The mall's air conditioning hit Nze as he entered through the sliding doors, a welcome relief from St. Leo's persistent heat. Messages from his student claimed he was "almost there," so Nze found a spot at the food court, ordering a cold Sprite while he waited. The bottle sweated against his palm as he observed the usual Sunday evening scene—families pushing shopping carts, teenagers in clusters taking selfies, security guards making their rounds with practiced indifference.

But then he saw her.

She stood at the corner of 'Glamour Heights Boutique', her face tugging at his memory like a half-forgotten dream. Something about her profile, the way she held herself—familiar yet just out of reach in his mind. She wore a fitted black top and jeans, nothing remarkable, but she carried herself with an odd grace that seemed out of place in the fluorescent-lit mall.

The boys she was meeting didn't look like university students—more like senior secondary school kids, but built heavy, their shoulders tight with tension. Five of them, all wearing dark clothes despite the weather, kept glancing over their shoulders as they spoke in hushed tones. The girl's hand movements were precise, deliberate, as if she were giving instructions.

Nze took another sip of his Sprite, trying to appear casual while his mind raced. Where had he seen her? At the college? One of his lectures? No, it was somewhere else, somewhere...

The group began to move. The girl led, her steps silent despite the mall's echoing floors, while the boys followed like shadows. They headed toward the less populated wing of the mall, where several shops had closed for renovation.

Before he could question the wisdom of his actions, Nze found himself standing. He dropped his half-finished Sprite in a bin and followed, maintaining what he hoped was a discreet distance. His phone buzzed in his pocket—probably the student—but he ignored it. Something about this felt important, like a word on the tip of his tongue, a memory struggling to surface.

They turned down a corridor where the overhead lights flickered erratically. A 'Wet Floor' sign stood guard over dry tiles. Music from the main area of the mall grew faint, replaced by the hum of distant generators and the sound of his own careful footsteps.

Nze's heart beat faster as he realized he was now alone in this corridor—the group had vanished around a corner. He slowed his pace, suddenly aware of how the security cameras above seemed to be pointed at odd angles, none of them covering the actual walkway. The air felt different here, heavier, like the moment before a storm breaks.

He reached the corner where they'd disappeared and peered around it carefully, expecting to see them further ahead.

The corridor was empty.

Through the thick glass panels of the mall, the evening sun painted long shadows across the floor. Just as Nze was about to admit defeat and head back, he caught a flash of movement—the girl, gliding onto the escalator heading up to the cinema level. Her reflection multiplied in the mall's glass walls, each one slightly different, moving at angles that didn't quite match her actual movement.

Nze spotted a small crowd—mostly teenagers and a couple with a child—heading for the same escalator. He fell in behind them, trying to appear casual while keeping the girl in his peripheral vision. The escalator hummed beneath his feet as they ascended, the mall's generic afrobeat music growing fainter with each floor they passed.

He maintained his position behind the couple, using their presence as a shield. But halfway up, The girl turned her head slightly—just enough that he caught a glimpse of her profile in the distant mirror wall.

That's when it hit him—the memory of the Skyfall party. The girl was Kitty, Arthur's shadow, moving through the crowd with that same predatory grace. A were-leopard among humans, playing at being one of them while being anything but.

The crowd he ascended the escalator with dispersed as they reached the cinema level, and Nze found himself suddenly exposed.

The cinema level buzzed with Sunday evening energy—couples buying tickets, friends debating movie choices, the smell of popcorn thick in the air. But Kitty had vanished into the crowd like smoke. Nze moved carefully between groups of people, his discomfort growing. What was a were-leopard doing with those boys? What game was she playing?

Now she had disappeared again, leaving him standing in the middle of the cinema lobby, uncomfortably aware that he had probably just made a very big mistake.

The neon sign for the men's restroom offered a moment to collect his thoughts. He pushed open the door, welcoming the relative quiet inside. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead as he approached the sink, turning on the tap to splash some water on his face.

That's when he saw it in the mirror—a maintenance door behind him that had definitely not been there when he'd entered. It stood slightly ajar, revealing darkness beyond. A subtle scent wafted from it, something wild and ancient, like sun-warmed earth and crushed leaves.

His rational mind screamed at him to leave, to walk out and forget everything he'd seen. Instead, he found himself moving toward the door, drawn by something he couldn't name. The door opened silently to reveal a narrow service corridor, emergency lights casting everything in a dim red glow.

Three steps in, the door clicked shut behind him.

"Curiosity," a voice purred from the shadows, "is a dangerous trait in St. Leo."

Kitty emerged from the shadows with a deliberate slowness, her presence filling the narrow corridor like a predator circling prey. She didn't walk so much as flow through the space between them, her eyes catching the red emergency lights in a way that made them look like burning copper. And there was a scent to her—wild and earthy, like rain on dry soil. It lingered, unshakable, but not in the way Bee's did. Bee's scent was warm and reckless, the kind that made you forget where you were supposed to be and want to stay lost forever.

"Why are you following me, Stray?"

The way she called him a stray made his skin prickle. She knew him. Not just from the party—she knew him. He felt it.

"I—" he started, but she was suddenly much closer, her movement too quick to track.

"Careful," she whispered, her face inches from his. "Think very carefully about what you say next. Lies have a particular smell, you know."

The service corridor seemed to stretch endlessly in both directions now, the red emergency lights creating mirrors of shadows that moved when they shouldn't. Nze stood his ground, though every instinct screamed at him to run. But where could you run in St. Leo when a were-beast had you in their sights?

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ ✩₊˚

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