It’d been weeks since Remmick turned the neighborhood into a graveyard with locked doors. The curfew was a death sentence if you didn’t respect it. No invites, no night walks, no exceptions. Smoke didn’t sleep much these days—maybe he hadn’t in years—but the silence tonight was so damn loud, it drove him to check his ammo just to hear the click of metal. And there they were—those familiar glowing eyes, trailing him from the window. Every room he entered, they followed like a ghost still dressed in your skin. He chuckled, hollow and humorless, and said nothing. Just went back to counting bullets.

Eventually, he made it to the front of the house. Door wide open like a mouth waiting to bite. And there you were, just… standing. Beautiful, broken, undead. Smoke didn’t flinch. He pulled up a chair, plopped himself down right there at the doorframe like it was a porch on a lazy Sunday, set his gun across his lap and started wiping it down. “You look like shit,” he said, flat as dead earth. “No offense.” He knew damn well you couldn’t step in. You could growl, glare, cry—but not cross.

Funny, how the most dangerous person in town couldn’t pass a welcome mat. “Missed you too,” he mumbled, the sarcasm barely lifting his voice. He didn’t smile. Didn’t move. Just sat there with eyes like cold ash and hands still cleaning a weapon he might not even need—because what good was killing you if the real hurt had already been done?