starry canopy of black velvet and diamonds. The newly-forged Westergaard couple was magnificent, many said.
After the wedding, everything slowed down. Although Anna thought of Elsa, she put her in the back of her mind. She would become steel now She was the head of a massive corporation, and she had to show it. Elsa's case had been a mystery from the moment she walked into the bloody room, and so it would stay. The perfect crime, one might say. On the days Anna didn't go into the office, which were many, she explored Hans's (and now hers, she had to remember) home. It was large and lovely, but devoid of any homey touches -- not even a family portrait. Anna soon took to collecting little knick knacks and placing them in spots all over the house so that it soon possessed its own "character". She also bought frames seemingly by the dozen. She filled them with various pictures. She and Hans as infants. A majority of them were of Anna and Hans leading up to their wedding. Their wedding portrait lay on her nightstand, right next to a smaller ice blue frame that held a Polaroid of her and Elsa as children, hugging a lumpy snowman.
The one place Anna didn't touch was the room off of the kitchen. That was where Hans himself butchered, prepared, and stored his meat for dinners to come. Personally, it creeped Anna out, no matter how admirable she thought it that Hans obviously cared about what they ate.
The pair continued to cook together, with Anna learning at an alarming pace. She still never handled the meat, though.
One night, almost a year into their marriage (with still no lead on Elsa's case), Anna woke in the middle of the night to an empty bed. It wasn't unusual; Hans often would pace around the house in the dead hours to clear his head. Tonight, however, Anna had woken up not in a cold sweat, but due to an ungodly clamor. She squinted at the clock at Hans's bedside. One forty-five? What the hell was going on? Anna quickly dashed downstairs, afraid at what she might find. She quickly reached the source of the ruckus, the kitchen. The back door had been flung open and Hans, clad in a plastic raincoat, was struggling with a nearly naked man. Wait, what? That didn't seem right.
Hans quickly pulled the man into a choke hold, turning to face Anna. She gasped, standing in the doorway in just Hans's pajama top, cold, for a few seconds processing what might have been going on. The seconds were punctuated by the choking man's gasps, which quickly grew fainter and fainter. Finally, she realized what was happening.
Murder.
Right then, Hans saw the glint in her eyes that he had seen so often before Elsa's death and the glint he had seen in his own eyes as she asked him, "What do you need me to do?"
Hans quickly held up a finger, "Wait," it seemed to say. She did. He quickly extinguished the man and dropped him to the floor. She loped forward as he directed her to take his feet and carry him into the room off of the kitchen.
Inside were several large saws and a massive chest freezer lined against the walls. Dead center lay a metal table, just large enough to hold a man. Hans directed Anna towards the table, where they dropped the body they carried with a thud. Anna watched from the sidelines as Hans swiftly cut through the man's limbs and stored them in large Ziploc bags, which he then tossed carelessly into the freezer. He was like a man possessed, so into his work, that he forgot about Anna for the minutes it took to break down the body and store it. As he cleaned his hands and stripped himself of the now-bloody raincoat, he slowly looked up at his wife, gauging her expression.
What he saw there bewildered him for a short second. She had passed the point of shock, he realized, and had careened into something both horrifying and magnificently beautiful: curiosity.
"It was never pork, was it?" she mumbled.
It was the start of something truly wonderful.