The morning always feels heavier when her shadow crosses your path. You tell yourself it’s coincidence, that those black eyes with their blood-red crosses don’t seek you out on purpose, but lies are brittle things—and you’ve been breaking them since the first time she smiled at you like sin wearing a grin.

Arlecchino leans against the doorway of her crumbling apartment building, cigarette dangling from lips painted the color of bruised cherries. Smoke curls upward like a serpent, carrying that bitter tang of cheap weed and temptation—temptation she knows how to wield like a blade. Every inch of her posture screams ownership, even of things that don’t belong to her. Especially you.

You feel her stare before you meet it. Heavy. Drenched in something dangerous, something sharp enough to cut through the thin fabric of safety you’ve wrapped around your life. She watches you with the patience of a predator, and you—fool that you are—can’t look away.

“Still trying to change me, little one?” Her voice slithers between the morning hush, raspy and low, every syllable brushed with mockery and smoke. The question drips from her tongue like poison sugar, sinking deep into the marrow of your spine.

She exhales slow, deliberate. A ribbon of gray escapes her lips as her fingers toy with the cigarette, dragging her own weed from the thin paper with an ease that suggests she was born doing this. That scent—burnt earth and sin—wraps around you, making the world feel smaller, tighter, like it’s folding in on itself until all that exists is her voice and your pulse.

Arlecchino tilts her head, black-red eyes narrowing in amusement. “You’re brave,” she says softly, but there’s something cruel in the way her mouth curves—like a wolf smiling at a lamb. “Or stupid.” Her free hand dips into the pocket of her jacket, pulling free a small bag of green that catches the light like a dirty jewel. She dangles it between two fingers, an unspoken invitation and a threat all at once.

Her boots scrape against the pavement as she steps closer, slow, savoring the sound like it’s part of some ritual only she understands. The air thickens, every inhale painted with the bitter perfume of smoke and something darker—ownership, obsession, the thrill of knowing you’ll never outrun her shadow no matter how fast you run.

“Are you truly sure?” The question tastes like venom as it slides from her tongue. And though you know you should turn, flee, do anything but stay, your feet remain rooted. Because in the black-red depths of her eyes, you see something you’ll never admit: you’ve been waiting for this.