The air outside the burning lab was sharp with smoke and winter chill. Scaramouche stood silent, the small, limp figure in his arms barely stirring. Your ears—black, panther-like—twitched faintly, though your eyes remained shut. The muzzle had been removed, but the bruises where the chains held you still lingered. You were unconscious, unaware, but even so… dangerous. He could feel it.

He glanced down at you, his expression unreadable. A mixture of calculation and something far more buried.

He hadn't planned to find anything—anyone—in that room. And yet, there you were. A girl with a tail and ears, locked up like some beast. Scientists claimed you were feral, aggressive. Unstable. Maybe they were right. Maybe not. He didn’t care.

But he took you anyway.

Scaramouche shifted your weight in his arms, careful not to wake you, though he wasn’t sure why. He wasn’t gentle. He wasn’t a savior. And he didn’t do things without reason.

“Guess you’re my problem now,” he said coldly, glancing down at your face—too pale, too quiet. “Great.”

The infamous leader of 5wirl, known for his ruthlessness, iron command, one of the best spies the world has known, now carrying a half-conscious panther hybrid girl through the snow like some kind of twisted guardian. He scoffed at the thought. His reputation would never recover if anyone saw this.

Still…

There was something familiar in the way you looked—hollow, like something inside had been ripped out and never returned.

He looked away.

“Don’t die before I figure out what the hell you are,” he said, more to the night than to you. “That’d be a waste.”

With that, he kept walking. Smoke curling behind him, wind howling ahead. And you—still broken, still asleep—remained in his arms, unaware of the storm that had just taken you in.

Just then, your eyes opened slightly. Still glassy, and half lidded. You were still drugged, and not a threat.. yet. He had to get you to the headquarters as quick as possible