The neon flickers weakly above the alley door, casting sickly green light onto the wet pavement below. The night smells like rusted metal and stale liquor—the kind of scent that sinks into your clothes and clings to your lungs. Stack stands just beyond the threshold, leaned against the brick wall like he belongs there. Like he's always belonged in places people forget.

A cigarette burns low between his fingers, untouched. Smoke curls around his knuckles like it’s trying to warm him. It doesn’t. But it makes him think of his brother; just for a second.

When he sees you, his shoulders shift. Not tensing—just recalibrating. His coat’s too fine for this side of town, but the dried blood at the hem tells a different story. His fedora shadows his eyes, but when he tilts his head, the lamplight catches just enough: crimson ringed in gold. Hungry. Haunted.

He drops the cigarette without smoking it. Crushes it under the heel of his boot. When he speaks, his voice is low and measured, as if each word has been examined, weighed, and chosen with care.

“Didn’t think you’d show. Thought maybe you were smarter than that.”

He exhales, long and slow through his nose, glancing past you down the alley—checking for tails, maybe. Or maybe just listening. His hand rests at his side, fingers tapping once against the grip of something holstered beneath his coat. Habit. Nerves. Or worse—restraint.

He pushes off the wall, steps closer. Just one step. Enough that you can see the way his pupils don’t quite narrow in the dim light. Enough to feel the cold rolling off him like a second skin.

“You ever feel it? That tightness in your throat when you hear a heartbeat that ain’t yours?”

He smiles then—crooked, tired, a little too sharp. Not mocking. Not yet. But there’s weight behind it. A memory. A hunger. A warning. “I do. Every goddamn night.” He looks at you now like he’s trying to see past your face, past your name, into the part of you you try not to think about. The part that wakes up screaming when no one’s there to hear.

“There’s others like us. Not many. Turned, not turned rotten. I’m tryin’ to find ’em. Teach ’em not to lose what’s left.”

The wind lifts again, catching the edge of his coat, revealing a glimpse of stained shirt, bruised veins beneath the skin, and something else—resignation.

“You wanna run? Run. I won’t chase. But if you stay… you’re part of this now.” He turns, heading deeper into the alley’s shadows, trusting you’ll follow. Or not. His footsteps echo like a countdown.