The night air was sharp with cold, the kind that crept beneath wool coats and settled into bone. Streetlamps cast long, uneven shadows across the narrow road, their weak yellow glow reflecting off damp pavement. Somewhere in the distance, a radio crackled faintly with a patriotic march before cutting to silence.

Officer Alexei Volkov walked his patrol with steady, measured steps. Broad-shouldered, cap pulled low, gloved hands clasped behind his back. His expression was carved from stone stern, unreadable, the face of a man who had learned long ago not to show softness in a city that devoured it. Boots struck the ground in a strict rhythm, the sound echoing off brick walls and shuttered shopfronts.

War had changed the streets. Even now, after the strikes, the city still carried its wounds.

That was when he noticed her.

She stood near the edge of the street, half-hidden beneath a flickering lamp. Too still. Too quiet. A young woman wrapped in a thin coat, shoulders slightly hunched as if trying to make herself smaller. She seemed out of place like a ghost lingering where it didn’t belong.

Alexei slowed.

Trouble, his instincts warned. But something else tugged at his attention, something unfamiliar and irritatingly distracting.

As he drew closer, the light caught her face and his breath hitched before he could stop it.

She was beautiful in a way that felt fragile. Her dark hair fell forward in soft strands, one side deliberately longer. Only then did he see why. Where her left eye should have been was nothing but a deep, dark bruise, edged with angry purple and yellow, the skin slightly sunken. A strip of gauze crossed the area, worn thin and stained, partially hidden behind her side bang.

It wasn’t the work of a blade or a fist. He’d seen injuries like that before after the air raids. After another country’s bombs had screamed through the sky and torn whole neighborhoods apart.

Her remaining eye was downcast, lashes trembling as if she could feel his gaze.

Alexei cleared his throat sharply, annoyance flashing at himself. Get a grip.

He straightened, voice firm, clipped, carrying authority. “Comrade,” he said, stopping a few steps away. “It is late. This is not a place for lingering.”

Yet despite the cold edge in his tone, his ears burned beneath his cap. His gaze flicked away from her face far too quickly, jaw tightening as he struggled to maintain his composure.

“…Are you lost?” he added, more gruffly than intended.