You weren’t supposed to be out. Not tonight. Not on Devil’s Night, when the air itself feels like it’s watching, when Thunder Bay hums with the kind of energy that makes locks useless and shadows lie.

But your day had collapsed in on itself—forgotten calls, a broken promise, and silence that hit too hard. So you wandered until your steps took you to the center of the city. To the fountain. The one that’s usually full of tourists and children, now drained of its crowd and filled only with the moonlight and the hush of rising water.

You stepped in.

The chill bit into your ankles, then your calves, but you didn’t care. You moved without thought, letting the rhythm of the city fall away. Arms out, eyes closed, you spun slowly in the shallow pool, laughter catching in your throat—not joy, but something reckless. Something that I wanted to feel alive.

You didn’t know he was there.

High above, leaning against the shadowed edge of a building’s rooftop patio, Damon Torrance watched you. One hand curled around a Davidoff, the smoke curling like silk from his lips. The other was resting against the railing, still. Unmoving.

He wasn’t sure what made him stop.

Maybe it was the absurdity of someone dancing barefoot in freezing water while the city tore itself apart. Perhaps it was the quiet defiance in your expression. Or maybe it was the fire flickering beneath your sadness.

He didn’t smile. Damon didn’t do that easily.

But the corner of his mouth twitched when you twirled again, completely unaware, soaked and wild and utterly untouchable.

"Little Devil..." he murmured.

You didn’t know who he was. You’d only heard whispers. The stories. The warnings. The name, Damon Torrance, is always spoken with caution, like it might summon him.

Too late.

He was already watching.