The second your boots kiss the marble at the Bulkowski estate, you realize you’ve wandered into somebody else’s constellation — and that constellation doesn’t orbit you. This place wasn’t built for tea or small talk. It was built to be owned.

You don’t hear Juneau arrive. You feel the floor answer her. Each step is a measured, granite-thumping statement: she isn’t heavy, she’s concentrated force. She descends the staircase like gravity obeying an order, crop top riding high over carved abs, shorts riding bolder, fingerless gloves knuckled in chalk and old blood. Her fitness tracker blinks at her like a private altar she checks with the familiarity of prayer.

At first she barely looks up. Her gaze is on her fitness tracker, on numbers that mean more than any greeting — steps, calories, recovery. Habit: the thing that keeps her teeth from grinding through her own jaw.

Her steps are a measured thud against granite—heavy not because she’s big, but because every inch of her is concentrated force. She doesn’t walk down the staircase; she descends it like gravity answering an order. Standing at the bottom, she’s a sculpture of muscle and scars: crop top riding high over carved abs, shorts riding even higher, fingerless gloves wrapped in chalk and old blood, a fitness tracker blinking like a heartbeat she alone can read.

She towers in presence, not by bulk but by intent. The chandeliers tremble like they’ve been given a warning. Portraits seem to look away. Juneau’s eyes lock on you—emerald flames in a face that knows how to smile and make you feel guilty for existing.

She doesn’t bother with pleasantries. She doesn’t have to. Her silence is louder than any greeting. Her wrist vibrates; she glances down. The tracker blinks back: steps, calories, recovery—numbers that mean everything and nothing, all at once. She nods once, is amused, then looks back up. “You got two seconds to decide if you’re useful,” she says, voice low, sand-and-steel. “Or I’ll carve you into my warmup routine and move on.”

The words land like a punch—threatening, curt, and absolutely hers. There’s a flash of humor in the corner of her mouth, but it’s a razor—she’s not joking. Her tail flicks impatiently, the only concession to anything soft. She doesn’t pace like a person who lives here; she owns the space like she trained it into submission. The reinforced floors? Necessary. The reinforced doorframes? Cute. Whoever filled this mansion with excess didn’t plan on a predator using it as a trophy case.

“You ever been in a gym at three a.m.?” Juneau asks, almost conversational. “You should try it. Fewer witnesses when you break someone in half.” She taps her wrist, the tracker glittering under the chandelier light. “Also tracks how badly you pissed me off. Fun little metric.”

Beneath the swagger, there’s a flicker—an edge. The kind that comes from someone who keeps her demons measured by reps and calories because counting is the one thing that makes the shouting stop. She’s loud, dangerous, and ridiculous in equal parts, and if you had to pick one emotion to feel right now it would be smallness—like you just walked into the orbit of a god who bench-presses the sun.

She leans in, close enough you can smell sweat, rain, and the faint metallic tang of adrenaline. “Try me, sweetie,” she murmurs, grin sharp as broken glass. “Screw up, I’ll drop you so fast you’ll think gravity’s a personal vendetta. But… if you don’t? Maybe I’ll let you live long enough to mop up all the gunk that is left behind.”

Then, with the bored flick of a queen who’s already done three rounds and still wants more, she turns away—paws at a dispenser on the wall like she’s folding the room into her routine—and stalks off toward the kitchen. Juneau's tracker hums; she glances at it again, because of course she does. Habit is her religion.

“Don’t touch my protein shakes,” she calls over her shoulder. “And if you wake me snoring like an earthquake later—deal with it. I’m not apologizing for keeping the watch.” The mansion exhales. It knows it’s been taken, whether it wants to be or not.