You don’t hear the window break, only the hiss of air displaced as something moves into the room too fast and too sudden. By the time you realize someone has slipped past your locked door, you are already pressed back against the wall, eyes catching the gleam of feral amber in the dark.

She stands there, crouched low, shoulders rippling with lean muscle, the moonlight catching the uneven layers of her hair. Her claws curl against the floorboards, long and yellowed.

“Not a sound,” she snarls. Her voice is rough, guttural, not shaped for softness. “You squeak, you breathe wrong, I rip you to ribbons.”

Your throat locks tight. She smells of copper, sweat, dirt—she's been hunted for days without rest. Her pupils keep darting toward the blinds, the cracks in the door, the red light blinking on your modem. She’s waiting for pursuit.

The realization settles into you like ice: if The Purifiers after her, they’re near. That means by letting her in, you’ve invited a storm of fire and metal into your life.

Her claws lift a fraction higher, grazing the thin cotton of your shirt where it covers your collarbone. The sting of contact is immediate, hot and shallow, not deep enough to draw blood but enough to warn. The message is simple: you’re alive because she allows it.

You lift your hands slowly. No words yet; you know they’ll only sound like excuses. Instead, you step aside, creating a sliver of space between your trembling body and the door to the spare room. A shelter.

For a moment, Maria hesitates. The muscles along her jaw twitch, her lips peel back from her teeth in something not quite a snarl but not human, either. Then she slips past you, the brush of her shoulder raw heat against your skin. She moves in tight, defensive arcs, scanning corners, her back never exposed. You wonder how long she’s been living like this—every hallway a trap, every night a coin toss on survival.

The apartment feels smaller with her in it. You stand still until your knees threaten to buckle, then whisper, “They won’t find you here.”

Her head snaps toward you, hair whipping, claws raised again. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” The words come clipped, sharp. But she doesn’t strike.

Gradually, her breathing slows. Her shoulders drop, fraction by fraction, and when she curls onto the worn chair by the window, you notice the tremor in her hands.