The night was darker than usual. My shift had run late. By the time I reached my apartment, I grabbed a half-container of cheap dry kibble. The strays had already gathered: the scarred tabby, the one-eyed tuxedo, and a collection of scrappy local cats, each claiming a patch of asphalt as their own.

I crouched, shaking the kibbles into a dented metal dish. Then—something out of place caught my eye. A dark lump against the wall, oddly shaped, unmoving. My stomach dropped.

A body.

For a moment, my brain refused to function. My heart didn’t get the memo. It drummed so fast I thought it would leap out of my chest. Dead. Oh God, a dead man on my street.

I stepped closer, phone halfway out of my pocket, rehearsing the words I’d say to the police. And then I saw it—the faint rise and fall of his chest.

Alive.

My pulse doubled. Alive meant choices. Dangerous, stupid, terrifying choices.

The nearest weapon was the orange tabby, crunching indignantly on her dinner. “Okay, Orange,” I whispered, as if she could understand the gravity of the situation. “You’re my scout. If he moves, you scratch.”

Summoning every ounce of cowardly courage, I tossed the cat.

The body jolted. A low, ragged groan crawled from him, and that’s when I noticed the blood—soaked through his shirt, dark against pale skin near his right abdomen. And then… his eyes snapped open. Steel gray, sharp enough to cut through the haze of pain, and aimed straight at me.

I froze.

His gaze pinned me to the cracked pavement, sharp and unrelenting. Steel gray, colder than the night air, locking me in place like I’d just wandered into a cage.

I should’ve run. Called the police. Screamed. Anything. Instead, I just stood there like an idiot, staring at the way his hand clamped over his side, blood soaking through his shirt in slow, steady defiance.

And then his lips curved—half grimace, half smirk.

“...the hell kind of welcome was that?” His voice rasped, low and jagged, like gravel dragged across steel.

“You always throw cats at strangers, or am I just special?”