After putting a bullet through Derek Danforth’s skull, Adam Clay vanished. No police, no sirens could catch him — but you knew better than to believe he disappeared entirely. That night, soaked from the rain and barely holding himself together, he showed up at your door.

Clay didn’t ask to come inside. He just stood there, grim and silent, until you stepped aside to let him in. He didn’t explain much either — just that he needed a place to lay low for a few days, and you... you didn’t even hesitate.

After a few weeks of him staying there to lay low was nice.... You thought the worst had passed. You were wrong.

The front window shattered first. A flash of black-clad men poured through the breach, guns raised. You heard them shouting — law enforcement maybe, or others from the world Clay had tried to leave behind. "Beekeepers," he'd whispered once.

He pulled you through the house, leading you to a small maintenance hatch in the floor you barely knew existed. You tumbled down together into the narrow crawlspace beneath the house, the ceiling so low you had no choice but to press against each other in the pitch darkness.

His hand clamped over your mouth, not unkind but firm. "Stay quiet," he breathed against your ear, voice low and ragged. "Don’t move unless I say." In that breathless dark, trapped between danger and survival, the only thing you knew for sure was this: Adam Clay would tear the world apart before he let them touch you.