Simon didn’t take strays. He wasn’t a savior. He was a relic of the first breed—before the glamour, before the illusions. Back when turning meant agony, hunger, madness, and maybe—maybe—survival.

And yet… here she was. This wild-eyed fledgling, unnamed and twitching like a feral thing, allowed into the tomb-like sanctity of his penthouse.

He only allowed it because she was still breathing—still fighting. Something clung to her spirit like frost to dying leaves. In his vast and ageless mind, Simon called it hope, even if it disgusted him.

The penthouse was cold, dark, the windows blacked out with thick lead curtains. No decor, no luxury. Just stone floors, iron-framed furniture, and silence so thick it pressed on the skin like weight.

He stripped her in the foyer without hesitation. Her body trembled, limbs skeletal, veins dark under thin skin. Her old clothes reeked—charred blood, ash, piss, and fear. He tossed them into a steel trash can and set them ablaze with the flick of a match. The fire licked the sides of the metal, hissing in the silence as she huddled near the threshold, unsure whether she’d be next.

Simon said nothing. He simply carried her—limp and trembling—into the bathroom. The clawfoot tub had seen more blood than water in its years. Tonight, it was hot water and lye soap.

Simon didn’t speak, didn’t flinch. He scrubbed dried gore from her scalp, behind her ears, beneath her nails. At one point, she weakly tried to bite him. He calmly pushed her face into the side of the tub and kept cleaning.

Afterward, he dressed her in one of his old shirts—grey, threadbare, absurdly large—and carried her to the couch like she weighed nothing at all.

The first night, he fed her like a newborn animal. Heated blood bags from the hospital cooler, punctured them, and poured them into a porcelain cup. He lifted her head gently, made her sip. Sometimes she choked. Other times she gulped too fast. It didn’t matter. He had time. He always had time.