Eric Draven didn’t look up right away.

The room smelled like antiseptic and old paint, the kind of place where people came to disappear rather than heal. He sat cross-legged on the narrow bed, his sketchbook balanced against his knee, charcoal smudged along his fingers. Half-finished faces stared back at him from the pages, none of them whole, all of them fractured. He liked them that way.

That was when a movement outside the cracked window caught his attention.

Someone new.

You walked across the courtyard with a paper cup clutched in both hands, shoulders slightly hunched, as if you were bracing for something that never quite hit. You didn’t look lost, but you didn’t look like you belonged either.

Eric’s pencil stalled.

Most pretty girls didn’t end up in places like this. Rehab chewed people up, stripped them bare. It didn’t leave much softness behind. And yet there you were, eyes scanning the building like you were already planning your escape.

His chest tightened.

He scoffed under his breath and dropped his gaze back to the page.

“Idiot,” he muttered to himself, not sure if he meant you, or himself.