"Are you going to kill me?" The words escaped Nze's mouth before he could catch them, reckless and untethered, like a balloon already out of reach. They hung there in the thick, red-hued air, between his fear and her amusement.

Kitty smiled, but it was the kind of smile that made you wish you hadn't asked the question. "That depends," she said, her voice calm, almost bored. She started to circle him, slow and deliberate, like a cat deciding if the mouse was worth the chase. "What were you doing following me?"

"No reason," Nze blurted, his voice wobbling like a bridge about to collapse. "You just... looked familiar." He swallowed hard, wondering if the truth would be worse than the lie. "How did you even know I was there?"

Her laugh was soft, velvet over steel, and it crawled up his spine. "I could smell you from a mile away," she said, stopping just behind him. Her breath brushed his ear like the edge of a knife. "All that stray flesh and blood..." She inhaled, long and slow, making him flinch. "Humans always smell so... temporary."

The words hit like a slap, but Nze forced himself to stand his ground. "Is Bee here?" he asked, his voice cracking slightly. "At the mall?"

Kitty stepped into his line of sight again, tilting her head as if he'd just said something absurd. "Why would she be?" she asked, the question almost gentle, like the answer might break him.

"I—I don't know," he stammered, his mind grasping at straws.

"Look," she said, her voice softening just enough to make it sting. "This thing you're doing? Whatever you think you feel for her? It's not going to work. You're human. She's not. You wouldn't survive long enough to... well, let's just say it wouldn't end well."

"What do you mean?" Nze asked, his heart thundering loud enough to drown out reason.

Kitty's eyes flickered, just for a second, with something that might have been pity, though it disappeared as quickly as it came. "You remind me of the last one," she said, leaning back against the wall, her voice carrying the weight of old stories. "Bee has this... habit. She picks up humans like toys. Plays with them until she's bored, then tosses them aside." She ran a nail across her palm as if tracing an invisible scar. "The last one? Michael, I think his name was. The papers called it a 'mysterious death.' But we both know better, don't we?"

The emergency lights pulsed in time with Nze's racing heart, throwing long, restless shadows across the walls. "Is that a threat?" he asked, his voice steadier than he felt.

Kitty straightened, stepping closer, close enough that he could see the fire in her eyes wasn't just metaphorical. "Oh, no," she said lightly, almost kindly. "It's a warning. Out of courtesy, I suppose. Stay away from Bee. Go live your nice, boring human life. Fall in love with someone who won't accidentally kill you. Die of old age, not curiosity."

"That's it?" Nze asked, startled by the steadiness in his voice, as if the fear in his chest had been temporarily evicted. 

Kitty tilted her head, amusement flickering across her face like a flame. "Brave," she said, almost affectionately. "Stupid, but brave. Michael had that too." She stepped back, creating just enough distance to make him wonder if it was mercy or mockery. "Run along, little stray. And remember—some mysteries in St. Leo? Better left unopened. Like Pandora's box. Or old leftovers in the fridge."

She gestured to her right, and where there had been a solid wall, there was now a door. Just a door, unremarkable and perfectly ordinary, which made it all the more sinister. "This will take you back to the main floor. By the way, your friend's been waiting for twenty minutes. He's on his third cup of ice cream, which honestly, sounds like a personal low."

Nze took a cautious step toward the door, his legs somehow carrying him forward while his brain screamed for answers. As he reached for the handle, Kitty's voice sliced through the air like a whisper that had decided it wanted to be heard.

"Oh, and stray?" She said the word like it was his name, like it was carved into his bones. He turned back, her eyes glowing faintly in the dim light. "Next time you feel like tailing someone, remember this moment. Not everyone gives warnings."

He opened the door and stepped into the bright, bustling chaos of the mall's main floor. The fluorescent lights and chatter felt jarringly normal, like waking up from a dream that had already begun to slip away. But when he glanced back, the service corridor was gone, replaced by a solid wall plastered with a superhero movie poster promising "a thrilling ride into darkness." 

His phone buzzed in his pocket, an impatient vibration that yanked him back to reality. Three missed calls and a handful of texts, all from Chiboy. 

Nze spotted him almost immediately, sitting at the same food court table, surrounded by an army of empty ice cream cups. His fingers were flying across his phone, probably sending another "bro, are you dead?" text. 

Chiboy looked up and spotted him, relief breaking across his face. "Dude! Where the heck have you been? I thought you got lost or abducted or something. Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Nze said, sliding into the seat across from him. "Everything's fine." The words felt hollow, like the shell of something that used to be alive. He glanced at the half-melted ice cream in front of Chiboy and tried not to think about the look in Kitty's eyes when she'd said Michael's name. 

They started going over their assignment, but Nze's mind was somewhere else, chasing threads that refused to tie themselves together. Kitty's cryptic warnings, the way the corridor had vanished, Michael's name hanging in the air like an unanswered question. 

And as Chiboy talked about something—maybe something important, maybe not—Nze couldn't shake the feeling that somewhere in the mall, amber eyes were still watching him, waiting to see if he would listen.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ ✩₊˚

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