Frankie didn't go looking for Jalen because she cared about him.
Not like she cared about Sofia. Not like she cared about Luca.
She went because Jalen didn't miss mornings.
In the lower district, that mattered more than character. A man could be drunk, rude, useless — none of it mattered if he still opened his door when the day demanded it. Jalen was a locksmith. He opened shops for merchants, barred doors for families, and fixed temple shutters for people who couldn't afford proper blessing seals.
He was reliable.
Reliable people didn't vanish quietly.
By midmorning, half the alley behind the market had already said his name.
"He didn't open shop." "Door's barred from inside." "Maybe he's sick." "His boots are still outside."
That last part stuck.
Boots didn't stay when someone chose to leave.
Frankie walked the street with a bundle of grain under one arm, hood down, expression blank. Ordinary girl. Ordinary errand.
Marco followed two steps behind, cane tapping lightly against stone.
"You don't have to come," she murmured.
"I'm not coming," Marco said softly. "I'm nearby."
She didn't argue.
They reached the shop wedged between a shuttered tailor and a charm stall. The crooked sign swayed slightly above the door.
And Jalen's boots sat outside.
Old leather. Worn toes. Still aligned neatly beside the frame.
Frankie stopped a pace short of the threshold.
Warmth stirred beneath her ribs.
Not pain.
Recognition.
Marco's cane tapped once, then stilled.
"You feel it," she said.
"Yes."
The door didn't open. The lock was barred from inside. A pale smear dusted the metal — not rust, not dirt. Something chalky, faint as ash.
Her ribs tightened again.
Across the alley, a woman pretended to clean her doorway while watching.
"You seen him this morning?" Frankie asked casually.
The woman hesitated. "No."
"Noise last night?"
"…Something heavy. Then quiet."
Frankie nodded and moved away like she'd lost interest.
She turned the corner and lowered her voice.
"Back entrance."
They circled through the service corridor behind the tailor.
The air changed before the door did.
Clean. Cold. Wrong.
Like stone after lightning.
Marco breathed slower. "Not human."
Frankie pushed the rear door open.
Inside, the workshop sat dim and still. Tools scattered across the bench. Glue hardened in its pot. A chair knocked sideways.
Jalen never left work unfinished.
Scuff marks dragged through the dust toward the storage room.
Frankie wrapped her fingers around her dagger but didn't draw it yet.
She pushed the back room door.
Something crouched between the shelves.
At first glance — a scavenger.
Low posture. Twisted limbs. Hunger in its shape.
Then it lifted its head.
A face remained.
Not fully. Not cleanly. But enough.
Jalen.
One eye brown and terrified.
The other pale and faintly glowing.
His throat worked.
"…run…"
The word barely existed.
Frankie froze.
He was still inside.
His body trembled. Muscles pulling in different directions like two wills fought for the same bones.
Then the glowing eye focused.
Jalen lunged.
Frankie stepped in, turning her shoulder and slamming him sideways into a shelf. Crates fell. Metal clattered.
Marco moved with her.
Jalen snapped at him, teeth sharpening, and Marco struck down with the cane across his arm. The limb bent wrong — then snapped back unnaturally.
Frankie's chest tightened.
Too loud. Too slow.
Neighbors could hear.
Jalen twisted, dragging himself upright again, human eye pleading while the other burned with instinct.
"This isn't your fault," Frankie whispered.
His mouth opened.
A scream tore out — no longer human.
Frankie moved immediately, catching his shoulder and forcing him back against the wall. Marco pinned his legs, controlled, careful not to show impossible strength.
Frankie raised the dagger.
Jalen's human eye filled with terror.
He didn't want this.
But he couldn't stop.
She hesitated a fraction too long.
"Frankie."
Marco's voice was steady.
Not urging mercy. Not urging cruelty.
Just reminding her the moment had passed.
Frankie lowered the blade slightly.
"Marco."
He understood.
Marco shifted his grip and drove the cane forward, hard and precise into Jalen's throat.
A single clean strike.
Jalen convulsed.
The glow in his eye flickered once.
Then went out.
Silence returned.
Frankie didn't move right away.
For a moment she just stood there, hand still raised, breathing uneven.
He had tried to warn her.
That mattered.
She closed his eye.
Only then did the sensation come.
A pull in the air — not visible, not tangible — but undeniable. Something loosened from the corpse and flowed outward like cooling heat.
Frankie felt it divide.
Part toward her.
Part toward Marco.
She turned.
Marco straightened slowly, unaware of anything unusual except the quiet.
But Frankie could feel it.
A subtle settling inside him. Weight distributing differently. Balance correcting. The faint sense of something unfinished becoming aligned.
Growth.
He frowned slightly, flexing his hand around the cane.
"…I feel different."
Frankie believed him.
She wiped her blade clean.
"He said run," Marco murmured.
"Yes."
"Angels did this."
Frankie nodded once.
Outside, someone laughed in the alley.
Normal life continued.
Frankie stepped back into the workshop, resetting what she could, closing the back door. To anyone else it would look abandoned. Robbed, maybe.
Not transformed.
They walked home without rushing.
Inside the apartment Luca looked up immediately.
"What happened?"
Frankie set her hands on the table.
"They're here."
"Who?"
"Angels."
Marco spoke quietly behind her.
"And they're making things."
Sofia pushed upright, sleepy. "What do you mean?"
Frankie held her gaze gently.
"They're taking people," she said. "And turning some of them into scavengers."
Luca went still.
"That's why there are so many…"
Frankie nodded.
"And it means the missing won't stay missing."
She exhaled slowly.
"We find how they're getting inside the city," she said. "And we stop it before it reaches someone we can't afford to lose."
Outside, the district carried on arguing about milk and coin and nothing important.
Inside, the hunt began.
Luca didn't answer immediately. His grip tightened on the spear until his knuckles paled.
"If one made it here," he said quietly, "there will be more."
Frankie looked toward the shuttered window, toward the maze of streets beyond it, and for the first time the city didn't feel like shelter.
It felt like a hunting ground.
And something had already started feeding.