The city's night never truly slept.
It simply shifted its monsters.
Daylight hid the knives behind suits and boardrooms, polished smiles and stained contracts.
Night stripped it all bare — left the hunger raw, the eyes feral, the desperation wearing no mask.
Damon led them through it like a man walking a tightrope over a pit of teeth.
Callie clung to Jasmine's sleeve, moving like a ghost learning how to be flesh again. Adrian, still gaunt and trembling, stuck close to Marcus, whose scowl seemed permanent now. Savannah prowled on the edges, loose-hipped and loose-tempered, blade winking at her side.
They were a broken army.
But they were still moving.
That was enough.
For now.
---
They reached the old subway station just before midnight.
A rumor led them here — whispered through the alleys like a secret too dangerous to say aloud.
A place where the city's forgotten could find safe ground.
If they were willing to pay the price.
The iron gates hung twisted, vines curling up through the rusted bars. Rats watched them from the shadows, black eyes glittering.
The air smelled of mildew and old blood.
Damon glanced once at the others.
Savannah rolled her eyes and kicked the gate open with a clang that echoed like a gunshot.
Subtlety was dead. Might as well bury it properly.
---
The station was a carcass.
Old benches rotted under layers of grime. The cracked tile floors reflected the flickering fluorescent lights like broken teeth. Somewhere in the dark, water dripped steadily, the sound like a ticking clock counting down to something unseen.
And from the shadows...they emerged.
Figures in ragged hoodies and threadbare coats. Eyes hollow. Faces sharp with hunger.
Not monsters.
Not yet.
Just people pushed so far past the edge they forgot there was ever ground.
At their center stood a man in a crimson jacket far too fine for the ruin around him.
His hair slicked back, his smile too wide, too white.
He leaned casually on a shattered column, tossing a silver coin from hand to hand with lazy grace.
A wolf wearing a crown of broken promises.
"You look lost," he drawled, voice smooth as silk over broken glass.
Damon stepped forward slowly, hands spread, showing he carried no weapon.
(As if it would matter.)
"We're looking for safe ground," Damon said.
The man's smile sharpened.
"Aren't we all?"
---
The negotiations were quiet, polite, and vicious.
The man — he called himself Redd — had built a kingdom from ash and teeth.
Here, under the city's skin, he offered protection. Food. Walls.
In exchange?
Loyalty.
And usefulness.
"You have to bring something to the table," Redd said, flipping the coin lazily through his fingers. "A skill. A service. A piece of yourself. Otherwise..."
He shrugged, the silver coin vanishing into his sleeve.
"Otherwise you're just another mouth to feed. And mouths without purpose are liabilities."
Savannah shifted, her hand brushing her blade.
Jasmine's jaw clenched.
Adrian shrank in on himself.
Callie just watched Redd with wide, brittle eyes — like she saw the teeth behind the grin.
Damon forced his voice to stay even.
"We have skills," he said.
"Do you now?" Redd's eyebrows lifted. "Show me."
---
The trial was simple.
Survive the night.
In the lower tunnels.
Where the things that lived too deep even for the rats ruled.
Where even the city itself forgot you.
Where screaming only drew more attention.
Savannah grinned for the first time in days — a sharp, fierce thing that had no kindness in it.
"Sounds like fun," she said, rolling her shoulders.
Jasmine only sighed and tightened the laces on her battered boots.
Marcus muttered something that might have been a prayer or a curse.
Callie looked at Damon, her fingers twitching unconsciously.
He squeezed her shoulder once, grounding them both.
Then they followed Redd's men into the belly of the city.
Into the dark that didn't forgive.
---
The tunnels breathed.
That was the first thing Damon noticed.
The air shifted like lungs inhaling and exhaling. The walls pulsed slightly, almost too subtly to see.
The effect was disorienting.
Wrong.
Alive.
Their boots splashed in stagnant water. The concrete walls wept black tears. Mold crept in intricate patterns across every surface.
Shapes shifted at the edge of the light.
Whispers curled like smoke around their ears.
Adrian flinched at every sound. Marcus stayed at his side, a silent, grim guardian.
Savannah moved like a shark scenting blood, every sense sharp.
Callie walked stiffly beside Jasmine, the invisible threads from before weaving faint, trembling patterns around her fingers.
Damon led.
Because someone had to.
Because if he stopped moving, he might never move again.
---
The first attack came suddenly.
A blur of movement from the shadows.
A figure — no, figures — all bone and gristle and too many joints.
They moved wrong. Twisted. Hungry.
Savannah met the first with a snarl, blade flashing.
It wasn't a clean kill.
Nothing down here died clean.
It screamed as it fell, the sound slicing through Damon's skull.
More came, drawn by the noise.
Teeth flashing. Claws scraping. Eyes like dying stars.
They fought like cornered animals.
Because they were.
Callie screamed once, high and ragged, before her fingers knotted together and the air ripped.
Invisible threads lashed out, slicing through the nearest creature like wire through clay.
Jasmine hauled her back before she collapsed.
Marcus cracked one of the twisted things across the skull with a rusted pipe, the impact shivering up his arms.
Adrian froze.
Until Damon shoved him roughly out of the way of a snapping maw.
Survival wasn't clean.
It wasn't noble.
It was teeth and blood and screams and the desperate refusal to die.
---
By the time they stumbled into a service hatch, bleeding and gasping, the world had narrowed to pain and movement.
Savannah slammed the hatch shut behind them, jamming her blade into the latch.
The twisted things slammed against it almost immediately, shrieking.
The metal groaned.
Held.
For now.
They collapsed against the filthy walls, panting.
Callie sobbed silently, fists pressed to her mouth.
Adrian stared at his bloodstained hands like he didn't recognize them.
Jasmine leaned her forehead against the wall, eyes closed.
Marcus slid down beside Adrian, silent.
Savannah checked her blade with grim efficiency, then her own blood-soaked side.
Damon forced himself to his feet.
Forced himself to see them.
To see how close to breaking they all were.
(How close he was.)
"We move," he said hoarsely. "Before they find another way in."
No arguments.
Just the slow, shuddering crawl to their feet.
Because there was no choice.
There never had been.
---
They emerged into the upper tunnels at dawn, battered but breathing.
Redd was waiting.
Leaning against a pillar, whistling tunelessly.
The silver coin danced over his knuckles.
When he saw them, bloodied but alive, his grin widened.
"Congratulations," he drawled. "You're in."
Something twisted in Damon's chest.
Relief.
Victory.
And something darker.
Something that tasted like surrender.
Because this wasn't salvation.
It was just another cage.
Another battlefield.
Another game where the rules were written in blood and betrayal.
But for now...
They had walls.
Food.
Time.
For now, they had one more sunrise.
And in this city, that was more than most ever got.
---
That night, Damon sat alone on the cracked rooftop of the old laundromat they'd claimed for their own.
The city stretched out before him, a cancer of lights and lies.
Below, he heard Callie laugh — a raw, painful sound, but a laugh all the same — as Savannah mock-threatened Adrian with a rusted spoon.
He heard Jasmine and Marcus arguing over whether the building would collapse if too many of them slept on the same side.
He heard life.
Small. Broken. Barely breathing.
But stubborn.
He pressed his forehead against the cool metal of the rusted railing.
Tomorrow would bring new monsters.
New battles.
New betrayals.
But tonight...
Tonight, they were still fighting.
And somehow, that had to be enough.
Even if the wolves wore smiles now.
Even if the city itself seemed to be waiting, patient and hungry, for them to fall.
Tonight, they had each other.
And the city would have to wait.
---